Steve Haase received the 2021 Dean’s Leadership Award for his work as part of Duke’s COVID-19 response team!
Steve is an essential member of the team that shaped Duke’s COVID-19 response and, in particular, organized and monitored our surveillance testing program, which at its peak included a dozen self-administered test sites serving undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff.
Before vaccines were available, the use of surveillance testing and rapid turnaround of test results was credited with keeping infections low.
The data produced at those sites – routed through Steve and his colleagues for analysis and modeling – was invaluable in guiding university decisions throughout the pandemic.
As an example, in June 2021 they elected to continue surveillance testing of students and the university community despite a significant decline in cases. At the time, Duke was the only university to do so, but with the arrival of Delta in September last year, many others followed suit – and quickly.
