Science Cafe kicks off with discussion about COVID with Athens City-County Health Department

Ohio University's Science Cafe series kicks off its fall lineup with a virtual panel of experts from the Athens City-County Health Department discussing “College during COVID-19: One Community, One Mission” on Sept. 2 at 5 p.m.

Important Note: These experts are not from Ohio University. As they answer audience questions during the live stream, please remember that the information they provide, while important, is not an official university communication.

Athens City-County Health Department officials Dr. James Gaskell, Jack Pepper and Ruth Dudding will lead a discussion about the science behind the policy. Topics include:

What is contact tracing, how do we do it in Athens, and why is it important?
Does COVID affect age groups differently; does local data support this?
What factors predict which activities have higher risk of COVID transmission and why?

While this fall's events will be virtual, there will still be plenty of room for audience participation and questions. To help prepare for the event, members of the University and greater community are encouraged to submit written and video questions to research@ohio.edu by Aug. 26. Participants also will have the opportunity to ask questions at the event.

Watch and participate in the event here.

The 12th year of Science Cafe at OHIO also features friendly, accessible talks with Rob Brannan discussing the native, vitamin-rich pawpaw, a fruit ripening now in the forests of Appalachia; a live look inside the Witmer Lab, where dinosaurs come to life, anatomically speaking; Paul Benedict discussing social entrepreneurship; Geoff Dabelko exploring the intersection of science and policy; and Nathan Weyand talking about antibiotic resistance and blood.

The series is supported by the Ohio University Research Division and Ohio University chapter of Sigma Xi. For the first 11 years, Dr. Sarah Wyatt, professor of Environmental & Plant Biology, hosted the program. She recently was named a Sigma Xi fellow, which contributions to Science Cafe among her accolades. See OHIO professor Wyatt earns pair of national fellowships.

For more information about Science Cafe, contact Roxanne Malé-Brune or David Ingram.