Chloe Leroy
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies made a pivot to remote work, allowing their employees to work from home in the interest of public and personal health and safety. Employers who work with UVic Co-op and Career services quickly put resources in place so they could continue to provide work-integrated learning experiences to co-op students.
UVic student Chloe Leroy had the unique experience of working remotely with Universidad Catolica del Maule (UCM) in Chile.
About
Third-year science student Leroy worked as a research assistant for UCM. Her work focused on deadly salmon pathogens. She worked on finding vulnerabilities in the pathogens’ immunity, which would hopefully lead to potential phage treatment to anti-biotic resistance strains in farmed or wild populations of salmon.
This work appealed to her particularly because salmon are a keystone species integral to BC’s ecosystem.
The impact of co-op
What inspires me is that this is real work,” Leroy says. “It could lead to a publication that could impact policy and decision making, therefore providing new options for the treatment of pathogens which are currently harming salmon in Canada and abroad.”
Learning outcomes
Leroy reflects that the cultural diversity of the team was actually a strength: “Problem solving as an international team means you approach issues from different perspectives and experiences, which makes projects interesting and diverse.
“I think after COVID more and more people will work remotely. These work terms teach us the tools and communications skills necessary for us to succeed and collaborate with teams internationally.”