Events: A Paradigm Shift in Infectious Diseases

Professor Lydia Bourouiba, faculty in Civil and Environmental Engineering,  Mechanical Engineering, and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, collaborates with Argha Manna, a cancer researcher turned comics artist from Kolkata, India. They continue their previous work translating the complex science of fluid dynamics of disease transmission into comics. Their joint project, Be Aware of Droplets and Bubbles, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine and featured in JAMA Networks’ “Graphic Medicine—The Best of 2020.” 

As an extension of their ongoing collaboration, A Paradigm Shift in Infectious Diseases aims to clarify confusion about the mechanisms of transmission of airborne pathogens, and more broadly, the importance of crossing boundaries between fundamental physical processes, biology, and physiology, and how the scientific method coupled with advancement of scientific instrumentation has shaped paradigm shifts in science. They leverage visual storytelling using comics to communicate these entangled concepts vital to the public understanding of the advancement of the frontier of human knowledge.