Talk 1 – “Poopfrastructure, or Why You Should Start Your Own Poovolution” by Lauren Burgunder

POOP! We all think poop is gross (or hilarious for the mature of us). We tend to excrete it and flush it, never to think of it again. But maybe it deserves a little more love. Lauren will discuss some of the wonders of poop (because there are many) but mostly look at the evolution of our want to forget about it and the many forms “forgetting about it” have taken. We will discuss the infrastructure (or poopfrastructure if you will (EDIT: Oh, we totally will)) that has allowed us to forget and the global impacts of that decision.

Lauren became a poop enthusiast while completing her Masters in Public Health. She wrote many papers on diarrheal diseases and went to Guatemala to complete a sanitation needs assessment. She asked lots of women what they liked about their toilet and you should come prepared to answer the same question. Last year she returned to Guatemala for six months to start preventative health programs at a woman’s cooperative in Guatemala City. She is happy to report that she is headed to medical school in the fall!

Talk 2 – “Triple E & Me” by Asim A. Ahmed, M.D.

Asim is an instructor at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. After medical training at Baylor College of Medicine and UCSF, he completed a pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia followed by subspecialty training in pediatric infectious diseases here in Boston at Children’s/HMS. Asim will use these credentials to scare the crap out of us by telling the story of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a highly pathogenic, often fatal, mosquito-borne virus in New England.

Be there and be square!