About

SCTIMST, Trivandrum

Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum (https://sctimst.ac.in/) was established as an Institution of National Importance by an Act of the Indian Parliament (Act No.52 of 1980) under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt of India.

  • Three major focus areas
    • Bio-Medical Technology Wing
    • Super specialty Hospital
    • Public Health (AMCHSS)
  • Healthcare Technology development
  • Inter-disciplinary initiatives
  • Running MPH program since 1997, PhD programs since 2003

The Institute has a a unique mandate that combines development of biomedical technologies, and advance speciality patient care, higher education, clinical, basic & applied research and public health, under a single institutional framework.

Resource Faculty

The faculty for the workshop are experienced professionals with expertise in spatial data science and public health.

 

Prof. Biju Soman

Professor and Head,
Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies,
SCTIMST, Trivandrum

Dr. Biju Soman is the Professor and Head of Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum, Kerala. Dr. Soman had completed his MBBS in 1992, DPH in 1996 and M.D. (Community Medicine) in 1999 from University of Kerala and his MSc (Control of Infectious Diseases) in 2011 from University of London and DLSHTM in 2012 from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (U.K.).

He has undergone advanced training in health informatics from Oslo University (Norway), Teaching Methodology from Boston School of Public Health (USA), Multilevel Modelling from Bielefeld University (Germany), and Advances in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from National Remote Sensing Centre (Hyderabad). Dr. Soman teaches Public Health Technologies, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, and Database Management in Epidemiology modules at AMCHSS as part of the PhD and MPH curriculum. Some of his professional involvements at SCTIMST include Board of Studies (Health Sciences); Standing Academic Committee; and Research Advisory Committee. He also heads the Regional Technical Resource Centre (RTRC) of the Health Technology Assessment India (HTAIn) at SCTIMST, Trivandrum.

His current research and teaching are around health data science, including public health informatics, geospatial analysis, telemedicine, health technology assessment, and infectious disease epidemiology. He endorses open data initiative, FOSS resources, and reproducible research initiatives.

 

Dr. Arun Mitra Peddireddy

Research Scholar (DST Fellow),
SCTIMST, Trivandrum

Dr. Arun Mitra is currently pursuing his PhD in Health Data Science from Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, SCTIMST, Trivandrum. He has an MD in Community Medicine from Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and has worked as a Senior Resident at All India Institute for Medical Science (AIIMS), Bhopal before joining his PhD.

He received advanced training in Modern Modelling Techniques from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. He is also certified in Digital Health and Imaging in Healthcare from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. He is a contributing member of the R Epidemics Consortium (https://www.repidemicsconsortium.org) based at Imperial College, London, UK. He is also a member of Society for Data Science (https://s4ds.org/) which is an international non-governmental organization working towards empowering people on data science.

His current work is focussed on transforming health data into evidence for public health decision making. He won many accolades at various national and international venues on his work relating to health data science. He is also recipient of the few fellowships including the prestigious DST Fellowship from the Science for Equity, Empowerment and Development (SEED) Division, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.

Ongoing Data Science Projects

SNo Project Funding Agency
1. Digital platforms for disease surveillance and control: Best practice case studies from Asia (DMgtAsia) Norwegian Agency for International Corporation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education
2. Transforming COVID-19 testing data into actionable evidence for public health decision- making using epidemiological, spatiotemporal, and data-science methods Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)
3. Adapting surveillance (Nikshay) data to create decision support systems for tuberculosis elimination in Kerala using spatial epidemiology Central TB Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India