Ashley King, MPH, CDC Public Health Advisor Albert Einstein once said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” And I, being the opportunist that I am, might have taken that a bit too literally. A month and a half before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the International Task Force (ITF) was formed at CDC to provide support to countries around the world. When I was approached about serving on ITF, I jumped at the opportunity. I literally jumped up and down oozing excitement all over. For me, I didn’t look at it as more work; I saw it as a fun ..read more

Edgar Monterroso, MD, MPH, CDC Senior Epidemiologist My name is Edgar Monterroso. I’m a senior epidemiologist with CDC’s Center for Global Health and board member in CDC/ATSDR’s (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) Latino/Hispanic Health Work Group. In the science community, we apply knowledge we’ve learned from past pandemics to current situations, just as we are doing with the current CDC COVID-19 response. I’ve served for decades on CDC’s global health efforts, including as Country Advisor in Mexico in 1999, Central America Regional Program Director in Guatemala in 2003, and C ..read more

Nathalie Roberts I first learned about what would soon be called the COVID-19 pandemic after I returned from the 2020 New Year holidays and met with a colleague to resume work as usual. He mentioned that a “new coronavirus” had been identified in China. I thought to myself, “hopefully it won’t be as serious as SARS.” I was managing CDC’s Global Rapid Response Team at the time and was asked to identify CDC employees who were available to travel and work at U.S. ports of entry, mainly airports. What started as a need for a “dozen or so” CDC responders turned into a request for 125 people to work ..read more

Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, I was a Public Health Institute/CDC Global Health fellow in CDC’s Central America office located in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I developed communication strategies that showcase the important work of my colleagues in the region. I also managed disease surveillance projects in Honduras and the Dominican Republic and helped with research on diseases such as rabies and Rickettsia felis, a disease caused by bacteria carried by fleas. But when the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, many staff members had to come back to the United States. I relocated to At ..read more

Roberto Jorge Freire Esteves, MD, MPH Brasilia, BRAZIL – A native of Brazil and a medical epidemiologist by training, I joined the CDC South America Regional Office on August 31, 2020, as its Senior Technical Advisor. The global pandemic had been going on for most of 2020, and I remember the sense of dread I had when I first heard about it. It seemed that the world was going to face a challenge it had not seen in centuries. It was early January 2021, and I was at work doing my routine monitoring of news and information coming from friends in the public health community, when I noticed a dramat ..read more

Mateusz Plucinski, PhD, MPH, CDC Epidemiologist and Atlanta lead for the Brazil P.1 response team, deployed February  1 – April 30, 2021. When CDC staff go into the field to investigate outbreaks, a diverse group based in Atlanta supports their every move. Scientists create research protocols, logistics coordinators handle travel and lodging, someone looks for funds to pay for the work. I am an epidemiologist. Earlier this year, as the Atlanta lead for a team that deployed to Parintins, Brazil on the Amazon river part of my job was to find CDC staff who met specific criteria. They had to ..read more

Juliana de Fatima da Silva, MD, Medical epidemiologist MANAUS, Brazil – I was born and raised in Brazil, near the city of São Paulo. There, I got a medical education at a top institution, a privilege very few have. When I decided to come to the United States to pursue residency and training, it was not without some self-doubt. I knew the opportunities I could get in the United States, such as working at a place like CDC, were not available in Brazil. Yet, I felt as if I was leaving something very important behind, and it wasn’t an easy choice to make. Earlier this year, I found that I was able ..read more

Joseph C. Ojwang, Health Security Public Health Specialist, CDC Uganda When I heard COVID-19 was spreading around the world, I struggled personally, knowing we would be responding for a long time. I needed a silver lining to keep me grounded and give me hope so that I could focus on helping my country. As COVID-19 spread across Europe, it was clear that COVID-19 was going to be a very different threat to Uganda. It was not like Zika or Ebola, with African names that Ugandans were familiar with. This was the pandemic the world has always feared but was not prepared for. But, for me, the silver ..read more

When I first heard COVID-19 was spreading around the world, my initial thought was, “This will be contained.” I started feeling unsettled watching the virus give us a hint of its power as it breeched more and more borders. I never imagined that it would cause havoc at the scale it did. Deepika S. Joshi, CDC India Associate Director for Science I wanted to be safe, keep my family safe, and of course, ensure that everyone at work stayed safe. As the Associate Director for Science for CDC India, I wanted to respond quickly by understanding the situation “on the ground,” finding out what the knowl ..read more

As a health communication responder, my first thought when I heard of COVID-19 was, “What can I do to help? How can I be a part of the emergency response happening with such a novel disease?” After CDC activated its Emergency Operation Center in January 2020, I worked with my supervisor to secure a spot on the emergency response. Even though it was a Saturday, I set up a makeshift office in my apartment and started to research COVID-19 and its impact on international K-12 schools overseas as my first assignment. On February 1, 2020, I started as a health communication specialist on the Interna ..read more