Healthy Data, Rusty Code: Epidemiology Meets Modern Systems Programming
by Caroline Morton
Epidemiology relies on codelists for health data, but managing them can be error-prone. This talk introduces codelist-tools: open-source Rust libraries with Python/R bindings, offering a safe, efficient way to manage codelists and making modern systems programming accessible to non-Rust users.
Speaker
Caroline Morton
Dr. Caroline Morton is a medical doctor, epidemiologist, software engineer, and PhD candidate specialising in synthetic data, epidemiology, and Rust. With 60 peer-reviewed papers and two books on software, she combines deep technical expertise with a commitment to improving scientific workflows.
Caroline co-founded the first Women in Rust group, fostering diversity and encouraging more women to explore opportunities in systems programming. She leads an open-source project improving codelist management in epidemiology using Rust, creating efficient, reliable tools for health data research.
Her PhD focuses on synthetic data methods for epidemiology, particularly using Rust to generate large, realistic datasets. Her PhD is sponsored by SurrealDB. A strong advocate for open science and reproducibility, she contributes extensively to improving software practices through publications, workshops, and open-source projects.