Last month, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sabrina Paseman ’09 founded the nonprofit Fix the Mask, which has developed a do-it-yourself method for constructing a surgical mask brace using rubber bands. The pandemic has caused a surge in demand for N95 surgical masks, leading to a shortage that has put medical workers at risk of infection, as the surgical masks currently in use do not attach to wearers’ faces tightly enough. The surgical mask brace developed by Fix the Mask significantly improves the efficacy of surgical masks and lowers the risk of infection. The company has posted a how-to video for creating the mask braces, and is working on “Surgical Mask Brace 2.0, a scalable, open source design,” according to its website.