Berkeley Professor of Wildlife Ecology Wayne M. Getz will discuss the principles for achieving holistic views of epidemic diseases such as anthrax, bubonic plague and cholera, which are caused by a pathogen living in soil or water. His remarks are titled, “Blind Servants and the Elephant: What Does this Buddhist Parable Tell Us about the Study of Environmentally-Mediated Disease?”
Getz is the principal investigator for an ongoing National Science Foundation study of the spread of bovine tuberculosis in the African buffalo population in Kruger National Park in northeastern South Africa, one of Africa’s largest game reserves. His research focuses on the application of mathematical modeling and analysis to problems in conservation biology, wildlife management, and epidemiology.
Born in South Africa, Getz has been a faculty member at Berkeley since 1979. He is a Fellow of the California Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Awardee.
The Lamberson Ecology Lecture takes its name from Professor Roland Lamberson, a member of Humboldt State’s Department of Mathematics from 1980-2004. The series is sponsored by the Lamberson Ecology Trust and HSU’s College of Natural Resources and Sciences. The presentation is free and open to the public.