Scholar Stories: Defender Shepherd Going on Offensive to Study Impacts of COVID-19
10/28/2020 10:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer, Features
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Absopure.
By Daniela Mirell
Born into a family of Wolverines, junior defender Sydney Shepherd has been representing the University of Michigan long before lacing up her cleats at U-M Soccer Stadium.
Originally hailing from Danville, Calif., just east of Oakland, the Michigan legacy runs in Shepherd's blood. Her father, Dr. Ronnie Lee Shepherd, attended U-M, graduated with a degree in nuclear physics and served on the advisory board for the U-M Nuclear Physics Department.
"My dad had been dressing me and my twin brother up in Michigan gear since we were toddlers. I knew the fight song when I was 7 years old." she said. "I've always had a fascination and love for the University of Michigan."
As she began thinking about her collegiate soccer career, Shepherd had her heart set on moving to Ann Arbor.
"Once recruiting came along, I figured out that I'd never have the same amount of love for any other school. At the end of the day, there was nowhere else I could go."
Now in her third year at Michigan, Shepherd, a two-time U-M Athletic Academic Achievement award honoree, has weaved her interests of biology, medicine and helping others into her studies by majoring in public health and minoring in sociology.
"When I was looking through programs at Michigan, I found public health and I realized this is exactly what I want to do," said Shepherd. "Public health combines the understanding of medicine and how people are affected by their environment and social issues."
This fall, Shepherd began her first year in the U-M School of Public Health (SPH) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably one of the worst public health crises the world has seen.
"This week, we are learning about vaccines which are perfect for the climate that we're in right now," said Shepherd. "I find that the whole process of vaccine trials, which is everything going on right now, so fascinating."
Shepherd's interest in learning more about medicine, diseases and individuals' living environments stems beyond just the virtual classroom. With the women's soccer season sidelined until spring, Shepherd has been making plays off the field and helping out the backline of COVID-19 research.
This summer, Shepherd began interning as a research assistant for the Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study (MI CReSS), a collaborative effort between the U-M School of Public Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to better understand the experience of COVID-19 patients throughout the state. Shepherd has been tasked with collecting data from people who have recovered from COVID-19 via phone interviews and having them answer a survey.
"[Patients] answer questions that hospitals haven't been able to get to like demographic information: race, gender, age" she said. "There are also a lot of questions about mental health, access to healthcare and interactions [patients] have had with other people, especially with the stigma behind having COVID-19."
In addition to talking with patients and collecting important long-term data, Shepherd is part of a team that is developing a policy brief about mental health and telehealth services for COVID-19 patients on Medicare and Medicaid. After graduation, Shepherd is interested in pursuing a career that focuses on solving public health issues in either a major city or at the federal level. The MI CReSS research results are available at the SPH website.
Shepherd's time spent interning has increased her fascination with public health and has taught her important lessons about COVID-19.
"The internship and calling people have really helped me understand the severity of the pandemic, and it helped me understand the importance of making all the efforts to prevent the spread."
In 2019, Shepherd started in 21 of 23 matches on the Michigan backline, six of which ended in shutouts, and recorded two assists. She scored her first career goal on Nov. 8, 2019, against Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, helping to send the Wolverines to the Big Ten Tournament final for the first time since 2005.
Shepherd has found a way to translate the communication skills she uses to organize the defense on the field to her COVID-19 research.
"I've learned to communicate with people who have different personalities on the soccer field," she said. This has helped her when figuring out how to best engage and converse with COVID-19 patients who have recovered from the disease.
Additionally, Shepherd's experience as a student-athlete at Michigan has made her adept at time management. She has been able to balance her schedule between school and soccer practice successfully with the addition of her COVID-19 internship.
While dedicating her time between school, soccer and studying the effects of COVID-19 on patients' mental health, Shepherd has enjoyed becoming closer with her teammates during this unprecedented, lengthy offseason.
"We've bonded over the whole experience," she said. "It's nice to have a break mentally from the go, go, go right into fall ... we've had more time to hang out and be with each other."
Though her mask-required practices and online classes are just some of the many challenges she has had to endure during her junior year, Shepherd is excited and ready to help the women's soccer team win a Big Ten championship, even if it's in the spring.
