David P
- Research Program Mentor
MD/PhD candidate at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Expertise
Biology, chemistry, math, statistics, computer science, medicine
Bio
I am a 3rd year medical student pursuing a duel MD-PhD program at The University of Michigan. I am currently working on my PhD in Bioinformatics, and clinically I'm interested in ophthalmology. I studied biochemistry and statistics in college, and then earned a Master's degree in Biostatistics from Northwestern University. I'm interested in several areas of eye research, such as stem-cell therapy and retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. I love using computational tools such as deep learning image processing and neural networks to solve clinical problems and assist in clinical decision making. Aside from medicine and computer science, I play the cello, and I'm a 8-time marathoner. I love painting, photography, and anything that involves creating. I love finding new hobbies because I love the feeling of learning and becoming more of an expert at something. I also love to travel, and I've been to 40 states and 30 countries! I hope to have a career where I can use medicine to build bridges across cultural and national boundaries.Project ideas
Code Your Way Through Real Medical Data
The future of medicine runs on data. In this project, you'll get your hands on real-world datasets — things like COVID-19 trends, protein structures linked to brain diseases, or genomic data — and write actual code in Python or R to analyze them, learning how to integrate AI-companion tools along the way. No prior coding experience needed. By the end, you'll be pulling insights from massive datasets that would take days to find by hand, and you'll have a skillset that's increasingly essential in science and medicine.
Run Your Own Meta-Analysis — and Publish It
Doctors face a real problem: hundreds of studies on the same treatment, often with conflicting results. A meta-analysis is the statistical tool researchers use to cut through the noise and figure out what actually works. In this project, you'll pick a clinical question that interests you, learn the techniques to synthesize evidence across multiple studies, and produce a publication-ready paper. This is one of the most impactful types of research you can do — and you'll have a real manuscript to show for it.
Deep Dive: Write a Review Paper on Any Disease
Pick a disease or condition that fascinates you — or one that's personal — and write a real review paper exploring what scientists currently know about its causes, symptoms, and treatments. Along the way, you'll learn how to read peer-reviewed research, evaluate evidence, and write like a scientist. You'll come out of this with a polished paper and a serious head start on college-level scientific writing.