
About
Hi! I'm currently a second year Computer Science PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania and am advised by Lyle Ungar and Sharath Chandra Guntuku. I also consult for the World Bank's Development Impact Edutainment Program. I am primarily interested in using computational and causal inference techniques to improve public health and global development. More than anything, I'm excited by research that can help inform public policy. My work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post, and has been cited by the Ohio governor, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren.
You can reach me at: nsehgal at upenn.edu
CV
- Curriculum Vitae (updated Fall 2024)
Previously, I obtained a Master's of Engineering in Computational Science & Engineering at Harvard University. I also worked part time on the HealthMap Computational Epidemiology team at Boston Children's Hospital and was advised by John Brownstein and Benjamin Rader. Before that, I recieved an AB magna cum laude in computer science at Brown University, and spent summers at Reddit, Microsoft, and Case Western's Center of Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics.
Selected News/Policy Coverage
- Vaccine Lotteries: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cincinatti Enquirer, Ohio Governor News Release, Sky News
- Abortion Access: Kamala Harris Twitter, Elizabeth Warren letter to POTUS, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC, FiveThirtyEight, People Magazine, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA Amicus Briefs from: Pro-Choice States, NAACP, 263 Members of Congress
- Military Abortion Travel Policy: ABC, Military.com, Houston Chronicle, KFF Health News
- Legacy of Slavery: Scientific American, Boston Globe, The Hill, Superinteressante (Brazil), Slate France, Il Fatto Quotidiano (Rome), Black Lives Matter Twitter/Threads
- Yelp Healthcare Reviews: Philadelphia Inquirer, Morning Brew
Podcast/Radio Appearances
- Behind the News with Doug Henwood, broadcast by KPFA, Jacobin Radio, etc.
Other Writings
- The Conversation - The Enduring Legacy of Slavery in Congress
Reprinted by 30+ news outlets including Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Albany Times Union
Selected Publications
More papers can be found on my Google Scholar or CV
- Slaveholder Ancestry and Current Net Worth of Members of the United States Congress
Neil KR Sehgal and Ashwini Sehgal
PLOS ONE, August 2024
tl;dr: Members of Congress descended from slaveholders with >=16 enslaved individuals are 5x wealthier than members not descended from slaveholders.
- Examining the Role of Physician Characteristics in Web-Based Verified Primary Care Physician Reviews: Observational Study
Neil KR Sehgal, Benjamin Rader, John Brownstein
JMIR, August 2024
tl;dr: Certain characteristics of primary care physicians (e.g. foreign degree, facial attractiveness, age) are associated with review scores, although the numerical effect is small
- The Impact of Abortion Bans on Short-term Housing Needs
Neil KR Sehgal, Yulin Hswen, Jonathan Cantor, Ushma Upadhyay, Ben Y. Reis, Christopher Remmel, John S. Brownstein, Benjamin Rader
Public Health, March 2024
tl;dr: We demonstrate that Airbnb occupancy data can be used to understand demand for abortion services
- Dobbs’ Impact on Military Abortion Access and Estimation of Associated Travel Reimbursement Costs
Benjamin Rader, Yulin Hswen, Neil KR Sehgal, John Brownstein
JAMA, November 2023
tl;dr: The Pentagon abortion policy that Senator Tuberville launched a blockade of military nominees against would cost $1M a year
- Spatial Access to Cooling Centers in the City of Boston
Neil KR Sehgal and Ashwini Sehgal
The Journal of Climate Change and Health, May 2023
tl;dr: A majority of Boston's population has good access to cooling centers during heat emergencies, although significantly more centers are needed to reach all residents
- Parental compliance and reasons for COVID-19 Vaccination among American children
Neil KR Sehgal, Benjamin Rader, Christina Astley, John Brownstein
PLOS Digital Health, April 2023
tl;dr: Possible side effects and vaccines being too new are the most common reasons parents cite for not vaccinating their child, however examining hesitant parents' concerns in aggregate obscures many important distinctions
- US COVID-19 Clinical Trial Leadership Gender Disparities
Neil KR Sehgal, John Brownstein, Maimuna Majumder, Gaurav Tuli
Lancet Digital Health, March 2023
tl;dr: Women were significantly less likely to lead COVID-19 clinical trials than men in the early stages of the pandemic, highlighting the barriers that women scientists face during public health emergencies
- Estimated Travel Time and Spatial Access to Abortion Facilities in the US Before and After the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Decision
Benjamin Rader, Ushma Upadhyay, Neil KR Sehgal, Ben Reis, John Brownstein, Yulin Hswen
JAMA, November 2022
tl;dr: A third of women of reproductive age in the US live more than an hour from the closest abortion facility – more than double the share pre-Dobbs. Average travel time to get an abortion more than tripled
- Impact of Vax-a-Million lottery on COVID-19 vaccination rates in Ohio
Neil KR Sehgal
The American Journal of Medicine, November 2021
tl;dr: Ohio's COVID-19 vaccine lottery led >100,000 additional Ohians to get vaccinated