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Climate, Oceans, and Human Health: The Chesapeake Bay as a Paradigm for Predicting Infectious Diseases with Dr. Rita Colwell, 11th Director of the National Science Foundation and the Foundation’s first female Director. Dr. Colwell is an environmental microbiologist and scientific administrator and holds degrees in bacteriology, genetics, and oceanography. Dr. Colwell is recognized for her study of waterborne infectious diseases and their impacts on global health. She is the founder and Chair of CosmosID, a bioinformatics company. Marine biology historically has been closely intertwined with human health. Today significant advances in technology have brought new discoveries -from the outer reaches of space, where remote sensing monitors on satellites circle the earth, to the ultramicroscopic through application of next generation sequencing and bioinformatics. Vibrio cholerae provides a useful example of the fundamental link between human health and the oceans. This bacterium is the causative agent of cholera and is associated with major pandemics, yet it is a marine bacterium with a versatile genetics and is distributed globally in estuaries throughout the world, notably the Bay of Bengal, but also in our own Chesapeake Bay. Vibrio species, both nonpathogenic and those pathogenic for humans, marine animals, or marine vegetation, play a fundamental role in nutrient cycling. They have also been shown to respond to warming of surface waters of the North Atlantic, with increase in their numbers having been correlated with increased incident of infections in humans. The models we have developed for understanding and predicting outbreaks of cholera are based on work done in the Chesapeake Bay and these models are used by UNICEF and aid agencies today to predict cholera in Yemen and other countries of the African continent. These models are currently being modified to predict SARS, CoV-2, and COVID-19.