Beyond Borders, Barriers and Expectations

As a student, Ashley Rutherford ’12 never imagined a military career — or the adversity and achievement that would result.

BY JACK ROTH

As Stetson’s Department of Health Sciences reaches even greater levels of success, Ashley Rutherford, Capt., USAF, BSC, serves as a case study in global impact. Rutherford ’12 is a salute to the past and a beacon of hope going forward.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Rutherford was working in Afghanistan as the only military epidemiologist in that country. This spring, she served as the Surgeon General representative and coordinated vaccine distribution in Orlando, Atlanta and St. Louis for FEMA Type I COVID Vaccine distribution operations.

Those are only two of her recent highlights.

A former Hatters volleyball player (both indoor and beach volleyball), Rutherford has ascended and excelled in an especially important field for Stetson — currently serving as a public health consultant, theater epidemiology team member, and the Public Health Officer Course director for the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM), 711th Human Performance Wing, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Yes, her affiliations make for cumbersome titles, but her influences reach far.

USAFSAM is the premier institute for education and worldwide operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. The school trains 5,000 Department of Defense, international and civilian students each year. Also, it services 6,000 requests for expert consultation; provides clinical, radiation, environmental and industrial laboratory services; and manages a $20 million aerospace and operational medicine research portfolio spanning six geographically separated locations.

Indeed, her roles are expansive — and fueled by very early ambition.

“I always wanted to be a doctor,” Rutherford says. “In high school, my best friend was diagnosed with a brain tumor. So, I went to Stetson for health sciences and

Ashley Rutherford, Capt., USAF, BSC

pre-med, but I was slowly nudged in the direction of medical research. This put me on the path towards epidemiology, infectious disease research, and that line follows public health.”

Michele Skelton, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences, did much of the nudging.

“We want to educate the next generation of health care practitioners who have the perspective of treating our community holistically, which means as a whole, not just as a physical body, and Ashley is a perfect representative of what public health is all about,” says Skelton, who now is both mentor and friend to Rutherford. “We don’t pigeonhole students into a specific curriculum, so they can think more about what they want to get into. Our courses and curriculum made Ashley start to think about different things and areas in which she was really interested. She has embraced her talents and done phenomenal things on a global level.”

Michele Skelton, PhD (right), is now a mentor and friend to her former student.

AIR FORCE BECKONS

After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Rutherford went on to obtain a master’s in public health from the University of South Carolina in 2013 and received an opportunity to work at the University of South Carolina’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program.

There, she learned a few financial lessons, too.

“We had millions of dollars in grant funding, and we came in under budget, but because it was national grant funding, it was ‘use it or lose it.’ So, I became disenchanted,” she explains. “The economics behind cancer research, or any epidemiology research, is difficult.”

Rutherford: “If you would’ve told me in my Stetson days I’d wind up in the Air Force, I would’ve laughed.”

Rutherford decided to get a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Central Florida in 2017 and received grant funding to do more research as an adjunct faculty member. She finished her doctorate at age 26 and began applying for university tenure-track positions, only to hear what became a familiar refrain: She was too young and didn’t have the depth of experience needed to work at the big research agencies.

Consequently, she turned in an unexpected direction: the military.

“Along the way, I kept seeing Air Force research positions pop up. If you would’ve told me in my Stetson days I’d wind up in the Air Force, I would’ve laughed. But I realized I could get a lot more accomplished in the Air Force doing what I do than I ever could in the private sector,” she comments.

ROAD TO AFGHANISTAN

Commissioned into the Air Force Medical Service’s Biomedical Sciences Corps in spring 2017, Rutherford served as public health flight commander at Joint Base Charleston (South Carolina), where she assisted in inspection trials and identified decontamination process improvements for Air Mobility Command’s $15 million Transport Isolation System platform. Also, she performed research with the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, which provides advice and recommendations on matters and policies relating to the recruitment, retention, employment, integration, well-being and treatment of servicewomen in the armed forces.

Then, sarcastically, the real fun began.

From October 2019 to June 2020, Rutherford deployed to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Resolute Support Mission. While there, she managed the medical surveillance program and analyzed 10,200 patient visits for 18 categories of disease and non-battle injuries.

“We were the critical trauma hub in the country,” she describes. “Day in and day out, it was mostly about ensuring the stability and sources of food and water. There were a lot of gastrointestinal issues because a soldier’s diet changes so drastically. If they’re not near a cafeteria, they eat meals that come in pouches, so it takes time for the body to get accustomed to that.”

In December 2019, the Taliban hit Bagram Airfield with a ground attack that became an all-day, all-out firefight. Standing 6 feet, athletic and muscular, Rutherford was put on the team to help carry wounded people into the hospital. During the attack, she also ensured the reopening of five dining facilities in less than four hours, providing 41,000 safe meals and water while enabling rapid base operations recovery.

“There was an explosion eight blocks from the hospital, and the blast wave shattered some windows,” she remembers. “It was definitely an active day for combat. We had some combat training, but none of us thought we were going to experience a firefight. But when you join the military, you go where they send you.”

IRANIAN THREAT AND GLOBAL PANDEMIC

In January 2020, the United States killed Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was considered the creator of the IED (improvised explosive device). As a result, Iran started delivering threats, and the Americans stationed at Bagram Airfield were named as a top target.

“This is when the medical intelligence piece came into play,” Rutherford says. “We had to look at chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear warfare (CBRN), explosive threats and those medical ramifications. We knew Iran had quite a few chemical weapons, so we had to plan for that medical response.”

Plus, a new enemy emerged. In January 2020,

China reported early COVID-19 cases; these then made it through Europe, and by March the Middle East began to experience substantial outbreaks. As the sole epidemiologist in that region, Rutherford had to spearhead COVID-19 prevention and mitigation efforts for all U.S. and NATO forces, civilians, contractors and other country nationals.

Also, she oversaw the construction and management of isolation and quarantine facilities, designed surveillance testing protocols, and leveraged traditional intelligence collection methods to forecast host nation COVID severity and mission impact.

“The start of a pandemic is scary because you don’t know its severity or impact on the mission,” Rutherford says. “We had to find ways to get our own data and determine if we were going to continue operations. Add the pandemic to what was already going on there — hostile fire and combat, terrorist attacks, floods and ruined crops, and economic upheaval — and you have a very unstable environment.”

When Rutherford deployed to Afghanistan, she believed her time there would be fairly uneventful. That didn’t happen.

“Bad things happen, but you have to make the best of it,” she notes. “To be in a third-world terrorist-infested country when a pandemic hits was incredibly stressful, but also an amazing learning environment where you can really help. I grew as a person and got a little tougher.”

BACK TO THE STATES

At the end of June 2020, Rutherford was sent home and assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio two months later. Her accomplishments, though, haven’t slowed.

Since then, she has led the Air Force Reportable Medical Event surveillance process, analyzed 40,000 COVID cases and protected the health of 9.5 million DoD beneficiaries. Further, she investigated a USAF Europe COVID outbreak, which tested 260 members, detected 32 positive cases, instituted a five-week restriction of movement and prevented international COVID spread.

The efforts were dizzying, for sure. Nonetheless, she took them in stride.

“To be honest, I’ve always been a go-getter, but I never went on this path to do what I’ve done … a lot of it just got thrown at me. When opportunities pop up, you have to seize the day and take advantage of it,” she asserts. “I mean combat training … talk about being uncomfortable. I was way out of my comfort zone, but I didn’t let that deter me. You have to have an attitude to say, ‘I’m here, I’m a body, and I can help.’”

Rutherford credits Stetson for much of her thinking, with the belief that everything she learned and experienced while on campus helped her prepare for everything else.

“Stetson prepared me educationally to get higher degrees because it has great professors who inspire you,” she says. “The curriculum is also writing-intensive and critical-thinking-centric, so you learn how to think on your feet and apply it. This has helped me in the military.”

For good measure, aside from being a student-athlete, she was a member of the clay-target shooting club, and she enjoyed Greek life.

Skelton is openly proud.

“To be the only public health person in Afghanistan when COVID hit and having to coordinate all of that is remarkable,” she comments. “We know our students have great critical thinking skills, and what you see in Ashley is her incredible adaptability.

“We’re the springboard, but they’re doing all the work. Ashley has already made a significant impact on community health, both here and abroad.”

For Rutherford, the work — beginning with her “pop up” career discovery years ago — makes it all worthwhile.

“I found a vocation I love and in an environment where I can get the most accomplished,” she concludes. “What the future holds I’m not sure, but it will definitely be in public health, helping people and communities to achieve and maintain good health and quality of life. That to me is extremely gratifying.”

Representing the Surgeon General, Rutherford coordinated FEMA Type I COVID Vaccine distribution operations, including at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.