Science On Screen® brings you to FilmScene in Iowa City, IA for a screening of Contagion.

About the Speaker
Dr. Sharon DeWitte's research specialties are bioarchaeology, paleoepidemiology, and paleodemography. She engages in the reconstruction of life, health, disease, and demography in the past using assemblages of human skeletal remains, and is ultimately interested in the ways in which research on past populations informs our understanding of and promotes health among living people. Her research examines the biological, environmental, economic, and social factors that affect and interact with variation in health and mortality; the ecology, epidemiology, and consequences of diseases in past human populations; and the co-evolution of humans and pathogens. For the last 15 years, her research has primarily centered around the Black Death (c. 1346-1353): the first outbreak of the Second Pandemic of Plague, and one of the most devastating and influential epidemics in human history. Her research on diet, migration, and demography in medieval London is currently funded by the National Science Foundation. Recent publications include "Stress, sex, and plague: patterns of developmental stress and survival in pre-and post-Black Death London", American Journal of Human Biology, 2018, and "Archaeological evidence of epidemics can inform future epidemics", Annual Review of Anthropology, 2016.