Paul Carson, MD, FACP, and Medical Director of CIRE, received NDSU’s 61st Faculty Lectureship Award.
The Faculty Lectureship, one of the oldest and most prestigious of the University’s awards, recognizes sustained professional excellence in teaching, scholarly achievement, and service among current faculty at NDSU. The Faculty Lectureship is conferred on an individual who has demonstrated excellence in all three areas.
Dr. Carson’s lecture reviews how vaccines have been one of the greatest public health accomplishments of the last century, and how those accomplishments are threatened by health misinformation and a rising tide of vaccine hesitancy. He explores the historical and psychological roots of vaccine hesitancy, and how the NDSU Center for Immunization Research and Education has worked to address these problems. Finally, he reflects on some of the lessons learned in public health from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how some of those lessons may have broader applicability to the university community.