Darin Li ’21

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

During a tour of the headquarters facility, we stopped by the entrance sign to take a photo.
During a tour of the headquarters facility, we stopped by the entrance sign to take a photo.

This past summer, I completed an eight-week internship at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. I was specifically employed in the Epidemiology Workforce Branch (EWB) of the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, which focuses on staff professional training and public health education. In particular, I worked on the Epidemiology Elective Program (EEP) and the Science Ambassador Fellowship (SA).

EEP is intended for medical or veterinary school students. Although the CDC highly desires Medical Degree (MD) and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) holders, particularly those with a Master of Public Health (MPH), very few medical students have had exposure to public health or desire to pursue an MPH. EEP is intended as a six week or eight week rotation that introduces medical or veterinary school students to public health through CDC subject matter expert mentors. As an intern, I helped match candidates to potential mentors and aid candidates’ onboarding process. Furthermore, I modernized the advertising system for the Epidemiology Elective Program, which now targets 1,000+ medical and veterinary school staff and 200+ institutions. In my work, I became familiar with web scraping techniques in the R language, which I was able to further organize into a Listserv with Excel. I could not have achieved this task without the help of my coworkers and fellow interns, particularly those with significant experience in computer science. Hopefully, my work can help bring more medical and veterinary professionals into public health.

The SA fellowship, in contrast, is intended for high school and middle school educators outside of the CDC. In July, 30 educators from across the country were invited to attend a five-day fellowship training at the CDC Roybal headquarters. Following this week of training, the fellows enter a one-year remote collaboration with CDC subject matter experts. Together, fellows and subject matter experts co-author public health lesson plans, which are then published by the CDC. In addition, SA fellows are required to present their lesson plans at a teaching conference. Ideally, their enthusiasm for public health creates a ripple effect, reaching thousands of students to inspire the future public health workforce.

As an intern, I helped write the SA course packet, which was then distributed to the fellows at the beginning of their training. My particular focus was three documents by SA alumni, which outlined how they implemented public health classes in their school relative to state and local educational requirements. These SA alumni served in a “peer leader” capacity, travelling all the way to Atlanta, Ga., to mentor other educators. I was overwhelmed by the passion SA fellows had. Although the week of SA training was notably strenuous, with days starting at 7 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m., my colleagues and me consistently insisted that the fellows’ passion made the whole experience worth it. Furthermore, dozens of CDC staffers volunteered their own time to talk to SA fellows, and many of these staffers would also serve as remote subject matter experts in lesson plan design. By the end of SA week, I was deeply impressed by the capacity of CDC staffers to share their passion for public health.

This is Sarah, another Williams intern, and me in biocontainment suits in the CDC museum.
This is Sarah, another Williams intern, and me in biocontainment suits in the CDC museum.

This enthusiasm should not have come as a surprise, however. Two years ago, in the summer between junior year and senior year of high school, I first arrived at the CDC in Atlanta, Ga. There, I attended the prestigious CDC Disease Detective Camp, a CDC-funded five-day workshop meant to introduce high school students to public health. Even then, dozens of CDC staffers volunteered their time for these students: giving talks, hosting a public health career fair, and sharing why they entered public health. I had first applied to the CDC Disease Detective Camp because my biology teacher, who had used a SA lesson plan, encouraged me to further explore public health. Some strange gravity had brought me back to work on the SA program and the CDC Disease Detective Camp. During the July session of the CDC Disease Detective Camp, I represented the EWB during the public health career fair. After the event, I encouraged those campers I met to reach back out to me, and I have encouraged them towards many of the same opportunities that brought me back to CDC. In this humble capacity, I could embody the CDC spirit of giving back.

By the conclusion of SA week, I had helped a team of eight educators and two air pollution subject matter experts from the National Center for Environmental Health build the framework for two lesson plans. Although I could provide neither subject matter expertise nor advice on teaching, being only one year removed from high school, I could advise on lesson plan feasibility from a student perspective. Together, we created two lesson plans. The first plan focused on particulate size and their effect on human lungs, and the second focused on distinguishing atmospheric ozone and ozone pollution. Although both lesson plans are still in progress, I am proud to have assisted in my capacity.

Outside of these two major projects, my supervisors also encouraged me to attend the Preventive Medicine Residency/Fellowship (PMR/F) and Epidemiology Intelligence Service Fellowship (EIS) trainings. These two fellowships are the flagship programs of the CDC; almost all fellows in each program hold both an MPH and a doctoral level degree. Despite my obvious inexperience, there, I was respectfully treated as a peer. In fact, the EIS officers and PMR/F fellows were very excited to share their own experiences in public health. Many even networked with the Science Ambassador fellows, the high school and middle school educators I helped train.

Fellow interns from Williams (from left to right): Darin, Sarah, and Omar, photographed during Science Ambassador week.
Fellow interns from Williams (from left to right): Darin, Sarah, and Omar, photographed during Science Ambassador week.

Finally, I carved out time to say thanks to those CDC staff members who volunteered for the CDC Disease Detective Camp. I am particularly close with one volunteer, who now serves in a mentorship capacity for me. Because he was trained mainly as a sociologist, his advice and passion tells me that one does not have to be a lab worker or infectious disease specialist to enter CDC. Over the course of this internship, I was reminded over and over about the diverse job opportunities CDC offers, including but not limited to graphic design, communications, statistics, epidemiology, education, and computer science. I was privileged to interact with CDC staffers from all walks of life. I am reminded of a story told by my branch chief during the very first week of my internship (I paraphrase from memory): “Though people think of the CDC as infectious disease specialists, even an outbreak such as Ebola requires a diverse response. Among the boots on the ground responders to the Ebola crisis, for example, were behavioral scientists, logisticians, engineers, anthropologists, epidemiologists, and photographers. Public health is as much a cultural issue as a medical issue as an everything issue, because ultimately it is about protecting populations and thus—more simply—people.”

I would like to thank Andrew Fisher and Kelly Cordeira, my direct supervisors at the CDC. I would also like to thank the Dr. Nick Wright ’57, Nina Smith, and Dr. Wences Arvelo for helping arrange my stay at the CDC. Finally, I want to thank the Williams College ’68 Center for Career Exploration and the Class of 1972 for supporting this experience. Thanks to everybody’s kindness, I was able to direct my academic pursuits toward inspiring the future of public health. Gravity may act again, and I hope to return to CDC soon.