The Source of Pandemics

🔥 Lottery: Aug 27–Sept 2 • Full registration: Aug 28
Dates: December 15, 2025
Meets: M from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
 Location: Bozeman, MT - Museum of the Rockies
Cost:  $0.00

There are still openings remaining at this time.

Date Day Time
12/15/2025Monday3 PM to 5 PM

OR

Please note: This course program requires membership in a 2025-2026 OLLI at MSU Membership

Description

Author David Quammen will discuss emerging infectious diseases—the ones that seem to come out of nowhere, causing fear, confusion, death, suspicion and sometimes pandemics—and the scientific study of where they emerge from, how and why. He will discuss infamous disease outbreaks of the recent past, such as SARS in 2001, Ebola in 2014 and the COVID-19 pandemic. He will address the question that deeply concerns disease scientists but is largely ignored by political leaders: What fresh hell will come next?

Program Takeaways

  • To interest people more deeply in an essential but neglected subject.
  • To fascinate them with a historical and scientific narrative.
  • To help them acquire a basic conceptual grounding to understand all the information and misinformation they are exposed to on this topic.
Fee:  $0.00

Bozeman, MT - Museum of the Rockies

600 West Kagy Blvd
Bozeman, Montana 59717

David Quammen

David Quammen is an author and journalist. His eighteen books include The Song of the Dodo, Spillover, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin and Breathless. He most often writes about science, especially evolutionary biology, ecology, conservation biology and virology. He has won various awards for his magazine work and books (including the National Magazine Award three times) and has been a finalist for others. His feature work on disease science has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Times Magazine and other journals. His Op-eds have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers. He lives in Bozeman with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of American Zion and True West.