Tarun Singh

“I worked with Tarun on several projects while he was an Associate at OC&C Strategy Consultants. Tarun sets himself apart as a driven and creative problem solver with exceptional intellect. Just as importantly, he is a tremendous team member who is friendly and brings a positive attitude to all of his assignments. I would gladly recommend Tarun for a variety of roles and hope to have the opportunity to work with him again in the future.”

“It would be literally impossible for me to recommend a student or intern more highly than Tarun Singh. He is without question the brightest and most talented young researcher whose work I have had the pleasure of directing. Tarun is both deeply intelligent and astonishingly creative, particularly in the area of applied quantitative analysis . He proved himself during the 2½ months he worked at Direct Relief to be capable of handling virtually any project we could think up. In the process Tarun pushed forward our collective thinking on a number of fronts by proposing ideas and methodologies we had not yet considered. On each and every occasion, his recommendations proved not only thoughtful and provocative but enormously fruitful. He is the rare intellect who can both conceptualize abstractly and execute efficiently within a pragmatic operational context. This past summer Tarun interned for Direct Relief International, under my supervision as Director of Research and Analysis. His primary task was to assist with monitoring and evaluation of international humanitarian medical relief projects. Tarun took to each assignment with alacrity, developing a number of effective regression models and helping to refine our data architecture. His work was both insightful and careful. In short order, Tarun began teaching as much as he was learning, hosting a series of statistical workshops for the entire Direct Relief staff. Tarun’s finest moment occurred when he joined me in using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software plus logistic regression techniques to create a province area estimation map of HIV prevalence among pregnant women in Cameroon as background to point data on PMTCT service delivery sites. This map was displayed to the Cameroonian Ministry of Health as part of a presentation by Direct Relief’s Chief Operating Officer and representatives from Abbott Laboratories, suppliers of the complete HIV/AIDS testing needs for Cameroonian PMTCT services. Tarun’s outstanding work helped to establish the conceptual basis at Direct Relief for using GIS along with an array of spatial and non-spatial statistical techniques as a means of hypothesis formation and resource optimization for public health services. We have since been able to build upon this work and extend it into a number of other national contexts, secure extensive grant funding and arrange to present the findings at this upcoming May's Global Health Council in Washington, DC. Without Tarun’s invaluable input we would never have been able to move so far so fast. While Tarun’s intellectual credentials and work habits are unimpeachable, he is also a joy to work with. He is funny and caring, capable of great empathy and sincere compassion. Were he out of school I would certainly try to hire him. Any organization which counts him among their ranks even for a short time should consider itself most fortunate.”