Hello! | Β‘Hola! | Hallo! | !Ω Ψ±ΨΨ¨Ψ§ β Welcome to the cedar ledge! π
My name is Jacob Scott Zelko! I am currently pursuing my MS in Applied Mathematics at Northeastern University (NEU) and am a trainee of NEU's Roux Institute. Additionally, I am the present Chief of Global Health Informatics at the Brooklyn-based non-profit, the OneFact Foundation.
My research career has focused primarily and broadly on population health. In particular, chronic mental illness (i.e. depression, suicidality, and bipolar disorder), social determinants of health and health disparities within intersectional populations, chronic illness, and neurocognitive disabilities. As a convergence of my interests, I am very interested in how we can use mathematical structures (such as categories or topologies) to establish meaningful relationships between non-traditional health data sources to gain greater insights into population health. To bridge these worlds, I have been heavily involved with observational health research methods using "Real World Data" and am an active member of both the OHDSI and Category Theory communities.
Finally, I do have vested interests in what I call my "lower priority" research interests. This includes things such as open and reproducible science, knowledge representation and knowledge management, diversity and inclusion efforts within STEAM, domestic extremism (within US contexts), and as a practicing Christian, the intersection of faith communities and science.
In the past, I worked for a couple years at Georgia Tech Research Institute in the excellent HEAT Division as a Health Data Analytics and Informatics Researcher headed by Dr. Jon Duke and as a Research Engineer for the Centers for Disease Control. While in my undergrad, I also worked at Emory University's Department of Biomedical Informatics as a Data Information Specialist. I graduated Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS in Biomedical Engineering [also completed coursework in biomedical informatics and medical anthropology] and completed an AS in Engineering Science at Corning Community College.
What about Fun Stuff Like Hobbies? πΈ
These days, I greatly enjoy working out regularly β weights, running, and free-body! I love reading and have been on a bit of a philosophy kick reading the works of Feyerabend, Kierkegaard, and MacLuhan β these certainly take some time to read! Otherwise, as the leader of the JuliaHealth workgroup, I am trying to think through how to continue building open source tools for health informatics research β let me know if you want to collaborate! Additionally, I am a Twitch streamer and teach software engineering, programming, and development patterns. Finally, my more eclectic and smaller hobbies include blogging, electric and acoustic guitar, traveling, and hanging out with friends over a cuppa tea.
How to Navigate the cedar ledge? π»
This website not only consists of blog posts, but is also my knowledge base. The main sections are broken up as follows:
Blog - long-form and self-contained pieces.
Archive - every page on this website - mostly works in progress.
Hiring - my personal hiring options and my curriculum vitae
Open Projects - open projects that I am happy to mentor or support.
Resources - resources on interacting with me, this website, and more.
Is My Privacy Safe? π
Yes. I collect analytics using GoatCounter which has a very stringent privacy policy including not tracking users. Any comments pass through Talkyard which does some data collection but only to support commenting; you can comment anonymously.