APHL Career Pathways Program Receives INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine’s 2023 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award

A photo shows three scientists working in a laboratory. Next to the photo are logos for the APHL Career Pathways in Public Health Laboratory Science program and the 2023 Inspiring Programs in STEM Awards.

For Immediate Release
Contact Michelle Forman at 240.485.2793 or michelle.forman@aphl.org

Silver Spring, MD, August 15, 2023 – The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is proud to announce that the Career Pathways in Public Health Laboratory Science: an APHL-CDC Initiative received the 2023 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the largest and oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education. The Inspiring Programs in STEM Award honors college and university programs that encourage and assist students from underrepresented groups to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Through the Career Pathways program, current students, early career scientists and established laboratorians participate in opportunities to explore or advance their career in public health laboratory science. This includes the recently launched Public Health Laboratory Internship and Fellowship Programs.

The APHL Career Pathways program was selected by INSIGHT Into Diversity to receive this award because of the program’s dedication to recruiting underrepresented students from STEM education disciplines and to building a larger highly trained public health laboratory workforce that represents the communities they serve. This commitment is in alignment with APHL’s core value to embrace, promote and model a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEI).

“We are deeply grateful to be a recipient of this award that celebrates our engrained focus on diversity in the Career Pathways program’s recruitment efforts,” said Christine Bean, PhD, MBA, MLS(ASCP), chief learning officer, APHL. “Our program has placed hundreds of fellows and interns in public health laboratories for hands-on experiences working closely with public health scientist mentors. We feel strongly that our focus on diversity is an investment in a more representative public health laboratory workforce in the future that will serve diverse communities across the nation. Thank you to INSIGHT Into Diversity for this honor.”

Inspiring Programs in STEM Award winners were selected by INSIGHT Into Diversity based on efforts to inspire and encourage a new generation of young people to consider careers in STEM through mentoring, teaching, research and successful programs and initiatives. The APHL Career Pathways program will be featured, along with 79 other recipients, in the September 2023 issue of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.

 “We know that many STEM programs are not always recognized for their success, dedication and mentorship for underrepresented students,” says Lenore Pearlstein, owner and publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. “We want to honor the schools and organizations that have created programs that inspire and encourage young people who may currently be in or are interested in a future career in STEM. We are proud to honor these programs as role models to other institutions of higher education and beyond.”

A call for nominations for this award was announced in March 2023.

For more information about the 2023 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award and INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, visit insightintodiversity.com.

For more information about the APHL Career Pathways program, visit aphl.org/career-pathways.

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The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the U.S. and globally. APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases, environmental contaminants, terrorist agents, genetic disorders in newborns and other diverse health threats. Learn more at www.aphl.org.

INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine is the largest and oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education today and is known for its annual INSIGHT Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award, the only award that recognizes colleges and universities for outstanding diversity and inclusion efforts across their campuses. INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine presents timely, thought-provoking news and feature stories on matters of diversity and inclusion in higher education and beyond. Articles include interviews with innovators and experts, as well as explorations of best practices and profiles of exemplary programs. In our Career Center, readers will also discover career opportunities that connect job seekers with institutions and businesses that embrace a diverse and inclusive workforce. Current, archived, and digital issues of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine are available online at insightintodiversity.com

The post APHL Career Pathways Program Receives INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine’s 2023 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award appeared first on APHL Blog.

APHL Announces Call for Applications for Expanded Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program

Graphic that says, "Start Your Fellowship Journey with Us! Apply for a Public Health Fellowship Today! Learn more at www.APHL.org/Career-Pathways

For Immediate Release

Silver Spring, MD, April 11, 2023 – The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is pleased to announce the expanded Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program: An APHL-CDC Initiative is now open for applications. Funded by the American Rescue Plan via the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program provides fellows exciting new career opportunities in laboratory science working collaboratively with industry leaders and developing professional networks. This program is a significant expansion of an existing APHL-CDC fellowship program. As part of the Career Pathways in Public Health Laboratory Science program, it has a broad goal of growing the public health laboratory workforce with skilled, qualified individuals early in their career.

The Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program supports a wide spectrum of program areas such as bioinformatics, biorisk management (biosafety), environmental health, infectious disease, informatics, food safety, newborn screening and quality management. Each fellow will be trained in alignment with established public health laboratory core competencies and functions, and will work on unique program-specific projects at their host laboratory.

“The public health laboratory workforce has been chronically under-resourced, but we are excited to take such a big step toward changing that,” said Scott J. Becker, chief executive officer, APHL. “The Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program will bring hundreds of new, highly trained professionals to laboratories around the country. We appreciate CDC’s support and partnership as we introduce public health laboratory careers to a new generation of scientists.”

Fellowships will be one- to two-year placements at US local, state and territorial laboratories serving the public’s health. Applications are now being accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis. For complete information about the program, visit APHL.org/fellowships.

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The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the U.S. and globally. APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases, environmental contaminants, terrorist agents, genetic disorders in newborns and other diverse health threats. Learn more at www.aphl.org.

Contact Michelle Forman at 240-485-2793 or michelle.forman@aphl.org

The post APHL Announces Call for Applications for Expanded Public Health Laboratory Fellowship Program appeared first on APHL Blog.

APHL/CDC Laboratory Fellowship Program is Back!

After a brief hiatus due to funding, the APHL/CDC fellowship program is back! Formerly known as the Emerging Infectious Disease (EID) fellowships, the newly reinstated program will be simply known as the APHL/CDC Laboratory Fellowship program. Over the next few months, APHL and CDC will work closely together to refresh and improve the fellowship program with an initial emphasis on preparedness. A key tool in restructuring the program will be the Competency Guidelines for Public Health Laboratory Professionals featured in the May 15 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

We are thrilled to have this program back on track and hope to begin recruiting in 2016. Resuming the APHL/CDC Laboratory Fellowship program would not have been possible without the hard work of many laboratory leaders at CDC, the CDC director’s office, former fellows and APHL staff.

To learn more about what laboratory fellows do, check out a few blog posts written by former EID fellows:

From The Lorax to the Laboratory

Where are they Now? APHL/CDC Emerging Infectious Disease Fellow Looks Back

HIV Testing Where Ice Melts Fast: EID Fellow Reports from Botswana

Into the Wild: Lab Edition

The Difference between County and State Health Departments (from a Newbie’s Perspective)

The track to becoming a public health laboratory director

Hawaii’s Unique Public Health Challenges

 

From The Lorax to the Laboratory

by Vanessa Burrowes, APHL-CDC Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory Fellow, North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health

When I was a kid, I was pretty curious about everything around me. If I wasn’t asking a million questions to increasingly exasperated adults or devouring an adventure book series like The Boxcar Children, you could usually find me outside playing in the dirt getting scraped up and loving every minute of it. While those explorations certainly led me to science in an indirect way, it was Dr. Seuss who led me straight there.

From The Lorax to the Laboratory | www.aphlblog.org

On a dreary rainy day when I was four years old, my preschool teacher sat several of us down to watch a movie in the hopes of abating our restlessness. I sat there with my peers for my first viewing of the original version of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. I returned home that evening filled with a horrific fear of the future. I dreaded that, like the world of the Lorax, my world too would someday become grey, poisoned and hopeless, full of Humming Fish walking out of lakes and brown Bar-ba-loots gloomily dragging their feet away to escape such a heavily polluted place. The Once-ler’s profound advice that, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” triggered a driving sense of responsibility within me at a very young age. From that day forward, I decided to dedicate my life to protecting the environment and the health of those living in it with the hope of preventing such a dreadful event from happening. Even at four years old, The Lorax definitely gave me perspective on the role I could play during my time on earth.

Many years later as I started thinking about possible careers, my parents tried to push me, their oldest child, into pursuing medical school. They were both immigrants from families with no prior science background and worked hard throughout their lives to become chemists. My mother wanted both of her daughters to pursue science careers and take advantage of the growing field of opportunities the U.S. had to offer female scientists, especially if there was the chance for us to become financially independent which seemed most tangible in medicine. I respected my mom’s feminist ideology and followed through by shadowing in the oncology unit at Aultman Hospital in Canton, Ohio for about three months during high school. Try as I might, I didn’t enjoy working under flickering fluorescent lights, racing back and forth between nurses to help aid dying patients, or viewing various body fluids being projected everywhere. Maybe I picked the wrong unit to begin exploring medical careers, but I knew from that experience that while I was still very interested in science, I ultimately wanted to find a much more controlled environment where I could do my best to help prevent people from getting to that terminal stage of disease in the first place.

As college approached, I was feeling a bit lost. While I definitely still felt a love of science, I also toyed with the idea of being a lawyer or a judge and even started looking into political science degree programs. This all stemmed from my short-lived, very “successful” role as a sharp-witted, intelligent prosecuting attorney (complete with a sweet drawn-on mustache) in a 5th grade play. I loved the thrill of the investigative work, probing through clues until arriving at some semblance of an answer. But was it a good career choice for me?

It wasn’t until later that I realized that I could have it all.

During the summer of 2007 I was selected as one of 30 students from around Ohio to attend the REAL (Regents Environmental Academy for Learning) Summer Science Program at Bowling Green State University. I gained an overview of basic concepts of biology, chemistry, pollution and toxicology, but my favorite workshop was on epidemiology, my first exposure to public health. We were given a fictional case study where 15 out of 20 kindergarten students had contracted an unknown bacterial illness after visiting a local zoo. To uncover the cause for the outbreak, we reviewed hospital files, patient records and poured through interview transcripts. By investigating all of these factors, we were able to pinpoint the strain and source of the ingested bacteria. The thrill of the detective work involved in solving this case, as well as insight into the interconnected dynamics of disease transmission, ignited my interest in pursuing public health as a career. It seemed to feed all of my interests: science, detective work and a strong desire to help improve our world.

I’m currently an APHL/CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Laboratory fellow working at the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health (NCSLPH). This fellowship has given me several opportunities to communicate my findings from various projects and ideas with public health leaders and stakeholders from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

One of the coolest moments of my fellowship so far may have been when I was unexpectedly put in charge of leading a research and development (R&D) meeting with NCSLPH’s research collaborative company, bioMérieux, during a site visit to their headquarters in Durham, NC. As I was en route to their building, I learned that my boss couldn’t make it with me. After talking myself through an initial bout of nervousness, I realized that I was confident that I knew what parts of our procedures needed to be improved and was able to advise them on troubleshooting issues that had arisen during our experiments. Not only did the staff astutely listen and actively ask for my input, but they also took all of my advice into consideration. When I received the final version of the protocol, I noticed that many of my suggestions were incorporated. For the first time in my life, I felt that people were finally asking me for constructive input and respecting my contributions to a given project.

But, I have to be very honest. Without question, the ultimate moment of my EID fellowship so far was when I finally fulfilled a lifelong dream of wearing the full personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary to work in a BSL-3 suite. I donned the PAPR, Tyvek suit, booties… the works! All the movies, TV shows and news clips showing people wearing these suits make them look like the ultimate scientist superheroes (and smartest villains for the shameless Breaking Bad fan in me). Now I pretty much work full-time in this superhero scientist suit. As part of the project I mentioned before, I’m working with Brucella spp (highly pathogenic, #1 cause for laboratory acquired infections) to submit protein spectral data to bioMérieux to build their MALDI-TOF Vitek MS database for BSL3 pathogens. While the PPE does allow me to feel like a scuba diver exploring the unknown depths of the microbiological ocean, it still takes me a long time to physically get into the thing so the magic has worn off a bit. I look more like the Michelin tire mascot on most days, but I still feel like a scientific superhero inside! I hope I can make this my uniform to wear while riding into a future public health battle!

I like to think that the work I’m doing as an EID fellow has a significant impact on protecting the public (even though it doesn’t include that awesome mustache from my time as a prosecutor). I still have my whole career ahead of me and who knows what’s in store. I’m not worried about that right now; I’m too busy having the time of my life.