In 2009, he had just completed a Ph.D. at the University of Iowa, the state where he had lived his entire life and, at age 28, was a pursing a post-doc position in “a hardcore immunology lab.” He interviewed for positions at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington, each of which would have set him on a promising research trajectory.
So why did he choose the UW?
“I’m not really an East Coast person,” said Netland, 43. “It’s more laid back here in Seattle. People are friendlier, and there’s the beautiful natural environment – the water, the mountains.”
He joined the UW Department of Immunology and, over the next five years working under the direction of Michael Bevan, Ph.D., published in several journals, including the European Journal of Immunology. Many of the peer-reviewed articles dealt with the effects of T-cells on the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus.
