I'm in London for work! And I snuck in two podcasts in my favorite neighborhood of museums and science spaces in Kensington. First of three was at the British Science Association with Chief Executive Katherine Mathieson. Too often the public feels very distant from science and the scientific process; the BSA is changing that by changing people's perceptions of science and making it into a fun, cultural process. They have many public engagement programs on, and one of my favorites is the British Science Festival. Listen to find out more! Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org an ..read more

Who's doing a great job of collecting health data and translating it into engaging public health multimedia? For many in global health, the clear leader is the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle. Indeed, on my first day at work at IVAC, everyone was throwing around the IHME acronym around like it was PBnJ and definitely a lol moment if you didn't know what it stood for. Our latest podcast features Bill Heisel, Director of Global Engagement at IHME and a must know for all public health lovers. Check out our show links at www.publichealth ..read more

This week, Nina is joined by Advocacy and Communications Specialist Swati Sudarsan as they interview Kate O’Brien, Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC). Did you know vaccines are a tool for social justice? Kate looks beyond efficacy to share the economic, biologic, social, and political benefits that vaccines have to offer. Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUpodcast ..read more

Dr. Peter Hotez, scientist and founding dean at the National School of Tropical Medicine, felt a calling to science and vaccine advocacy after the birth of his autistic daughter. On our latest podcast, Nina speaks with Dr. Hotez on vaccine hesitancy, the flip side of our last podcast on vaccine confidence. Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUpodcast ..read more

We had a transatlantic, bi-coastal three way Skype podcast last month with researchers Drs. Heidi Larson and Pauline Paterson who co-direct the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Heidi and Pauline are globally respected and known for this unique, extensive, and broad research into understanding how we can boost the global community's confidence in vaccines. A large piece of their work is profiling conversations from around the world and to pinpoint factors that lead to confidence or not. The other side of this coin is the term 'vaccine hesitancy ..read more

Our latest podcast guest, Laurie Garrett, is an award winning science journalist (she has won all three major journalism awards: the Peabody, the Pulitzer, and the Polk) and a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. I first heard about Laurie back in 2000 when I read her book, "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance." Among many accomplishments, she's well known for chronicling the Ebola outbreak both in the 90's and more recently. In this episode, Laurie tells us some of her stories from the frontline of outbreak science j ..read more

Our latest guest is also the latest faculty addition to the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Dr. Monica Mugnier (big news: Monica won an 2016 NIH Early Independence Award which allowed her to skip the tradtional postdoctoral fellowship and become faculty right after completing her PhD work). Monica studies a kind of parasite, called a tropanosome, that causes the disease African Sleeping Sickness. They are very difficult to control for a vaiety of reasons, one of them being the focus of her work (and some very cool science) on how th ..read more

Our latest guest, Dean Mike Klag, has served at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for the past decade and has worked to keep the School at the forefront of both international and community health. Dean Klag describes the roots of our school, the largest and oldest school of public health and how, owing to its biomedical roots, it is unique in that it hosts three basic science departments as well as more classic public health fields like international health, epidemiology, policy, biotstats, and mental health. We also learn about how he got into public health and his major goals and accompl ..read more

From his earliest days, Dr. Rush Holt has been interested in "how the world works (that's science) and how people get along (that's politics)." There are few who want to do both. Rush is one of the rare scientists who has served in Congress and has integrated 'science and society' into everything he's done. Hear about what it was like to be a scientist in Congress and how scientists should be communicating. Rush is currently the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was the U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12 congressional district from 1999 to 2015. Che ..read more

Ellis Rubinstein always knew that he wanted to combine his seemingly distinct passions for reporting news and science. Before stepping into his current role as New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS)' President, he served as Editor of Science Magazine, the scientific journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In our latest podcast, he discusses how important it is for young scientists to be involved in AAAS and NYAS, and to not limit membership and activism to just those in their later careers as some other scientific societies do. Under his watch, the NYAS has the ..read more