Nipah virus ecology and the importance of understanding spillover for preventing pandemics
Title Talk
“Nipah virus ecology and the importance of understanding spillover for preventing pandemics“
THIS SPEAKER WILL BE IN PERSON IN FXB 301.
The event will be hybrid.
Speaker Information
Spillover of zoonotic viruses from wildlife into livestock and humans is largely driven by human activities that modify natural systems in ways that increase contact with wildlife. Infectious disease surveillance systems are frequently designed to identify human cases once they’ve been admitted to a hospital. As a result, index cases and asymptomatic cases are often missed, making it difficult to identify mechanisms of spillover. Understanding the pathways by which zoonotic pathogens infect livestock and people and measuring the frequency of exposure to these pathogens is essential for developing effective interventions that reduce the risk of viral spillover and disease emergence. Here we will discuss the drivers of viral spillover and focus on Nipah virus to illustrate a multidisciplinary approach that has helped characterize viral circulation, spillover risk, and develop interventions. We will also discuss current gaps in knowledge as outbreaks continue to occur in India and Bangladesh.
Recorded Q&A, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 1-1:30pm ET
At just 10 human cases, reports of Guinea worm, a debilitating parasitic disease with no vaccine or drug treatment, are at an all-time low, according to The Carter Center.* What drove this success?
Former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and The Carter Center’s Sarah Yerian and Emily Staub answered questions following the screening of The President and the Dragon, a documentary about former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to eradicate Guinea worm, at the Harvard Chan School. This a recording of that Q&A.
Released last fall, The President and the Dragon is available on various streaming platforms.
*Figures are provisional until officially confirmed.
Speakers
Emily Staub
Rochelle Walensky
Sarah Yerian
About The Studio
OEMR Mid-Year Research Presentations
The Department of Environmental Health and the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency (OEMR) Program invite you to the OEMR Mid-Year Research Presentations.
Date: Friday, March 13, 2026 at 1:10pm
Location: Building 1, 1302 and Zoom
Register: Click here to register for Zoom.
Presentations:
- Burnout and Mental Wellbeing in Healthcare Workers After Hurricane Helene: One-Year Longitudinal Outcomes
- Presenter: Tiffany Tam, MD, MPH
- Clear Roads, Clear Minds: Building a Safer Transportation Industry
- Presenter: Jeremy Berger, DO, MPH
Speaker Information
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: AI×public health: Analytic tool and emerging population exposure
Benjamin Rader is a computational epidemiologist who currently serves as the scientific director of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Innovation and Digital Health Group and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Rader’s research focuses on leveraging digital technologies and data to improve public health and has appeared in JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Economist, U.S. Presidential Addresses, and Supreme Court amicus briefs. He has helped advise numerous government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Defense, and previously resided with his family in Berlin, Germany, while serving as an AI advisor to the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. Rader, a former U.S. Army Officer and Johns Hopkins’ Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow, received his PhD from Boston University and MPH from Northwestern University.
Speaker Information
Organizers
Brown Bag Seminar: Primary Healthcare IMPACT Lab at the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives
In this seminar, Diah Saminarsih will introduce the Primary Healthcare IMPACT Lab, a new collaboration between the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI) and the Program in Global Primary Health Care, a shared initiative of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Global Health Equity and Harvard Medical School. The Lab aims to support Indonesia’s primary health care transformation through locally grounded research, training, and service innovation. The discussion will also reflect on the broader role of Global South–led partnerships in shaping the future of health systems.
Diah Saminarsih is the founder and CEO of CISDI and a distinguished global development practitioner and public health advocate. Diah concluded her role as senior advisor to the WHO Director-General on Gender and Youth in August 2022. In this role, she established dialogues with member states and their youth delegates on meaningful youth engagement. She also spearheaded strategies for youth engagement and gender mainstreaming, in close collaboration with development partners and member state representatives.
After leaving WHO, Diah served on the board of the Pandemic Fund as the CSO Global South Representative. She co-founded the Stop TB Partnership Indonesia in 2018 and played a key role in advising and overseeing the work of the Global Fund TB Community Principal Recipient Consortium from 2021 to 2023. She also served as special staff to Indonesia’s Minister of Health (2014-2019) and special staff to Indonesia’s MDGs Envoy (2010-2014). During her work with the government of Indonesia, Diah was Indonesia’s co-negotiator in the SDGs negotiation. Her involvement in health security national design brought Indonesia to be part of the initial troika in the Global Health Security Agenda initiative, along with the U.S. and Finland.
Diah is currently a Commissioner for the Lancet Global Health Commission on People-Centered Care for Universal Health Coverage and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education at Universitas Harkat Negeri, in Tegal, Central Java, Indonesia.
Speaker Information
Diah Saminarsih
Organizers
Negotiations Webinar Series: “The Making of Negotiating Organizations”
Join us on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 (10–11 a.m. ET) for the second session of our two-part Negotiations Webinar Series, hosted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
🎙 Webinar 2: ”The Making of Negotiating Organizations”
Featuring Claude Bruderlein, Esq., LL.M., Adjunct Lecturer and Senior Researcher, and Founder of Frontline Associates.
This session focuses on how effective institutions build and sustain robust negotiation practices. We will examine the dimensions of strong negotiating organizations and share examples of successful institutional reshaping in complex and adversarial contexts.
🔗 Free and open to the public
📍 Join via Zoom: hsph.me/negotiations-webinar-march-25
📲 Or scan the QR code in the event image
Please share with your networks and anyone who may be interested.
Questions? Contact hhi@harvard.edu.
Speaker Information
Claude Bruderlein, Esq., LL.M.
Organizers
Health journalism case study series with Gabriella Stern
Join us for part one of an engaging case study series led by Gabriella Stern, journalist and former Director of Communications at the World Health Organization. In this session, we’ll dig into a compelling piece of health journalism—how complex health topics are communicated to the public, what we can learn from journalistic choices, framing, and impact, and actionable-takeaways for your own health communication.
Lunch will be served.
Speakers will share their own perspectives; they do not speak for Harvard.
Speaker Information
Gabriella Stern
Organizers
Monday Nutrition Seminar | Targeting Metabolism through FABP4 to Extend Healthspan
Please join the Department of Nutrition for the Monday Nutrition Seminar featuring Gökhan S. Hotamışlıgil, MD, PhD, James S. Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism and Director of the Center on Causes and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at HSPH. Dr. Hotamışlıgil’s talk—”Targeting Metabolism through FABP4 to Extend Healthspan”—will take place on March 23 at 1:00pm ET in FXB G-13 and via Zoom (registration is required).
Healthy snacks will be provided, thanks to the generous support of the Wellbeing Project Fund from the Office of the Associate Provost for Student Affairs.
The Monday Nutrition Seminar Series is free and open to the public. If you plan to attend this event and do not have an active HUID, please fill out the registration form by 3:00 p.m. ET on the Friday before the seminar to request a visitor pass to access the building.
Seminar speakers share their perspectives, they do not speak for Harvard.
Speaker Information
Organizers
HCMPH Center Annual Symposium
We are delighted to welcome everyone to the eighth annual Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center (HCMPH) symposium. As microbial community science expands across industry, clinical research, biotech, and pharma, this year’s theme – translating the microbiome – focuses on turning discovery into implementation. From the first approved live biotherapeutics to microbiome-informed cancer immunotherapy, the field is already reshaping how we understand health and develop therapies.
The symposium will highlight recent advances while looking ahead to future opportunities, including microbial biochemistry in small-molecule drug development and engineering of microbial community members. As always, we hope to be joined by an audience that is both topically and geographically diverse, online and in person. The symposium program will include keynotes, invited talks, and selected presentations from poster submissions. We collect a nominal fee for in-person registration, with virtual attendance available for free. Refreshments and a poster presentation are offered on-site, and support for social media and interactive participation are provided for online attendees.
For more information on the event and the poster reception, please visit this link. For questions: levesque@hsph.harvard.edu
Registration
In-person registration is available: HERE
Virtual registration continues to be free and is available here: virtual attendance only
Location:
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Snyder Auditorium – Kresge G1
Poster Reception to be held in the Kresge Cafeteria
Virtual attendance available via Zoom webinar (link emailed to you after completing registration for virtual attendance)
Speaker Information
Organizers
Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “Population, environment, and infectious disease ecology: History, progress, and innovation.”
Michael Emch, PhD, W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Geography and Epidemiology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, presents “Population, environment, and infectious disease ecology: History, progress, and innovation.”
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.