Hello from the Heartland. My name is Jenna, and this is Smarter News, news when it matters and why it matters.

Our Smarter series features unique people who help us think and live smarter.

Tens of millions of children attend school in America every year. About 60 million kids attend K through 12th grades. And another approximately 20 million people will attend college, which means about one in four people in America are students. And figuring out how to safely return to school during the COVID-19 pandemic is really a puzzle.

It's important, not just for kids, by the way, but for the community overall. And that's why I really

wanted to speak to our next guest, who, along with her team, has developed a model to try to estimate

COVID-19 cases in schools. And I'm not going to go much further because I actually would like her to explain it

because it's a really nice honor and privilege to have her.

Professor Lauren Myers is at the University of Texas Austin.

One of her areas of expertise is to uncover the social and biological drivers of epidemics and build tools to help us all track

and mitigate viral threats, which sounds ideal at this time, Professor Myers. Tell us a little bit.

You actually lead a team that's really focused on COVID-19. Tell us a little bit about that.

Sure, and thank you for having me today.

I read something called the University of Texas COVID-19 modeling consortium, and it's dozens of

researchers that come from many different disciplines that are all united in the effort to

bring the best data, the brain being the best science, bring the best models to the decision

makers at the front line who are charged with keeping our communities, keeping our students,

keeping our cities safe and healthy. How did you get into this line of work? So I have been an

epidemic modeler and a pandemic modeler for over two decades.

I started my career as a math major and a philosophy major in college.

In graduate school, I studied biology.

And then as a postdoctoral researcher, I happened into a project where I assisted the CDC and helping them figure out how to control outbreaks of respiratory diseases in nursing homes.

And that sort of opened up the world to me of using math to help solve problems around infectious diseases,

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