Well I never. My talk on malaria, now streaming on Netflix.
Author: Sonia Shah (Page 2 of 19)
Very pleased to report that this September I’ll be speaking at the 2014 TEDMED conference. My talk, on the unexpected origins of new diseases, arises out of four years of research and reporting for my new book, forthcoming from Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2015. I’ll be the opening speaker! Even better: two of my favorites, physician/novelists Abraham Verghese and comedian Tig Notaro, are also speaking at the conference.
Best of all? My son Z is skipping school to come with me.
I’ve had National Geographic magazines sprinkled around my house for years, and several of their amazing photographs are indelibly seared into my brain. So it was an extra fun experience to be interviewed for their weekend radio show, which aired this past Sunday, May 18. Boyd and I chatted about malaria and mosquitoes. You can hear it here.
Tick Talk: An investigative project on Lyme disease
Over the past 14 weeks, I’ve been working with a group of talented young journalism students and writers at SUNY New Paltz, as the 2014 Ottaway Visiting Professor of Journalism. The New Paltz campus lies at the epicenter of the nation’s growing Lyme disease epidemic, which now afflicts 300,000 Americans every year, making it the country’s most common vector-borne disease. New York state accounts for nearly a third of the nation’s Lyme disease cases, and Ulster County, where New Paltz is located, is the eighth most Lyme-infested county in the nation.
We’ve launched a website called Tick Talk that explores the scientific, political, economic, and cultural impact this cryptic disease has had. Check it out here! You can read my article, “Lyme Disease: a Harbinger of the World to Come?,” which gives an overview of our main findings here.
I’ll be hosting a Q&A after a screening of George Romero’s classic zombie film “Night of the Living Dead,” in which a deadly plague unleashes all manner of mayhem, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 19 at 7:30. The event is part of the “Science on Screen” program which explores the surprising connections between movies and real-life science. There’ll be necrophilia! Cannibalism! Incest! Plus of course, a showing of the film itself. Just kidding. But it will be a fun evening–tix are $13, $10 for students. Check it out here.
The pop science radio show Radiolab features yours truly–as well as science journalist David Quammen and Oxitec’s Hadyn Perry–now available as a fun 20-minute podcast. Their angle? Can we “kill ’em all.” Check it out here.
On November 14, 2014, I’ll be delivering an address about the politics of malaria to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, in San Antonio, TX. Looking forward to it! Time TBA.
Gates Foundation/Flickr
My new article in Foreign Affairs–“A Cure for Africa’s Common Cold: Why Malaria Persists“–argues that getting rid of malaria is a whole lot harder than it seems. Check it out at Foreign Affairs.
Nearly 1 million people have viewed the video of my TED talk on malaria on the TED.com site, and another nearly 50,000 on YouTube. Imagine a world in which print media had such reach? Wow. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here.
In Belle-Anse, Haiti, learning about the explosive cholera epidemic
Just returned from Haiti, where I was reporting on the ongoing cholera epidemic, including in the remote fishing village of Belle-Anse in the Sud-Est Department. To get there, we rode motorcycles, caught a ride on a packed minivan over the mountains and then chartered a 15-foot skiff with a periodically dysfunctional outboard engine. The story I found, of how cholera came to Belle-Anse and how it currently holds the village in its deadly thrall, was dramatic, absurd, and tragic all at once. I hope I can do it justice. I’ll be writing about it in my forthcoming book.
Sonia’s latest book: The Next Great Migration
Sonia’s latest story in the New Yorker magazine
Sonia’s latest story in the New York Times Magazine
Sonia on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Sonia on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, February 15, 2021 episode, "The Next Pandemic"
Ted Talks
"How Unhealthy Paradigms Become Contagious"
"Three Reasons We Still Haven't Got Rid of Malaria"
Connect With Sonia
