Acute virus expert to speak at Bridgewater

Dr. Jennifer McQuiston will discuss her work with Ebola and the Zika virus.
Dr. Jennifer McQuiston will discuss her work with Ebola and the Zika virus. | File photo
Bridgewater College will welcome Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, an outbreak investigations specialist who spent time in West Africa during the Ebola epidemic in 2014-15, as a guest speaker Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Cole Hall.

McQuiston, who is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's deputy director for the division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, will discuss her work with Ebola and the Zika virus.

McQuiston earner her doctorate in veterinary medicine from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. She has since worked with diseases included Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Q fever and rabies. She also serves as a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service and has taken part in a number of emergency responses, which includes two deployments in West Africa during the Ebola epidemic.

On 9/11, she was part of a CDC advance team that flew into New York City to keep watch for potential bioterrorism events. She was the lead member of a team that aided in the tracing of imported wildlife for the U.S.’s first monkeypox outbreak in 2003 and also served on response teams for influenza and global polio eradication under the CDC.