I’ve been home for just over a week now, but in one way, life hasn’t changed much since Tanzania. I was offered an extension of my internship, continuing my work with NEST360 full-time for the next five weeks before I begin my Fulbright grant. That made saying goodbye so much easier! I’m grateful to still collaborate with my mentors, Christine, Hannah, and John, on this important work a little longer. And the journey doesn’t stop there. Our summer project has been submitted to a conference and we’re already working on the first draft of a manuscript for publication. Even after this full-time extension ends, I’ll get to author my first paper and occasionally step back in for revisions over the next year as we receive feedback from journals. It’s surreal that this has become my first job out of college and that I absolutely love it. Nothing makes me happier than knowing I’ll continue working with these wonderful people for some time to come.

This summer has been transformative. It’s deepened my interest in using my analytical background to make a lifelong impact in the public health sector. I’ve always been drawn to the intersection of data science, statistics, and social impact areas like education and health, but this experience has pushed me firmly toward public health. I credit the incredible team I worked with, people who are not only passionate about their work but about their relationships with each other. I have never felt more supported, and I know I will be seeking that same combination of purpose and community for the rest of my career. Over the next year, I’ll begin applying to graduate programs that bring together data science and public/global health. That decision alone reflects the profound impact this program has had on me.

The in-country experience opened my eyes to a part of the world I never imagined I’d have the privilege to witness. Zanzibar, Stone Town, Ngorongoro, the Serengeti, along with countless other wonders of Tanzania, have been a highlight of my 22 years of life.

I fell in love with the freedom of boda boda (motorcycle) and bajaji (auto-rickshaw) rides, experiences I now cherish even more in their absence, because they were moments unique to Tanzania and this unforgettable chapter of my life. As I shared in my introduction post, I hoped to embrace the culture that emphasizes pole pole (slowly, slowly) and by the end, I truly felt I had done just that. I no longer sought to fill every hour with work or activity. Instead, I simply sat and enjoyed Tanzania, whether on a beautiful beach or around a dinner table. Those slow moments, just as much as the grand adventures, are what I’ll take with me.

Learning to navigate such an unfamiliar environment has strengthened my confidence as I step forward, beyond the Rice bubble I called home for four years, and into what’s next. Thank you for reading my blog. Asante sana, kwaheri!

Hello and welcome back to my (last) blog! I’ve been home for the past week and reflecting on my 8 weeks in Tanzania. Going into the internship, I knew it was going to be a great experience; how

ever, I didn’t realize just how much growth it would bring, both professionally and personally. It taught me so much about bioengineering and prototyping, and also about Tanzania and a completely new culture. Here’s a recap of the things I learnt during my internship:

Professionally: 

• SolidWorks: This was a huge one for me. I knew SolidWorks before I started the internship, but I absolutely hated it from the depths of my heart. Even if I had to make a simple drawing in SolidWorks, I would need to completely isolate myself for like 5 hours and lock in. But in the first few days of the internship, our colleagues at DIT helped me so much and explained it to me so patiently that now I can whip up several drawings for the 3D printer within an hour. I actually started having fun making the little drawings, which, if you had told me 3 months ago, I would have called you crazy.

• Rapid prototyping: We iterated so quickly on all of the projects. We would test, analyze, and rebuild, just keeping that cycle until something finally worked. It was frustrating and tedious at times, but when it finally worked, it was so rewarding. I think the most memorable one for me was the heating system. I spent 3 days testing so many different types of heating systems, trying to get one that was lightweight, had a low power consumption, and heated up quickly. Quite a few constraints, so I went through over 10 different heating systems before settling on the 3D printer heating filaments inside a copper pipe. And even once we decided on that, there was still trial and error with the shape of the copper pipe for maximum efficiency. 
• Mechanical skills: I did a lot of drilling, cutting, and just generally building things. I had some basic experience with it before, but I definitely got a lot more comfortable during the internship. 

• Arduino: Another skill that I had some experience with, but I definitely got more comfortable during the internship. I also do not think I would have had any other opportunities to work on these skills so extensively. 
• Networking: In order to get feedback on our incubator, we reached out to several industry professionals, both engineers and doctors. Connecting with professionals taught us so much and helped throughout our process. I got a lot more comfortable with reaching out to people with questions and realized that a lot of people are so willing to help. 
• Self-motivation: This is a bit of personal growth as well, but this internship was definitely the most freedom I’ve ever had, and while that was great, it also meant I had to take a lot more initiative to get things done. I had to set my own goals, deadlines, and be really persistent if I needed something done. Definitely different from Rice, but great practice for the future. 

 

Personally: 

• Adaptability: I thought I was just adapting to a new workplace, but nope. I was adapting to a whole new everything: pace of life, cultural norms, and even how to improvise when the tool you need doesn’t exist (or exists… somewhere… maybe). Meetings started “soon,” Bajaji’s arrived “soon,” and projects got done “soon,” so I learned to live with “soon” as a legitimate unit of time.
• Patience: Prototyping taught me technical patience, but daily life in Tanzania took it to an Olympic level. Sometimes I’d wait hours for something that took five minutes to actually do. I went from silently screaming inside to genuinely enjoying the extra time to chat or just stand around like a local.
• Cross-cultural communication: Even though English was common, I quickly learned that communication is way more than words. It’s also about listening, reading the room, asking a lot of clarifying questions, and sometimes nodding thoughtfully while I had Google Translate open on the side.
• Travel adventures: On weekends, I got to see more of Tanzania beyond the design studio. Zanzibar was literally paradise with its turquoise water, white sand, and delicious food at its highest rooftop teahouse. Near Dar, we escaped to Mbudya and Bongoyo islands for perfect beach days. And the safari? Definitely a top 3 experience of my life. I saw lions, elephants, and giraffes actually in their natural habitat after years of hearing about it on National Geographic.

• Gratitude: Living and working there made me extra grateful for small things like reliable Wi-Fi, a washing machine that wasn’t a 15-minute drive away, and usable tap water. But it also made me appreciate how much creativity and resourcefulness bloom when you don’t have those conveniences.

This experience taught me so much, and I would 10/10 recommend it to anyone who is interested. I contemplated it a lot before accepting the internship offer, but I am so, so glad I did; it really was the experience of a lifetime. 

So, for the last time, thank you so much for reading!

Kwaheri,
Shreya ♡

Hello and welcome back to my blog! It’s been a while since I last posted, but today’s blog is quite bittersweet because it’s our last week in Tanzania. These last 2 months have gone by so fast, and I have learned so much. 

In terms of work, we’ve been wrapping up our projects. We finished up our incubator earlier this week, and I’m really proud of it. There were definitely ups and downs, but in the end, we were able to take a box and turn it into a warm box. 

This past week was a lot of iterating, drilling, sewing, and writing. I designed a lot of 3D printed pieces for our new display and for our sensors to be housed in. It was annoying sometimes when the pieces didn’t fit by just a couple of millimeters, but the end result was definitely worth it. I drilled to put together the physical box, attaching the structural layer and lid. My biggest adventure, though, was the sewing. This was my first time using an actual sewing machine, and there was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. I had to sew the cover for the mattress and the cover that we’re using for the walls of the incubator. They’re both made out of the same material that can be easily disinfected. The writing came with the documentation we’ve been doing. Now that we’re wrapping up, we want to make sure that our project can be improved so it’s important to describe everything in detail. We’ve also been working on a patent for the incubator which involves quite a bit of writing. Pictured below are the various layers of our finished (!!) incubator. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also wrapped up the syringe project, getting the full thing 3D printed. Even though most of the project was finished before we got here, I’m happy we were able to contribute, and it’s so cool to see it work with all the different syringe sizes. 

Aside from those 2 projects, I worked on my personal project. I decided to do something related to sepsis prevention. Sepsis-related deaths are a leading cause of death in hospitals, and they can be prevented by simple things like washing your hands. After doing some literature reviews, I realised that a big part of why healthcare providers don’t wash their hands as frequently as they should is due to the lack of reminders or just being (understandably) busy, so they forget. So, I came up with a 2 part project to tackle it. The first part is a poster that I translated into Swahili with the help of my fellow interns at DIT, which informs healthcare providers on the prevention and detection of sepsis. The second part is a watch that reminds and tracks hand washes. Just press the button on the side to record a hand wash, and it sends out reminders every 25 minutes to wash your hands. 

Outside of work, as always, it’s been super fun. The safari was absolutely amazing and so gorgeous. I got to see my favorite animal ever (giraffes), and they are so insane to see. During the weeks we’ve been going to our favorite restaurants here (which I am really going to miss). One new restaurant that we tried was the Akemi Revolving Restaurant. It was on the 21st floor and had the coolest views of Dar. Last weekend we went to another island near Dar, Mbudya. It was so pretty and relaxing, with clear water and sparkling sand. I’m going to miss the beaches here; Surfside and Galveston really don’t compare. We also finally went to Kariakoo, East Africa’s biggest market which is right outside of our hotel. It definitely gave East Africa’s biggest market – it was super busy and hectic, but you could probably find everything under the sun there. We even had the chance to go to a dinner hosted by a Rice alum who lives in Dar. It was super fun and there was another alum from the class of 1965 who was there which was wild. 

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡

Karibu tena! The last time you tuned in, we were headed to Arusha to begin a four-day, three-night safari across three of Tanzania’s national parks. We’ve now been back for over a week, and I mourn the experience every single day.

On the first day, we visited Tarangire National Park, which I personally think was the best day of the safari. We saw countless elephants, as the park is known for its elephant sightings, but one unexpected highlight was a baboon troop moving along the road we were traveling on. We estimated around 250 baboons, and the best part was watching the babies ride on their mothers’ backs like little jockeys.

We had two very different nights in the Serengeti. The first was at a luxury tented safari camp, still not sure how that fit in our budget, and it was such a cool experience. The dinner tent was a short walk from our sleeping tents, but after dark, staff insisted on escorting us, just in case we ran into lions or hyenas. That made it feel so otherworldly. I was genuinely in awe, and a little in disbelief, that this was real life.

An elephant also wandered into our campsite, though maybe we were the ones who wandered into his. It’s crazy I can say I stood so close to an elephant without any barriers.

On the last day, we visited the Ngorongoro Crater and saw even more wildlife. A few highlights were the lone hyena strolling across the landscape, the warthogs, and especially the wildebeests, which honestly look so fake to me. As our safari wrapped up, I had a total epiphany moment, standing on my seat with the roof popped open as the safari truck sped through the plains, thinking about how incredibly lucky I am to have witnessed this kind of nature. Forever grateful.

 

As for my project, the week before last was full of important decisions. As I mentioned in my previous blog, there are a few limitations in the ambient temperature readings collected by the Hadli monitors. After investigating further, we found that most monitors are installed near the ceiling and that each unit typically has only one monitor, even in facilities with multiple rooms. In some cases, this means the readings may not fully represent the temperatures experienced by the majority of newborns.

That said, we do not discredit the data at all. These measurements are incredibly valuable in providing an initial picture of ambient conditions. Our goal is simply to build on this foundation to get the most accurate possible estimate of what the broader newborn population is likely experiencing. To do this, we decided to adjust the recorded data by 2–4°C, since the original numbers likely reflect air higher up in the room. My mentor John helped make this adjustment by simulating how temperature typically changes from floor to ceiling. Because colder air tends to settle near the floor, especially by doors or windows, he modeled this drop and factored in cot height, subtle room variations, and small sensor inaccuracies to generate an approximation of what babies might feel.

The graphs below compare monthly trends in facility-level minimum daily temperatures before and after adjusting the Hadli data. Each graph categorizes facilities based on whether their daily minimum temperatures remained within, exceeded, or fell below the ideal 25–35°C range. Each bar is color-coded: green indicates that a facility maintained temperatures within range every day of that month, yellow indicates at least one day above the range, and blue indicates at least one day below it. In the original Hadli data, green dominates the chart, suggesting that most facilities were able to maintain temperatures within the ideal range. However, after the adjustment, the proportion of green decreases and blue increases, revealing that more facilities may actually be experiencing days with below-range temperatures than previously observed.

The country name has been omitted from the chart.

 

We also revisited a previous decision regarding how we account for ambient temperatures after admission. Initially, we used an average from the seven days post-admission, but we decided to shift to using the median length of stay per country (Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania). This led to slight improvements in our model.

Around this time, I began preparing for my final presentation with the KIT Key Interventions Technical Working Group at NEST. This group facilitates cross-country collaboration to spark discussion and catalyze programmatic action. I was nervous but also excited about the opportunity to share my findings.

The timing worked out perfectly, as my mentor Christine was traveling to Nairobi, Kenya to meet with the NEST team there, and she graciously invited me along. I’m so glad she did. Nairobi stole my heart. The city has so much to offer, and the Kenya team was incredibly warm and welcoming. Every day I had the chance to meet inspiring people who were contributing their unique talents to the same mission. I received incredibly valuable feedback ahead of my presentation, and felt truly supported.

John, my mentor and NEST data analyst, had especially helpful feedback on how to present statistical findings to a general audience. He was so patient with my many questions. Hannah also offered encouragement and great insight. Being surrounded by people who genuinely care about their work, collaboration, and my growth has been so meaningful. I know I’ll seek mentors and work environments like this for the rest of my life.

I’m sad that my in-person time is coming to an end, but so excited that my work with NEST will continue even after I return to Houston. I’m so thankful to Christine for believing in me and supporting my continued involvement. Nairobi gave me both a personal and professional experience I’ll never forget.

My presentation was yesterday, and it went really well thanks to my amazing team. I wanted to summarize a few of the key takeaways and the feedback I received. We built a model to assess associations between adjusted ambient temperature and newborn hypothermia after admission. We found a statistically significant association, both before and after temperature adjustment.

Temperatures above 28°C had a protective effect against hypothermia (OR = 0.902; 9.8% reduction in odds compared to 27–28°C). Temperatures at or below 26°C were associated with increased odds of hypothermia (OR = 1.077; 7.7% increase compared to 27–28°C). These tertiles (≤ 26°C, 27–28°C, > 28°C) and were created to ensure groups had roughly equal sample sizes. That said, the effect sizes are small, and we must be cautious about making recommendations. While warmer temperatures may be beneficial, the results should be interpreted with care.

We also confirmed that ambient temperature alone doesn’t explain the hypothermia burden. Other variables like birth weight, birth location, month of admission, and heater availability help explain additional variability. Our takeaway is that clinical practices, especially maintaining the warm chain, are essential. But more covariates and further data, like satellite temperature trends, may improve the model even further.

 

Overall, the presentation was a very positive and thought-provoking experience. I’m excited to incorporate the feedback and explore new directions for the project. This week, I’ll also begin drafting the methods section for our eventual publication, and I’m looking forward to summarizing my work in detail and reflecting on this journey professionally.

This is actually my final entry from Dar es Salaam, and I hope to make the most of my last week here. Thank you for reading my blog this summer. Tuonane!

Last time I checked in, we were packing for Zanzibar, and I can confidently say it was just as magical as I had hoped. We started in Stone Town, a place that instantly won me over. There’s something about coastal towns that always pulls me in, and Stone Town, with its narrow alleyways, historic charm, and buzzing local life, was no exception. On day two, we visited the spice market, which felt like a rite of passage. Zanzibar isn’t called “The Spice Island” for nothing, and I made sure to pick up some local spices to bring back. Then it was off to the Jozani Forest, where we saw blue monkeys and rare red colobus monkeys, endemic to the island. That night, we celebrated my birthday on Nungwi Beach with dinner.

The next day brought my favorite adventure yet: snorkeling off the coast of Mnemba Island. I’vealways loved it, but what I didn’t love, until now, was the idea of swimming near dolphins. But when our boat driver suddenly spotted some and told us to jump in, I did. I think the spontaneity helped override my fear of sea creatures larger than fish. And I’m glad I went for it, it ended up being one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The fish were incredibly colorful, and thedolphins, though intimidating, were mesmerizing to watch in the wild. On our last day, we visited Prison Island, famous for its giant tortoises, which was a really cool experience. What surprised me even more was learning about the island’s history: despite its name, Prison Island was never actually used as a prison. Instead, it served as a quarantine station for people suspected of carrying Yellow Fever and other contagious diseases before they were allowed to enter Zanzibar. Before we headed back to Dar, we returned to Stone Town for a rooftop lunch and visited the East African Slave Trade Exhibition. It gave us a deeper understanding of the island’s history, especially Zanzibar’s role in the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades. Seeing the holding chambers and reading personal accounts was heartbreaking, but it also emphasized the significance of remembering and learning from the past. After such a full weekend, it was time to dive back into my research project. Over the past two weeks, I’ve made significant progress in understanding and visualizing ambient temperature trends for our partner facilities. One of my first visualizations tracked whether each facility stayed within the recommended 25–35°C range during any given month. The rule was strict: if even one daily minimum temperature reading fell below or above this range, the facility was flagged.   (Facility IDs have been removed from this visualization.) From there, I moved on to exploring ambient and newborn temperature data together. This integration step took a lot of time and quite a few data revisions. When I finally visualized the combined data, I found something surprising: most cases showed babies with low body temperatures (hypothermia) even when the ward temperatures were within or above the recommended range. This unexpected result sparked some important conversations. One possibility? The location of ambient monitors. Many are installed near the ceiling to avoid interference, but heat rises, so the baby’s actual environment at bed level could be significantly cooler. That gap might explain the mismatch. It also raises the question of whether we need to make a data adjustment to better reflect the temperatures experienced by the newborns. There are further limitations in the data: ambient readings include daily minimums, maximums, and averages, while baby temperatures are usually captured as a single lowest reading after admission, with no specific timestamp. To bridge this gap, I used an average of ambient temperatures from the seven days following each baby’s admission based on NEST360’s collected data, which shows that most ward stays across the countries last under a week. While this assumption isn’t perfect, it allows for a more consistent comparison between ambient and newborn temperatures. Working through this has shown me just how much nuance and decision-making goes into data science, and I’ve been so grateful for my mentor John’s guidance throughout.   With a cleaner dataset, I began running correlation analyses and found statistically significant, but weak, relationships between ambient and newborn temperatures. This suggests that while ambient conditions do matter, other factors (like birth weight, season, or facility practices) likely play big roles too. Adding controls for birth weight and seasonal changes strengthened the model, and I’m optimistic that when we introduce satellite-derived data, we’ll see even more robust relationships. I’m also hoping to explore time series models soon, so I’ve been brushing up on my forecasting skills! Alongside the temperature analysis, I’ve also identified a new need-finding project at DIT. Joel mentioned he’s collected a ton of visitor data for the DIT Design Studio (why people visit, what resources they use) but hasn’t had a good way to process or use it. So I will begin designing a dashboard that automatically updates using a Google Form and summarizes visitor activity. The goal is to help the lab understand how it’s being used and identify areas where students may need more support. If successful, it could also help make the case for additional funding or resources. And what would a blog be without a glimpse of the next adventure? As I write this, we’re on our way to Arusha, a gateway to Tanzania’s most famous national parks. Over the next few days, we’ll be visiting Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti. It’s a dream come true, and I already know I’ll have so much to write about in the next post. Hadi wakati huo!

Hello and welcome back to my blog! On our last episode, we had just returned from a long weekend in Zanzibar, followed by some great progress on our travel incubator and rapid prototyping for the syringe pump.

In the last week, we’ve continued working on the incubator. Andy worked with Albert and Alu, 2 DIT students who have been instrumental in the incubator design process, to design the PCB, and we are currently working on soldering the electrical components onto it. We also got the new box for the incubator cut, so I worked on putting that together.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on SolidWorks recently, designing pieces for the incubator, like the

housing for our display and buttons, and a place to keep our sensors inside the incubator. It’s a slow process, with multiple iterations and additions, but it’s rewarding when it all comes together. Before this internship, I used to hate SolidWorks, and it would nearly bring me to tears every time I had to use it, but now it’s actually kind of fun. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still annoying, but now it’s more like a fun little challenge.

Keeping with the SolidWorks theme, I’ve also been drawing a lot of pieces for the syringe pump project. I think we’re nearly done with that project, after several iterations of a holder that can fit multiple syringe sizes, pictured below. It was a really fun project to visualize and draw out, and it was super gratifying to see our ideas actually work.

We’ve also been taking a couple field trips during work. Last Friday we went to Aga Khan hospital, a private hospital super close to DIT, to meet with a neonatologist. We showed him our travel incubator and the gastro-bag, both of which he wasn’t really sold on. He said that people are moving towards Kangaroo Mother Care so there isn’t much use for the travel incubator, and that the gastro-bag can be imported quite cheaply. He did give us some valuable insights that we can take into account while prototyping and he showed us the state-of-the-art travel incubator that they use. It was really cool seeing it in real life and learning about its features.

Then today we went to Saba Saba, the annual trade fair here in Dar. It’s a big deal, DIT is closed next Monday because of it. First we went to DIT’s tent and learned about a lot of different projects that DIT is working on. They do SO much here, we’ve seen such a small part of their work. There were some medical devices like a phototherapy machine, but they also had things like leather, satellites, bathroom cleaners and so much more. It was really cool. Then we walked around looking at other companies, but it was so huge. It was like the size of the Houston Rodeo but probably more crowded than that. We got hungry after a bit of that so we found a place to eat and I had to try to get the wali na maharage (but it wasn’t as good as Galito’s).

 

Last weekend we didn’t travel anywhere but we did go to some cafes here. They were so cute and had really good food, and I was also able to get some work done! There are a lot more cafes in Dar than I expected, but I’m not complaining, studying in cafes is one of my favorite things to do in Houston. There was a giant art collective really close to one of the cafes with the coolest paintings. I did cave and buy some things but I think they’re very valid purchases.

Now, you may have noticed that I am posting this blog a little earlier than usual, that’s because tomorrow at this time we will be in the Serengeti! We have a 5am flight out of Dar and we will be spending 4 days on a safari. In order to prepare for the early rise I’ve been trying to wake up at “safari time” so that I won’t fall asleep in the middle of the safari and miss seeing any lions. Have I been successful with safari time? No. But I’m hoping adrenaline and excitement will carry.

As always, thank you for reading this far and see you next time!

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡