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Acclaimed Science Journalist Sonia Shah presenter for Nov. 12 University Forum

Mon, 11/04/2019 - 02:36pm | By: David Tisdale

Sonia ShahAward-winning investigative journalist Sonia Shah, who writes about science, human rights, and international politics, is the featured speaker for the final University of Southern Mississippi (USM) University Forum for the fall 2019 semester. Her presentation, “Pandemic,” is set for Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the Thad Cochran Center Ballrooms on the USM Hattiesburg campus.

Presented by the USM Honors College, University Forum is free and open to the public.

Shah’s work has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and Foreign Affairs. Her most recent book, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, explores the origins of epidemics and draws parallels between the story of cholera and the pathogens that threaten humankind today.

Pandemic was a finalist for the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in science/technology, the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the National Association for Science Writers’ Science in Society Award. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

Shah has been featured on CNN and her TEDTalk, “Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria,” has been viewed over one million times. She is currently working on her fifth book, The Next Great Migration.

“We are confronted daily with news that diseases we once believed were eradicated in the United States have returned,” said Dr. Andrew Haley, director of University Forum. “Shah knows the science and confronts the phony claims that have put children across the globe at risk. Everyone needs to hear her expert and dispassionate voice advocating for how we can best end diseases such as measles, cholera, and malaria.”

For more information about University Forum, visit https://www.usm.edu/honors/about-university-forum.php.