Acclaimed science writer Laurie Garrett will explore topics in global health in two talks

Laurie Garrett, who has won Peabody and Polk Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for her science writing, will speak at Yale on Wednesday, April 4, as a Poynter Fellow in Journalism.

Garrett will speak at two public events. Her first talk, titled “Global Health Threats and Climate Change: Can We Save Earth’s Microbiome?” will take place at noon at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, 100 College St.  The second event will be a Jonathan Edwards College Tea, which will take place at 4 p.m. in Jonathan Edwards College, 70 High St. Her visit is co-sponsored by the Yale School of Public Health.

Garrett is a science journalist and author. In 1996, as a reporter for Newsday, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for a series of articles chronicling the Ebola outbreak in Zaire. Her first bestselling book, “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance,” was published in 1994 while she split her time between Newsday and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Garrett has published two other books about global public health. In 2004, Garrett left Newsday to join the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she ran the Global Health Program and served as the senior fellow for global health.

A graduate of the University of California-Santa Cruz Garrett began reporting on science news at a local radio station while she was in graduate school. She ultimately left school to pursue journalism. She is the only writer who has been awarded the Pulitzer, Polk, and Peabody prizes. 

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism was established by Nelson Poynter, who received his master’s degree in 1927 from Yale. The fellowship brings to campus distinguished reporters, editors and others who have made important contributions to the media. Among recent Poynter fellows are Elizabeth Kolbert, Dan Diamond, and Susan Glasser.