Link between climate, disease topic of Lee lecture

Published October 5, 2021

Jeffrey Shaman, director of the Climate and Health Program at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, will explore the relationship between disease systems and the broader effects of climate and weather on human health at the Sixth Annual Richard V. Lee, MD, Lectureship in Global Health on Oct. 29.

The lecture, “Climate-Disease Connections: Associations, Processes and Incorporation in Infectious Disease Forecast,” will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. via Zoom. It is sponsored annually by the School of Public Health and Health Professions. Click here to register.

Shaman, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and faculty chair of the Earth Institute at Columbia, studies the survival, transmission and ecology of infectious agents, including the effects of meteorological and hydrological conditions on these processes. His work to date has primarily focused on mosquito-borne and respiratory pathogens. He uses mathematical and statistical models to describe, understand and forecast the transmission dynamics of these disease systems, and to investigate the broader effects of climate and weather on human health.

Shaman holds a BA in biology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA, MPhil and PhD in climate and geophysics from Columbia.

The Richard V. Lee, MD, Lectureship in Global Health honors the late Richard V. Lee, who served on the UB faculty for 37 years. It is organized by the Office of Global Health Initiatives in the SPHHP. More information is available on the office’s website.