At WashU and online
Disease Ecology on a Changing Planet is the inaugural convening of Washington University School of Public Health’s Solutions through Planetary Health Research (SPHERE) Innovation Research Network, featuring keynote speakers Felicia Keesing, PhD, and Neil Vora, MD. The event will bring together academics, clinicians, policymakers, and community leaders to explore the role climate change plays in reshaping patterns of infectious disease, and why coordinated, multisectoral collaborations are essential to build future readiness. Join experts as they discuss the research, policy frameworks, and community-based approaches needed to advance innovative strategies that prevent pandemics, protect biodiversity, and build healthier, more resilient communities and ecosystems.
The event is free and open to the public. The talks and panels end at noon; in-person attendees are invited to stay for a networking lunch with speakers and panelists. Registration is required.
Keynote speakers
Felicia Keesing is the David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College. Dr. Keesing is a biologist who studies the consequences of interactions among species, particularly as biodiversity declines. Her recent work focuses on how biodiversity influences the probability that humans and other animals will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing is an elected fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2022, she received the International Cosmos Prize, and in 2023, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2024, she received the C. Hart Merriam award for distinguished research in the study of mammals.
Neil Vora, a physician and conservationist, serves as the executive director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition, and senior adviser for One Health at Conservation International, where he works to address the interconnected challenges of human health, environmental protection, and climate change. Dr. Vora brings experience from nearly a decade with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he led responses to outbreaks including Ebola disease in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a novel poxvirus in the country of Georgia. In 2020, he was appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to design and lead the city’s COVID-19 contact-tracing program, which reached more than 700,000 New Yorkers. He co-chairs the Lancet/PPATS Commission on Prevention of Viral Spillover and cares for patients in a public tuberculosis clinic in New York City.