Alumni Spotlight: Taryn Hall, Ph.D. ’16
Dr. Taryn Hall is an alumna of the Institute of Public Health Genetics Ph.D. program. After graduating in 2016, she trained as a senior fellow and then a research scientist at the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education at UW for three years. In 2019, she started her position as a Principal Research Scientist in Genomics at the UnitedHealth Group in Minnesota. We invited Taryn to a virtual interview and asked about her experience in the industry, perspectives of the public health genetics field, and advice for current and prospective students.
Q: Where do you currently work?
A: I work at what’s now called OptumLabs, which is the research and development arm of UnitedHealth Group. It is a little bit interesting to talk about: United Health Group is a really large healthcare organization, and it breaks into a couple of different parts. Underneath this parent organization, there is United Healthcare, an insurer, and Optum, which provides clinical services. At OptumLabs, we are trying to find innovative ways to get better healthcare to as many people as possible for a lower cost.
Q: What are your job responsibilities?
A: I am a Principal Research Scientist. I actually do two things. First, I do a lot of strategy work. I am writing to the business audience. I have to do pieces of writing that express a point of view on some genomic technology and develop good ideas of how we use any new technology or whatever to improve health. For example, a recent interest for our businesspeople is polygenic risk scores. I wrote a piece to help our business team understand what polygenic risk scores are, how they could be used, and their limitations, and I make recommendations. Secondly, I also do some technical work. I am conducting proof-of-concept studies. The projects are usually used to test a key assumption that we have about a business that we want to create.
Q: What are the rewarding and challenging part of your work?
A: The rewarding part is that I can get to be as creative as I want to be. I have a lot of resources at my disposal. My senior leadership really rewards just thinking outside the box. If you can envision a future that you want to be, you have pretty well carte blanche to work towards that. OptumLabs started as a tiny start-up, and they have a very maverick sort of culture. There is not a lot of process and procedure as they grow bigger. So, I think the most challenging thing is finding the process to get the people you need or get the resources you need or get something done, just because the channels change every three months here. It is a very fast-changing environment, which you have to learn to roll with that.
Q: What is the promotion path in your job?
A: Postdoc -> principal research scientist -> senior principal research scientist -> fellow. As a fellow, you are taking your own little research group, and you have a focus area of your own. It is a flat organization, so there is not a lot of places to move beyond fellow. We have some VPs, a management role, but I do not know that one would necessarily go to that level. One probably would transition somewhere else within UHG or outside the company.
Q: What are some important questions you found in the public health genetics field?
A: I am interested in how to refine penetrance of either rare or common diseases. We lose a lot of precision in our financial models due to reduced penetrance. So, looking for ways of combining other data streams, e.g., polygenic marker, monogenetic marker, or environmental data, or anything else to refine that penetrance value could better get people to the care they need when they need it. And then we are also looking at heritable cancer, e.g., breast cancer, Lynch syndrome. Current interventions are really burdensome, especially for people with heritable cancer risk who are in their childbearing and rearing years. Is there any technology that can be used are not quite cumbersome or invasive? And are there other things that we can for prophylaxis other than cutting off body parts? I am also interested in discovering other biomarkers that can be used to track disease progression. If knowing there is a trend towards developing a certain condition, one could do some lifestyle-wise intervention that could bring back into the normal stage.
Q: Which course/course series in PHG at UW helps you most in your work?
A: Probably the technology-focused ethics course taught by Prof. Fullerton. My job really values being able to have a strong position on the topic. A lot of writing that I am doing is defending you position, like “we should do this”, which you have to be able to back up and have a strong argument behind it. This course, and also even PHG512, covers a broad overview of all of the different pieces that involved in public health genetics. I use that all time to look at a problem from different angles, e.g., “Here are all the things we have to look for” “These are our risk point” “We need to pay attention to these areas”. PHG focuses a lot on what problems could arise, but it also trains you to think about how you can use these to be innovative and how it could benefit people as well.
Q: What resources outside PHG at UW helps you most in your work?
A: I did a postdoc in the bioinformatics program at UW, and that was really another great skillset to pick out for what I do. I am working with a lot of medical data and claims data. Knowing what can be done with this data under the structure is really helpful.
Q: What is the most valuable thing you learned or took away from the PHG program?
A: Being able to tackle a problem from multiple different angles and learning the value of bringing different voices to the table and seeing all these different perspectives.
Q: What was the most challenging part of your graduate studies?
A: I was in a class where things got a little bit hairy politically with the program, so it was actually hard for me to get graduate because there were so many changes going on. There is a big change in the director and my advisor. My advisor was leaving and went to a different university right after I passed my general exam. I basically started over with it all and finished under a different advisor by changing my topic entirely. So, I lost about three years. If I had to do it again, I need to advocate for myself more. I did not know how to work with faculty to get things done. They pulled in so many different directions and were not necessarily thinking about you unless you bring it to their attention. I think my advice would be to be proactive about getting what you need from your advisers.
Q: Given that we are an interdisciplinary program, I sometimes feel like we are trained to “know a little bit of everything”. However, in the job markets, most of the positions are looking for a candidate with solid training in a specific professional ability, e.g., statistical genetics, genetic epidemiology, health economics, health policy management, etc. How did you develop your professional skills to be competitive in the market?
A: Looking at where you want to be and what you are good at. I knew I was a good writer and teacher. Also, I never shut down or closed any doors. Besides writing, I also have a strong analytic side. There are a lot of data science jobs. Having analytical skills is definitely a good marketplace fallback. Otherwise, communication and project managing skills can serve you in both industries and academia.
Q: Any other suggestions you would share with a current or prospective student?
A: Be more proactive with getting what you needed. Not falling into the trap of having imposter syndrome. Having confidence that you are where you are for a reason. Keep working, building your skills, and acquiring new skills.
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