Eva Harris (born August 6, 1965) is a professor in the School of Public Health at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and the founder and president of the Sustainable Sciences Institute. She focuses her research efforts on combating diseases that primarily afflict people in developing nations.

Early life and education

Harris is the daughter of linguist

Zellig Harris Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 – May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and di ...

and computer scientist

Naomi Sager Naomi Sager (born 1927) is an American computational linguistics research scientist. She is a former research professor at New York University, now retired. She is a pioneer in the development of natural language processing for computers. Early ...

. She received a BA in biochemical sciences from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1987 and a PhD in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993.

Career

After a post-doctoral fellowship and assistant adjunct professorship at the University of California, San Francisco, Harris joined the faculty at UC Berkeley. There, she developed a multidisciplinary approach for studying the

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

pathogenesis In pathology, pathogenesis is the process by which a disease or disorder develops. It can include factors which contribute not only to the onset of the disease or disorder, but also to its progression and maintenance. The word comes . Descript ...

, and

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

dengue fever Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. Asymptomatic infections are uncommon, mild cases happen frequently; if symptoms appear, they typically begin 3 to 14 days after i ...

, the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease in humans. Harris' lab studies the mechanism of dengue virus infection of human

dendritic cells A dendritic cell (DC) is an antigen-presenting cell (also known as an ''accessory cell'') of the mammalian immune system. A DC's main function is to process antigen material and present it on the cell surface to the T cells of the immune system ...

. The lab is also developing a mouse model to study viral

tropism In biology, a tropism is a phenomenon indicating the growth or turning movement of an organism, usually a plant, in response to an environmental stimulus (physiology), stimulus. In tropisms, this response is dependent on the direction of the s ...

and the

immune response An immune response is a physiological reaction which occurs within an organism in the context of inflammation for the purpose of defending against exogenous factors. These include a wide variety of different toxins, viruses, intra- and extracellula ...

to dengue virus infection, to generate a better model of the disease. Harris' fieldwork focuses on

molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms that are held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions that satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, ...

and

epidemiological Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

field studies of dengue in endemic Latin American countries, particularly in

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. Ongoing fieldwork projects include clinical and biological studies of severe dengue, a pediatric

cohort study A cohort study is a particular form of longitudinal study that samples a Cohort (statistics), cohort (a group of people who share a defining characteristic, typically those who experienced a common event in a selected period, such as birth or gra ...

of dengue transmission in

Managua Managua () is the capital city, capital and largest city of Nicaragua, and one of the List of largest cities in Central America, largest cities in Central America. Located on the shores of Lake Managua, the city had an estimated population of 1, ...

, and a project on evidence-based, community-derived interventions for prevention of dengue via control of its

mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

vector. Harris is currently initiating studies of dengue

in humans, focusing on functional characterization of antibodies and B cell memory response, host gene expression profiling, and viral factors such as

quasispecies The quasispecies model is a description of the process of the Darwinian evolution of certain self-replicating entities within the framework of physical chemistry. A quasispecies is a large group or "cloud" of related genotypes that exist in an env ...

. Harris is also collaborating with investigators at the

UC Berkeley College of Engineering The University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering (branded as Berkeley Engineering) is the public engineering school of the University of California, Berkeley (a land-grant research university in Berkeley, California). Established i ...

to develop the ImmunoSensor: a novel, rapid, low-cost diagnostic device for point-of-care diagnosis of dengue and other

infectious diseases infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

. She served as co-director of the "International Training and Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases" program at the

Fogarty International Center The John E. Fogarty International Center was founded in 1968 by US President Lyndon Johnson at the National Institutes of Health to support international medical and behavioral research and to train international researchers. History On July 1, ...

from 1997 to 2003. In 2010, Harris entered into a research agreement with NanoViricides, Inc. (NNVC). She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles.

Humanitarian work

While volunteering overseas, Harris noted the lack of resources available to her local peers. Knowing that the technologies and resources needed existed in the

developed world A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...

, but were unavailable where they were most needed, inspired her to introduce molecular diagnostic techniques and

scientific literacy Scientific literacy or science literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories. Scientific literacy is chiefly concerned with an understanding ...

in resource-poor settings. In 1997, Harris received a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

for her pioneering work over the previous ten years developing programs, and for working to build scientific capacity in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

to address public health and infectious disease issues. To continue and expand this work, Harris founded the Sustainable Sciences Institute in 1998, a San Francisco-based international

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

that works to improve public health in developing countries, by building local capacity for scientific research on infectious diseases. The Sustainable Sciences Institute partners with researchers in developing countries, offering assistance and mentoring to help them excel in their fields of research. In 2004, she founded a pediatric cohort in Managua, Nicaragua, with the objective of investigating the epidemiological and immunological behavior of dengue and contributing to the construction of the natural history of the virus. This cohort was of utmost importance during the introduction of new arboviruses in Latin America, managing to describe the epidemiological dynamics of Chikungunya and Zika in Nicaragua. Currently, the pediatric cohort created by Harris is one of the longest-standing cohorts in the study of arboviruses. Harris is a board member of Hesperian Health Guides, a non-profit health publisher known for its publication, ''Where There Is No Doctor''.

Awards and honors

* 2019 Beijerinck Virology Prize * 2018 Fellows of ASTMH (FASTMH) * 2002 Prytanean Faculty Award for outstanding women faculty * 2002 Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum * 2002 national recognition award from Minister of Health in Nicaragua for contribution to scientific development * 2001 Pew Scholar for her work on dengue pathogenesis * 1997

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

for her scientific capacity building work

Publications

''A Low Cost Approach to PCR: Appropriate Transfer of Biomolecular Techniques''
Editor Nazreen Kadir, Oxford University Press US, 1998,

References

External links

''Nature Medicine'' 13, 1132 (2007)

''The New York Times'',

Claudia Dreifus Claudia Dreifus is an American journalist, educator and lecturer, producer of the weekly feature ''“Conversation with…”'' of the Science Section of ''The New York Times'', and known for her interviews with leading figures in world politics ...

, September 30, 2003
"Conversations with History"
''Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley''
Conversations with History: Making Science Accessible, with Eva Harris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Eva Harvard University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, San Francisco faculty American people of Russian-Jewish descent American virologists American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Living people 1965 births MacArthur Fellows UC Berkeley School of Public Health faculty 21st-century American women