Dr. Esther Kim, PhD in Epidemiology | Research Scientist at Meta

In this episode, we discuss what led Esther to pursue a PhD in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, how she experimented with internships during her doctoral training to see how her epidemiological skills could apply in different industries, and her experience conducting health-related research at Meta to improve population health.

Hosted by Lois Dankwa

Transcript

Lois Dankwa 

Hi! I'm co-host Lois Dankwa, and this is the 100 alumni voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today, we're joined by Esther Kim, PhD in epidemiology and current research scientist at Meta. Hi Esther.

Esther Kim

Hi, Lois! Thanks for having me!

Lois Dankwa 

Yeah, thanks for joining us today. How are you doing today?

Esther Kim

I'm doing really well. Very excited for this interview.

Lois Dankwa 

Yeah, I'm excited to dive in. I think I wanna start by hearing a little bit about what made you wanna pursue a PhD in epidemiology and just hear more about your graduate work at Hopkins.

Esther Kim

Yeah, so it's an interesting story. I mean, I don't know if it's that interesting. But you know when I started my undergraduate program, you know, I really thought that I wanted to be a doctor, like many of my friends, back in the day, and so what really happen with I ended up volunteering for many, many years at the hospital, and this was in Toronto, Canada, where I did my undergraduate degree and what really happened was, I ended up working with this amazing MD/PhD scientist. His name is Dr. Joseph Kim, and he introduced me to actually clinical research. So, I really got to see how research translates to clinical care. And I realized that it was really important because doctors really rely on evidence for evidence-based medicine. So, as I got to know more about how that translates, and sort of the rigor that it takes to publish a high impact paper. And eventually I also ended up publishing something back in the day. I really fell in love with the methods, the statistics, the writing, and I sort of knew, you know, maybe my second or third year, that I really wanted a PhD. But obviously before that I had to do my Master's degree first. So, I ended up doing a MPH NFB back in Toronto and that's sort of naturally led me to Hopkins. And it's it's really interesting, because I knew some of the faculty before I joined Hopkins because the mentors that I worked with in my undergraduate degree, and also my master's degree, they were both Hopkins Alum who ended up going back to Toronto. So, it was like a really Big Hopkins connection. And yeah, it was just like a really great fit, because topically, I was looking at a lot of kidney disease, cardiovascular disease related topics. So, and at Hopkins there's a center called the Welsh Center, where a lot of these great scientists and doctors work there. And they look at these topics. So, it was like a really great fit for me, and I was really excited to come. And yeah, and then, yeah, that's sort of led me to my PhD Dissertation, which looked at a lot of different things related to kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.

Lois Dankwa 

So, I will tell you that was interesting and maybe I'm biased because I can identify with a lot of parts of your story from being pre-med to working with an MD/PhD and going, wait, I like research methods. So, I completely understand that. And I think it makes me curious that when you were in your PhD Program, what it looked like then for you, knowing that you'd kind of switched what you've thought you, your career would look like. But then, also what you thought you wanted to do after the PhD program.

Esther Kim

Yeah. So, I remember writing my statement letter for Hopkins and saying, you know, I really wanna learn all these skills and be a professor, be a scholar for life, be a lifelong learner. And part of that is still true, you know I really still love learning and stuff, but I think because Hopkins exposed me to so many different kinds of experiences, not just like publishing and doing like clinical academic research, but I actually ended up being exposed to a lot of different experiences outside of academia. So actually, throughout all of my PhD program years, I ended up doing an internship in different kinds of industry sectors, just to see how my epidemiological skills could apply in different settings. So, for example, I took an internship like a healthcare boutique healthcare consulting firm. I also ended up picking an internship at like a small data science company that ended up being bought by Google later, where I learned a lot of like data analytics, data science skills, a lot of statistical machine learning skills, and then in my third year, I ended up in interning at Facebook, which is now called Meta, and that's sort of where I learned that I could have this amazing channel to improve health in some ways that's not obviously like very traditional, I guess, or academic, but it was a really eye-opening experience. And so that sort of made me take the leap to consider a career outside of Academia. And so that's sort of like where I am. I still think you know, it's a very exciting opportunity that I've taken, and I'm learning so much. And yeah, I mean, I missed academia in some sense, but I feel like the work is like very exciting, and I still get to leverage a lot of the skills that I learned. So, yeah, I think that's sort of like how it took a turn.

Lois Dankwa 

I love that you, while doing your PhD, you still took a moment to try different things that were completely, not completely opposite, but they tested your skills in a different way. And I'm curious how you balanced then doing like the very specific work of a dissertation and doing PhD work with trying internships in different sectors. Like, how do, how did you balance that?

Esther Kim

Well, first of all, I was very transparent. So, I'm actually, I'm a Canadian, so I was considered an international student. So, anything that I did outside of Hopkins, I needed approval from my advisor, and my advisor is Dr. Kunihiro Matsushita at the Welsh center. And so, I was really transparent. I told him I kind of want to explore. So, you know these internships don't last like a long time. It's just like 2 to 3 months, so I would tell him that I would like to take a 2-3 month break, which I think is reasonable to try something, and then come back and like work on my dissertation. And I think one of the internships that I did, which is the healthcare consulting internship. It was at a company called Sage Growth Partners, which is actually in Baltimore. I ended up doing that through like a course, practicum course. So, it registered as one of the courses that I did on top of some of the other courses that I did. So, it wasn't like super time intensive, but it allowed me to spend, maybe, like a few to several hours a week trying it out. So, I feel like that sort of worked really well with the other courses that I was taking. I think you know, after doing one or 2 internships, I sort of knew that I wanted to spend a little more time like investing in other opportunities like the Facebook internship that is, in my third year. So, I think I just really pushed myself to make a lot of progress before that summer, and then I went and did it, and then I came back, and I was like really energized, and I was like really ready to like finish it. So yeah, I think if you sort of like plan your path a little bit, I think it allows you to sort of prepare a little bit. So, yeah, I think I sort of knew that it was worth investing my time and pausing a little bit to try these different like industry internships and experiences so I sort of ended up prioritizing, you know, how much I worked, how fast I worked so that I could make room for these things, and I think that's like really invaluable. Yeah.

Lois Dankwa 

Yeah. And it sounds like, by taking those breaks it helped you like it helped re-up you and give you the energy you needed to keep going. 

Esther Kim

Yeah, I think it's really interesting taking these internships, because you know, a PhD program really forces you to be invested in your work. And I think you should be, and we are very passionate, and we're motivated by our research. I think that's really amazing. I think that you know, by taking a step back and trying these different experiences in different industry sectors, it allowed me to sort of have like a wider like bird's eye view on like what the relevance and the importance of my work is, and so I think it gave me like a new perspective, you know, every time I came back, and like worked on my aim 1 or like aim 2 or like the final dissertation. So, yeah, I I think it is for me it was so valuable. And yeah, I would highly recommend just trying anything. Yeah.

Lois Dankwa 

Right, even trying a podcast interview while doing your dissertation or something.

Esther Kim

Yeah, you're killing it.

Lois Dankwa 

So, it sounds like you had a good relationship with your advisor where you felt comfortable to try new things. So, I'd love to hear more about kind of what are the things that made you you guys have a good relationship with each other.

Esther Kim

Hmm, okay, yeah. I think I already mentioned but as I think sort of being transparent about what you find interesting and sort of where you're thinking about leaning, I think it's a good conversation to have. I met my advisor during like a student visiting day. I don't know if you attended that, but they have those like before, like the start date, official start date, where you get to go and like, meet some faculty. I think the Epi Department does it at Bloomberg, but I remember, like I talked to a couple of professors, and I was like, hey, I'm this person, you know. I really love kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. But I also really love exploring new methods, these really cool, like industry, machine learning methods like, I really wanna try it. So, I think they sort of knew that I was kinda like, really into like novel methods like trying new things. And so, I don't think it was like a big surprise when I sort of brought up like, hey, I do wanna sort of go and like, try this thing. I wanna try doing this. And I think at school I also participated in some hackathons. So, I think they sort of knew that my mind was sort of all over the place. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think they sort of knew that, like my curiosity was, you know, everywhere. And so, I think for them they also understood that it was important for me to explore that and really see like where I could end up. I think so sort of being honest with them allows them to also support you and your goals, provided that they're not unreasonable, of course. But yeah, I think in my case, you know, Dr. Matsushita, like he was really understanding. And yeah, he knew that I I hope he knew that I needed these kind of experiences to see like where I could end up. And he was really supportive. So, I think it worked out really well. So, I think he's a really like wonderful advisor. So.

Lois Dankwa 

Yeah, that's good to hear. It's also, I think, that I definitely agree, for the students or those of us who have about a 1 million ideas. it's really valuable one that we can when we can find advisors that we feel comfortable with to just share oh, I want to do XYZ, but then it helps them know, okay, let me just funnel this interest and give you like a very specific thing that you can work towards instead of getting distracted by your interests. Yeah. So, I'm curious then, to hear more about what you do now like from your program, are you like still in the role that you were in now, or like kind of what did that process look like?

Esther Kim

Hmm, yeah. So, I think, because I'm at Meta, I can sort of talk about what I did during my internship first, and how that sort of led me to here. So, I applied for the internship in 2019, and then ended up joining this team that's very research focused at Meta. And so, it's like a collection PhDs really in different disciplines. And, for example, statistics, sociology, public health, political science, and we sort of sit very centrally at the company, and we do a lot of diverse research that spans from anything related to like health to economics to yeah, political opinions and stuff. So, it's really diverse and it's really interesting. I think, something that holds this team together is our love for methodology and research design. So, you know, we see ourselves as very adaptable. So, 2019 I joined as an intern, and at the time there was like a very small group of people that were interested in health-related research, and when I joined there was a big opportunity for me to tackle sort of health-related topics at Facebook, and at the time sort of what that looked like was, you know, people use Facebook and associated platforms for health-related reasons, right? And, as you know, there’s probably some things that you hear about like misinformation, and things like that related to health. So, I went there to talk to tackle some of those topics at Facebook and ended up applying some methods that I really love from Hopkins like survival analysis, and realized that it was a really good match and a combination of knowledge and the resources that Facebook could provide. They have billions and billions of observations. And yeah, having access to that is, I think, so incredible. So just learning that like I could leverage what they had to improve the way that people interact with that health information online was really amazing. And the thought that you know I could go back as a full-time employee and do more things to push that boundary to, you know, improve the way that yeah users look at health information or the way that we could leverage Facebook to improve population health I thought that was, such a unique opportunity and experience. So yeah, it's something that I couldn't pass up. And I really loved the learning opportunities at Facebook, because I work with so many great scientists, so I ended up saying yes to a return offer that they offered. And then went back to Facebook as full time in 2020, and, as you know, in 2020, what happened was the pandemic. And so, it was actually like an even more amazing opportunity for someone like me and people interested in health at Facebook to really step up and really leverage our channel to try to fight the pandemic and improve anything in any way that we can. So, for me what that looked like was I ended up joining this team with fellow scientists to start this survey called a COVID-19 trends and impact survey. We call it CTIS and it is now, I think, one of the largest health surveys ever in the history of mankind. We started the survey to help syndromic surveillance when COVID-19 first broke out and we ended up partnering with really great institutions like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Maryland, and also Johns Hopkins, and we worked with some faculty here as well Harvard, Stanford, and we yeah started this like, really big endeavor backed by Facebook, now, Meta, and we ended up collecting millions and millions of responses every single day for 2 years, and we provided the data that we collected to the public, to scientists, organizations, to ministries of health, governments so that they could use that information to support ongoing research to make policy decisions. So that's been like an incredible endeavor. And yeah, as a scientist, it was so exciting because it did start out as like a syndromic surveillance survey, but it ended up covering a lot of different topics as the pandemic naturally evolved. So, we covered things like vaccine hesitancy, yeah, like, health equity. Lots of different topics like that. So, yeah, it was like a really great opportunity for me to apply what I learned in school, also learn new skills and like, survey. And yeah, related methodologies. And to work with all these really great organizations that I feel like it just feels like a dream. But yeah, so that's sort of what I've been doing for the past 2 years, yeah at Meta.

Lois Dankwa 

That sounds like such a cool way to be involved with something that affected all of us in a different way, but just something that's so relevant. And I'm it's funny because you mentioned one of the first things you said was, how you work with a different like all kinds of different researchers, and some are epidemiologists, some are sociologists. And just all these different research backgrounds. And I'm curious how you, coming from like a pretty Epi focused background and being in Hopkins, where everyone was pursuing an Epi degree in your program, what it was like, or how you felt prepared to then be in such a interdisciplinary team?

Esther Kim

Yeah, I think, I can't say that I was like completely prepared when I came. I think I'm still really learning to collaborate with not just researchers, but also like engineers, like product managers. And so, I think you know again, this is why internship is so important, I think like when I did the internship, I sort of realized that there's a critical skill that involves translating your research findings to sort of like the impact for the company or for whatever your end goal is. So, I sort of learned it a little bit during my internship, and I thought it was really fascinating, you know, I would pump out results from like a survival analysis like a cox proportional hazard model. And then people would need to know, like, okay, what is that hazard ratio I mean? So, you know you have to sort of like you have to be able to translate that into what that means for the company or portfolio project, or for your end audience. So, yeah, I think that was and still is, a learning curve and experience opportunity for me. I think, working with different researchers from different fields, that's that's also been very interesting for me, because when you first talk to them, I think everyone sort of speaks different jargons from their own disciplines. And so, listening to them, I sometimes go oh, wait! I don't think I learned that in school, and I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but actually like if you get them to explain more and more, it actually is what you know it's just they use like a different term, or like a different like jargon for it. So, yeah, I think what I realized is that we sort of have like a very similar common understanding and foundational understanding of methods. It's just people stick to different jargon. So, I think it's just a matter of breaking things down and like really trying to explain it in a simple way, so that you do get to that alignment and you do have like a shared common understanding. So yeah, I think what sort of like what I mentioned before, what really holds us together is our level of methods. So, you know, when I work with someone who's a PhD in economics, they also really love cause and inference. And I really like cause and inference too. So even though we might maybe slightly explain it a different way, I think it is the same thing that we talk about. And so, yeah, it's really interesting to see how a method that I have always used in Epi, they will use it to solve a different kind of a research question. But it's still the same method, and I think it's really cool. So, yeah, it's very versatile, I think, when you have like a solid on understanding of the different like research design and methods.

Lois Dankwa 

It sounds like it's a cool way for you to continue being a lifelong learner. But it's more just from your peers, where it's you're just learning that people speak the same language but use different words. So that's that's pretty cool to see. So, I have 2 more questions for you, and I am curious, then, kind of what advice you would give to someone who is perhaps interested in doing something that's non-academic or thinking, oh, maybe being in an interdisciplinary team might be something they'd find themselves in later.

Esther Kim

Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. I think, yeah, this is something I think about a lot. But I'm really really grateful for all the opportunities that I was able to take advantage of at Hopkins, and I remember writing this in my statement letter, and I really did take lots of advantage. I did hackathons. I did internships and that really opened my eyes to different things. So, you know I think if you have even like the slightest inkling that you might want to try something outside of academia, I think you should really really try to keep an open mind and take the advantage, try the internships, or try talking to different people, sort of like what you're doing now, I think it's so important if you have that curiosity to really chase it and see like what that would mean for you and like what that would look like for you. So, the more we explore, the more certainty you might have and the more courage you might have to try new things. So I think that is like the biggest takeaway like when I look back at my 4 years at Hopkins.

Lois Dankwa 

That's really encouraging. And it's always it's always important to hear that. So as my last question, I'm curious what inspires you right now?

Esther Kim

That is a good question. Okay, what does inspire me? Okay. I think I know what inspires me. I mean, I think it's 2 things. I think first, being at Meta is not like a traditional path I would say for an epidemiologist. And so, what really keeps me grounded and keep me going is actually like remembering my background and like how I trained and where I came from, which is Hopkins, really remembering why I did my PhD in the first place, which is that I really wanted to improve health in some way. It really keeps me going, and especially in such a big and vast place like Meta, where I think it's really easy to sort of like lose focus because there's so many things happening. And it's it's not a health company, right? I think what really does keep me going is the fact that I really do care about population health, and like, I'm here to really try to push that and improve it in some way. And yeah, and just always trying to be that lifelong learner and trying to learn new things from my colleagues or my projects. I think that really keeps me going in. Yeah, I think it's never a dull moment. I think the other thing that keeps me going is I think personally, I think it's my family, and the friends that I've actually made like throughout my life. I think I'm really grateful for where I am now, and I'm so happy with a lot of things in my life right now, and I remember when I was a student, I think it was very much like me me me. I need to do my work, and I'm so tired and I'm so stressed out. But I think now I'm sort of in a position where I think I'm still busy, but I sort of have a little bit more luxury to try to give back to my family and friends who have supported me. So, I think just remembering that, and like trying to give back to different communities and people that have supported me. I think that is also a motivating. So yeah, that's where I am now.

Lois Dankwa 

Yeah, no, I can certainly identify with that just kind of having that feeling of gratefulness after you were very self-focused, not for a bad reason, but you were very self-focused for such a long time. I totally get that. Well, Esther, it's been so wonderful hearing from you, and just hearing a little bit about your story and your perspective. So, thank you so much for joining today.

Esther Kim

Yeah, thank you so much, Lois. It’s been a pleasure.