Graduate sees data science as a tool for better public health for all

McKenzie Skrastins ‘26 is a force of pure ambition, hard work, and determination. During her time at Binghamton, she has achieved many feats, including the creation of an individualized major, completion of multiple STEM research projects, and two years of service as the president of Binghamton University’s Student Association.

This May, Skrastins will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in data science and statistics, and she plans to use her mathematical talents to advocate for others and fight for social justice in public health.

Skrastins is a New York City native who wanted to major in chemistry, although she always had a love for biology and math. During her first year, she joined the Louis Stokes Alliance Program for Minority Participation (LSAMP), which requires all new members to complete at least one formal research project. Skrastins also applied to the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, which introduced her to data statistics and encouraged her to pursue future research opportunities.

Through REU, Skrastins conducted her first research project at Tufts University as a part of Tufts’ Directed, Intensive, and Mentored Opportunities in Data Science (DIAMONDS) program. With the help of her team, Skrastins built two custom algorithms to classify molecules as sweet or bitter; the first detected the presence of certain molecular substructures that indicated either sweetness or bitterness, while the second was an unsupervised learning program that grouped molecules based on their similarities. She and her team then used data from the second algorithm to compare against clusters found in scientific literature.

“The DIAMONDS program was my first exposure to data science, and I loved it,” she said. “I literally loved it — it was so fun. The concept of machine learning was so interesting to me that when I came back to Binghamton, I was like, this is what I want to focus on. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”

Since that first summer at Tufts, Skrastins completed two other research projects through the REU program at the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (housed at the University of California Berkeley), where she modeled the relationship between endometriosis lesions and estrogen levels, and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she studied the relationship between a resident’s location and the prevalence of colorectal cancer in New York City.

​Journey to an individualized major

When Skrastins returned to Binghamton University as a sophomore after completing her research at Tufts, she changed her major from chemistry to statistics but was still hoping to break into the machine-learning data science field, which would require a strong foundation in computer science. However, getting into computer science classes as a non-major can be difficult.

Skrastins reached out to Associate Professor Michael J. Lewis, the director of undergraduate studies at the School of Computing, and proposed creating an individualized major in data science, which would allow her to take all the computer science courses she needed.

“I presented my proposal to the committee and they rejected it at first, but I did not give up,” she said. “I revised it, went back, and then they finally accepted it. The following semester, I was able to start taking computer science classes.

“I would recommend an individualized major to anyone, since it’s a great opportunity to take classes across departments. The program has allowed me to develop a hyperspecific skillset, since I could take multiple digital and data studies courses as well as statistics and math courses. An individualized major is a great opportunity to hone your skills in a way that will make you marketable later on in life.”​

Becoming a campus leader

Although Skrastins has served as the president of Binghamton’s Student Association for the past two years, she wasn’t always looking to be a campus leader. In fact, about two weeks before Skrastins received an email from the former SA president, a math major herself, Skrastins was rejected from an executive board position for the Association of Women in Mathematics.

“I was quite upset about it, because I wanted to do advocacy work in math,” she said. “When I got the email about openings in the Student Association, I decided to apply. I want to contribute to the community in some way and be a leader in some capacity. Surprisingly, I was selected to be the president’s chief of staff and spent a year doing that, and I ended up loving it. The former president of the Student Association suggested that I run for E-board, which I was originally unsure of. But sometimes the universe has other things in store for us, and I ended up running for president and winning.”

As the president of the Student Association, Skrastins is the face of one of the largest campus organizations, which serves to manage, fund, and meet the needs of 300 other organizations at Binghamton. The most fulfilling part of the job is the opportunity to make tangible changes on campus that directly improve student life, she said.

One recent example: SA has amended the syllabi template to include a blurb that encourages professors and students to work together when students request time off to celebrate holidays that aren’t recognized by the University.

“Since its passing, I’ve had students come up to me saying that they’ve seen the new amendment, and that they didn’t know they were supposed to reach out to their professors for accommodations,” she said. “Or they tell me that they now feel more comfortable reaching out to their professors to negotiate time off. Hearing students talk about the change for the first time made me feel so happy since we’ve been working on this for so long, and for it to finally have an impact on the student body is super-fulfilling. That’s when I remember why I’m here.”

​Using numbers for good

As a whole, Skrastins’ unique mix of undergraduate experiences culminated in her desire to use her talents for good.

“Being a part of research experiences that have been at the intersection of medicine and biology has shown me that I can take my interest in math, data science, and statistics and use them in fields that weren’t immediately visible to me, since I thought I was going to have to choose,” she said. “I found out that the world is interdisciplinary. If there’s a niche thing that you want to do, there’s definitely a space for it.”

As a teaching assistant for Associate Professor Vladislav Kargin, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics’ undergraduate director, Skrastins has been an exceptional leader in the classroom, too.

“I’ve taught many talented students, but McKenzie is one of the few who made me feel that I was learning something, too — about what it means to be genuinely invested in other people’s success,” Kargin said. “She combines real mathematical talent with something rarer: the determination to create opportunities for herself and the generosity to create them for others. As my teaching assistant, she wasn’t just grading assignments; she was mentoring students, and it showed in the quality of their work.”