Jennifer Nuzzo

Professor of Epidemiology

Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health

Overview

COVID-19 has exposed an uncomfortable reality: we are living in an age of pandemic threats. Over the last century, changing environmental and social conditions have led to an increase in the frequency of outbreaks of new pathogens that may pose pandemic risks. Given the current pandemic’s profound and far-reaching health, social, economic and political impacts, the prospect of more pandemics in our future is bad news. But the good news is that there are steps we can take to “pandemic-proof” our society and ensure that future disease threats never again are capable of upending our lives. The academic sector, in particular, is well positioned to conduct the research, education and outreach that is needed to make positive changes that reduce our collective vulnerability to pandemics. In this talk, Jennifer Nuzzo will discuss what is needed to pandemic-proof the future and how Brown’s new Pandemic Center at the School of Public Health will lead these efforts.

About the speaker

Jennifer Nuzzo is professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. She is also a senior fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. An epidemiologist by training, her work focuses on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. In addition to her scholarly work, Nuzzo regularly advises national governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, including COVID-19. Nuzzo regularly engages with the media to educate and inform about emerging health security trends. She received a DrPH in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a Master of Science in environmental health from Harvard University, and a B.S. in environmental sciences from Rutgers University.