\u201cUConn is really my home,\u201d said Yashan Zhang.<\/p>\n
She lives in Farmington \u2013 just minutes from UConn Health \u2013 and she\u2019s an assistant professor in residence in the Chemistry Department on UConn\u2019s Hartford Campus. She\u2019s also Chinese, though she\u2019s been in Connecticut and part of the UConn community for the past 13 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started my PhD here in the Chemistry Department, and then I got my PhD and I got a job here,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been at UConn for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Zhang, it feels like the coronavirus pandemic has hit home twice: first, as it threatened her family and friends still living in China, and now, as its impact grows daily in the United States. It\u2019s overwhelming for her at times \u2013 her voice fills with emotion when she talks about images of doctors forced to wear makeshift personal protective equipment, or to use the same protective mask for their whole shift. The daily reports of increasing positive cases of COVID-19 are tough for her to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day I see the numbers,\u201d she said. \u201cI always feel like, behind those numbers, they are actual, real people. That just makes me feel really sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
But like so many, it\u2019s also empowered her to take action to help her neighbors and her UConn community \u2013 and her determination to help inspired a recent campus-wide effort to help support the doctors, nurses, and medical staff on the frontlines of the pandemic at UConn Health.<\/p>\n