Behind the Mask: Real Stories from NIH Staff About Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Your professional or personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic are unique and can be communicated in whatever way that you feel fitting. Some ideas include but are not limited to:

• Filling out the questionnaire [link to that]
• Participating in a short virtual interview [link to that]
• Videos or audio recordings that you have created
• Photography
• Journal entries, blogs, poetry, prose, etc.
• Artwork
• Spreadsheets, presentations, or other work projects

Answer questions and submit digital files that document your experience with this form. Answer as many or as few questions as you would like. Be sure to read the Permission Agreements at the end of the form. 

We have done virtual interviews with several NIH staff. The written transcripts are made available as fast as possible on the oral history page of the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum. The video components will be available in the future, if so desired. 

If you’d like to do a short interview with us about your work, please contact history@nih.gov

Do you have physical items that capture your experience during the pandemic? We are looking for artifacts such as scientific instruments or personal objects. Many of these objects will be used by the NIH Stetten Museum and loaned to other museums such as the Smithsonian for future exhibits. Please contact us at history@nih.gov

• We are accepting submissions in languages other than English.
• Please do not include personal health information in your submissions for the privacy rights of those involved. 
• We will acknowledge receipt of your submission.
• The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum has the right to reject any submission or component of a submission that it considers duplicative, inappropriate, or outside the scope of the project.
• There is no deadline to submit materials as the pandemic continues. We estimate that the submission element of this project will last through 2021.
• Submissions will not be accessible immediately for public viewing.  After we process and curate the materials, they will be available for historic scholarship.  By the end of 2021, we hope to show many of these digital documents on our website, and we plan to feature a selection of the submissions in forthcoming exhibits and publications.  
• If you have concerns about maintaining your privacy, questions regarding sensitivity to information disclosed, or dissatisfaction with the way your submission is represented online, please reach out to the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum at history@nih.gov

If you have questions about how your submission would fit into our repository, accessibility requirements, or need technical assistance, please contact Gabrielle Barr at history@nih.gov.