First Day at WHO

I officially work at WHO! I have the badge to prove it and everything. Okay, so today actually wasn't a very exciting day. Mostly administrative things --- figuring out where everything is, setting up my work computer and email account, and getting the paperwork together for my carte de légitimation (a legitimation card is issued to personnel of international organizations based in Switzerland instead of a residence/working permit).

As previously mentioned, I work in the Department of Immunizations, Vaccines, and Biologicals (IVB) at WHO. When Jill and I arrived this morning, we met Jill's mentor, Pem Namgyal, with whom Jill is working on a dengue surveillance study --- and he took us to the weekly Monday morning IVB meeting. IVB is made up of 3 groups --- EPI (Expanded Program on Immunization) which focuses on routine immunizations/licensed vaccines, QSS (Quality and Safety Standards) which focuses on, surprise, quality and safety standards of vaccines, and IVR (Initiative for Vaccine Research) which focuses on research of new and developing vaccines. Jill and I are both working for IVR (Victor and Jennifer, the other Hopkins students at WHO, are working for QSS and EPI, respectively). Pem introduced us to the rest of IVB at this morning's meeting, and based on the updates and discussion that followed, I am definitely hoping that I get to chat with the rest of IVB at some point and absorb more of their incredible knowledge. The whole department is not very large --- it looked like there were only 20 people. I know that IVR is just 7 people (down from 15 last year due to recent shifts at the WHO for economic reasons), anyway.

My mentor, Dr. Raymond Hutubessy, arrived late to the meeting, but we got to meet afterward and he took Jill and I down to the M building cafeteria for coffee (as opposed to the main building cafeteria which is where many people eat lunch, as we did today). We visited for a little while and also chatted with another researcher named John (not sure of last name...) who is IVB's expert on the influenza vaccine. Unfortunately, Raymond was pretty busy today (apparently he is in charge of an upcoming conference in late September which I am expected to attend and possibly help run) so we weren't able to discuss my project --- but tomorrow I will go to a WHO library orientation in the morning and hopefully speak with him in the afternoon. I am really looking forward to getting started on my research soon!

I wanted to take more "first day" pictures today, but I completely forgot about that plan once I arrived, but I did at least manage the following shot at the end of the day:

Yes, I am wearing hose and, yes, I did rip them in three places in one day. Luckily, WHO is not formal enough that I need to continue to wear hose every day. But better to be overdressed than underdressed on your first day, I always say!