21/07/2020
Pennsylvania State University - travel report from Antal Martinecz
I have spent the period between August 2019 and July 2020 at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the US. This has been partially funded using travel grants from the IBA and NFIF PhD schools.
Penn State is located in a tiny university town called State College which is a remote place a couple hundred kilometers from the nearest big city. Even with my previous experience of living in a university town (Tromsø), many aspects of living there were unexpected and were often a pleasant surprise. Here, basically all services are aimed at people affiliated with the university. The extent of this is illustrated by the fact that even at local supermarkets such as Walmart, there is usually a large section where one can buy clothes and other things with the university’s or the university football team’s logo on it.
My PhD is on the mathematical modeling of antibiotic treatments. Specifically, I am interested in approaches that allow us to learn more from clinical trials and therefore better guide the design of subsequent clinical trials. As a result, my work requires me to be familiar with and connect multiple fields of research (medicine, microbiology, mathematics, epidemiology). Therefor,e being part of the Centre of Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) Penn State was hugely beneficial for my work. CIDD houses groups from different departments and faculties in order to facilitate better collaboration between us. The mixing of groups were further encouraged by intentionally seating people from different groups into the same offices. This has been a great experience, as it exposed me to ideas and researches to other related fields that helped me to gain some perspectives on my own research. Among other benefits, having these interactions taught me how to explain my research in a way that can be understood by other researchers that are not close to my field. Being able to do so made writing my PhD thesis and manuscripts so much easier. Finally, at CIDD we had regular department-wide meetings and presentations 2-3 times a week on various research-related topics either by invited speakers or P*s within the department. This allowed me to learn more about works within my field, as well as the types of problems there are and how they are solved in fields loosely related to mine.
In addition to having one of the best infectious disease departments in the US (among other great departments), the university has the informal reputation of being one of the best party universities. This does not mean that there are constant wild parties, it simply means that the campus life is vibrant. There are many social events and other activities throughout the year catering to students and staff allowing everyone to have a satisfying social life in addition to their studies and work.
Having a great community at the department also meant that I could make many new friends and form new connections. The department encouraged this further by organizing weekly coffee mornings and other regular informal events where we could chat and get to know our colleagues outside the context of work.
This travel report would not be complete without mentioning COVID-19. The department and the university went into a lockdown from early March and as a result, I have spent my last four months within in my apartment. It has been quite manageable as the university is surrounded by nature so I could always go for a run or a walk. Furthermore, online services such as food delivery, shopping and grocery delivery options are abundant. Therefore I could slowly assemble a home office and get back to work slowly and quickly regain a sense of normalcy in my life. Finally, in the US, therapy is also very common and readily available currently in the form of online sessions due to the pandemic. As a result, I have been able to weather the pandemic and lockdown without anxieties or adverse effects on my mental health. This even included being able to easily prepare for and defend my PhD remotely in the beginning of June.
