WCTA OPERATION
OUTBREAK
ABOUT ONE HEALTH DAY: EXPLORING OUTBREAK EDUCATION
West Career and Technical Academy is hosting One Health Day: Exploring Outbreak Education alongside healthcare professionals on September 28th, 2024 beginning at 8:30 AM PST.
We’re raising awareness specifically in four key sectors:
Public Health
Veterinary Science
Ecology
Government Policies
Workshops include speakers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and 2014 Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", Dr. Pardis Sabeti, Writer for the New Yorker and best-selling author Richard Preston, Director of Southern Nevada Sonia Joya, Dr. Todd Brown of Operation Outbreak from the Broad Institute and his team, in addition to many others!
We’ll be holding workshops for each respective category, including presentations, audience discussions and interactive activities.
With experienced speakers bringing insight to these four key sectors, we are excited to ensure an enriching experience for all! The entire experience is of no cost, as entrance is free and open to anyone 13+. We will also have the option for attendees to tune in virtually. Additionally, breakfast and lunch will be provided, and every in-person attendee will receive our very own One Health Day shirt.
ONE HEALTH DAY PICTURES
#me=we
What is Me=We?
"Me = We" means that individual well-being is interconnected with the community's health, so taking care of yourself also benefits society as a whole.
Our SPONSORS
MEET OUR SPEAKERS
We are delighted to present a lineup of speakers for One Health Day: Exploring Outbreak Education. Our speakers bring a wealth of knowledge in respective fields like ecology, veterinary science, public health, and policy to our event.
Dr. Pardis Sabeti
Pardis Sabeti is a professor at Harvard University and a core institute member of the Broad Institute. Her lab has pioneered technologies for detecting, tracking, and countering deadly pathogens, including Ebola, Zika, and SARS-CoV-2. They have also created some of the most powerful algorithms and molecular tools to characterize the human genome and transformative methods for gene delivery of new biomedicines. Sabeti co-founded the African Center of Excellence for Genomic of Infectious Disease (ACEGID), training frontline scientists from 53 of 54 African countries. She has taught countless students through popular courses in genetics, statistics and outbreak science. She co-founded SHERLOCK Biosciences and serves on their foundation’s board to bring at-cost diagnostics to low and middle income countries. Sabeti’s many honors include TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” as one of the Ebola fighters, 100 Most Influential People, and Impact award. She is a National Academy of Medicine member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and holds a B.S. from MIT, D.Phil. from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and M.D. from Harvard Medical School summa cum laude.
RIchard Preston
Richard Preston is the international bestselling author of ten books, including The Hot Zone, The Wild Trees, Crisis in the Red Zone, and (with Michael Crichton) the novel Micro. Preston’s books explore dramatic, hidden worlds of nature and human experience through true narrative. He has taught nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He’s the only non-physician to receive the Champion of Prevention Award of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and an asteroid has been named for him. (Asteroid Preston is on a wild orbit that could cause it to slam into the Earth in the distant future.) He lives in Massachusetts, where he’s currently working on a new book.
Curtis Hoffman
Curtis Hoffmann is an outbreak science enthusiast who works in outreach and curriculum development for Operation Outbreak. As an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, where he studied microbiology and social impact, he created the first Outbreak Embassy. Now, he helps build Outbreak Embassies in schools across the United States. Fascinated by outbreak culture or the anthropological underpinnings of infectious disease outbreaks, Curtis aims to study medical anthropology in graduate school and become a physician-scientist.
Dr. Todd Brown
Todd is a Doctor of higher education with a focus on computational sociology, winning awards such as U.S. Congressional Teacher of the Year, the United States Henry Ford Innovator Award, and the Air Force Association STEM Teacher of the Year Award. Dr. Brown has co-created Operation Outbreak which has won the Reimagine Education Award for Best Hybrid Program in the world. He is also an education ambassador for the United Nations and an education fellow for the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Kian Sani
Advisor to the Group Leader, Special Projects, Sabeti Group & Program Manager and Co-Head, Operation Outbreak, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Kian Sani serves as Special Projects and Strategic Partnerships Advisor to Dr. Pardis Sabeti at the Sabeti Lab of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. As part of this role, he also serves as Program Manager and Co-Head of the Operation Outbreak program, a multi-institution, cross-disciplinary initiative in experiential outbreak science education. Kian and his fellow Co-Heads––Drs. Brown, Colubri, and Sabeti––are in the process of spinning the program out of the Broad Institute, co-founding it as a separate non-profit entity dedicated to advancing outbreak science education. Kian received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Government. Kian represented Team Canada, as part of a four-person delegation, at the International Biology Olympiad––the world’s premier pre-university biology competition––in Bern, Switzerland in 2013. As an undergraduate researcher, he made significant contributions to the biomedical field within the Sabeti Lab, focusing on the development of low-cost, field-deployable diagnostic tests for Lyme disease and related co-infections.
Dr. Louisa Messenger
An Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health’s Environmental and Occupational Health Department. Working over more than 14 years in international public health, specializing in control of vector-borne diseases. Messenger has also collaborated on projects across Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, while keeping close collaborations with local research institutions. She continues to be passionate about teaching to the next generation of global health researchers.
Chad L. Cross
A Professor in Residence, teaches courses for the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics housed within UNLV’s School of Public Health. Prior to teaching, his research focused on investigating chronic and infectious diseases, using statistics to examine problems in health. Cross also has expertise on the ecology and epidemiology of parasites and vector-borne-diseases such as Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, and West Nile virus.
Assemblyman Duy Nguygen
Assemblyman Duy Nguygen has been a public servant representing the Nevada Assembly since 2023. During the 2023 session, he served on the Health and Human Services, Government Affairs, and Revenue Committees. Previous public service includes roles as a Commissioner on the Clark County Planning Commission and Chair for the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition. Nguygen has been recognized for this community leadership, receiving the Community Service and Leadership Award from the Vietnamese-American Community of Las Vegas in 2022.
Senator Edgar Flores
CouncilWoman Nancy Brune
Councilwoman Brune is an accomplished leader with a distinguished career in public policy and research. Prior to her election, she served as the founding Executive Director of the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, Nevada’s only bipartisan policy center, for nearly a decade. A prolific writer, she has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, reports, essays, blogs, and op-eds, and was a regular columnist for The Nevada Independent. Currently, Councilwoman Brune is a Research Professor at the Desert Research Institute and a Principal at Luz Development Institute. Her previous roles include Senior Policy Analyst at Sandia National Laboratories and the UNLV Institute for Security Studies, as well as Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. She has also consulted for prestigious organizations such as the World Bank, Harvard School of Public Health, JPMorgan Chase, and the U.S. Development Corporation.In addition to her professional endeavors, Councilwoman Brune serves on several keyboards, including the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, Southern Nevada Health District, Tule Springs Fossil Bed Advisory Council, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Committee, and the Nellis Civilian Military Council Executive Board (Alternate).
Edgar Flores is an accomplished American politician, attorney and former member of the Nevada Assembly where he served from 2015 to 2021. During his tenure, he chaired the Government Affairs Committee and played a key role in legislative efforts on education, taxation, and affordable housing.
Carolyn LEvering
Carolyn Levering, Emergency Management Administrator for the City of Las Vegas Office of Emergency Management (OEM), develops and maintains emergency response plans, manages federal and state grant programs, and conducts routine training and exercises. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has been a Certified Emergency Manager since 2005. Prior to leading the Las Vegas OEM, Levering served as Plans and Operations Coordinator for Clark County, NV and Chapter Operations Director for the American Red Cross of Southern Nevada.
Dr. John Kim
Dr. John J. Kim, MD, is an attending emergency physician at DMS - Envision Healthcare since 2003, recently served as the Associate Medical Director of the Summerlin Hospital Emergency Department (2018-2024) and Director of Innovations for Envision West Division (2024-present). He completed his postgraduate training at Advocate Christ Medical Center (2000-2003) and earned his medical degree with honors from the Medical College of Wisconsin (1996-2000). He graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1995 with a degree in Molecular and cellular biology with an emphasis in genetics. Dr. Kim is board certified in Emergency Medicine and actively participates in committees and projects, focusing on advanced airway techniques, emergency management, and resident physician training.
Dr. Sophia Chin
Dr. Sophia Chin is an Aetna One Advocate medical director providing clinical expertise and business direction in support of medical management programs to promote the delivery of high-quality medical care. She empowers her team to create a unique and proactive experience through high touch, personalized communications designed to help their members surpass their healthcare goals and efficiently navigate the healthcare environment. Prior to joining CVS Health, Dr. Chin was the medical director at American-Sino Healthcare, an international women’s and children’s specialty hospital. During her tenure, she facilitated the hospital’s rapid growth becoming Shanghai’s market leader in premium obstetrical services and expanding as a multispecialty institution. In addition to her administrative duties, she continued as a solo OBGYN practitioner in private practice caring for both the local and expat population accumulating more than 16 years of combined domestic and international clinical experience. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Chicago and completed her medical training and residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is a well-recognized Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists having won teaching and patient care awards at various hospitals and board-certified in both OBGYN and Health Care Quality Management.
Dr. Edmund Goroza
Dr. Edmund Goroza is a pediatric hospitalist. He earned his medical degree in the Philippines and did residency training in general pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine in New York. Since graduating from medical school in 1997, he has practiced medicine in various settings. From rural and urban private and public hospitals in the Philippines to suburban and inner-city hospitals here in the United States. He is currently the department chairman for pediatrics in Summerlin Hospital and Medical Center here in Las Vegas.
Dr. Brady VanderLInd
Dr. VanderLind graduated from Mississippi State University and has practiced veterinary medicine for the past 30 years in Cheyenne Tonapah Animal Hospital in Las Vegas. He loves animals and has spent years dedicating his practice to ensure all animals under his care are treated as family; so much so that Dr. VanderLind and his family currently include more than 20 animals in their home with their children. Dr. VanderLind is also a proud support of West Career and Technical Academy’s Operation Outbreak Embassy Club.