Dr. Root came in to talk to us about John Snow. John Snow is held up as the father of modern epidemiology and one of the first health geographers. He made the map and studied cholera, but his early work leading up to cholera studies were really complex and they aren’t heard about much. I like how Dr. Root brought in topics we could relate to such as GIS and excel to explain how technology has changed for map making and in general. This made the talk a little more relatable and interesting. I always like when people suggest books to read, so I think that it was awesome that she suggested “The Ghost Map”, this book seems kind of interesting and I might look into it. I have heard of and studied miasma, Cholera, and the germ theory before in my microbiology class (which was one of my favorite classes) so I thought this talk was very interesting to learn a little more background on a historical level. Paradigm shift means that science is not steady, I really liked that she brought in Thomas Kunn since we are reading that, its nice to get another view of the book other than just reading it. I think it was interesting to learn about current paradigm shifts such as the “One Health” concept. I learned about vaccines in my Bio 3401 class, I think it was interesting to hear about her research on vaccines and just able to confirm some of the things I have already learned. Overall, it was really interesting to be hear about her accomplishments and scientific discoveries in epidemiology. I also liked that she left time for questions and she really explained the answers really well.
It s nice to know you took so much from this talk, Theresa. We have attempted to set it up so many separate ideas tie together from the speakers, to the trip and the student work. It s also great to know that some of these ideas tie together with some of your other classes and outside reading. I put Ghost Map on my reading list as well and became familiar with the author through his book on the chemical revolution, which we will be discussing on Thursday.