From Fellow To Full-Time: Evan Miller's Fellowship Journey

Evan Miller's career kicked off with a degree in mathematics and a passion for data and AI.

After searching for his first job and a need to relocate, Evan chanced upon Tech Impact’s Data Innovation Lab Fellowship – a one year, fully paid opportunity to work for The Lab and its nonprofit clients using advanced data practices to support social good. His desire for a data-oriented role, coupled with the Fellowship’s unique training emphasis and environment, made it a standout choice for his first job post-college. “Social impact was important, but it always felt like my job was one thing, and social good was a side hobby. The Fellowship melded those two together and helped me realize I could do both at work”. Evan joined the 2022 cohort as a Data Scientist Fellow working with a team of Fellows and Directors throughout the year.

The Uniqueness of the Fellowship

The structure of the Data Lab Fellowship is distinctive and enables Fellows to pursue diverse interests within a consulting framework. This provided an opportunity for specialized tasks while maintaining a collaborative environment. The team's exploration of various technical areas fostered a dynamic learning setting, contributing significantly to Evan's skillset. 

During his Fellowship, Evan worked on significant projects including addressing nurse staffing shortages in Delaware and collaborating with organizations such as the Delaware Public Health Associaiton (DPHA) on healthcare-related data reporting through Salesforce. These experiences solidified Evan's interest in healthcare data, an area previously unexplored by him.  

The collaborative nature of the Fellowship facilitated learning between Fellows, all who came with diverse expertise, backgrounds, and degrees. “There were three Data Science Fellows all on wildly different career paths and very different technical areas of interest. In a lot of jobs, that wouldn’t work and you’d never get to work together, but because of the model of the Fellowship, we could work on different aspects of a project and learn from each other, while still utilizing our own skillsets and interests.”

Exposure to a range of projects, both prescriptive and descriptive, enriched his toolkit in the field of data science. Notably, Evan discovered a career path that seamlessly integrates his skills with his passion for social impact. A combination that, prior to the Fellowship, he saw as two distinct and separate aspects of his life.

Following a year-long fellowship, Evan successfully secured a position at the Biomedical Research Informatics Center at Nemours, a renowned nonprofit children’s hospital in his new home state of Delaware. “When one of the Lab’s Directors shared my resume and experience with their contact at Nemours, I realized how valuable this experience had been. They were able to see the relevant projects I worked on, that I came from a well-respected organization, and it helped me stand out for the role.” Evan's exceptional projects and experiences stood out, ultimately securing him his next career step. In his new role, Evan is contributing to projects that focus on the identification of sepsis patients and the improvement of neonatal healthcare.

Now that the Fellowship is in his rear-view mirror, Evan attributes his readiness for the intricacies of healthcare data analysis to the Fellowship's exposure to real-world projects and collaboration with clinicians. “I built so much confidence and understanding through that experience, it absolutely had a profound effect on where my career would go. Any data professional that’s interested in this work should explore this Fellowship – I can’t sing its praises enough.”