New doctoral student: Freja Segerros
In June, Freja Segerros joined the Gastroenterology and Nutrition Unit at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, as a doctoral student. Her principal supervisor is Marie Löf.
What will your thesis be about?
My PhD project will focus on how self-management and treatment of gestational diabetes can be personalized using generative AI. We will further develop an existing digital support tool for gestational diabetes, SPARK, to enable personalized self-management and treatment recommendations for women with gestational diabetes, while also facilitating and supporting healthcare professionals in their clinical role. The long-term aim is to investigate whether a personalized treatment approach leads to better outcomes than a traditional "one-size-fits-all" approach in a future RCT.
What sparked your interest in this area?
I am interested in gestational diabetes because it is a condition in which a woman's self-management plays a crucial role in treatment. For many women, the diagnosis requires significant lifestyle changes, particularly related to diet and physical activity, during a period of life that can already be both demanding and transformative. At the same time, these lifestyle changes can contribute to long-term health benefits for both the mother and the child if they are maintained during and after pregnancy. I therefore believe it is especially important to develop support that can help women self-manage based on their individual circumstances and needs.
At the same time, healthcare systems are facing challenges due to a growing number of patients and limited resources. Being involved in the development of a tangible digital tool that can provide more personalized support for pregnant women, while also helping healthcare professionals in their work, therefore feels both meaningful and motivating to me.
What did you do before starting as a doctoral student at MedH?
Before starting my PhD, I worked as a research assistant at Karolinska Institutet in a project focusing on screen time among young children, as well as in the aforementioned project on gestational diabetes.
What are you looking forward to during your doctoral studies?
I am looking forward to everything I will learn throughout my PhD journey and to the personal and professional growth that comes with it. It will be exciting to see how the project on personalized treatment for gestational diabetes evolves and to explore how such an approach may be implemented and used in healthcare in the future.