Professor Gregg Mitman, a scholar of medical history and environmental studies, is featured today in an interview with the College of Letters & Science discussing what we can learn from global epidemics in a historical lens. Professor Mitman has studied the historical path of infectious disease outbreaks across centuries and the globe, and has released a short film about the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in Liberia titled In the Shadow of Ebola (part of the Independent Lens series from PBS). In May, Professor Mitman and Professor Susan Lederer (Medical History & Bioethics) will team up to teach a course for medical students titled, “Outbreak! Epidemics, Migration, and the Changing Contours of Public Health.” Regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic, Mitman says “Epidemics always expose the fault lines in society; they make visible the deep fissures in our social safety nets, or lack thereof, whereby the most vulnerable suffer the greatest burdens and consequences.” To read more, see the article in College of Letters & Science News. To watch and learn more about In the Shadow of Ebola, please see the film’s website.