The Microbes and Social Equity 2022 speaker series has been awarded additional funding support by a grant from the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series Fund at the University of Maine!

This award will complement the previous funding support we received from the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, and collectively these funds allow us to compensate speakers for their time and effort putting these talks and discussions together.

The series runs every Wednesday at noon from January 19th through May 4th this year, and we have had some incredible presentations and discussions. Registration links for the remaining events, and links to the recordings of previous events, can be found on the series event page.

Series summary: Microbes influence the health and well-being of all living things—individuals, communities, and broader environmental networks which span internationally. The Microbes and Social Equity group is presenting a speaker series, hosted by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, which will specifically highlight how the different kinds of microbes that we interact with are influenced by aspects of daily life as well as the social policies which support or oppress livelihoods. The virtual speaker series aims to give students, staff, and faculty at UMaine, as well as our broader educational community, the opportunity to learn about how social equity and microbes intersect to shape health in wide range of settings—how we define what a ‘healthy human microbe’ is, how soil microbes shape community health, what challenges the integration of the microbiome research in a One Health perspective, and more. This speaker series will explore the ways that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field.