Akshay Swaminathan

Akshay Swaminathan, from Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, is pursuing an MD at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in statistics and a minor in global health and health policy. Akshay aspires to strengthen health systems in low resource areas by combining medicine, data science, and entrepreneurship. Inspired by the YouTube polyglot community, Akshay has self-studied over ten languages and has published books and videos teaching English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and Quechua. As director of Refresh Bolivia, a global health non-profit, he and his team built a primary healthcare clinic that serves 10,000 indigenous residents in Cochabamba. Akshay's research applying quantitative methods to public health has been featured in the New York Times and published in journals including Lancet Global Health. After graduating, he worked as a data scientist at Flatiron Health analyzing real-world data to improve cancer patient outcomes.