Event

November 4: A Discussion on "Mapping Cholera: A Tale of Two Cities"

Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - 06:00am to 07:30am EST (GMT -0500)

Mapping Cholera: A Tale of Two Cities
The New York Academy of Medicine

Using never-before-plotted data from Médecins Sans Frontières, newly geocoded historical maps, and original research and reporting, science journalist Sonia Shah and the Pulitzer Center have created a series of interactive story-maps of two parallel epidemics, the 1832 outbreak of cholera in New York City and the 2010 outbreak of cholera in Haiti. Their online project, “Mapping Cholera: A Tale of Two Cities,” first showcased on Scientific American online on the fourth anniversary of the Haiti cholera epidemic, shows how novel pathogens spread in susceptible populations stressed by environmental disruptions and sanitary crises.

On Tuesday, November 4, join us for a special event featuring “Mapping Cholera,” along with a discussion on the past, present, and future of cholera and other emerging infectious diseases.

Tuesday, November 4
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Reception: 7:30-8:30
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
New York, NY 10029

If you'd like to attend this event RSVP online here.

About the Speakers

Sonia Shah is a science journalist and prize-winning author. Her writing on science, politics, and human rights has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, and elsewhere. Her work has been featured on RadioLab, Fresh Air, and TED, where her talk, “Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria,” has been viewed by over 900,000 people around the world. Her 2010 book, The Fever, which was called a “tour-de-force history of malaria” (New York Times), “rollicking” (Time), and “brilliant” (Wall Street Journal), was long-listed for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize. Her latest book, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond”, is forthcoming from Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2015.

Jonathan Epstein is a veterinarian and epidemiologist, and serves as Associate Vice President of Conservation Medicine at EcoHealth Alliance. Dr. Epstein studies Nipah and Ebola virus, along with SARS, and other diseases that have emerged within Asia and Africa. His work has been featured on 60 Minutes, The Discovery Channel, Discovery Health, The Science Channel, The National Geographic Channel, NBC Nightly News, and BBC Newshour, and in several periodicals including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Scientist, Science News, Discover, Newsweek, The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and National Geographic News.

Pablo Mayrgundter was a founding member of Google.org's Crisis Response team after the Haiti earthquake. Pablo has worked at Google for 8 years, previously on web search, grid computing and currently Google's registry for the gTLD domain name extensions. Before Google, Pablo co-founded multiple machine learning and networking startups and studied Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University. Pablo grew up in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois and was born in Cali, Colombia.

Annie Sparrow, MBBS, MRCP, FRACP, MPH, combines the clinical skills of an experienced practitioner with public-health expertise acquired from work in many of the world’s most devastating combat zones. She is currently Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Human Rights Program in the Department of Global Health at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where she teaches human rights and humanitarian aid in complex emergencies. An Australian, Dr. Sparrow spent most of her first ten postgraduate years practicing pediatric critical care in London and her native Perth. Since 2012 her focus has been on the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe in Syria. She has published widely on the public health crisis, including the systematic assaults on doctors and targeting of medical care, and the re-emergence of poliomyelitis.

Moderator:
Jonathon Lee Simon, MPH, DSc, Director of the Center for Global Health & Development at Boston University, leads scientific and strategic efforts of the CGHD. Dr. Simon is also the Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Simon has had extensive experience working in Africa and South Asia, particularly on issues including child survival, infectious diseases, and capacity strengthening. For the past seven years, he has been part of a core research team at the CGHD evaluating the social and economic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic while maintaining an active role in the center’s ongoing child survival research work.

The Pulitzer Center is an innovative award-winning non-profit journalism organization dedicated to supporting the independent international journalism that U.S. media organizations are increasingly less able to undertake. The Center focuses on under-reported topics, promoting high-quality international reporting and creating platforms that reach broad and diverse audiences.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical humanitarian organization, which has led international efforts to tame infectious disease outbreaks around the world, including the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the cholera epidemic in Haiti. MSF provided the data for the Haiti chapter of this project.

Tuesday, November 4
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Reception to follow.
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
New York, NY 10029

If you'd like to attend this event RSVP online here.