Shashvat Shah ’26 Applied Data Science to Drive Healthcare Decisions at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center
Each winter, Bennington College students step outside the classroom to take part in Field Work Term—a six-week immersion in the professional world designed to help them deepen their studies, gain real-world experience, and explore potential career paths and contribute valuable skills to companies and nonprofits.
For Shashvat Shah ’26, this meant diving deep into the world of healthcare data analytics at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), a member of Dartmouth Health.
“Data is great. It's just rows and rows and columns and numbers that don't make sense if you just look at it,” said Shah. “But you can quickly pick out trends and patterns, and everything starts to make sense.”
Originally interested in computer science, Shah quickly realized that his passion wasn’t in coding or programming, but in uncovering meaning from complex datasets. He started working on healthcare data in faculty member Katie Montovan’s Applied Research in Mathematics class, which includes working through problems provided by SVMC. Now focusing on biology and data science, Shah’s Field Work Term at SVMC’s Bennington, VT, campus gave him the chance to work on more healthcare data—an intersection of his academic interests and real-world impact.
Shah worked closely with James Trimarchi, Director of Planning at SVMC, and over the course of six weeks, analyzed data that touched many corners of hospital operations.
“The dataset we worked with had over a million rows—literally a million. It represents every patient encounter over the past three years,” said Shah. “It was a lot to visualize, a lot to work with, but also a lot of fun.”
His days started with a cup of coffee at the hospital café before heading upstairs to crunch data, generate visualizations, and uncover insights hidden within massive patient datasets.
“I'd run some numbers and make lots of tables and graphs. And when I found something interesting, I’d go talk to Jim,” said Shah. “We’d discuss what the data meant and where to go next.”
Trimarchi, who has mentored several Bennington students over the years, was impressed by Shah’s skills and his growth.
“Shas is great. Analytically, he can run numbers like nobody’s business,” said Trimarchi. “But he also grew in his ability to understand what the data actually means and how to push it further. That’s going to serve him well.”
While Shah initially expected to just “crunch some numbers,” his experience turned out to be something much more meaningful. He learned not just how to analyze data but how to communicate his findings to top-level executives—an essential skill for any future data scientist or bioanalytics leader.
“The presentation was scary. The CEO, CFO, and CIO were all there. But it felt like an accomplishment. I felt like I could actually change something about how people in this region will receive healthcare in the future,” said Shah.
“When Shas presented, the executive team was impressed. ‘You did all this? You unearthed all of these things we now have to do. You’re not going away, are you?’” remembered Trimarchi. “They were enamored. Bennington students deliver an excellent product.”
“I absolutely see how this work could lead me toward public health, policy-making, or healthcare analytics,” said Shah. “I came out of it very different, very changed—and for the better.”
Shah is already looking ahead: he has secured his next Field Work Term at a cancer research lab in Michigan, where he’ll be analyzing protein data related to pancreatic cancer.