Nancy is a student at NYU GPH and was originally a business major but has dedicated a lot of her spare time volunteering and encouraging her family to volunteer. She first started working in the engineering department at Florida Atlantic University and then moved on to become the Associate Vice Provost for Research here at NYU. Her career in research administration supporting faculty and researchers across the disciplines spans 30 years. Nancy works with researchers to develop and submit grant proposals, negotiate the terms and conditions of contracts, ensures investigator and university-wide compliance with regulatory requirements, and facilitates the dissemination of research results, all leading to discoveries and advancements that benefit the scientific community and the public.
With the progression of the pandemic, she was inspired to take a 3 month accelerated course offered by the Smithtown local fire department to become an EMT. Simultaneously, she came across and became interested in the Advanced Certificate in Public Health Disaster Science, Policy and Practice after repeated reports of the pandemic and climate change have taken light in the news. In this opportunity, she is trying to combine her experience in research and volunteering to be in a better position to improve herself and her own communities’ disaster preparedness and response. She is looking for ways to apply the knowledge she is learning from the various courses into practice. She recounts her first experience with the field when the pandemic first struck, and her department’s Vice Provost was faced with the task of keeping the work going, protecting human and animal subject research, while maintaining the safety of everyone.
Watch the interview here.