Partnering to Tackle Public Health Crises: Viral Hepatitis Case Study | Buffett First Friday Lunch with Claudia Hawkins

The Roberta Buffett Institute hosts a faculty research lunchtime talk series on the first Friday of every month. Faculty members give a half-hour talk intended for a broad, multidisciplinary audience of Northwestern students, faculty and staff, followed by a conversational Q&A. 

January’s Buffett First Friday Lunch will feature Claudia Hawkins, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Havey Institute for Global Health’s Center for Global Communicable & Emerging Infectious Diseases at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. 

Some of the world’s most urgent health challenges demand solutions that cross disciplines, borders, and institutions. While highly effective tools for preventing, diagnosing, and treating viral hepatitis already exist, these infections remain a leading cause of liver-related illness and mortality worldwide, with the highest burden in low- and middle-income countries—underscoring the gap between what scientific innovation makes possible and what health systems can deliver equitably.  

Professor Hawkins will share research efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States aimed at closing that gap. She will overview the impact of recent epidemiological research, new diagnostic approaches, and implementation science as well as present approaches to building sustainable research capacity through multidisciplinary partnerships between local communities, academic institutions, and international research networks. The discussion will offer lessons for anyone interested in how collaborative multidisciplinary research can address a public health crisis in the settings and populations where the burden is greatest and need for equitable interventions is most urgent. 

Doors open at 12:00 p.m., and lunch begins at 12:15 p.m. 

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated.