Alumni Respond to COVID Crisis
On March 29, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported that Dean Kamen ’73 and teams at DEKA Research and Development Corp. are “spinning in a dozen different directions” to help manufacture and move supplies. Two weeks later, the paper featured a photo of Kamen with a FedEx cargo plane arriving with 91,000 pounds of protective equipment from Shanghai. The haul included 6.6 million masks, 50,000 face shields, and 24,000 Tyvek coveralls. Kamen enlisted the help of DEKA employees living in China to procure the supplies, which he pre-paid, to be purchased and distributed by the state. His business associate, FedEx CEO and Chairman Fred Smith, helped expedite air transport. The paper also reported on Kamen’s efforts to leverage the young minds and hands of FIRST robotics teams to build ventilators and compile plans into an open-source file for FIRST teams around the world. He said, “The whole FIRST community is used to getting an impossible problem statement, an incredibly short amount of time to deliver a working solution, and to do it in a way that while their robots are competing, the community is working together and sharing.”
Trustee Steve Rusckowski ’79 is chairman, president, and CEO of Quest Diagnostics. In March, two days before COVID-19 was labeled a worldwide pandemic, Quest introduced a new test for the qualitative detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2 in upper and lower respiratory specimens, having received emergency use authorization from the FDA. As of mid-April, the company had performed more than 900,000 COVID-19 tests, with a capacity for 50,000 tests a day. Priority 1 patients (per CDC guidance) receive results in under a day; for all other patients, the average turnaround time is less than two days.
Marc Trudeau ’81 offered “In This Together,” a series of online Open Space gatherings around the question, “How will we, the WPI community, support each other through this difficult time?” Reporting that he experienced a roller coaster ride of emotions, he invited all those with a passion to connect with and learn from each other to participate. The agenda for the first event, on April 3, included sessions on learning in crisis, inner reflection, and one called “How do we leverage energy + brilliant minds of students to solve challenges around COVID-19?”
Wachusett Brewing Co., led by founder/CEO Ned LaFortune ’90, released a new brew, Glory American IPA, to raise money for United Way COVID-19 relief efforts in Central Massachusetts and the MetroWest region. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that it had been in testing for six months and was expected to be the company’s big beer of the year. Rather than delay the release for better times, the brewery partnered with Atlas Distributing on a timely fundraising effort. Proceeds from the sales of Glory IPA will benefit the United Way of North Central Massachusetts Stand United Fund, the United Way of Tri-County Community Response Fund, and “Worcester Together,” a joint effort between the United Way of Central Massachusetts and the Greater Worcester Community Foundation.
Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass ’90 elected to not take a salary as thousands of the retailer’s employees were put on furlough. “It is an incredibly difficult decision to extend our store closures and temporarily furlough some of our associates,” she said in an announcement. “We look forward to the day that we can reopen our stores to welcome our associates back and serve the millions of families across the country that shop Kohl’s.”
Mike Titus ’01 is associate director of manufacturing sciences and technology at Moderna Therapeutics, where an mRNA-1273 vaccine has been developed against the novel coronavirus. While a commercially available vaccine is not likely to be available for general use this year, an NIH-led Phase 1 study on human volunteers is underway. The company received an award from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a part of the U.S. Health and Human Services department, for up to $483 million to accelerate development and FDA licensure—and to scale up manufacturing processes to enable large-scale production for pandemic response.
DraftKings Inc., co-founded by Paul Lieberman ’05, who holds the post of president, global technology, announced a new charity initiative to mobilize sports fans to band together “in the spirit of triumphing over adversity.” The fantasy sports company committed $500,000 and challenged fans to double it by posting pictures and videos of themselves “rockin’ your favorite rally cap” on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. DraftKings pledged to donate $1 to United Way for every post with the hashtag #DKRally, until the $1 million mark is reached.
Isabella Mendes Lira ’06 writes, “With all that has been happening with COVID-19, many students don’t have much access to education, or have very limited instruction. To provide some career inspiration, I am streaming a “Meet an Engineer” series that is open to all from my Facebook page, IMMSTEAM Education. My hope is to bring awareness of STEM fields to children, mainly at the elementary level, as they are natural problem solvers, but also to show the importance of the arts in the STEM fields. In fact, many of my piano students have a natural interest for building and creativity. I have also founded IMMusic, my online studio, where I teach, perform, and do educational workshops. In addition, I am working with Lessonface, an online school (where my husband is the producer), offering STEM Mondays through its ‘Go Classes’ program.”
Lizzy De Zulueta ’12 joined up with The Ventilator Project, “a rapid and scalable solution to solve the global ventilator shortage.” The effort has built an army of engineers (250 as of mid-April) recruited to prototype a low-cost ventilator for global distribution, using alternative materials to circumvent the medical supply chain and rapidly mass-produce the ventilators. Lizzy is CEO of Zulubots Inc.
Marc Printz ’19, community manager of the WorcLab incubator, tapped the entrepreneur group’s lab capabilities (along with volunteer help from member companies and partners, such as Growbox, Revolution Factory, and Case Assembly Solutions) to 3D print face shields and N95 masks for local hospitals. The effort includes Nathan Rosenberg ’19 and Ethan Merrill ’20, who is a lab assistant in WPI’s Rapid Prototyping Lab. “In speaking to one local hospital we’ve found that they need over 840 face shields and will run out of N95 masks this week!” Printz said in a recent appeal to the WPI community. With donations from their GoFundMe campaign, they are purchasing materials and upping printer capacity to turn out hundreds of masks and face shields per week.
Tell us about your own COVID response work at classnotes@wpi.edu