Nahima Ahmed was Science Friday’s resident data diva. As the Manager of Impact Strategy, she helped the team understand how programming can shape audiences’ access to and interest in science.

Nahima loves all the places she has seen and people she met because of research. As a researcher at ICAP at Columbia University, she trekked all over Sub-Saharan Africa to help assess the prevalence of HIV in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho, Tanzania, Cote D’Ivoire, and Rwanda as well violence against children in Lesotho. While conducting concussion screening research, Nahima fondly remembers nerding out with athletes while they explained what variables went into their stats.

Nahima completed her Master of Public Health in epidemiology at the CUNY School of Public Health and her Bachelor of Arts in psychology at Hunter College. She has been a co-author on publications in PLOS Medicine, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, and AIDS.

When she isn’t playing a data detective, Nahima loves watching movies/musicals and is slowly becoming obsessed with operas. Living in Jersey City, Nahima often thinks about what veggies to plant in her new backyard. Whenever the craving for her mom’s spinach bhaji or some pastrami hits, she takes a quick hop on the train back to the Lower East Side of Manhattan where she was born and raised.