Climate Change and Health: From Micro to Macro

Betsy Foxman, PhD 

(Hunein F. and Hilda Maassab Endowed Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases (MAC-EPID),  Co-Director of the Integrated Training program in Microbial Systems (ITiMS))

Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH (recorded)

Professor Emeritus and former Dean, University of Washington School of Public Health

Introduced by Adria Staal

Howard Frumkin is an internist, an environmental and occupational medicine doctor, and an epidemiologist. His career has focused on health aspects of climate change, the built environment, and contact with nature. He’s been senior vice president of Trust for Public Land, head of the “Our Planet, Our Health” program at the Wellcome Trust in London, Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health, and Director of CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.

​orcid profile 

Emily Kumpel, MS, PhD  (not recorded)

Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Introduced by Jessica Li

Dr Kumpel’s research is focused on understanding and improving the complex engineered, environmental, and human systems that enable the provision of safe, reliable, and sustainable drinking water.

Jay T. Lennon, PhD  (recorded)

Professor of Biology, Indiana University Bloomington

Introduced by Renisha Karki 

Lennon’s research team investigates the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape microbial biodiversity, focusing on traits like dormancy and dispersal. By integrating microbes with other taxa, they test macroecological theory and have uncovered scaling laws that predict Earth is home to upwards of one trillion species. As Chair of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) task force on Climate Change and Microbes, Lennon leads initiatives to advance science, policy, and solutions involving microorganisms and the climate crisis. 

Colin Kremer, PhD  (not recorded)

Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut 

Introduced by Shravani Gummaraju

Colin Kremer is a quantitative microbial ecologist, who studies how plasticity and evolution mediate the response of populations and communities to natural and anthropogenic change. Swayed early in his career by the argument that the simplicity of microbes make them ideal for empirically testing ecological theory, research in his lab now mostly revolves around investigating the many flaws in this argument. In particular, his team studies the thermal ecology of phytoplankton (photosynthetic microbes) in changing freshwater and marine environments.