Nov 13, 2014 2 min read

A Washington & Jefferson College alumna will return to campus next week to speak on a topic that is often misunderstood: the Ebola virus, what it is, and the truth and rumors about how it is spread.

Dr. Amy L. Hartman, a 1998 W&J grad, will present “Ebola 101: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask” at 7 p.m. Monday in the Allen Ballroom of Rossin Campus Center.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the Phi Sigma Biological Sciences Honor Society.

“We want to host this talk to spread awareness about the realities, risks, and current relevance of the Ebola virus after observing public reaction to Ebola cases in the United States,” said Sheetal Maragiri, a W&J senior and member of Phi Sigma.

Hartman, a University of Pittsburgh doctor of molecular virology, is research manager at the university’s Regional Biocontainment Laboratory in Oakland, as well as an assistant professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Microbiology in the Graduate School of Public Health.

During a post-doctoral fellowship with the Special Pathogens Branch of the Center for Disease Control, she studied the Ebola virus extensively.

Candy DeBerry, Ph.D. associate professor of biology at W&J, said this is an important topic to bring to the public at this point in time.

“There is a tremendous amount of misinformation circulating about Ebola virus,” she said, and in some cases it is leading to unwarranted panic and ineffective public policy proposals. “Meanwhile, many critically important issues are being virtually ignored, such as how the spread of these emerging infectious diseases is directly linked to human overpopulation, climate change, deforestation, and other disruptions and destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biological diversity.”