My name is Bijan Godarzi, and I was born in Germany but grew up mostly in California. Following my BSc in Biochemistry at University of California, Santa Cruz, I worked at a small biotech company in San Diego. It was at Arcturus that I developed most of my skills and interests. I really enjoyed wet lab work and became interested in virology. To further develop my interests, I applied and was accepted in the MSc in Biomolecular Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I wanted to continue to live in Europe again and was eager to try and find a PhD position in The Netherlands specifically. I had enjoyed my time here immensely and during my Containment Strategies course, I was introduced to the OHPACT research program and found the idea of a multidisciplinary study quite appealing. I applied, and was accepted, into track 22 with Andrea Gröne in Utrecht as my supervisor. My project will be concerned with developing serological tools for surveillance across multiple species. I hope to use this experience in developing rapid response assays in the future by developing assays that will be useful for nurses, doctors, and other aid workers in the field. I also look forward to meeting so many researchers from different fields and expanding my understanding of the problems we all face together.

Otherwise, I really enjoy playing football (cliché maybe) and have done so for most of my life. I also enjoy listening to podcasts and reading to inform myself on topics outside of the biological sciences. Looking forward to meeting everyone!