The Inaugural Richard V. Lee Lectureship in Global Health was presented by Stephen Luby, MD, titled, "Can Public Health Efforts Avert Imminent Human Extinction?"
Stephen Luby, MD studied philosophy and earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Creighton University. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester-Strong Memorial Hospital. He studied epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Luby's previous positions include directing the Centre for Communicable Diseases at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 2004 - 2012, conducting research and teaching epidemiology at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan from 1993 - 1998, and working as an epidemiologist in the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He is best known for his work demonstrating the impact of handwashing on disease reduction in low income countries, characterizing the epidemiology of Nipah virus transmission in Bangladesh, and explicating the importance of unsafe injections for transmission of hepatitis C in low income countries.