A number of Fellows and alumni of Queens' have been involved in the fight against COVID-19, from providing expert advice to the Department of Health to working on the frontline in hospitals and producing materials to educate the public on various aspects of the disease.
Professor Julia Gog, David N. Moore Fellow in Mathematics and Professor in Mathematical Biology, specialises in using mathematical techniques to address scientific questions with the aim of understanding infectious diseases. She has been seconded to the Department of Health to assist in the mapping of the COVID-19 outbreak. Professor Gog was interviewed in The Bridge a few years ago on her research into the spread of influenza and her work as Director of Studies of Mathematics students at Queens'.
Dr Chris Smith, a consultant clinical virologist, has been recording weekly podcasts answering questions on the virus and disease. Last Saturday’s podcast covered themes of contact tracing, herd immunity and facemask use.
A number of our medical Fellows and students are also involved in the efforts, with Dr Paul Bambrough at the Royal Papworth Hospital and Dr Anna Paterson at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Medicine alumnus Dr Charlie Bell (2008, now Fellow of Girton College) is currently the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow at the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee at the UK Parliament, leading on their coronavirus work. The committee holds the government and government agencies to account, and Dr Bell's role is to brief MPs, engage with ministers and external stakeholders, and work very closely with the Chair, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP.
Engineering PhD student Rob Glew is leading a small team of dedicated volunteers building flexible equipment warehouses at one of the Colleges to handle PPE for local hospitals. Further afield, biosciences PhD student Fabio Formenti was due to be returning to Cambridge recently, but, due to his work in a diagnostic molecular biology laboratory in Italy, he has stayed to help run the COVID-19 testing. Anyone who can offer PPE donations can get in touch with the University's COVID-19 response team on by email.
In another field, president-elect Dr Mohamed El-Erian (1977) has written features and given interviews regularly on the economic impact of the outbreak. A couple of his weeks ago, his column outlined the four key things to know now.
We are sure that a great many Queens’ alumni will be working to combat this pandemic across the healthcare professions and in more varied fields, too. From all of us at Queens’, we send our best wishes for your good health and our heartfelt thanks for all your efforts. If you might have a chance to let us know what you have been doing, the College would be delighted to hear from you; please do send us an email.