Occupational Safety & Health Seminar
The Department of Environmental Health and the Harvard Chan Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health invite you to the next Occupational and Environmental Health Friday Seminar on Friday, October 9, at 1:10-1:50.
Title: Catching the Flu Virus in the Air with a Controlled Human Infection Model
Presenter: Dr. Linsey Marr, University Distinguished Professor and the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech.
Location: 502 Kresge or Zoom
Register: Register here to attend via Zoom.
Abstract: Influenza human challenge models, in which participants are voluntarily infected with the virus, provide a unique opportunity to explore aspects of influenza disease and transmission. Traditionally, these models have used intranasal inoculation for safety and reproducibility, although this route does not mimic natural infection. We revisited inoculation with aerosolized virus, which may better mimic natural infection, and found an attack rate of 75%, compared to 85% for intranasal inoculation. Symptoms and viral kinetics were similar between the two routes of exposure. To improve understanding of the potential for forward transmission of influenza, we characterized virus in exhaled breath using a Modular Influenza Sampling Tunnel (MIST), a 3-foot long chamber that allows for deposition of large droplets on cell culture plates and sampling of aerosols at the far end of the tunnel. Participants expelled infectious virus into the air on multiple days post-inoculation. The extent of infectious virus production varied by three orders of magnitude among individuals and was higher during coughing and sneezing compared to speaking. Furthermore, we observed a positive correlation between the total volume of expelled larger droplets and the amount of infectious virus detected. Shedding in respiratory particles correlated with viral load in saliva and nasopharyngeal swabs and with clinical symptoms. Our studies highlight both the power and limitations of controlled human infection model studies and provide an opportunity to explore the complexity of virus expulsion and transmission parameters in a relevant system.
Speaker Information
Linsey Marr
Organizers
Healthcare Access and H.R.1 Impacts on People Experiencing Homelessness
H.R. 1 is expected to affect health care coverage for millions of people, including those experiencing homelessness, housing instability, and residents of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assisted housing. Join Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) for a discussion of the policy changes driving these impacts, emerging questions about the relationship between homelessness and Medicaid coverage, and strategies the homeless services and affordable housing sectors can use to help mitigate potential harm.
Speaker Information
Marcella Maguire
Organizers
Implications of the Mid-Term Elections for Reproductive and Transgender Health
Join WGH for a lunchtime panel discussion focused on reproductive & transgender health in light of the upcoming midterm elections. Prof. Liz Janiak will moderate this timely discussion with panelists Rachel Levine, MD (former Assistant Secretary for Health of the United States Department of Health and Human Services), Clara Spera, Esq (Lecturer, Harvard Law School), Claire Decoteau, PhD (Professor, University of Illinois Chicago), and Lyv Norris, MPH (Reproductive Justice Practitioner and Labor Organizer).
This event marks the kickoff of the WGH Fall event series Defying Erasure: Gender, Solidarity & The People’s Health.
All are welcome! A pizza lunch will be provided.
Moderator
Organizers
Occupational Safety & Health Seminar
The Department of Environmental Health and the Harvard Chan Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health invite you to the next Occupational and Environmental Health Friday Seminar on Friday, October 2, 2026, at 1:10-1:50.
Title: Industrial Hygiene Approaches for Indoor Environmental Resilience
Presenter: Parham Azimi, PhD, CIH, Research Scientist, Healthy Buildings Program
Location:
- In-person in 502 Kresge, Harvard Chan School of Public Health
- Online via Zoom
Register: Please register here to attend via Zoom.
Abstract: This ERC Occupational Safety and Health Seminar Series talk will highlight how industrial hygiene principles can be applied to assess and reduce indoor environmental exposures following wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other crises. Data collected from hurricane- and flood-affected regions, ranging from Florida to Alaska, as well as from buildings exposed to wildfire pollutants in Maui and Los Angeles, will be presented. Strategies for sampling air, water, dust, ash, and mold will be discussed, along with approaches for identifying exposure pathways and vulnerable populations. Key findings will demonstrate the importance of rapid, integrated exposure assessment and practical controls (e.g., ventilation, filtration, portable air cleaning, moisture management, and personal protective equipment) to support safer re-occupancy, recovery, and community resilience.
Speaker Information
Organizers
IID Seminar Series – Ashley Vaughan
Title Talk
“TBC“
THIS SPEAKER WILL BE IN PERSON IN FXB 301.
The event will be hybrid.
Speaker Information
Ashley Vaughan
Ashley received his PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and studies the disease malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites. Ashley and his team have shown the importance of the parasite’s fatty acid synthetic pathway for sporozoite and liver stage maturation. The team also researches how to elicit the most protective immune response after vaccination with genetically attenuated parasites. Ashley and his team have led significant advances in the use of human liver-chimeric mouse models for studying human malaria parasites. This includes complete liver stage development and the transition to blood stage malaria in the mouse for the human malarias Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. The team have also used this mouse model for the creation of experimental Plasmodium falciparum genetic crosses, a significant advance that aids in our understanding of P. falciparum drug resistance and linking genotypes to phenotypes. More recently, the Vaughan lab has used the human liver-chimeric mouse model to study the formation of the P. vivax dormant liver stage hypnozoite as well as hypnozoite persistence and activation. Ashley continues to be fascinated by basic parasite pre-erythrocytic biology – the mosquito and liver stages of the life cycle and to this end the team also use rodent malaria models for parasite transgenesis to understand how the parasite interacts with its vector and host during sporozoite and liver stage development. Ashley collaborates with Dr. Kappe and Sather at the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research. He also collaborates both nationally and internationally with malaria experts including Dr. Jetsumon Sattabongkot at Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, a leading expert in the field of P. vivax research.
Related Events
IID Seminar Series – Laura Duvall
Title Talk
“TBC“
THIS SPEAKER WILL BE IN PERSON IN FXB 301.
The event will be hybrid.
Speaker Information
Laura Duvall received her B.A. in Biochemistry and Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. She then went on to complete a PhD with Paul Taghert at Washington University in St. Louis studying the neuropeptide regulation of circadian behavior in Drosophila. She conducted postdoctoral research with Leslie Vosshall at the Rockefeller University where she switched her studies to the Aedes aegypti mosquito and focused her research efforts on understanding the regulation of feeding and mating behaviors in the mosquito.
She started her own lab at Columbia University in 2019 where she is a member of the Department of Biological Sciences and an affiliate of the Zuckerman Institute. She is the recipient of a 2020 Beckman Young Investigator Award, a 2020 Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in Neuroscience, and she is a 2021 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences.
Related Events
As the midterm elections approach, how are Americans thinking about public health — and which issues are most likely to shape the national conversation? Join a panel of experts for a timely discussion of the latest polling and research on public opinion and health policy. Moderated by The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn.
Speakers
Moderator
Jonathan Cohn
About The Studio
Personal loss, trauma, and grief can profoundly affect us — sometimes in invisible ways. In this candid conversation, Rachel Zimmerman, author of Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide, will join experts in trauma, grief, and mental health to explore the science and lived experience of loss and resiliency.
Speakers
Moderator
About The Studio
Economics as a Bridge from Science to Policy: A Playbook for Real-World Impact
The Climate Change and Planetary Health Concentration invites you to their next lunchtime seminar:
Economics as a Bridge from Science to Policy: A Playbook for Real-World Impact
Speaker: Kevin Cromar
Location: FXB G-13
Date / Time: Wednesday, October 28, 2026 from 1:00 – 2:00pm
Lunch will be provided.
Everyone is welcome, whether or not you are a part of the concentration. This seminar is in-person only.
About the Speaker:
Kevin Cromar, PhD, is Director of the Health, Environment, and Policy Program at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University and Professor of Environmental Medicine and Population Health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. His research focuses on the health impacts of air pollution and climate change, with an emphasis on generating and translating the knowledge needed to inform better public decision-making. His work has contributed to improvements in energy, transportation, and environmental policy at the local, national, and international levels.
Speaker Information
Kevin Cromar
Organizers
Community Engaged Learning Fellowships – Fall Seminar
What Counts as Knowledge?
Public health training teaches us how to evaluate evidence. But how do we decide what – and whose – knowledge counts as evidence when seeking to understand a community’s public health issue rigorously and ethically?
Drawing on their community-engaged field experiences, Rose and Winokur fellows will share moments when lived experience, local knowledge, relationships, culture, practice, or place challenged what they thought they knew, and changed how they understood their work.
Participants will be invited to reflect, exchange ideas, and consider how diverse ways of knowing can strengthen public health research and practice.
All Harvard Chan community are welcome.
Interested in the Rose or Winokur Fellowship? Come meet returning Fellows and learn how community-engaged learning can expand your public health education.
A light lunch will be provided.