Conversations on COVID: How science, data can inform personal choices during the pandemic

In June 2020, Emily Oster participated in a Q&A on her co-creation of the new website COVID Explained.

Driven to make a positive impact through her research like so many scholars in the Brown community, Emily Oster wanted to do more to help members of the public. Whether parents or not, she has helped the community understand the basic principles of the virus, including how it spreads and what people can do to protect themselves and their loved ones. So she partnered with Galit Alter, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, to create the website COVID Explained, a no-nonsense guide to understanding, navigating and protecting oneself from COVID-19. Together with students, faculty and staff at Brown, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities, Oster and Alter have built a practical resource aimed at anyone and everyone, in the U.S. and beyond.