Letisha Wyatt

Data-handling and data-sharing are an essential part of the research endeavor, yet most trainees learn how to do it through trial and error. Before I went to graduate school, I worked at a contract research organization supporting data management and sharing for clinical trials across the United States.

Letisha R. Wyatt, is associate professor of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Southern California in 2013. Her graduate and postdoctoral research focused on purinergic signaling in the central nervous system as a molecular target for new treatments for alcoholism and stroke.

Much of life in the U.S. in the next year — our ability to send our kids to school, return to work fully and travel — depends on our ability to test, manufacture and distribute an effective COVID-19 vaccine. But while such a vaccine is universally needed, the virus has had a disproportionately heavy toll on some Americans.