UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor Marc Suchard will co-lead the effort, which has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.
As professors were forced to change how they teach, the Fiat Lux seminars provided a platform to also change what they taught to help students understand the crisis.
Amita Sehgal, a neuroscientist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, won the award honoring excellence in basic science research.