I grew up in Nigeria, and I wanted to work in microbiology because I was a germ freak as a young kid but then I was struck by the different ways that people that I grew up with conceived of the causes of illness. I really wanted to get to the bottom of microbiology and health, but I was also fascinated by nature and the environment… and so I chose environmental microbiology and that got me into chemicals and pesticides. I’m inspired by ASPPH’s programming at this conference because environment features prominently, but I think we still have a long way to go in terms of thinking about petroleum pollution, prochemicals, plastics, climate change… big challenges that are discouraging young people but it just means we have more work to do in public health.
