DR. COLWELL has held many advisory positions in the U.S. Government, nonprofit science policy organizations, and private foundations, as well as in the international scientific research community. She has authored or co-authored 19 books and more than 800 scientific publications and produced the award-winning film, Invisible Seas, as well as has served on editorial boards of numerous scientific journals. She serves as Chair of the Research Board for the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (2010-2020).

In this presentation, Dr. Colwell will be talking about how marine biology historically has been closely intertwined with human health. Today significant advances in technology have brought new discoveries - from the outer reaches of space, where remote sensing monitors on satellites circle the earth, to the ultramicroscopic through application of next generation sequencing and bioinformatics. Vibrio cholerae provides a useful example of the fundamental link between human health and the oceans. This bacterium is the causative agent of cholera and is associated with major pandemics, yet it is a marine bacterium with a versatile genetics and is distributed globally in estuaries throughout the world, notably the Bay of Bengal, but also in our own Chesapeake Bay. The models we have developed for understanding and predicting outbreaks of cholera are based on work done in the Chesapeake Bay and these models are being used by UNICEF and aid agencies today to predict cholera in Yemen and other countries of the African continent. With onset of COVID-19, these models are currently being modified to predict SARS CoV-2 and incidence of COVID-19, the current pandemic of coronavirus. In summary, microbial ecology can be used to serve as a critical indicator of human health and wellness. How this is accomplished and how we are beginning to understand environmental aspects of COVID-19 will be discussed in this talk.
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