Diana LeeWhen her classes moved online, pharmacy student Diana Lee organized a phone-a-friend program to connect Tar Heels with some of the residents most impacted by social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders: senior citizens.
Tar Heels join the fight
Students respond to the
COVID-19 pandemic
Over the past several months, Tar Heels have stepped up to address the challenges our communities face because of the novel coronavirus. Students quickly utilized their skills to support health care workers, researchers and community members impacted by COVID-19.
Medical students tackled their course work and launched PPE production lines in Carolina’s makerspaces or fired up their own 3-D printers to create brackets to secure health care workers’ masks. Other students launched community support programs to alleviate the loneliness that came with social distancing and created donation chains to get equipment to UNC Hospitals.
Everybody is trying to do as much as they can to help out. A lot of people have basically taken on a brand-new full-time job in addition to the full-time job of being a med student. If we can’t be working with patients and other clinicians in the hospital and the clinic, we wanted to try to put 100% of that energy in something really useful.
Alex Gregor, UNC School of Medicine student
Meet a
Tar Heel
Click on a story to learn how a current Carolina student is making a difference during the pandemic.
Becky HooverTo aid Carolina’s health care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Becky Hoover, a first-year doctoral student in the UNC School of Nursing, is working overtime night shifts as a bedside oncology nurse at UNC Hospitals.
Alec FieldsWhen the COVID-19 pandemic began, second-year physician assistant studies student Alec Fields began to use his 3D printer to create much-needed brackets for personal protective equipment for health care providers in eastern North Carolina.
Supporting frontline workers
FashionMash raises awareness, funds
Hussman School of Journalism and Media students launched Fluidity Designs, a collection of athleisure designed to empower positivity and raise awareness of the pandemic.
What they’re trained for
Biomedical engineers at Carolina and NC State respond to COVID-19 by teaming to speed the development of an emergency ventilator
International students and families donate masks to UNC Hospitals
A group of parents of international undergraduate and graduate students, as well as parents of Carolina alumni, are donating nearly 100,000 masks to support North Carolina's health care workers.
Students, biomedical engineers, designers create masks to protect pediatric patients
The UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering created task forces of students, faculty and designers to make about 1,000 pediatric masks for UNC Health in just over a week.
School of Medicine students rally to help health care workers
From making PPE to organizing child care, UNC School of Medicine students are organizing volunteer projects all with one aim – help hospitals safely and effectively combat COVID-19.
‘There’s work to be done’
Tar Heels have teamed up with Carolina’s makerspaces and experts from NC State and Duke University to produces 40,000 face shields for health care workers on the frontlines of the pandemic.