College of Health Solutions alum poised to make global health impact
From left: Isca Amamda and Adela Grando pose together for a ceremony to celebrate Grando's Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. Photo courtesy of Adela Grando
At the intersection of health care and technology lies the potential for both great benefit and great harm. In 2021, when a COVID-19 vaccination-tracking app was hacked and the personal health information of 1.3 million Indonesians was left hanging in the balance, Isca Amanda felt moved to action.
A native of Indonesia with a strong sense of duty to serve and strengthen her home country, the then Arizona State University master’s student chose to make the issue her thesis, and began researching World Health Organization guidelines and data privacy risks related to apps that track COVID-19 vaccination information.
Bolstered by the support of faculty mentors, Amanda, who had initially struggled to adapt to life in Arizona, so far from home and family, finally began to settle in. Then, in 2023, during the final semester of her master’s studies, her mother — a driving force behind her education — unexpectedly passed away.
Amanda was devastated. But with the encouragement of ASU College of Health Solutions Associate Professor Adela Grando and Center for Health Information and Research Executive Director Marisa Domino, Amanda forged on. This year, her thesis was published in Sage Journals, and in August, she began a position as a technical officer for digital health and innovation for the World Health Organization.
“I didn't think I could finish my thesis, if not for the tremendous support that the professors at the College of Health Solutions had given to me,” Amanda said.
Perseverance and passion
Always a dedicated student, Amanda had the opportunity to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship after the success of her senior-year capstone project at Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia. Amanda developed a machine learning algorithm to assist with the early detection of diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes known to cause blindness. She trained the algorithm to identify changes in images of the retina that indicated symptoms of the condition for earlier detection.
Her project won first place at the INDOHUN national health innovation competition in 2019, and she graduated with her bachelor’s degree the same year. After a year and a half of anxious waiting, she received word that she had been granted the Fulbright Fellowship, and she chose to attend ASU.
“I was very anxious during the time, because you'll never know what's going to happen next because I didn't know if I was going to be able to fly to the U.S. finally or not because of COVID-19,” Amanda said.
When at last Amanda landed in Arizona, like many people arriving in a foreign environment, she was racked with nerves. Meeting Grando at ASU’s College of Health Solutions changed all of that.
Grando and Amanda quickly got acquainted with each other and developed a strong mentor-mentee relationship. Grando knew Amanda was a different kind of grad student because of her thesis idea.
“A student rarely chooses their own topic for a research project for their master’s thesis, so I rarely make exceptions to work with a student on a topic that they choose … and I was not disappointed,” Grando said of Amanda’s COVID-19 app data privacy research proposal.
Grando even suggested Amanda take it a step further, expanding her thesis to a global scale.
When Amanda’s mother passed, she went home to Indonesia for a month to be with family, returning in time to finish her thesis and attend her spring 2023 graduation.
“She (Amanda) came back and she said, ‘This is very important to me and I want to continue my thesis,’ and the amazing work she did, it speaks to her perseverance and her passion,” Grando said. “She's a wonderful human being and super nice. I would do anything to support her and to help her.”
In addition to Grando, Amanda also cherished the time she spent working alongside Domino at the College of Health Solutions’ Center for Health Information and Research. She said it was inspiring to work with women who are strong, talented and have a drive for change.
“I saw them as my role models; even up until now, I still see them as role models,” Amanda said.
Upon her graduation from ASU, Amanda returned to Indonesia, where she took on a role in health information systems at a local development organization. After completing her work there, she transitioned into her current position at WHO, where her master’s thesis and dedication to research made her a shoo-in for the job.
“I'm pretty excited to look forward to how my work during my ASU days and WHO could actually be making an impact,” Amanda said.
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