Community Response to COVID-19 People across the globe continued to come together this year to address the COVID-19 pandemic. At Tufts, students were invited to return to campus in person and students, faculty, and staff completed a successful academic year with the use of new protocols like testing, physical distancing, face coverings, and vaccination. With some students unable to return to campus or needing to isolate after exposure to COVID-19, faculty quickly adapted to offer hybrid classes with both in-person and virtual elements. From Zoom discussion pods and Slack chats to make-at-home kits to podcasts and videos, faculty and students got creative this year. The School of Engineering community continued to give back and to conduct research related to COVID-19. Professor Helen Suh of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) led a study of camps for children that remained open during the summer of 2020, to determine the effectiveness of everyday measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 among children and staff within camp environments. The researchers found that face coverings were key and that coronavirus spread reflected community spread. MS student Tom Ribeiro of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and colleagues developed an award-winning app to help users understand their risk of contracting COVID-19. The team’s app, called Covis, won first place in two rounds of the MIT COVID-19 Challenge’s Beat the Pandemic I and II — virtual hackathons that addressed pressing issues rising from the COVID-19 crisis. Helen Suh
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2021 Annual Report | School of Engineering
