Barbara Shea began her career as a Medical Laboratory Technologist at Hamilton General where she acquired an expertise in the area of microbiology while also developing her skills as a leader. As the Network Coordinator for Public Health Ontario’s Central East Infection Control Network, she responds to calls on a wide variety of infection prevention and control and communicable diseases issues, provides timely infection prevention and control guidance and advice based on current evidence and best practices.

Part of her life plan had always included volunteering in third world after retirement. But when the worst outbreak of Ebola in World Health Organization's (WHO) history took place in the Fall of 2014, she felt the need to answer the call to help. She left for Liberia on September 26, 2014 with two days’ notice at the peak of the outbreak in Liberia. It was a life changing experience for which her career and educational had prepared her. The training in the medical laboratory technology program at Mohawk College and later her Infection Control training assisted her in helping to prevent deaths by educating and improving Infection Prevention and Control practices among healthcare workers and patients, in this unprecedented outbreak in Africa.