Talks @ Pulitzer: How Humans Are Driving the Rise of Diseases

Join us on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, for a Talks @ Pulitzer event in Washington, D.C., with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Johnson. Johnson shares his experiences reporting on outbreaks, climate change, and human-animal interactions.

Johnson is a health and science reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he has worked since 2000. He shared the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting with four other journalists at the Journal Sentinel for their reporting on gene sequencing. He has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times, and is the co-author of "One in a Billion: The Story of Nic Volker and the Dawn of Genomic Medicine."

Johnson received support from the Pulitzer Center for two reporting projects, most recently "Outbreak: How Humans Are Driving the Rise of Diseases," which examines the consequences of our increasingly close contact with animal species. Increased proximity has resulted in a massive increase of zoonotic diseases—sickness that spreads from animals to humans. "Think diseases such as Zika, Ebola, SARS, and rabies," writes Johnson, "each year, zoonotic diseases account for 2.5 billion cases of human illness and about 2.7 million deaths."

Light reception at 5:30 pm, with Johnson's talk beginning at 6:00 pm. Space is limited for this free public event so register today.