For International Women’s Day, ADR UK has chosen to highlight some of the inspirational women across the partnership, asking them to comment on their careers working in data science. From ADR Wales, we’ll hear from Dr Dora Pouliou, a Senior Data Scientist from our Health and Well-being research team.
Introduction
Hi, I’m Dr Dora Pouliou, a Senior Data Scientist working with ADR Wales and Swansea University, where I use large-scale, linked population and survey cohort data to understand how social, economic and environmental factors shape health outcomes.
How did you get into working with data?
I originally trained in health geography and social epidemiology, which naturally led me to working with population data to explore socio-economic and environmental inequalities. As I became more involved in large administrative datasets, I saw how powerful linked data can be for answering complex questions about gender, deprivation and health.
What inspires you about your job?
What really inspires me is that data isn’t just numbers — it’s a way to shine a light on real inequities and help improve policy and practice. Knowing that robust data analysis can influence decisions affecting children’s health, neighbourhood environments or mental wellbeing keeps me passionate about what I do.
What’s your favourite data stat or piece of research, and why?
One of my favourite stats is that globally only around 22 % of AI and data science professionals are women, which highlights ongoing gender imbalance in the field and the importance of diversity in working with data. Personally, during a recent project on active travel to school in Wales, we observed that boys were more likely to actively travel to school than girls, showing how linked population, survey and geospatial data could help us in designing targeted interventions to encourage active travel, particularly among specific population sub-groups.
What’s the most pressing issue data can help us solve?
One important challenge is understanding how health and wellbeing evolve over the life course and across different social contexts. Linked data allows us to follow populations over time and identify where targeted support is mostly needed. The more effectively we use these data resources, the more informed our policies can be.
What top tips do you have for anyone looking to work in data and research?
Build a strong foundation in quantitative skills but also stay curious about the real-world problems behind the numbers. It’s important to be comfortable working with different types of data — both administrative data, which gives scale and longitudinal insight, and survey data, which often provides richer contextual detail. And finally, be open to interdisciplinary collaboration; some of the most meaningful research comes from combining methods, perspectives and data sources.
Read and watch more profiles from across the ADR UK partnership.