About me | Katariina Perkonoja

Biography

I was born in August 1992 and spent my childhood in the small town of Raisio. My family consists of father, mother and a younger brother. Ever since I was a small child, I have been curious and interested in understanding my surroundings. My parents probably got frustrated when I kept asking questions. I also enjoyed reading various science magazines aimed at the general population. In addition to my interest in science, I also enjoyed competitive swimming until I was 13 years old. My highest achievement was the Finnish championship in the 200 meter individual medley and I set several Finnish records that have probably already been broken.

An article about Raisio swimmers from 2003 published in a local newspaper. I am in the middle of the back row.

List of Finnish Champions in 2003 in the local newspaper. My name is in the column on the right.

I graduated from Turku Classical high school in 2011 and spent five gap years before I started studying statistics at the University of Turku in 2016. In the intervening years, I worked in various fields and applied to study psychology, but without success. In fact, I was originally supposed to study statistics for just one year and reapply for psychology in spring 2017, but I decided to stay with statistics. At the beginning of my studies, I imagined the job of a statistician to be lonely and boring, sitting in front of a computer in a dark closet, but when it dawned on me how many fields and interdisciplinary groups a statistician can work in, I became more interested in the field. In addition, I’ve always liked problem solving and with my studies I also got excited about programming, so the field started to feel like my own.

Studying and writing my bachelor’s thesis in August 2018.

While working as a biostatistician at Auria Clinical Informatics (June 2019 to December 2022), a department of Turku University Hospital, I got interested in data privacy, data anonymization and the potential of synthetic data. I graduated with a master’s degree in science in December 2020 and in my master’s thesis, “Generating Synthetic Longitudinal Patient Data with the PrivBayes Method“, I generated synthetic longitudinal patient data with Bayesian networks from real patient data retrieved from the database of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland. I decided to continue with the topic and I am currently working on my dissertation “Methods for generating and evaluating synthetic longitudinal patient data” at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Turku.

Hobbies and free time

After my swimming career, it took many years before I got excited to do sports again. In 2012, I started going to the gym and it wasn’t long before I decided to compete in powerlifting. I competed in the competitions under the International Powerlifting Federation and in 2015 I won the Finnish bench press championship and powerlifting silver in my age and weight class. However, with my university studies, I stopped competing, but I still go to the gym regularly and enjoy lifting heavy weights. I have also thought about returning to the competition stages, if there is a separate class for graduate students.

Me getting ready to lift and my friend’s dad psyching me up.

In 2019, I got excited about hiking after watching the movie Wild, where the main character hikes the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) on the west coast of the United States. For some reason, I became fixated with the PCT and I decided that I’m going to hike it in 2022 when I turn 30. To prepare for the PCT, I did two longer hikes: one in 2020 and the other in 2021. On both hikes I hiked approx. 600 kilometers (370 mi), 2020 in Eastern Finland and 2021 in Lapland, visiting different wilderness areas (Pöyrisjärvi, Lemmenjoki, Kevo Strict Nature Reserve, Kaldoaivi, Vätsäri, Tsarmitunturi and Urho Kekkonen National Park). I also made videos of my hikes on YouTube, which I still do if I have time and energy left after my research.

On April 15, 2022, I touched the southern terminus of the PCT, starting a hike of more than 150 days towards the Canadian border, which I finally reached on September 27, 2022, hiking over 4 200 kilometers (2 600 mi). Hiking the PCT is one of the absolute highlights of my life so far, and I hope that in the future I can hike similar trails such as the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), which is also located in the United States.

Me at the Southern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail in Campo, California on April 15, 2022.

Me at the Northern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail on the U.S./Canada border, in Pasayten Wilderness, Washington on September 27, 2022.

I’m also interested in trail running, and because of my old swimming background, I’d also be interested in trying triathlon sometime in the future. So at the moment, I do a lot of sports and I enjoy the fact that I can do all kinds of things and I’m grateful for that. In addition to sports, I occasionally play board and computer games and am also interested in ceramics and cooking. In fact, after high school, I studied for a year to become a chef, but I quit after the first internship when I realized that the field was not for me.

Academic profile and achievements

My academic information and achievements (such as funding, invited positions and publications) can be found in ORCID. More about my research can be found under Research.