#SoCaltech: Robin Colgrove

“I took on the role of chief of infectious diseases at my hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 1, 2020, the day after the China CDC officially announced that a new respiratory pathogen had been detected in Wuhan. The hospital, the hospital network of which it is a part, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began preparing soon after that, and I have spent most of the time since in the maelstrom. Between direct patient care of more extremely sick people than I have seen since the worst days of the AIDS epidemic, constant battles to ramp up testing and secure personal protective equipment, and now deployment of the first vaccines, I have not yet had time or energy to really reflect. I am looking forward to that, cautiously, optimistically hoping for some time around the Fourth of July.”

Robin Colgrove (BS ’81) is chief of infectious diseases at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To de-stress during COVID times, he plays half-millennium old music.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.