Undergraduate Tackles Alzheimer’s with Data and Determination

Mina Mahmood, a junior at Indiana University Northwest studying neuroscience, grew up watching her father’s memory fade. His struggle with a cognitive disorder sparked her curiosity about the brain and a desire to help. During summer 2025, Mina travelled to Indianapolis for a student research program called Datawiz‑IN. The project focuses on using health data and artificial intelligence to spot Alzheimer’s early, a form of dementia that can cripple daily life when it reaches its worst stages. She learned about the program through her university’s student government. Although it was said only local students could join, Mina reached out and secured a spot after explaining her interests. The program matched her with an Alzheimer’s research team, giving her a chance to work on real medical data.Her main task was to analyze blood test results from a decade‑long Korean hospital dataset. By looking for genetic markers linked to Alzheimer’s risk, Mina discovered a statistically significant connection with the transcriptional risk score. This finding could help doctors detect the disease sooner and less invasively. Mina worked closely with PhD fellows, but she was the only undergraduate in the group. She spent Monday to Wednesday crunching numbers and Fridays presenting results, learning that the workload matched that of her senior peers. The experience was tough at first, yet she persevered and succeeded. An associate professor of psychology from IUN praised Mina’s achievement, noting that regional campuses can nurture high‑level research talent even without the same resources as larger schools. She highlighted that students like Mina thrive when given strong foundations and opportunities to grow.