Dr. Andrew Huff
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And I always stayed away from it because I never saw any benefit to it.
Well, if the government wants to, the U.S.
government wants to fund this or this entity wants to fund it, that's fine.
I can protest by just not being a part of it.
Yes.
And when it happens, everyone thinks I'm sort of the crazy one.
And how this actually transpires is I was working at Juul Labs e-cigarette company as a senior director of population health, living in the Bay Area.
And because of what I did for a living and my expertise, I catch wind of this virus spreading around the planet.
It was very obvious that people on the West Coast were becoming sick in, I want to say, late November, December 2019.
Another really weird thing happens.
I'm making more money than I've ever made in my life at this company.
And I was very grateful for that.
I was able to pay off all my debt.
But I received a phone call from a woman by the name of Dr. Amy Jenkins, who works at ARPA-H now.
I think she's the assistant director there, or deputy director.
I can't remember what her title is.
But I know Amy from years back.
I actually met her while I was a PhD student at the University of Minnesota at a DH program.
department of homeland security center of excellence she had shown up to a few meetings of ours she was working with the department of defense at that time and the intelligence services and she's a great you know scientist and very friendly relationship with her and she contacts me and she informs me that she's now working with DARPA and offers me a position as a program manager in the biological programs directorate
And I thought it was sort of odd that she had contacted me on my brand new San Francisco area cell phone.