Meet Jenn Keefe, IDGH Department Manager
20 Questions
Jenn Keefe
Department Manager, Infectious Disease and Global Health
- How do you start your day?
I listen to an alarm go off most days, followed by feeding my dog. She waits for no one. When it’s time to eat, it’s time to eat!
- What is on your bucket list?
To see a wolverine, be a foster for a dog rescue, spend some time in the Pacific Northwest, get to be on a Smucker's jar celebrating my 100th birthday, rescue more dogs.
- What three words best describe you?
From my colleagues: kind, diligent, hard- working.
- If you could time travel, what year(s) would you visit?
I think the 1950s.
- What is your hidden talent?
I like to make art with sea glass I find.
- What book, movie, podcast, show would you recommend?
I don’t get to read nearly as much as I’d like, but when I do, I prefer books about animals, nature and mysteries. One of my favorite books about nature is called “The Devil’s Teeth,” which is about the white shark population off the Farallon Islands by Susan Casey.
Another is “The Wolverine Way” by Douglas Chadwick. For mysteries, I enjoy any classic by Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and recently, I have been enjoying the Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries, which are set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and written by Patricia Skalka.
I also recommend seeing any concert at Tanglewood. It is an experience.
- What is your dream vacation?
The Galapagos is number one on my travel list, followed closely by Antarctica.
- What or who has had the greatest impact on you?
I have been blessed with a wonderful family, close friends, and influential educators and colleagues.
Two educators have made the greatest difference in my personal and professional development. My second-grade teacher taught us in ways we didn’t realize we were actually learning. We thought we were having fun writing down the “Daily News” in our notebooks when she was teaching us basic writing skills. She made learning fun. In college, Dr. Lynn Margulis gave me the greatest compliment as a student when she told me that I taught her something in her field of expertise when I took her marine symbiosis class at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole.
Two of my former colleagues, Nelly and Tony, who were my mentors and became friends, have taught me skills to succeed in my career and provide me with perspective on finding happiness and balance in life.
- What’s the best advice you ever received?
To live each day as if it is your last, to be kind, and to save for retirement.
- What is your least favorite word or phrase?
Do more with less.
- What is your favorite junk food?
Definitely pizza.
- What is your theme song?
I love the old Van Morrison song, Brown Eyed Girl. I don’t know if it’s my theme song, but I do have brown eyes.
- Dog or cat or ??
Definitely a dog. Always a dog.
- Who would play you in a movie?
I was often told I looked like Marisa Tomei when I was younger. I never saw it but am happy for the comparison and would love for her to play me, although it would be a fairly boring movie.
- What is your favorite season of the year?
Fall. There is no comparison. The sweatshirt weather, the colors of the leaves, everything apple and pumpkin.
- What is your favorite color?
Blue, and particularly the sea glass shades like seafoam and aqua.
- Early bird or night owl?
As my alarm goes off by 5:30AM, I think I have to be a morning person, but I’d prefer to be a night owl.
- What is your biggest pet peeve?
When people don’t clean up after themselves in common spaces and when someone lacks awareness of what is going on around them.
- What is your favorite type of surprise?
I am not really a fan of surprises……but I might enjoy seeing an unexpected animal when out and about not really looking.
When I am in Bonaire, every day brings an unexpected sighting, both underwater and topside.
- What or who makes you smile?
Dogs! Old Dogs! Big dogs! Hound dogs! And watching wildlife.
Department:
Dept. of Infectious Disease and Global Health