Human Dimensions of Infectious Disease is a new initiative at Virginia Tech connecting programs across the university concerned with the impact of  infectious diseases on individuals and communities.

Research Colloquium, September 28-29, 2023
Newman Library Goodall Room 100, Virginia Tech Blacksburg Campus and over zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/89915838236 

Thursday,  September 28, 10:00-11:30 am
10:00-10:15: Welcome  (Tom Ewing)
10:15-10:45: Rebecca Hester, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, "Pathogenic Entanglements: The Inflammatory Politics of Covid-19"
10:45-11:15: Marcus Johnson, School of Education, “Identifying and Reconstructing Infectious Disease Misconceptions Among K-12 Educators”
11:15-11:45:  Domenique Villani, Population Health Sciences, with Sophie Wenzel and Lisa M. Lee, “Communicating Ethical Dimensions of Gain of Function Research Using Community Engagement Studios”

Thursday,  September 28, 12:30-1:30 pm
Dr. Alexandre White, "Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease"
Distinguished lecture, Center for Emerging, Zoonotic, and Arthropod-borne Pathogens (link)
Abstract: For most of the 21st century much of the world has taken for granted our ability to fight back pandemics and control them with little effect on day-to-day life. Until the emergence of COVID-19 few in the western world would have had any occasion to consider the histories of infectious disease control that have managed the spread of pandemic threats around the world. Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital and the Governance of Infectious Disease tells the story of how epidemic threats become the focus of international management, regulation and control, as well as the political, economic and racial ideologies that have shaped international coordination to stop pandemic spread.
Newman Library, Room 100, and via zoom

Thursday,  September 28, 1:45-4:30 pm
1:45-2:15: Edward Polanco, Department of History, "Settler Colonialism is a Disease: Indigenous Depopulation Narratives from Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Mexico"
2:15-2:45: Julie Gerdes, Department of English, "Extraordinary Declarations: Sources of Evaluation and Authority in Three International Public Health Emergency Decisions"
2:45-3:15: Esra Buyuktahtakin Toy, Department of Industrial Systems Engineering, with Xuecheng Yin, Sabah Bushaj, and Yue Yuan, “Covid-19: Agent-Based Simulation-Optimization to  Vaccine Center Allocation Problem”
3:15-3:30: Break
3:30-4:30: Teaching / Covid-19: Perspectives from humanities and health sciences (I): Cora Olson, Science, Technology, and Society; Nick Ruktanonchai, Population Health Sciences; Julie Gerdes, Department of English; and Jeremy Draghi, Biological Sciences

Friday, September 29, 8:30 am - 12:30 pm
8:30-9:00: Sydney Murphy, Department of Biological Sciences, and Tom Ewing, Department of History, “Cultural and Medical Responses to the Outbreak of the "Russian Flu," 1889-1890"
9:00-9:30: James D. Ivory, Department of English, “Applying Social, Behavioral, and Humanities Research to Policy: Lessons from COVID-19”
9:30-10:00: Gillian Eastwood, Department of Entomology, with Ahmed Garba and Thomas Stanley, VCE, “Increasing Awareness of Tick-Borne Viruses in the Commonwealth”
10:00-10:30: Leah LeJeune, Department of Mathematics, Navid Ghaffarzadegan, Lauren Childs, and Omar Saucedo, “Mathematical Formulations for Representing Human Risk Response in Epidemic Models”
10:30-11:00: John Aggrey, Department of Science Technology and Society, “‘Why should I be scared?’ Epidemic Uncertainties and Risk Construction in Emerging Infectious Disease Epidemics”
11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:15: Teaching / Covid-19: Perspectives from humanities and health sciences (II): Alexandre White, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University; Cori Ruktanonchai, Population Health, Sciences; Tom Ewing, Department of History

Contact information: Tom Ewing (etewing@vt.edu)

Funding from a Diversity Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. 

Map: Dr. John C. Peters, “Routes of Asiatic Cholera.” Harper’s Weekly [New York] 25 April 1885.