As an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, Commander Stephanie Felder, Ph.D. 2019, has experience serving during times of national crisis. When the COVID-19 pandemic reached crisis levels in some parts of the United States, Felder knew she might be deployed. On March 25, she had just finished a workout when she got an email notifying her she was needed at the epicenter of the outbreak. Felder was appointed Behavioral Health Officer in Charge at the Javits New York Medical Station (JNYMS). The Department of Defense-run care facility was quickly being set up at the 760,000 square-foot Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue overlooking the Hudson River. 

“I felt a mix of eagerness to serve and anxiety about what I would face,” recalls Felder. “As a member of the corps, I served in leadership roles in 2017 for Hurricane Harvey, in 2018 for Hurricane Florence, and in two 2019 humanitarian missions along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, faced with COVID-19, I asked myself, ‘Are you really ready for this mission?’ I knew this would be uniquely challenging, yet rewarding.”

Felder led a team of more than 30 service members including psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, and behavioral health technicians. The team provided behavioral health support to more than 2,500 staff and patients within JNYMS, as well as support for mortuary affairs and outlying hospitals. 

Felder’s career as a social worker began when she was working in juvenile justice, and then with homeless veterans. In 2012, she made “the two most impactful career decisions of my life.” She joined the USPHS and began her doctoral program at NCSSS. 

She called her experience at Catholic University “nothing short of amazing. The program teaches you how to become a researcher, teacher, and administrator from a framework solidified in social justice, integrity, and service.” When Felder received her Ph.D., she was asked to speak at the NCSSS commencement ceremony. She shared that she was the daughter of a South Carolina sharecropper who did not complete grade school. Her father passed away in 2008. Her mother, sister, and other family members attended. “It was emotional for all of us. I grew up watching my family work in tobacco fields,” said Felder. “I was a first-generation college student speaking as a leader in the Surgeon General’s cadre and as a newly minted Ph.D. recipient. I told them I didn’t do it alone. These professors pushed me to my limits and then asked me to go just a little further.” 

It was hard not being with her husband in Silver Spring, Md., and knowing she was the center of family worries during the fast-moving pandemic, she said. “I was needed most in New York. It was rewarding serving this resilient city during such harsh times. And it was an honor to serve alongside the USPHS, the Army, the Navy, and National Guard — being part of the ‘one team, one mission, one fight’ every day.” 

The field hospital at the Javits Center closed in May as New York City began to show declines in its daily rate of infections and deaths. Felder headed home to Maryland, where she quarantined for 14 days before being reunited with her husband. She says she holds close one memory in particular. 

“I was just re-entering the building from a short self-care walk, when I heard the call to attend a ceremony for a veteran who had passed away,” she recalls. “I rushed to the area where the ceremony was being held. I became part of a sea of uniforms — USPHS, Army, Navy, New York first responders — standing at attention. I didn’t know this veteran but to be part of his last salute is an experience I will never forget. The gravity of what we were all doing there in New York hit me. It was emotional. It was an honor and it was humbling.”

— E.N.W.