without further ado, i would like to introduce sonia shah to my far left. sonia shah has written the book under discussion today, "pandemic" as well as other books. she is a prize-winning author and science journalist. her work has appeared in "the new york times," "the wall street journal," foreign affairs and she has announced and made ted talk on eliminating malaria if you want to take a look at that also. she focuses on the intersection of science, politics and human rights and will be discussing her new books with us today. we also have stabbed to, who is a former political reporter for the washington bureau of the "houston chronicle" and she actually left newspapers to pursue an interest close to my heart and the hearts of many in this room, microbiology. and she won in 2005 the u.s. center for disease control and she has a masters in journalism from the university of maryland and also a masters in science writing from hopkins where she is now a teacher of science journalism. she lives in baltimore with her husband and twin daughters who have believed