Mattie was an invited speaker at the Gordon Research Conference Tropical Infectious Diseases: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Advance Tropical Infectious Diseases Health Technologies. I talked about our work done in collaboration with Dr. Susan Wyllie and her lab on “Creating a Comprehensive Mode-Of-Action Toolkit to Enable Cryptosporidium Drug Discovery”. I presented work from Jack Hanna’s time as a PhD student, supported by Simona, Victor Corpas-Lopez, and the rest of the lab.
The conference was originally scheduled for May 2020, so it was really fantastic to finally get to go! The organizers invited such a broad range of speakers, I learned a lot and came away with tons of new ideas.
I’d like to especially thank the Gordon Research conference and Wellcome Trust ISSF dependent care fund for financial support. This made it possible for me to bring Clark with me on the trip. He is still so little, so being able to bring him along made it easier for me to participate in this first conference since returning from maternity leave.
Since the meeting was held in Galveston, Texas it was the perfect opportunity to take a bit of time visiting family, friends, and colleagues.
I gave a seminar at her alma mater, Texas Tech University and got to meet with HHMI Undergraduate Research Scholars (Mattie was an alumni from 2006-2009).
It was a real thrill to share a seminar slot with Dr. Saba Nafees. She was an undergraduate researcher in the same program while I was finishing my PhD. Saba was in town to accept a “Rising Innovator” Award from Texas Tech University College of Arts and Sciences. It was great to hear about her research working at the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, and about her advocacy projects.
I got to catch-up with Julie Isom, the woman who has kept the CISER undergraduate research program alive for the last 24 years, even after HHMI stopped funding the program in 2014. Julie is such a huge supporter of research and the impact it can have on future generations. It was so great to discuss what I have been up to since leaving Texas Tech almost 10 years ago now!
Also I got a chance to catch-up with my undergraduate/PhD advisor Professor Kai Zhang and his family.
Looking forward to more traveling post pandemic, reconnecting with colleagues, and gaining new research ideas and collaborations!
Pawlowic Lab 