By Sara A. Mayo
For Drew Cistola, Ph.D., M.P.H., the most important question in data science isn’t always about the data.
It’s about the people.
“All data problems are human problems,” said Cistola, a University of Florida Master of Public Health alumnus, data scientist at a major consulting firm for public sector contracts and adjunct lecturer in the Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy.
It is a philosophy that has shaped his career across public health, healthcare analytics and consulting and now shapes how he teaches the next generation of public health professionals.
Cistola did not begin his career on a traditional path to data science. As an undergraduate studying English literature, he was introduced to public health and health policy research through a required research experience. The unexpected opportunity showed him how data could help better understand the health of communities.
His research also revealed something else.
“Data was helpful, but policy was a crucial space that needed to be changed to improve the health of our communities,” Cistola said.
Drawn to the connection between evidence, policy and management, Cistola pursued his M.P.H. with a concentration in population health management at UF.
The experience introduced him to the intersection of public health and health administration, with coursework spanning areas such as epidemiology, social and behavioral sciences, healthcare finance and management.
For Cistola, one of the most valuable lessons of his academic career was learning to move through what he describes as a healthcare ecosystem.
“Actuaries tend to talk to actuaries, doctors talk to doctors, administrators talk to administrators,” he said. “But the reality is the healthcare ecosystem includes all three of these that need to dialogue with each other.”
That ability to connect evidence, policy and perspectives across disciplines has followed him throughout his career.
Today, Cistola works as a data scientist at a major consulting firm, where he approaches analytics with a simple goal: help people make better decisions.
“The best analytics start with understanding the business need, understanding the human decision process and finding the exact right piece of information to support what someone wants to improve,” he said.
The work behind that answer can be highly technical. Cistola and his colleagues may use complex methods to test and validate a result, but he believes those methods should ultimately support a clear conclusion.
He compares the process to an iceberg. The audience sees the small piece above the surface, whether it be a chart, finding or recommendation, while the technical work supporting it remains underneath.
That distinction is now central to his teaching at UF.
As an adjunct lecturer, Cistola challenges students to become more comfortable with technical and computational topics while encouraging them to build skills beyond their individual areas of expertise.
For students interested in pursuing analytics, his advice is practical:
“Learn SQL,” he said.
SQL, or Structured Query Language, is commonly used to work with organizational data. However, technical skills alone are not enough to fill the gap between classroom learning and real-world application.
“The biggest job security is with people who can bridge both the human needs and the technical needs,” Cistola said, who encourages his students to think about skill development as growing across both trajectories together.
Through his teaching, Cistola is bringing that perspective back to the program that helped shape his own career, by helping students see data not simply as something to analyze, but as a tool for understanding problems, connecting people and information, and supporting better decisions.
Because for Cistola, the most meaningful data science starts, and ultimately ends, with people.
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