Shiny Epi People
Shiny Epi People
Brandon Marshall, PhD on letting staff lead and 90 little Christmas houses
If you know my guest today, you probably know what a rock star researcher is, but you may not know much of anything personal about him. Today, Brandon Marshall, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University, gives me a glimpse into his life: acting, snowboarding, home decorating, caring for 2 pugs, and stubbornly refusing to leave Celsius back in Canada. Of course, Brandon shares how he successfully manages a very large research team, cross-training staff and letting them lead, and avoiding overwhelm. Enjoy!
Lisa Bodnar:
Hey.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. Oh my God. I loved how you jumped into the frame. I'm going to do that more often in meetings, Lisa. Be like nowhere and then it is like, "woo hoo!"
Lisa Bodnar:
That was such an accident, but I really think that's how I'm going to do it from now on.
Brandon Marshall:
We're onto something. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar. I'm so happy that you're here because without you being here, I would never be here. And I really love doing this. So, thanks. Remember, find us on Instagram and Twitter at Shiny Epi People. I'm trying to increase my Instagram following. So if you are on Instagram, come and find me over there. I post additional content on both of those social media platforms. Today, I'm sharing my conversation with Brandon Marshall. Brandon is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University School of Public Health. Brandon got his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia. And then after that, he completed a post doctoral fellowship at Columbia University.
Brandon's work aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs. He's focused on substance use epidemiology, infectious diseases, and the social, environmental, and structural determinants of health. Today, he will tell us how he manages his large research team and avoids overwhelm and allows staff to lead. You may already know that Brandon is a superstar in our field and is a master at many things work related, but you might not know a lot about him personally. And some of his answers today may surprise you as they did me. I hope you enjoy this chat.
How are you, Brandon?
Brandon Marshall:
Good. Good. Oh, things have been crazy, but it's all good. It's fun.
Lisa Bodnar:
Brandon, where did you grow up?
Brandon Marshall:
I grew up in a relatively small town above Spokane Washington in British Columbia called Kelowna. It is the hottest place in all of Canada.
Lisa Bodnar:
Wait, hold on. Do you mean hot temperature or hot like on trend?
Brandon Marshall:
No, the former. It definitely is not on trend.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Brandon Marshall:
It's like temperature hot. I describe it as kind of like the orange county of Canada. It's an actual desert. There are lakes. There's a lot of boating. It's also where a lot of wine is grown. It's one of the only places you can grow wine in Canada decently. So it was a very interesting place to grow up, a very different than a lot of other places in Canada I would say. Kind of this interesting mix of fairly conservative but outdoorsy. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, but I loved everything that meant growing up there.
Lisa Bodnar:
What kind of kid were you?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, that's interesting. Probably precocious, I would say. Quiet at first. A lot of what I think I had to work on as a child and then in high school was learning how to come out of my shell and do that safely. Growing up in the '90s in a fairly conservative place, being gay was challenging, right? And so I was struggling with a lot of those issues. My family was very supportive, but still the context was very different than it is today. And it was not, by any means, a large urban center with a lot of support network. So, that was challenging. I felt that pressure and I didn't really know how to express myself.
What worked for me, anyways, was really getting involved in drama and theater and finding that as my primary outlet. So, I've always loved doing that. I did a lot of high school productions and I continued that in university and that was the way, the venue through which I was able to find my voice, so to speak. At the same time, loving science and starting to learn about public health and so on. But it was really that passion that I think helped me come out of my shell and figure out who I wanted to be in this world and what I wanted to do.
Lisa Bodnar:
So how did you hear about epidemiology? Why did you decide that it was where you wanted to head in your career?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, I was at an interesting place during my undergraduate. I was doing a primary degree in biophysics. I was working in a laboratory, looking at protein folding dynamics or something, and it was not giving me the passion I needed in life. It was so far removed from any application honestly. And so I was starting to do some volunteer work. I was getting involved with a local youth-led harm reduction organization in Vancouver that was doing youth-led syringe service provision and harm reduction education for at risk young people. I loved it. I fell in love with that right away. I ended up sitting on the board of directors of that organization. So it was really through that volunteer experience where I learned about the concept of harm reduction, drug use, HIV prevention. So I was like, "If I'm getting so much enjoyment and passion and joy out of this, surely there is something professional that's going on in this space."
And so, that's how I came across public health and then epidemiology. I was like, "Oh gosh, there's actually academic disciplines." Research and study some of this stuff and how to do it better. I was also thinking like, "Do I want to go into med school? I really love this, but I'm not sure if I'm meant to be working with patients or dealing with blood." And I don't know. So, that wasn't something but then through them, I met some of the folks in the epidemiology unit. They were running large cohort studies of people who use drugs in Vancouver. Some of the longest running cohort studies, certainly in Canada, but almost in North America at that time so that is what pushed me towards that. And the rest, as I say, is history. I enrolled in a master's program in epidemiology in Vancouver and started working with that research institute pretty much from day one.
Lisa Bodnar:
You're really young, Brandon.
Brandon Marshall:
I look young. That's the secret?
Lisa Bodnar:
No. Will you tell me how old you are?
Brandon Marshall:
37. Almost 38.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Dude, you're super young. You also do look like a baby. You're so young-looking on top of that, but you are still young. You have a big research program. I don't know if you'd call it a research empire. I want to dig into this a little bit more because I want to understand a little bit about how you make this work, how this functions for you. So can you just first tell me how many projects or roughly maybe how many grants are supporting your group and then how many people work under you?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, just the numbers. Let's get to the numbers. So, it is a little difficult to count at this point. It's such a moving target. On our team, we think about the number of flagship projects we have. That's a term we use for the big R01s or the projects that really we are accountable to and for. So, there's about five or six of those. They include-
Lisa Bodnar:
R01s?
Brandon Marshall:
No, no.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Brandon Marshall:
Some of those are R01s that are clinical trials. Others are ... we manage, for example, with the health department, the state overdose prevention website, preventoverdoseri.org, check it out. So that we consider a flagship project that's funded actually through the health department by the CDC. So about five or six major flagship projects that the team runs in total. And then, there's lots of other pilots and subcontracts and so forth that collectively contribute to the work. All told, we have 14 full-time research staff and then about 10 students including postdocs and then two or three junior faculty, our investigators right now as well. So it is a large team. We've restructured as a collective, is what we're calling ourselves. So we want it to be a flatter hierarchy. It's more egalitarian. I don't want to create an empire. As you said, with myself sitting at the top of a pyramid, I don't see that for myself. I want to have this be a collective in which folks can really achieve their own goals and build out a diverse research group in all of the senses of that word.
Lisa Bodnar:
How did you get this far at only 37?
Brandon Marshall:
It's not always been rosy. There was a period I had a string of not discussed. So let's just be honest about that, right?
Lisa Bodnar:
Sure, please.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, that's hard. You put your blood, sweat and tears into grants and when you get that ND, gosh, and then when you get multiple NDs, you really wonder like, is there something wrong with me? And I know other people have had that experience. And so it's just about endurance, I think, and trusting yourself that these ideas are important and that they're worth studying. And just constantly try to find a way to fill in some of those gaps, those criticisms that you see like, "I maybe shot too big, too soon. It was going for the large grants." And realized, at the end of the day, people love preliminary data. Let's focus on some smaller pilots, get that data that we need. And then that really helped to get some of the larger grants I would say.
Nowadays, I do tell my junior folks in postdocs, "Go big. Go after the big ideas, but at the same time reviewers want to see the pilot data." So fortunately, we have a lot of institutional opportunities here at Brown to pursue some of those smaller funding opportunities for pilot information. The other thing I would say is the staff that are on our team are just tremendous and really do a lot of the work on a day to day basis. And to have folks that you can trust, that really feel part of the mission and part of the team has been a recipe for success, I think. These folks are people who ... this is their career, right? Working on these research projects and to bring them into the process and to make sure that they feel truly a part of it.
I'm very vested in the idea of down sort of this hierarchical faculty and then research staff or transient people who just sort of keep the ships failing and the trains running on time and they're sort of replaceable. That's a horrible way of structuring research. I think that we need to move away from. I try as much as possible to have staff engaged at all stages of the research. And I feel like that is ultimately a more successful way to approach the work.
Lisa Bodnar:
What does it look like to bring staff in and to make this more egalitarian than you as the head PI telling everyone what to do? I say that especially because I don't think that we are almost never trained in how to manage people and manage teams. And so I'm curious kind of about that process like how did you learn this? How do you implement it?
Brandon Marshall:
It's tricky. It's like something I think that you learn over time and observe, watch, and listen, see what works and then keep doing more of that and then do less of what doesn't work at the end of the day. I'm very fortunate to also have research staff who stuck with me and do have degrees in management and so that's also helpful. Identify the skills that you don't have and work with people that have those skills is another good way to operationalize. And then I really let staff lead, develop ideas, take parts of the projects, you know what I mean? Be involved in some of the more leadership aspects of a component or a whole set of the research program I think can work incredibly well. What we're trying to work on now is ... one challenge I have to, honestly, is that the grants you get to do the specific work doesn't always align perfectly with what we necessarily or this research staff would ideally do, right? So there's not perfect alignment between what you're funded to do and what your staff or yourself would truly love to do.
So reconciling that can be a little bit challenging, I would say. There does need to be ... we do put emphasis on flexibility and cross-training. So as new grants come in and as those methods and the approaches change, staff and faculty feel empowered to adapt to those changes and move over to different projects and to take them on and to not have that be too anxiety-producing. So that's another piece I would add as well is that cross-training and flexibility is key because no grant is for a lifetime, for better or worse. They always end.
Lisa Bodnar:
They always end. And they end in a flash, it feels like. You get them and then they're done.
Brandon Marshall:
And then they're gone.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm wondering how you avoid feeling overwhelmed. What I know about generally your temperament is you're really chill guy. Is there something boiling inside that we don't see? Or are you really able to maintain this kind of levelheadedness about all the things you have going on?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. It's learning to trust the people that are around you and to say like, "I don't need to be involved in every decision or meeting." And to trust that those decisions will be made by people that know the work, perhaps even better than you, on a day to day level. So that's one thing. Learning how to let go, I would say, is critical because at a certain level you can't be in everything. That's challenging. I think I see some people get so attached to projects like ... it is true. They become our babies, these research grants. But the minutiae of every single decision, you're going to be that close to a grant, that means a lot of time, a lot of stress. So, to have that trust and to hand some of that over is really important I think.
I have a colleague at Yale who once told me like, "It can get too big. It is not worth it. At a certain level, you have to be willing to engage in some self care and realize like this is too much and pull back." And so that was helpful advice to say. It doesn't always need to get bigger and bigger and bigger. It can reach unhappy medium, unsteady state and that's fine. You don't have to pursue every grant that comes your way. It's okay to say no and to leave some things.
Lisa Bodnar:
You are so amazing at keeping work separated from life and making sure that your life outside of work is a priority to you. Do you ever veer into that? You're forgetting about yourself for a little while?
Brandon Marshall:
That does happen. So one thing that I do is really prioritize and love vacations. This is also a cultural thing, Lisa, too. Americans are bad at taking vacations. I'm just going to say it.
Lisa Bodnar:
I know.
Brandon Marshall:
It's not a skill that they excel at. Europeans maybe are the peak and then Canadians are in the middle. But I will often take three ... I wish we could take four week vacations. That's not uncommon in Canada to do that. Those are times to truly recharge and to get away and to see something different and to experience something different. And fortunately, we have the resources to do that. And then, I try to engage in that self-care and be self aware, I would say, so that you can work really hard for a while, but there's a point at which it's not going to be productive anymore. You're just exhausted. You can't focus.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. And is your husband also able to maintain that kind of work-life balance?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, that's where I'm always jealous about. The dual academic spouses because it's maybe those longer vacations I talked about would be more feasible. Our schedules are slightly different. He has to be in the hospital every day, on the floor at 7:00 or in the department at 7:00 AM. So I'm not that much of a morning person. I'm always a little bit slower out the door. And then I do work a little bit later, but I do always try to get home and to enjoy that time. And then sometimes, I'll get back on before bed and do some emails, which is probably not ideal, but I definitely, as I say, stop myself and don't work too late anymore.
Lisa Bodnar:
So given that you have some boundaries when it comes to work and life, what do you like to do when you're not working?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. So as I said, I always love the theater. We go to plays and shows quite a bit here in Rhode Island mostly. And then I also like to be active to some degree. I don't think of myself as a true outdoorsy person, but I really love bike riding. We have wonderful recreational bike lanes here in the state. It's like just a jewel of Rhode Island that a lot of people don't realize. They're old rail trails, right, rail lines that it used to go sort of to the beaches from Providence and out west. So those are great. And we love getting out and bike riding and going to the beach a lot in the summer.
And then in the winter, I'm a big snowboarder. Where I grew up was quite mountainous and we were very close to ski mountains and it was some of my best memories of a family are on the ski mountains. It's a bit harder here in Rhode Island. It's very flat state. I think the highest is 600 feet above sea level, but we're fortunate close to Vermont. So we go up there quite often and just getting outside and enjoying the winter. I find it very refreshing and a good way to get through the dark season.
Lisa Bodnar:
The idea of Brandon Marshall on a snowboard, that sounds amazing.
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, I say to my husband it's fun because it's totally different from what I'm usually doing and the way that I'm presenting. I agree with you and I'm pretty intense. Because I did it so much growing up, I don't want to chew my own horn, but I'm pretty good. I can handle [crosstalk 00:20:06] and [inaudible 00:20:09] so I'm kind of a terror on the mountain. It's really fun. And I enjoy it as a way to push myself physically, that's the one time where I do that in my life.
Lisa Bodnar:
Nice.
Brandon Marshall:
So it's just nice. You know what I mean? To have that something very different from everything else you're doing.
Lisa Bodnar:
Can you do any tricks?
Brandon Marshall:
No, I don't do like the pipe or jumps mostly just because ... Yeah, I'm not that courageous. I really like more challenging like glades which is going through trees or [crosstalk 00:20:38] runs where it's just like challenging terrain. I'm not doing the tricks. You won't see me 10 feet in the air anytime soon, Lisa.
Lisa Bodnar:
Brandon, you mentioned theater, but you were a theater minor in college. Did you actually think you might go into theater or the arts?
Brandon Marshall:
I did, Lisa. Yeah. I was doing this weird major in biophysics and minor in theater and acting. It was so much fun actually to go to one class and then go to another one and have it be completely different. And I did for a while. When I was getting very disillusioned with the hard sciences, like I mentioned earlier, one option that I was exploring was to just go into acting. I was really seriously considering that. I was fortunate to have an acting professor who laid it out what's real, you know what I mean? She's like, "This life is challenging. You're going from gig to gig, auditions. There's a lot of uncertainty. You got to be able to handle that uncertainty."
We think getting grants is uncertain. Imagine like even having a job or getting gigs is uncertain. So I realized that probably just wasn't for me. I was doing quite a bit of volunteer work, though. My husband and I and some other people actually had a community theater company in Vancouver. We would do one or two productions every year. That was really fun. I realized I can still get a lot of joy out of it just as a hobby.
Lisa Bodnar:
Did you meet your husband in the theater?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
How cool!
Brandon Marshall:
We were in production together of Fame: The Musical.
Lisa Bodnar:
Nice.
Brandon Marshall:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
What was your role?
Brandon Marshall:
I was Jose Vegas because ... so there's a challenge with translating American musicals to Canada. The demographics are very different so it's a lot of choices in the casting. Let's leave it at that.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. And he was in it with you?
Brandon Marshall:
He was in the chorus, I like to point out.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Nice, Brandon.
Brandon Marshall:
So, yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
So does this mean that you're a triple threat? Are you a singer, a dancer and an actor?
Brandon Marshall:
No, we did some musicals. I remember the first musical I did was Into the Woods in my freshman year and I was cast as the narrator, which is the role that has no singing and gets killed off halfway through the second act. It was my favorite role ever. So no, I never definitely danced. I'm not a particular good singer. I really liked more the acting myself, but you never know. Maybe I'll send me [inaudible 00:23:19] like that professor emeritus sounds a really good thing. And then I can be one of those old gay men that try their hand at acting the 65-70. We'll see.
Lisa Bodnar:
That sounds great. So Brandon, I've heard that you and your husband have a fabulous home.
Brandon Marshall:
Yes. He does like to promote that in Facebook photos.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tell me a little bit about it.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, we love Providence. We just adore this city. It's a good size for us. He's more of a small town person. I like a little bit more of an urban feel. We're very lucky. In 2013 or 14, we were looking for a place and found this amazing Queen Anne in neighborhood called Elmwood in Providence and have just enjoyed so much bringing it back to life. We repainted it recently, the exterior. So it's been great and a lot of fun. It's perhaps big for two people that. People criticize us like what are two people doing in this house? But both of our families live very far away on the west coast of Canada. So pre pandemic, it was such a joy to have enough space for family to come down for a week or something and enjoy the summer or the holiday times and also have friends from Canada visit as well. So, I love that aspect of it. And hopefully, we'll do a lot more of that as we get through the pandemic as well.
Lisa Bodnar:
Decorating it, who's in charge of the decorations because the photos that I saw were pretty amazing? It looked like something like a movie set, like is this for a life?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, that's been our COVID projects, I would say. We couldn't do any hard renovations because contractors have been so hard to find. So we're like, "Well, what can we do? We can go hunting for antiques." Antique stores are still open. So we did a lot of that and had a ton of fun.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's wonderful. And with Christmas coming up, is this a big decorate your house seriously for Christmas?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh my gosh. That's where my husband takes over and he is very serious about Christmas. Last year ... was it two years ago? He bought 90 little Christmas houses. Canadians call them Dickens' Villages. Those miniature, little, Christmas houses. He's always loved those and we've had several. And then he just went in and bought an entire metropolis of Dickens' Villages. So now currently, already it's November 3rd, and he has a little room in the basement we call Santa's workshop that he's getting together the bases and the little mini mountains where all the houses will go, so.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's great. Do you have multiple trees, different rooms?
Brandon Marshall:
We have a small little one. That's where I tend to put my foot down, Lisa. I'm like, "Okay. One big tree is enough trees." Because the little houses take up a lot of room. Collectively, 90 little houses takes up a lot of room.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm sure.
So I know you're Canadian, but you do celebrate American Thanksgiving?
Brandon Marshall:
We mostly still celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving which is in mid-October. I think it's a lovely time to have Thanksgiving. Yes. There's things I refuse to get rid of, Canadian Thanksgiving and Celsius. I still don't code Fahrenheit and I refuse to learn it. It's very [inaudible 00:26:57] people when they ask me what the weather is and I give them a response in Celsius. So there's a couple things I don't let go of. Fortunately, this year my father is coming down for American Thanksgiving. So, that'll be a lot of fun. It's his first trip since the pandemic so we will do a little bit of it, but the meals are very similar though in both countries. My father is actually an apple farmer so we would always ... yeah, it's partly why I love Canadian Thanksgiving. We would always bake dozens of apple pies as a family with my grandmother's recipe and my mother has an amazing dough recipe and so, yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Let's talk about some fun stuff. Yes?
Brandon Marshall:
Sure, let's get into it.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. If you could pick a day of the year that your birthday would be on, would you still pick your birthday date or would you pick a different date?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, I would definitely pick a different date because my birthday is the day after Christmas.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, you're the perfect person to ask this to.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, which in Canada is called boxing day so it was a holiday technically, but it's always usurped by Christmas. So I would probably move it. Not that I have any huge gripes. I like being a Capricorn, though. So I think I would stick in that. Yeah. I would stick in that sign.
Lisa Bodnar:
So you don't have a lot to work with then. You're just moving into January or [crosstalk 00:28:23].
Brandon Marshall:
Moving in to January, yep. Or maybe even before, the 19th or 20th December. So I like the general time of year to have a birthday. Just not the day after Christmas, if that makes sense.
Lisa Bodnar:
What are three items, Brandon, things that you can't live without?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh man. What size of items? Can we ... like is it-
Lisa Bodnar:
Anything.
Brandon Marshall:
Anything.
Lisa Bodnar:
You're such an academic. I need more definitions. I need more clarity. What are the parameters?
Brandon Marshall:
So true. So true, Lisa. All right, let's see. Well, there's my pugs. I can't live without those. I got two pugs that we love so much, even though they give us so much strife.
Lisa Bodnar:
What are their names?
Brandon Marshall:
So we did not name them. We adopted them. So they came with the names. Jacks Daniel and Jeter Bob.
Lisa Bodnar:
Jeter Bob?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. I don't know. It's very weird. You can't live without. Let's see. Okay. So we have this amazing coffee maker as well called a JURA which-
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, I know a JURA.
Brandon Marshall:
Do you, really?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. Yeah. I don't have one, but I know what it is.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. So I had been collecting Air Canada points and then when I moved to the US, I'm like, "Oops, this was dumb." So I cashed them all in. It was like and got this JURA coffee machine and we love it. It's been with us for 12 years. It broke down once and we had no idea what to do you with our life. We're like, "Oh my gosh." And it had to go to Switzerland to get repaired [crosstalk 00:30:06].
Lisa Bodnar:
Whoa!
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah, I know.
Lisa Bodnar:
Wow.
Brandon Marshall:
So, we're worried about it breaking down again, but we can't live without that. And then the third thing, probably my bike. As I mentioned, I love biking for fun. And then most days, I try to bike to work. It's new England, so I still put a limit on that when it's like minus 10 Celsius-
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, which is that's so mean. What is that? Like 20 degrees maybe Fahrenheit?
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. That was a guess.
Brandon Marshall:
... and snowing. Yeah, let's go with those things. Let's go with those things. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Soup or salad?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, salad.
Lisa Bodnar:
Aisle or window seat?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, aisle, for sure because of the bathroom issue. You just be able to get up and not disturb people. That's what I look for.
Lisa Bodnar:
Coke or Pepsi?
Brandon Marshall:
Probably Coke.
Lisa Bodnar:
PC or Mac?
Brandon Marshall:
Mac.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. I knew you were cool and you would be a Mac user. I'm so uncool.
Texting or calling?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, texting. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Water, sparkling or still.?
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, I do like sparkling water. Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Morning or night?
Brandon Marshall:
Night.
Lisa Bodnar:
Paper or electronic books?
Brandon Marshall:
I still like paper books.
Lisa Bodnar:
Me too. Me too.
Brandon Marshall:
Especially like fun reading. Oh, but look, I have Modern Epi. I just got the paper version.
Lisa Bodnar:
You mean you were using the electronic version?
Brandon Marshall:
I was trying and it's too [crosstalk 00:31:40].
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh my gosh, it's too hard.
Brandon Marshall:
It's too hard.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, I can't do that. No.
Brandon Marshall:
Yeah. Agreed.
Lisa Bodnar:
This was so much fun. I'm really, really grateful that you would take time out to talk with me. I so enjoyed getting to know you better.
Brandon Marshall:
Oh, thanks Lisa. And I love that you're doing this, I have to say. Oh, we got our own selves out into the world. So people know a little bit more about not just epidemiology, but what we do as epidemiologists and who we are. So thank you for doing this. I just absolutely love it.
Lisa Bodnar:
I appreciate your time so much. And thank you for sharing parts of you that you haven't shared otherwise.
Brandon Marshall:
No problem. Thanks, Lisa. Take care.
Lisa Bodnar:
Bye.
You may not notice but I'm in some bold makeup today. I'm doing it in tribute to Abby Cartus who's now your postdoc and who is my former PhD student because Abby and I love the makeup. So shout out Abby, if you're listening. I'm here with the bold lip, just for her.
Brandon Marshall:
I love it. That's amazing.
