Jessica Malaty Rivera

Welcome to another episode of our new video series, Need to Know, where actress, activist, and host of the Work in Progress podcast, Sophia Bush, sits down with experts to get the answers to your most pressing questions about life right now. Our guest today specializes in translating complex scientific concepts into impactful, effective, judgement-free information, making it accessible for diverse audiences...the brilliant Jessica Malaty Rivera.

Jessica is a microbiologist, ID epidemiologist, and science communicator that has dedicated the last 15 years of her career to infectious disease epidemiology, public health policy, and vaccine advocacy. She is currently serving as the Science Communication Lead for The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic, in addition to remaining an active member of the COVID-19 Dispersed Volunteer Research Network and an expert contributor for NBC Bay Area and CNN.

In addition to the incredible work that she does professionally, Jessica is a wife and mother raising two children under the age of 5 years old. Sophia & Jessica discuss how she became interested in epidemiology, her life-changing internship with a human rights firm, racial disparities in public health, the current pandemic and how her and her family are coping with it, the danger of misinformation, how science disproves conspiracies...and so, so much more.