The Department of Defense (DOD) has recently awarded a team led by OEH associate professor Rachael Jones, PhD, CIH. The project, named University of Utah Containment Ventilation for Exposure Reduction (UCOVER), was awarded $1.2 million in grant money. UCOVER seeks to protect healthcare staff who work with patients infected by airborne diseases such as COVID-19. While PPE can reduce the transmission rate of these diseases, further solutions are necessary to make certain that vulnerable healthcare workers are protected from infection. Over the next three years, the UCOVER team will design, develop, and test a device that will help reduce the dispersion of infectious aerosols during patient care. This device will increase the safety of healthcare workers in many different working conditions, including in confined areas such as airplanes, ships, and submarines. The UCOVER aerosol box design is unique from other designs because it will be designed to be ergonomically friendly and will be able to be used quickly and efficiently for emergency procedures such as intubation. Jones's team includes OEH associate professor Jeremy J. Biggs, MD, MSPH and Andrew Merryweather, PhD, MS of the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH), as well as Bryan R. McRae, MD and Bernhard Fassl, MD, who are faculty members at the Center for Medical Innovation (CMI).