November 2, 2017

---

Conference to address threat of pandemics from diseases driven by human decisions

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and a Pulitzer Prize winner will take the stage at the Diederich College of Communication's annual O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism conference. The free, public event will be held Thursday, Nov. 9, in the Lubar Center at Marquette University Law School, from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The conference will discuss the "Outbreak" stories by 2016-17 O'Brien Fellow and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel health and science reporter Mark Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize winner. "Outbreak" covers the threat of pandemics from diseases that are driven by human decisions.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jonathan Patz, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Global Health Institute, will discuss climate change and the ethics of various responses to the threat of zoonotic diseases. Johnson and student journalists will talk about their roles in reporting the series.

For a detailed schedule of events, visit the conference page. For questions, contact Dave Umhoefer, interim director of the O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, at (414) 288-5956 or david.umhoefer@marquette.edu