When Katherine Chu’s plane touched down in Colorado last fall, she never expected to be on the front lines of research into a global health emergency. Chu joined the Health District in October as a Public Health Associate from the Centers for Disease Control, a nationwide program that places college graduates with an interest in public health with local health agencies for hands-on training. The recent Ohio State graduate was just settling in to her two-year stint with the Health District’s Evaluation Team when the Zika virus outbreak hit and she was swiftly “deployed” to the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases on Colorado State University’s Foothills Campus in Fort Collins.

Almost overnight, the Arboviral Diseases Laboratory went from processing around 50 samples a week to receiving 600 specimens a day that are tested for Zika, Chikungunya virus, and Dengue fever—all mosquito-borne diseases. “It was very sudden, but it’s been a great experience to meet the epidemiologists and laboratorians and learn how the lab operates,” says Chu, whose original two-month deployment was extended in March.

The Fort Collins branch of the CDC has conducted Zika research since 2007, and the currently incurable virus is now the branch’s No. 1 focus, according to officials. Each test result is entered into a database and Chu’s role is to send the information back to the appropriate state health department.

Zika virus has spread in more than 30 countries, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is linked to major birth defects, such as microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and incomplete brain development, according to the World Health Organization. The CDC has reported more than 150 travel-linked cases in the U.S., and while the disease isn’t currently spreading through local mosquitos, officials are investigating some cases of sexually transmitted Zika in this country.

Chu graduated from Ohio State in 2015 with a degree in Public Health Sociology. After her CDC deployment ends, she will resume working with the Evaluation Team on the 2016 Community Health Survey, examining qualitative data from community discussion groups, before spending a year with the Healthy Mind Matters program.

To learn more about the CDC Public Health Associate Program, visit cdc.gov/phap.