Student Profile: Sarah Martin
Juggling the responsibilities of being a single parent and a full time student describes a typical day for second year BMI student Sarah Martin. She realized her career interest lies within the field of biomedical informatics after doing some research about the different programs and career options. To her surprise, right at the time she was planning to graduate from ASU as an undergraduate, she read a flyer about ASU’s new BMI graduate program. After obtaining a Bachelor’s of Science in Biochemistry, she continued her studies at the new BMI program and pursued her interest in developing health-related web applications.
Martin builds on her undergraduate biochemistry experience with graduate studies that integrate technology and biology. Her first year of graduate coursework examined the basic principles of computer science and issues faced in creating technologies for health care workers. The focus of her second year is on the clinical perspective of technology and working on her master’s project. She hopes to expand a web application project she started in one of her classes into a thesis during the spring 2009 semester. Ultimately, she wants her work to aid health care workers in organizing information about their patients.
She works as a research assistant at Emerge.MD with SCI adjunct faculty Shahram Partovi. Emerge.MD is a health care industry information technology firm specializing in the design, deployment and maintenance of data capture engines. She builds custom applications, electronic medical records and live web applications for departments within St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center. Her role at Emerge.MD is a team leader who oversees the development of a project from the beginning to the end. “There are so many great aspects of working with Emerge.MD. I love the people I work with and everything that I am learning,” she said.
Her research position at Emerge.MD allows her to gain valuable research experience. Currently, she is fine-tuning the final stages of three web applications for St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center. She plans to finalize two additional web applications in the future. Her experience at BMI and Emerge.MD has positively influenced her career aspirations. Following the example of her advisor, Dr. Partovi, she would like to one-day start her own company that creates applications for health professionals who want to organize information about their patients.
Despite the demands on her time and energy as a graduate student, Martin excels academically making it into honor societies such as Phi Theta Kappa, National Society of Collegiate Scholars and the dean’s list. She also participates in community service efforts such as Habitat for Humanity and St. Vincent’s Cancer Walk where she raised over $1,000 for cancer research. Being a full-time student is challenging but at times she finds being a full time mom to her eight-year-old son to be demanding as well. In spite of the time commitments, she sees her son as the light of her life as a graduate student and an emerging biomedical informatics health professional. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.