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Carrie Byington was 4 years old when she first told her parents she wanted to be a doctor.
The Texas native has no idea how that thought sprouted in her mind: She had no relatives in the medical field and no exposure to what being a doctor entailed.
But the thought stuck.
Now 53, Byington specializes in general pediatrics and pediatric infectious disease at the University of Utah.
Her 20-plus-year career at the U. has been dotted with accomplishment after accomplishment, clinical trial after clinical trial. Her list of publications reaches into the double digits.
But ask Byington to talk about herself and she hesitates. She'd rather talk about her work with febrile infants, influenza or pneumonia.
A story about herself "feels so weird," she said.
That approach likely is proving difficult this year: She's now the face of domestic Zika virus research.
In March, Byington was tapped to serve as chairwoman of the U.S. Olympic Committee's panel tasked with advising, following and studying the virus before and after the Rio Games.
She didn't apply for the position, she said, but an opportunity like this is what infectious-disease specialists train for.
Byington aims for about 1,000 athletes, coaches and other individuals associated with USOC to sign up for the study, which will tell them definitively whether they contract Zika in Rio. Byington said there will be opportunities for follow-up studies.
It's Byington's favorite kind of work, she said, because "it's satisfying to see tests you worked on and you helped to think about actually come to fruition to be available and be used in hospitals and clinics around the world."
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'There's so much you can do' • Byington clutches a small child in her favorite photo, the two surrounded by cartoonish paintings of giraffes and butterflies at Primary Children's Hospital.
It's one of her fever babies, one who was part of a research project on febrile infants at the U.
Spend any time with Byington and it will come as no surprise that her favorite photo of herself includes a child. It's all about the children for Byington, who is drawn to their resilience and potential.
"When you intervene medically with a child, there's so much you can do to improve their life," she said. "They have so many years to live."
Though Byington always wanted to be a doctor, she didn't settle on pediatrics until well into her medical school training at Baylor College of Medicine. Throwing infectious diseases into the mix was a no-brainer: the challenge of correctly diagnosing and treating infections is a satisfying puzzle for her to solve.
She was able to marry those two interests when she took a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, San Franscico.
She had every intention of returning to Texas after her fellowship ended, but her husband had other ideas.
He was reading through a medical journal in the 1990s and spotted a job perfect for Byington at the U., she said. He applied for her, she added, because he loves the outdoors.
She ended up loving Utah, saying she can't imagine living elsewhere. The partnership between the U. and Primary Children's Hospital is a big part of that.
Byington's work at the U. has included a laundry list of research projects on infectious diseases, from febrile infants to pneumonia.
She worked with BioFire Diagnostics Inc. — a Salt Lake City-based company that developed equipment to detect the case of both viral and bacterial infectious diseases — to develop new ways of diagnosing respiratory pathogens.
She jokes that her two children, now 16 and 20, were the "best-immunized children on the planet" because of her knowledge of infectious disease and the most recent vaccines.
She also loves to mentor young people. In fact, she's mentored nearly 100 trainees and junior faculty members.
"Mentoring is one of the most important things we do," she said. "I really love to work with young people who have fantastic ideas, a lot of energy and passion for their areas of research and to help them launch their research careers because I know those are valuable for all of us and for the health of the nation."
Tammi Lewis, a research assistant on the Zika study, is one of Byington's mentees. Lewis graduated from the U. in 2015 with a degree in public health. She said Byington's knowledge and patience are invaluable.
"I don't have a whole lot of experience yet and she's always willing to take an extra minute [to] go over something if I don't understand it," Lewis said, adding that Byington's innovation and personable nature help the study run smoothly.
The research Byington's most proud of at the U. involves pneumonia and the bacteria that causes it, which has spanned her career there.
"Pneumonia is still the No. 1 killer of children in the world, so that type of research is a very active area of interest for me," she said.
Soon, Byington will begin studying the genome of the bacteria, which could help prevent these types of infections entirely in the future.
"Although I've been researching this bacteria, really, since 1996, we're going into a whole new area and it's so exciting," she said.
But tackling Zika in Rio is more immediate.
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The tip of the Zika iceberg • Byington will be watching the 2016 Rio Games kick off this weekend from 6,200 miles away in Salt Lake City.
Her Zika research won't take her to Brazil, but Byington will have more than enough to do while Team USA is competing.
She hopes to enroll 1,000 individuals between these and the Paralympic Games in the study that will definitively tell athletes, coaches and others associated with USOC if they contracted the Zika virus while in Rio. So far, about 700 have signed up.
Much of those signups happened in Houston last week at team processing. As Olympians picked up their Opening Ceremony uniforms and athlete identifications, Byington talked to them about protecting themselves from Zika while in Rio — and signed them up for the study.
Taylor Mathie, one of the study's research assistants who went to Houston with Byington, said it was great watching her interact with the athletes.
Her knowledge of infectious diseases put everyone at ease, he said, and even athletes who were initially skittish were swayed by Byington's spiel.
"You could tell some people didn't want to be there and didn't want to talk to us," he said. "But when she got done talking to them, even if they weren't interested in the beginning, they were at the end."
As Team USA competes against athletes from across the globe, Byington will be processing samples from those who have elected to participate in the study. The researchers will also be finalizing surveys and contacts so they can reconnect with all participants after the games to accept blood samples upon their return from Rio.
Cases of Zika are usually mild and rarely result in death. The most common symptoms of the virus are rash, joint pain, fever and red eyes. The vast majority of people who contract Zika never show symptoms, but Byington said her study still will show if those individuals have the virus.
Sexual activity can transmit the virus. If a woman is pregnant or trying to get pregnant, she should not have unprotected sex with a man who has been to an area where the virus is spreading.
The virus can cause birth defects in children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy, according to the CDC.
Byington hopes eventually to study the long-term outcomes of infants with Zika and believes this initial study will lead to that.
The brain defect it causes, microcephaly syndrome, "is very severe, and that may just be the tip of the iceberg" of how Zika affects children, she said. "I'm very interested in following infants at least through school age, so that could be another route for research."
But first things first: She plans to enjoy the Games.
"I will be watching the Olympics with great interest and enthusiasm."
Twitter: @alexdstuckey