Serena T.
Harvard Masters Admit | Ivy Grad Coach | Data & Biomedicine Specialist
Studied at Harvard University
Works at Harvard Medical School
Available Wednesday at 5:00 PM UTC
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Serena's Coaching Offerings
Craft Powerful Admissions Essays
Craft winning Master's essays through brainstorming, drafting, and editing
Starting at $3605h+ of coaching
Nail the Admissions Interview
Practice realistic mock Master's interviews with a trained expert
Starting at $2253h+ of coaching
Master's Final Application Review
Expert review to perfect your master’s application before submission.
Starting at $2253h+ of coaching
Custom hourly
Get help with Editing, School Selection, and .
Serena’s Master’s Programs Qualifications
As someone who was recently admitted to Harvard’s SM in Computational Biology and Quantitative Genetics, I know firsthand what it takes to stand out in Ivy-level graduate admissions. I also received offers from other top-tier programs including Columbia (MS in Public Health Data Science), Yale (MS in Computational Biology and Biomedical Informatics), Cornell (MS in Computational Biology), Dartmouth (MS in Health Data Science), and Brown (MS in Biostatistics). I graduated from Boston University with a BS in Data Science and a minor in Statistics, earned multiple academic and research awards, and worked on high-impact projects in industry internships and in academic labs focused on machine learning, public health, and computational biology. I specialize in helping students from non-Ivy backgrounds break into elite graduate programs through compelling personal statements, strong academic narratives, and a sharp application strategy tailored to data-driven and biomedical fields.
Serena can help with:
Editing
School Selection
Application Strategy
Essays
Resume
Letters of Recommendation
About Serena
Hi, I’m Serena! I am a fresh graduate from Boston University, having majored in Data Science and Statistics, soon to begin my master’s in Computational Biology & Quantitative Genetics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I’ve been admitted to several of the most competitive graduate programs in the world, including at Harvard, Columbia, Brown, and Yale. But my journey here wasn’t typical. I didn’t have a roadmap laid out for me. What I did have was a deep passion for using data to solve real-world health problems—driven by personal experiences watching loved ones suffer from terminal illnesses and mistreatment in healthcare. That motivation pushed me to pursue rigorous coursework, publish research, and take on leadership roles in multiple research labs in computational biomedicine, bioinformatics, and public health. I’ve applied (and been admitted) to programs in public health, biostatistics, computational biology, and data science. I know how to tailor applications across disciplines, how to tell a compelling personal story, and how to stand out—even without a perfect background or conventional path! Now I help others do the same. Whether you’re aiming for the Ivy League, a top-tier research program, or just want help articulating your story, I’m here to coach you with clarity, warmth, and proven strategies.
Why do I coach?
I coach because I know how life-changing the right guidance can be. As someone who successfully navigated the path to top-tier master's programs—including at Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Columbia—I understand how overwhelming the process can feel, especially without insider knowledge or support. I didn't come from a family that knew how to “play the admissions game,” so I had to figure out a lot on my own—crafting my story, choosing the right programs, and building competitive applications. Along the way, I benefited deeply from mentors who believed in me and showed me what was possible. Now, I want to be that person for someone else. I coach to help students—especially those from non-traditional, underrepresented, or self-made backgrounds—get into the Ivy League and other top graduate programs not just because they can, but because they deserve to be there. Whether it's strategy, storytelling, or navigating uncertainty, I coach with care, precision, and a deep belief that you don’t have to do it alone.
Work Experience
Graduate Research Assistant
Harvard Medical School
April 2025 - Present
Dr. Yu Lab - Developing innovative algorithms for medical image analysis and machine learning, with particular emphasis in visuage language representation and medical image analysis - Improve the accuracy of cancer identification in histopathological image analysis
Machine Learning and Deep Learning Teaching Assistant
Boston University
September 2024 - May 2025
- Currently working in Kolachalama Laboratory on a high-priority project focused on analyzing voice data from dementia patients, leveraging 800 cases from the Framington Heart Study. - Fuse both acoustic and linguistic features of voice data to assess cognitive health of dementia patients more accurately - Develop convolutional neural networks with cross-modal attention architecture, trained on 5-fold cross-validated data to surpass traditional methods in cognitive assessment - Utilize state-of-the-art tools including Wav2Vec2 for audio feature extraction, Whisper for transcription, AnglE for semantic text embeddings, Temporal Convolutional Networks (TCNs) for sequence modeling, and cross-modal attention for modality fusion - Co-authoring a manuscript detailing approach for classifying cognitive impairment levels in dementia patients for submission to the scientific journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia
Mathematical Biology Research Intern
Boston University
May 2024 - May 2025
- Undergraduate research intern for BU's Department of Mathematics & Statistics under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Moore - Using MatLab to simulate the stochastic behavior of particles during diffusion across varying complex and realistic human tissue geometries, anatomy, and physiology - Presented findings at the 2025 Kilachand Honors College Keystone Symposium to 100+ people, a symposium where graduating Kilachand Honors College seniors present their keystone projects to the greater BU community - Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (CDS) Senior Capstone Project
Teaching Assistant
Boston University
September 2023 - May 2025
Courses: DS 121: Foundations of Data Science II (Linear Algebra) DS 122: Foundations of Data Science III (Probability Theory) Internal position name: Course Assistant
Research Asisstant
Boston University
August 2021 - August 2024
Working at Murray Causal Decision Lab in the Department of Epidemiology at BU's School of Public Health, run by Dr. Eleanor Murray, to help assess whether HPV screening strategies, such as earlier age at HPV self screening for children with perinatal HIV infection, would reduce cervical abnormalities and cancer incidence among perinatally HIV infected girls. - Adapting/modifying an individual-level simulation model of cervical cancer (via Python code) to incorporate self-screening HPV test usage, and determine costs and benefits of self-screening tests. - Working on finalizing a set of parameters and parameter ranges for calibrated model to explore the likely outcome space under varying HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening strategies. - Presented findings on poster at 2022 BU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Symposium Statistical Modeling, Python (Programming Language) and +1 skill
Data Science Technical Intern
Boston University
May 2024 - July 2024
-Developing scripts to scrape 500+ company websites for information related to international workers, visas, and sponsorships. The scraper identifies and collects links and textual content that mention specific keywords related to visa and immigration topics -Scraping job listings from LinkedIn to gather information on available roles, including job titles, seniority levels, and whether positions mention international worker opportunities. -Aggregating job data and website information into structured PDF and Excel formats -Leveraging OpenAI's API to generate and enhance textual descriptions about company career pages, specifically focusing on their stance and information related to international candidates.
Data Science and Engineering Intern
Paris Dauphine
January 2024 - April 2024
- Collaborating closely with a team of data engineers, social scientists, and web developers under PSL-ACSS Institute in Social Sciences & Data Sciences (Applied Computational Social Sciences) within Dauphine - Employing natural language processing (NLP) techniques, structural topic modeling (STM), web scraping methods via Python and R code to analyze the extent and nature of private actors’ influence on government regulatory policies and frameworks in France. - Actively participate in weekly team meetings to deliver comprehensive updates on project progress, ensuring alignment on objectives and timelines
Data & Analytics Intern
Posterity Health
May 2023 - August 2023
-Perform ad hoc data analytical requests for world's only digital male fertility clinic serving to increase couples’ accessibility to quality male fertility care -Using Excel , SQL, and Python to calculate 20+ metrics from patient referral data for annual business review to assess company performance for 2022 and 2023 -Extract and clean datasets from company’s medical database and create visualizations to depict trends over fiscal quarters
Education
Harvard University
Master's Degree, Computational Biology & Quantitative Genetics
2025 - 2027
Boston University
Bachelor's Degree, Data Science
2021 - 2025
Minor in Statistics and extensive research experience in bioinformatics, machine learning, and public health.