As February winds down, March promises to be an exciting month! With a dynamic Lunch & Learn exploring the future of science in Canada and the much-anticipated recruitment for our next training cohort, there's a lot to look forward to. In the midst of it all, we鈥檙e shining a spotlight on two outstanding CAnD3 Fellows, Hermine Nguefack and Samuel Nemeroff. Though their research paths differ, they share a deep commitment to uncovering insights that drive change.聽
Hermine Nguefack聽
Welcome to today鈥檚 interview, Hermine! To kickstart our interview, could you share a pivotal moment that shaped your research path and how CAnD3 has reinforced your research purpose?
During my doctoral general examination, a committee member suggested using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) to help identify potential determinants of membership in risk trajectories associated with medication use among individuals living with chronic pain. For that reason, during my CAnD3 journey, the training sessions on DAGs were extremely helpful in guiding this reflection.聽
That's an invaluable learning experience! What鈥檚 a recent project or publication that you鈥檙e especially proud of, and what made it so meaningful?
On November 15th, I delivered an oral presentation at the 2024 annual symposium of the Regroupement Intersectoriel de la recherche en Sant茅 de l'Universit茅 du Qu茅bec (RISUQ). I am particularly proud of this presentation as it was my very first in-person oral presentation showcasing the results of my first doctoral thesis objective. I used an innovative trajectory modeling approach, Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM), to identify risk trajectories related to medication use among individuals living with chronic pain. The statistical analyses were lengthy, taking several months, but the results are highly compelling!聽
Congratulations on your milestone! Since we're on the topic of data, if you could access any dataset in the world for your work, what would it be and why?
Since I am working on risk trajectories associated with medication use among individuals living with chronic pain in Quebec, an ideal dataset would provide valid diagnostic codes for chronic pain as well as the most comprehensive information possible on medication use. Therefore, if I could instantly access any dataset in the world for my research project, I would choose to combine data from the TorSaDE cohort (Canadian Community Health Survey [CCHS] + Quebec administrative databases), which contain interesting socio-demographic and medication use information but are not specifically designed for chronic pain and therefore lack essential measures such as catastrophism) with data from the Quebec Pain Registry-PAIR Cohort (Quebec Pain Registry + Quebec administrative databases), which is specifically designed for chronic pain and includes all essential variables for studying this condition.聽
Finally, beyond the lab and data crunching, what hobby or interest do you have that might surprise people?
I love singing! In fact, I am the president of a multicultural choir within my parish community. I also enjoy spending quality time with my family!
Samuel Nemeroff 聽
Samuel, what pivotal moment set your research compass in a new direction, and how has CAnD3 fueled your journey?
It's important to note that up until about March of 2024, I had thought my thesis was going to be entirely qualitative - but, taking my statistics class for my coursework, I developed a project that required me to create my own dataset and explore it. When I finally got to the point where I could run the analysis and see just how correct my hypothesis was, something clicked for me, and I realized how exciting I find quantitative approaches. Throw on top of that how fascinating data visualization is (thanks FSU!), I can't imagine trying to do my research any other way.聽
That鈥檚 an exciting shift! Have you encountered any challenges during a project or publication that you were excited about at the same time?
I recently submitted a manuscript with my secondary supervisor, Dr. Neeru Gupta, looking at the gender pay gap among Canadian pharmacists. This was especially exciting and challenging as my primary area of focus is terrorism and security studies, and I have no experience working with gender equity research. However, it should be published relatively soon!聽
Now, if you could instantly access any dataset for your research, what would it be and how would it enhance your work?
While I'm certain this doesn't actually exist, a Social Media and Extremist Group Activity Database would be incredibly helpful for my thesis and practical work in the future. This would basically be a comprehensive, anonymized (i.e., only by social media handles/online usernames, no real names) record of social media posts, forums, and communications linked to known extremist groups, combined with metadata about users' backgrounds (e.g., employment history, military service, etc.), and it could help identify specific social media posting patterns either ahead of radicalization, or ahead of incidents.聽
When you're not crunching numbers or analyzing data, what unexpected passion might we find you pursuing?
I am an avid aviation enthusiast, and almost pursued a double major in Sociology and History with a focus on military aviation in my undergraduate. I play the flight simulator DCS at home quite a bit!聽
As we wrap up with Hermine and Samuel, we've seen how their diverse interests鈥攆rom chronic pain research to aviation鈥攆uel their innovative approaches to population studies. From leveraging DAGs to explore medication use patterns to analyzing social media's role in extremism, these CAnD3 Fellows are pushing boundaries in unexpected ways. Their passion and creativity is a pioneer of the future of population research. We can't wait to see what other groundbreaking ideas emerge from our CAnD3 community!
