During the livestream please submit your questions by emailing rockyq&a@dartmouth.edu.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021
5:00pm-6:00pm
Room 003, Rockefeller Center

Class of 1930 Fellow Lecture

The Rise and Fall of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Speaker:
Nicholas Christakis
Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science
Yale University

Host:
Amber E. Barnato
Director
The Dartmouth Institute
Dartmouth College


Lecture Info:

As the coronavirus pandemic swept through American society in 2020, killing 750,000 people before the end of 2021, it followed a path worn by other respiratory pandemics of the past century, and indeed by other plagues stretching back millennia. What happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature? Using up-to-the-moment information, and drawing on epidemiology, sociology, medicine, public health, history, virology, and other fields, this talk explores what it means to live in a time of plague — an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans alive today, yet deeply fundamental to our species. Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as new opportunities for cooperation, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that have tested our frayed collective culture. And the upheaval cased by COVID-19 will be felt in the coming years economically, politically, and socially. But the end of the pandemic will also follow a typical path — both biologically and socially — as it ultimately winds down.

Speaker Bio:

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. His work is in the fields of network science, biosocial science, and behavior genetics. He directs the Human Nature Lab and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006; the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

Host Bio:

Amber E. Barnato is the Director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. She is a physician with dual training in preventive medicine and public health and hospice and palliative medicine. Her research focuses on variation in end-of-life intensive care unit (ICU) and life-sustaining treatment use.

In 2017, Barnato was named the inaugural Susan J. and Richard M. Levy 1960 Distinguished Professor in Health Care Delivery. She was previously associate professor of medicine, clinical and translational science, and health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health. Throughout her career she has published more than 100 research articles, advised more than 60 medical students committed to clinical research careers, and mentored seven faculty through their transition to independence.

Barnato earned a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MD from Harvard Medical School, an MPH from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MS from Stanford University.













Recent Publication:

Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
by Nicholas A. Christakis MD, PhD

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 9780316628211