{"id":65172,"date":"2017-12-22T16:39:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T20:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=65172"},"modified":"2022-10-21T14:40:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T18:40:34","slug":"oliver-mcrae-eng19-takes-his-research-to-the-cdc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2017\/12\/22\/oliver-mcrae-eng19-takes-his-research-to-the-cdc\/","title":{"rendered":"Oliver McRae (ENG’19) takes his research to the CDC"},"content":{"rendered":"

What first began as a foray into the world of biology quickly changed into mechanical engineering for graduate student Oliver McRae (ENG\u201919). His time at BUMechE and as a student researcher in Prof. Jacy Bird\u2019s Fluid Lab have landed him a sought-after NSF internship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Cincinnati, Ohio.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"oliverphoto\"Oliver McRae first came to BU in 2008 as a fresh-faced biology student on the pre-med track, but two years into the program, realized he wanted to switch gears and explore his options in engineering. While switching majors halfway through his program would prove to be difficult, McRae instead decided to finish up and pursue his engineering dreams in grad school\u2013a wise decision, since he\u2019s managed to use his combined knowledge to benefit his research. Before his junior year, he went back home to Jamaica for an internship with Red Stripe, Jamaica\u2019s largest brewery, where he rediscovered his interest in engineering. \u201cI was in the risk management and environmental monitoring department, but kept finding myself going over to the engineering department on a daily basis,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter a few weeks, they decided it would be best if I switched to the engineering department full time, since they saw how quickly I was able to contribute, and how much I enjoyed it. That internship made me realize that engineering was definitely what I wanted to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n

McRae spent two summers at Red Stripe, and eventually came back to finish his undergraduate degree and move on to grad school, which is how he found himself in Prof. Jacy Bird\u2019s Fluid Lab. He says, \u201cWhen I first came to Jacy\u2019s lab, it had no biology component, but the lab just happened to start working on a project with a biotech company. We started looking at fluid stresses and mammalian cells, which is when my biology background really helped.\u201d Over time, he plans to look at the intersection between fluid mechanics and biology, bridging the gap between these two fields.<\/p>\n

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“When I first came to Jacy\u2019s lab, it had no biology component, but the lab just happened to start working on a project with a biotech company. We started looking at fluid stresses and mammalian cells, which is when my biology background really helped.”<\/h3>\n
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In Fall 2017, McRae was awarded the opportunity to pursue an internship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Cincinnati, a setting he describes as \u201cquite different, a lot more regimented in comparison to academia\u201d. So far, though, he managed to find himself in a good spot, with friendly folks who stress on the importance of collaboration. \u201cEven though everyone\u2019s working on a lot of different projects, there\u2019s a lot of overlap, and people are popping in and out of each other\u2019s offices every now and then. Generally, it\u2019s an encouraging atmosphere, and I\u2019m happy to be here,\u201d he states.<\/p>\n

According to McRae, one of the CDC\u2019s greatest strengths is their mission to improve public health. The CDC tends to be very applied, since they must focus on helping as many people as possible, and understanding how diseases affect people reasonably quickly. However, on the other end of the spectrum, engineers in academia often focus on the more fundamental and basic side of research. \u201cWhen we work on a project and try to understand what governs a particular phenomenon,\u201d McRae explains, \u201cWe might motivate it by suggesting ways it might later be used, but we may not necessarily have that direct connection when we\u2019re doing the research. The CDC is the complete opposite. What\u2019s great about this internship is that we\u2019re able to take what we do best in Prof. Bird\u2019s lab\u2013which is try to understand at the most fundamental level what governs some of these mechanisms\u2013and see how we can best help the CDC with their models.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“What\u2019s great about this internship is that we\u2019re able to take what we do best in Prof. Bird\u2019s lab\u2013which is try to understand at the most fundamental level what governs some of these mechanisms\u2013and see how we can best help the CDC with their models.”<\/h3>\n
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McRae works in the Division of Applied Research and Technology at the CDC, wherein his particular group looks at aerosol transmission of both solid aerosols like dust and other particulates, and liquid aerosols and pathogen-laden droplets. While in the lab, he tends to look at a lot of bursting bubbles that can create jet droplets, the tiny droplets one might see or feel above a glass of soda. So, he and the members of his team are combining their knowledge to work on aerosol transmission modeling. He states, \u201cWhat I\u2019m working on is looking at how pathogens\u2014viruses and bacteria\u2014get loaded into these jet droplets, and then calculating the number of these droplets that are created, along with their size. For their models, the CDC needs to know how many of these are created per minute, or per cough or per flush, and their size distribution.\u201d He adds, \u201cWith their focus being more applied, they tend to use more general assumptions from published research, whereas we want to give them a number that\u2019s going to change based on temperature, humidity, and other factors so that their modeling can be even more accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, McRae is working on a set of simulations using computational fluid dynamics to look at how bubble size and fluid properties are going to govern the stresses created in the liquid around these bubbles. \u201cWe don\u2019t just want to look at the volume of fluid going into these droplets, but also at the stress history in these droplets, because that\u2019ll affect the bacterial viability. This will help give the CDC a more accurate picture of how these pathogens are actually being transmitted,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

McRae credits a lot of his research success to Prof. Jacy Bird. When asked about his experience working in the Fluid Lab, he says, \u201cIt\u2019s such a great work environment. I always think our lab is more like a family and not a group of co-workers. Jacy never pressures us to work long hours, but we end up being in the lab all the time anyway, because we love what we\u2019re working on. He always says we\u2019re the lab\u2019s greatest assets, so anything that we need to make our time there better, he\u2019ll provide for us. It\u2019s truly a joy to work in Jacy\u2019s lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“I always think our lab is more like a family and not a group of co-workers.”<\/h3>\n
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While he plans to graduate in 2019, McRae looks forward to continuing this research during a postdoc, and hopes to pursue a professorship. This experience has shown him that there\u2019s many things in the field researchers are unaware of, assume, or don\u2019t have answers to\u2013and it\u2019s not because some of this information is inaccurate, but because there\u2019s room for improvement. He\u2019s set on continuing to understand the interplay between fluid dynamics and biology, and to look at how fluid mechanics will influence the natural world. \u201cFor me, this is a career move as opposed to being part of my next project. Next, I want to analyze airborne disease transmissions\u2013look at how pathogens are loaded into the droplets of respiratory aerosols when we cough and sneeze. This isn\u2019t just the next few months, but hopefully decades of my research career,\u201d he states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What first began as a foray into the world of biology quickly changed into mechanical engineering for graduate student Oliver McRae (ENG\u201919). His time at BUMechE and as a student researcher in Prof. Jacy Bird\u2019s Fluid Lab have landed him a sought-after NSF internship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Cincinnati, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,908],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131295,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65172\/revisions\/131295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}