In the second episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast, a health-care data expert and a biomedical engineer discuss how data analysis can be used to tackle today’s biggest health challenges.

“I’ve been doing it since before it was hip,” said Kristin Bennett, the associate director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, of using data to better understand and address health issues. She recently worked with students to create MortalityMinder, an award-winning app that identifies social conditions contributing to declining life expectancy at a community level.

Juergen Hahn, the head of the Rensselaer Department of Biomedical Engineering, also discussed how he has used big data to develop a blood test to help diagnose autism spectrum disorder and to evaluate possible treatments. “In many cases, this can be absolutely crucial between if some intervention will work or not,” he said.

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