Sometimes extraordinary circumstances like the pandemic offer researchers unexpected opportunities to serve others. Danilo Pérez, now a Ph.D. student in computational neuroscience at New York University, found himself in this situation in Puerto Rico in 2020. He contributed his mathematical modeling expertise as part of a team that built and maintained Puerto Rico’s public health data during that intense period. Later he contributed to AI-based modeling of coronavirus variants that won major honors in the computing community: the 2022 Gordon Bell Special Prize for HPC-Based COVID-19 Research. These days Danilo is developing computational tools to understand value-based decision making at NYU, a process that can be applied in economics, medicine and public policy. We discuss how compelling science problems have propelled his training, how music and family support him, and his focus on citizen-facing science, especially in Puerto Rico. You’ll meet: Danilo Pérez, a Ph.D. student in computational neuroscientist jointly advised by Christine Constantinople and Cristina Savin in NYU’s Center for Neural Science. He is a current recipient of a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF). This conversation was recorded in July 2023 at the Annual Program Review of the DOE CSGF in Washington, D.C. Read more about Danilo and his work in DEIXIS.