Disease

Nancy Leys Stepan is professor of history at Columbia University. Her previous books include “The Hour of Eugenics”: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America.

Contributing writer @nytmag. Author of An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases

Jonathan Howard is a cell geneticist who has made important contributions through his studies in rats to our understanding of immunogenetics — the interplay between the immune system and genetics. He also identified the transporters required for major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I assembly, which opened up transport and assembly of membrane proteins as a new and exciting area of research.

Physician, epidemiologist, and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Credited with devising the global strategy for eradicating smallpox.

Born in Lakewood, Ohio to Scots-Canadian immigrant parents. His father was an engineer and his mother was a nurse.

Recipient of a significant grant from the National Institutes of Health for leading a part of the Precision Medicine Initiative. Also serves as the principal investigator for the Scripps hub of the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program.