Photography: Meron Menghistab

A Day in the Life of a Scientist in the Coronavirus Vaccine Race

Immunologist and new mother Megan O’Connor works nonstop to help her team move their Covid-19 vaccine forward

Around mid-March, when the novel coronavirus was beginning to make its way through the U.S., Megan O’Connor had just returned to work after six months of maternity leave.

Even in the weeks after she had her baby daughter, O’Connor, an immunologist, hadn’t stopped working. “Science doesn’t stop just because you are on a break,” she says. In spare moments while taking care of her newborn, O’Connor spent time at home analyzing experimental data and writing grants. Maternity leave felt isolating for her, and O’Connor says she was eager to go back to work and reclaim her identity as a scientist.

O’Connor works from home as much as possible to maximize the time spent with her daughter.

For the last four years, O’Connor has been a postdoctoral researcher in Deborah Fuller’s lab at the University of Washington in Seattle. Fuller focuses a large part of her research on…