Mark Jerome Walters

Mark Jerome Walters

Mark Jerome Walters, a professional journalist and veterinarian, is author of the widely acclaimed books A Shadow and a Song, Six Modern Plagues, and Seeking the Sacred Raven. His writing has been praised by The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Nature and numerous other scholarly and popular publications. Dr. Walters is director of the M.A. in Digital Journalism and Design at the University of South Florida. He has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard Medical School and an associate at Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment. He speaks frequently on the subject of communicating science to the lay public. Dr. Walters’ reporting and writing have taken him to Africa, Asia, throughout South America and Europe, Canada and to all fifty states. He received an undergraduate degree in English literature from McGill University; a master’s from the Columbia University School of Journalism; and a D.V.M. from Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Walters is a bluegrass music enthusiast and plays the 5-string banjo.

Seven Modern Plagues

and How We Are Causing Them

Epidemiologists are braced for the big one: the strain of flu that rivals the pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed at least 20 million people worldwide. In recent years, we have experienced scares with a host of new influenza viruses: bird flu,...

Seeking the Sacred Raven

Seeking the Sacred Raven

Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island

Will the 'Alala ever return to the wild? A bird sacred to Hawaiians and a member of the raven family, the 'Alala today survives only in captivity. How the species once flourished, how it has been driven to near-extinction, and how people...

Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them

West Nile Virus—Mad Cow Disease—HIV/AIDS—Hantavirus—Lyme Disease ... and a new strain of Salmonella. Such modern epidemics have emerged over the past few decades as mysterious, yet significant risks to human health. These "plagues" are forcing us...