Who: Carl Zimmer, science writer, author and New York Times science columnist
When: Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Where: First Congregational Church of Old Lyme [5 Ferry Road, Old Lyme, CT 06371]
Time: 6pm to 7pm
Fee: Non-members $20 Zoom Access | Non-members $20 In-Person
SECWAC Presents:
Carl Zimmer: Science and Research During the Pandemic – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
It was about a century ago when modern medicine dealt with its first major pandemic, the influenza of 1918. What did we learn then and what has science and research in the age of coronavirus taught us about controlling the spread, testing, and reporting of disease? What have we learned about the role of multinational cooperation in stemming the spread of a disease that recognizes no borders? How can those lessons prepare us for future pandemics in our interconnected world? Join award-winning author and New York Times science columnist Carl Zimmer for a timely conversation about the coronavirus pandemic. This will be a return visit to SECWAC for Mr. Zimmer, who fascinated us in 2019 with a pre-pandemic conversation about She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, his 2018 book about how researchers are rewriting the history of humanity, discovering previously unknown collisions between ancient peoples and the ways in which new ideas (not unlike coronavirus) have spread around the globe.
About Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer is a columnist for The New York Times and the author of 14 books about science. Zimmer earned a B.A. in English from Yale and worked at Discover, where he served for five years as a senior editor. Since then, he has written hundreds of articles for magazines including National Geographic, Scientific American, and The Atlantic. Zimmer’s writing has earned a number of awards from organizations including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2016, he won the 2016 Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded by the Society for the Study of Evolution to recognize individuals whose sustained efforts have advanced public understanding of evolutionary science. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, and The Guardian named it the best science book of 2018. Zimmer is an adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, where he also teaches writing.