By Christian Stafford

Three Northeastern students – representing the college of Computer and Information Science and the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, presented their research on various topics at this year’s NU Talk — an event held on February 6^th, where students in the STEM disciplines were able to showcase their research and ideas to an audience of likeminded students and faculty in a forum similar to TED Talks.

Derek Schuster, a computer science major and Brandon Yip, a nursing major, collaborated together to share their research about the interaction of healthcare and computer science, focusing on the topic of electronic health records.

“The future of healthcare lies in a combination of telemedicine integrated with supercomputers,” Schuster said, in his presentation. “It lies in using technology to improve the entire healthcare process, before you are sick, when you are sick and even after you’re sick.”

The pair’s different backgrounds proved beneficial to the research involved with their presentation, said Yip. Schuster’s knowledge in health informatics contributed to the backend of the research while Yip’s experience involved working on the implementation and physical usage of the electronic health records.

“He was on the backend of the research while I was on the implementation and physical usage of the electronic health records throughout my practice.”

Both students were strangers to each other before combining their collective efforts and knowledge gained from both the classroom and experiential education that lead to their final presentation.

“We actually did not know each other prior to presenting. Derek obviously comes from a health informatics research background while I come from the clinical and healthcare side,” Yip said.

Yip was first introduced to NU Talk while conducting research in the Lewis Lab/Antimicrobial Discovery Center, where he investigated chronic Lyme disease. One of the other students he worked with, Asama Lekbua was presenting at NU Talk 2016 on the topic of the micro biome and mental health.

For Schuster, the research process began during the beginning of the fall semester after he reached out to professors to see if any of them would be interested in having him join their projects.

“I began working with Professor Wallace, and this has been my first real glimpse into health informatics, the field within computer science that our talk touched on,” he said.

Both Schuster and Yip agreed that Northeastern helped them greatly with their research by assisting to foster creativity, providing funds to further their work and possessing the necessary resources required to further their research.

“Northeastern has provided me with the opportunity to do this sort of research by having a large group dedicated to this field in the first place and by providing the funding, which allows us to cover any costs that the research may incur,” said Schuster.

Anirudh Duggal, MSIA’18 is a, “White hat hacker” — a computer security expert who specializes in finding flaws in the security of computers and other technological devices. At this year’s NU Talk he gave a presentation about the current state of healthcare insecurity.

“I started my research while I was working with Philips Healthcare, about two years ago. My job was to secure (and break) healthcare devices,” Duggal said. “I realized that there were many flaws in medical devices and in the way they are deployed in hospitals.”

Duggal’s research involved taking a look at different systems in the healthcare field that were vulnerable over the internet and at risk of exploitation such as electronic health records, pacemakers and insulin pumps, to name a few.

According to all three students, NU Talk served as a great opportunity to present their research to fellow faculty and students in hopes of inspiring them and teaching them a thing or two about their respective fields of research.

“Being able to present has been one the most enlightening experiences that I’ve had,” Yip said. “It was truly a blessing to just get the word out and showcase to other students the endless possibilities within healthcare. I hope that we can inspire others in the audience to look at their own respective fields, and see how they can create change for the better.”