NEVBD-TEC Summer Internship Program

This marks the end of my NEVBD-TEC internship. I’m very grateful for all of the opportunities I have been given. I connected with many epidemiologists and learned so much from them. I had an amazing time, and I gained so much more knowledge about surveillance. I know that I will be well-prepared for my Master’s courses because of this internship. This also helped solidify what I want to do in the future. When I first started, I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to pursue infectious disease epidemiology, but the matter of what specific type of infectious diseases and focus was on the back burner. At the end of this internship, I realized that I like working with data but as of right now, I would like to focus on active surveillance. Here is a recap of the last 3 weeks! Week 8 : This week I started conducting my own interviews. After receiving much guidance the previous weeks, I now feel comfortable attempting one by myself. Conducting phone interviews are di...

This marks the halfway point of my NEVBD-TEC internship. I definitely feel more confident using DPH’s resources. I’ve also connected with most of the infectious disease epidemiologists. Everyone is  really friendly   and they always say hi when I’m in the office. I would say that some of the major shifts during these next couple of weeks are my focus on research and interviews. Both are extremely important and this focus will build my confidence in conducting them. Additionally, in terms of research, this will let me get used to data that has already been extracted. Historically, most of my data has been through surveys that were open for 3-4 weeks. It will   definitely be   a nice change of pace to have data that already exists. With interviews, I have done a few, but never on the phone. I would like to see how it’s different from in-person and   Zoom .     Week 5 : This week I continued working on cases in Connecticut Electronic Disease Surveillance ...

This marks the beginning of a series of blogs posts I will be making throughout my NEVBD-TEC internship. I’m teaming up with Connecticut’s Department of Public Health (DPH) where I will be working alongside their Vector-Borne Disease (VBD) team. The goal of the first 4 weeks is to get familiar with VBD surveillance tools and learn more from my advisor and her fellow infectious disease epidemiologists about different vector-borne diseases throughout Connecticut and the Northeast region.   Week 1 : This week was an introduction to what activities I will be conducting throughout this internship. I gained access to a couple of DPH resources and reviewed the Public Health 101 Series on the CDC’s website. I also began learning more about different vector-borne diseases. One task that I worked on was creating different infographics and social media posts about Alpha-gal syndrome. Each post and infographic was curated for a specific audience. I found it really interesting to lear...