Montclair State alumni and students have been working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. As the global pandemic rapidly changes the nature of our daily work, many have been serving their communities with a heightened sense of urgency and purpose. We invite you to read about the amazing work that some of our alumni and students are conducting in an effort to control the accelerating outbreak.<\/p>\n
Acing the Test – Montclair State alumna helps develop critical at-home self-collection kit for LabCorp\u2019s COVID-19 diagnostic test<\/strong><\/p>\n Julia Dondero \u201914 has been working behind-the-scenes to bring a new at-home self-collection kit for LabCorp\u2019s COVID-19 diagnostic test into the hands of the health-care workers and first responders who need it the most.<\/p>\n Dondero leads the molecular diagnostics department at LabCorp\u2019s Raritan, New Jersey, lab, where she was able to rapidly scale up and validate an at-home collection kit that was the first authorized for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m a nerd who is into biology, but when I first learned about the coronavirus, I immediately thought, \u2018I have a feeling a few months from now, I\u2019m going to be testing this by the thousands.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As the pandemic intensified with calls for more COVID-19 testing, Dondero has worked around the clock, overseeing the at-home collection kit\u2019s validation on various platforms and running samples to ensure the accuracy of results at multiple test sites. Read the full story.<\/a><\/p>\n Racing Against Time – Montclair State\u2019s MIX Lab is innovating to deliver thousands of face shields<\/strong><\/p>\n When Montclair State\u2019s MIX Lab team started producing face shields on 3D printers amid the growing COVID-19 pandemic, they quickly realized it wasn\u2019t enough. The team needed to figure out how to make more \u2013 and fast.<\/p>\n \u201cThe need for PPE (personal protective equipment) is at scale,\u201d says Iain Kerr, co-director of the MIX Lab and professor of Innovation Design. Kerr reports that in northern New Jersey alone, the demand is for hundreds of thousands of face shields, if not more.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. needs 3.5 billion masks. And this region \u2013 the megalopolis from Boston to Washington, D.C. \u2013 needs over 200 million shields,\u201d says Kerr. \u201c3D printing 350 a day was not the way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n The MIX Lab, founded in 2015 and housed in ÌÇÐÄvlog\u2019s Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (FCE&I), is a facility where students and community members work together to solve problems using innovation and digitally mediated \u201cmaking\u201d \u2013 aka 3D printing. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fighting COVID-19, One Stitch at a Time – Fashion Studies alumni and students rally to help make face masks<\/strong><\/p>\n Since coming home in early March from deployment in Kuwait, U.S. Army Specialist Awilda Quezada Puntiel \u201918 continues to serve her country \u2013 these days with an army of Americans sewing masks to fight the spread of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n The mask makers, which include Fashion Studies alumni and students, are a bright spot amid the global pandemic, their sense of duty and colorful cotton creations shoring up the medical front lines running low of personal protective equipment.<\/p>\n Making the masks has been therapeutic for Quezada, who says it gives her a renewed sense of purpose. She left Kuwait just before the coronavirus outbreak prompted the U.S. military to order troops scheduled to return home to stay where they are.<\/p>\n While grateful to be home, Quezada says the crisis and self-isolating left her feeling disconnected \u2013 until she answered the call from a college friend who knows Quezada can sew, asking her to unpack her sewing machine. Read the full story.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n On the Front Lines of the Coronavirus Crisis – Graduate students, alumni play role in public health emergency<\/strong><\/p>\n With the rapid spread of the coronavirus and government orders to stay home, public health alumni and graduate students at ÌÇÐÄvlog find themselves in the center of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, calming frightened residents, tracing the contacts of the ill, and working to control the accelerating outbreak.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you work for a health department, you truly drop everything else and a situation like this becomes the sole priority for everyone. It\u2019s all hands on deck,\u201d said Layal Helwani, a health educator for the Clifton Health Department.<\/p>\n Helwani is a graduate student in the Master of Public Health (MPH). The program, marking its 10th year, is at the forefront of the crisis, providing education, commentary, leadership and comfort both on and off campus. Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n