Robert Neubecker
We paused our Ph.D. research to lead a COVID-19 contact tracing team. Here’s what we learned
Feb. 4, 2021 , 2:00 PM
In March 2020, we shut down our Ph.D. experiments and prepared for an indefinite period of working from home. As we threw away our cell cultures and wound down our animal colonies, we imagined the manuscripts we would finally draft, the papers we would read, and the bioinformatic skills we would learn. However, our plans went astray a few days later when we received an email from our program director with a subject line that read: “Interested in an ‘at home’ public health project to help fight COVID-19?” The email set us down a path we never imagined—one that taught us how the soft skills we’ve learned in graduate school can serve us in the real world. We also learned the hard way that in order to take care of others, we must first take care of ourselves.