Mark Jerome Walters
Emerging Disease Expert

Mark Jerome Walters is trained in veterinary medicine and journalism. He writes and speaks frequently about the connections among ecology and health. His most recent book, Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them, (Shearwater Books/Island Press), describes the human role in causing Mad Cow disease, Lyme disease, HIV/AIDS and other ecodemics. It won the Independent Book Publishers Award. Formerly a visiting lecturer at Harvard Medical School, he is now a professor of journalism at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. His worked has appeared in Audubon, Natural History, Orion and other publications. Walters is also the author of the acclaimed book A Shadow and a Song, the natural, political and social history of the 1987 extinction of the dusky seaside sparrow. A bluegrass musician, Walters has played 5-string banjo for more than 25 years. He lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast with his wife Noelle, who is a psychotherapist, and their two children. Walters has a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University School of Journalism. He graduated magna cum laude from McGill University where he received his bachelor of arts degree in English literature.