A fellow in the CDC’s Laboratory Leadership Service program said she has learned and grown a great deal during her time with the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory at UNMC.
Casey Field, PhD, who entered the Laboratory Leadership Service fellowship program in 2024 as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, is over halfway through the two-year postdoctoral service-learning program that combines core public health laboratory competency-based training with practical, applied investigations and service.
This fellowship is designed to provide training in the competencies required to lead a public health lab or program, to include applied laboratory research, quality management, biosafety, leadership, communication and bioinformatics. Fellows learn through service and hands-on assignments under mentors and supervisors and complete 10 core activities of learning that develop skill and proficiency in each domain.
Leadership training and opportunities are woven throughout the training competencies and projects. Fellows conduct applied laboratory research to address a public health or safety-related issue, assess laboratory quality management systems, conduct a laboratory safety risk assessment, give scientific presentations and write a first-author scientific manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal.
Dr. Field got her doctorate at Penn State University in molecular, cellular and integrative biosciences.
“Things I focused on during my PhD included high-consequence pathogen work, using biosafety-level 3 laboratory containment to include work with the avian influenza virus and with SARS-CoV-2. One reason I ranked Nebraska as my No. 1 pick was because of the Global Center for Health Security and the associations with the Biocontainment Unit and the National Quarantine Unit on the UNMC campus. These complemented my interest in infectious diseases and HCPs, that particularly drew me in. While here in training, I’ve had the opportunity to tour those facilities, which was super valuable to me.”
Peter Iwen, PhD, director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory, said: “Casey has been a great addition to our laboratory. She is the first LLS fellow that we have had the opportunity to train, and we have learned much about how the CDC provides training for the next leaders in public health. Additionally, her expertise has been invaluable to the NPHL operations, and we are fortunate to have her as a colleague/trainee in our laboratory.”
Dr. Field said she recently had the opportunity to write a continuity of operations plan for the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory. “They don’t teach you how to do that sort of thing in graduate school. So that’s been brand-new to me, and there’s been a lot of stuff I’ve done here that is outside my wheelhouse. But that has pushed me out of my comfort zone, forced me to try new things, learn something new and develop new skills, which is really what the fellowship is all about. So I’m definitely grateful to the team here at NPHL for providing those opportunities so I can learn and grow.”
Dr. Field said that when her fellowship is over, she would like to find a public health lab position as a quality manager or biosafety officer. The CDC says that over 90% of program graduates remain in public health, and the majority accept positions with the CDC. The program doesn’t guarantee employment but offers support to second-year fellows to network, identify available positions, and submit applications.
“They train us to be well prepared to find a job after the fellowship,” she said.