by MATT LIPAROTA MLIPAROTA@BELOITDAILYNEWS.COM • JAN. 23, 2012

Posted: Monday, January 23, 2012 4:00 pm | Updated: 10:20 am, Mon Jan 23, 2012.

The world’s foremost hunter of dangerous microbes is coming to Beloit next month.

Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting based in San Francisco, will visit the Beloit College campus Feb. 3 to receive the Roy Chapman Andrews Society’s Distinguished Explorer Award.

Wolfe, a microbiologist and field virologist, has spent almost a decade in Southeast Asia and Africa, utilizing research to “target and prevent what he calls the next pandemic,” according to the society’s website.

“When we think about the future of exploration, people often look up to the sky or down into the deepest ocean,” Wolfe said. “The reality is there is an entire unseen world that’s in, on and around us that’s almost completely as-of-yet unexplored.”

Wolfe will discuss his research and discoveries during an award presentation at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 3 at Eaton Chapel on the Beloit College campus. Wolfe will also talk about his work with area youth in an assembly at Beloit Memorial High School earlier that day.

Bill Green, director of the Logan Museum at Beloit College and Roy Chapman Andrews Society board member, said he expects Wolfe to discuss the importance of forecasting epidemics.

“He’s going to show people that even though there are a lot of dangers in the world…we have the ability to forecast and contain these epidemics,” Green said.

The Roy Chapman Andrews Society seeks to recognize scientists who exemplify a combination of scientific exploration, teamwork and presentation of results to the public, Green said.

In the past, the society has presented the Roy Chapman Andrews Explorer Award to scientists for things like underwater and space exploration. Wolfe’s work is “a little unusual” compared to the kind of work the society usually recognizes, Green said.

“For me, it’s really exciting that (the society is giving the award) in the area of microbiology,” Wolfe said in a phone interview. “I think it’s so wonderful for them to acknowledge an area of exploration that is not commonly seen as such.”

Wolfe has degrees in human biology, biological anthropology and immunology and infectious disease from Harvard and Stanford Universities. Wolfe has worked as a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and UCLA and now acts as a visiting professor of human biology at Stanford.

The society seeks to uphold the legacy of Roy Chapman Andrews, a renowned explorer raised in Beloit and who attended Beloit College. Andrews is most known for a series of expeditions he led to Mongolia between 1922 and 1930, according to the society’s website. These expeditions were made up of teams of scientists from a variety of disciplines, Green said.

Later, Andrews became known for bringing his discoveries to the public at large by writing books for general audiences.

This is the tenth year the society has teamed with Beloit College to host the award presentation. The event is funded entirely through donations, Green said.

“What makes all this possible is fundraising,” Green said. “This is all a volunteer grassroots effort.”

The presentation will be free and open to the public. After the presentation, Wolfe will sign copies of his book “The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age” and chat with visitors.

Read Original Beloit Daily News Article

Roy Chapman Andrews Society Distinguished Explorer for 2012
By Kylee Reed

Nathan D. Wolfe is an up and coming young American microbiologist and field virologist who will receive the Distinguished Explorer Award of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society in Beloit, Wisconsin, on February 3, 2012.

Wolfe graduated from Stanford in 1993 and went on to earn a doctorate in Immunology & Infectious Diseases at Harvard in 1998. One year later the National Institutes of Health (NIH) honored him with an International Research Scientist Development Award and in 2005 he received the prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.

Distinguished Explorer Award Presentation

• Date:  Friday Feb. 3rd, 2012
• Time:  4:30 p.m.
• Location:  Eaton Chapel, Beloit College, Beloit WI 53511
• More Info:  info@roychapmanandrewssociety.org

Awards Dinner (Following Award Presentation – Reserved seating)

• Location:  Pearson Hall
• Price: $50/person
• Reservations: 608-514-1722
• More Info:  info@roychapmanandrewssociety.org

Wolfe has spent over eight years in Southeast Asia (Malaysia) and sub-Saharan Africa (Uganda, Cameroon) utilizing active field research and mathematical algorithms to target and prevent what he calls the next pandemic. Due to the high rate of exchange of novel infectious agents between non-human species and humans, this mission is of particular interest to the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI) which he founded in 2007. GVFI has shown through extensive research that the most devastating diseases originate in animals, a concept most clearly illustrated by Wolfe’s seminal discovery of the natural transmission of retroviruses between primates and humans.

Recently, Nathan Wolfe’s interests have taken him into the heart of Africa where he has documented the unsanitary slaughter and consumption of bushmeat in local villages, a practice that influenced his authorship of A Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age.  Wolfe writes that in using modern technologies, scientists and researchers can track down the source and nature of a possible viral outbreak. He argues that the innovations making diseases so readily transmittable are the same ones that can readily prevent them from spreading.

In A Viral Storm, he takes readers along on his groundbreaking and often dangerous research trips to reveal origins of deadly diseases and to explain the role that viruses have played in human evolution.

Currently, Dr. Wolfe teaches Human Biology as the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University and acts as the Director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative. Recent accolades include being named one of Popular Science’s ‘Brilliant 10’, becoming a member of Rolling Stone’s ‘Top 100 Agents of Change’, and being designated as one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers.

The world’s foremost hunter of dangerous microbes will visit Beloit early next year to receive the Roy Chapman Andrews Society’s Distinguished Explorer Award.

Dr. Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting, will discuss his globetrotting research and discoveries during the award presentation on Friday, February 3, 2012, at 4:30 p.m. in Eaton Chapel on the Beloit College campus. The program will be free and open to the public. Earlier that day, Dr. Wolfe will discuss his work with area youth in an assembly at Beloit Memorial High School.

Award Presentation:

• Dr. Nathan Wolfe
• Friday Feb. 3rd. 2012, 4:30 pm
• Eaton Chapel, Beloit College Campus
• Reserved seating for Awards Presentation and/or celebratory dinner: (608) 514-1722

Microbes – tiny viruses and germs – are everywhere. But the truly harmful ones, like those that cause AIDS and bird flu, can be difficult to find. New viruses that cause disease outbreaks can emerge almost anywhere in the world. That’s why Dr. Wolfe has set up research and monitoring programs in 23 countries, collected more than 100,000 specimens, and identified numerous previously unknown microbes.

Global Viral Forecasting website

Dr. Wolfe explores for harmful viruses in remote places and uses his field sites around the world as “listening posts” to try to intercept viruses before they spread widely. Many viruses, like HIV and influenza, jumped from animals to humans, so Dr. Wolfe works in villages whose inhabitants rely on wild game, or bushmeat, for protein. When hunters contact animal fluids during butchering, it makes them especially vulnerable to hosting new microbes. By collecting thousands of blood samples, hunters are important allies for studying emerging diseases.

In his new book, The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age, Dr. Wolfe draws on firsthand knowledge from over a decade of virus hunting. Viruses may emerge from far-flung places, but Dr. Wolfe also shows that modern transportation networks help microbes spread faster than ever. There is hope, though: Dr. Wolfe envisions predicting and preventing future outbreaks by combining technology with boots-on-the-ground natural science, aiming to catch viruses before they become world travelers. For that reason, Dr. Wolfe says The Viral Storm is written for anyone who “kisses their children goodbye on their way off to school.”

Dr. Wolfe has degrees in human biology, biological anthropology, and immunology and infectious disease from Harvard University and Stanford University. He has been a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and UCLA, and is now a visiting professor of human biology at Stanford in addition to directing Global Virus Forecasting.

The program featuring Dr. Wolfe will be the tenth Distinguished Explorer Award event of the Beloit-based Roy Chapman Andrews Society, in association with Beloit College. Founded in 1998, the Society’s mission is to honor the legacy of one of the most celebrated explorers of the 20th century by educating the public about Andrews’s life, work, and adventures; promoting the value of scientific exploration and discovery; and emphasizing Andrews’s lifetime ties to Beloit.

The Man Who Tracks Viruses Before They Spread – NPR Books “Fresh Air” interview by Terry Gross.

For information about reserved seating at the award ceremony and tickets for the celebratory dinner, contact the Roy Chapman Andrews Society at (608) 514-1722

[Story by William Green of Beloit College and Sarah Jane Keller of the Stanford News Service]

Click to enlarge. Careful, step back!

We see that 2008 Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Mark Moffett made the news again recently for quite an interesting new discovery, the worlds LARGEST insect!

Adventurer Mark Moffett has found the world’s biggest insect – which is so huge it can eat carrots. The renowned entomologist discovered the giant weta up a tree and his real life Bugs Bunny has now been declared the largest ever found.

He came across the cricket-like creature, which has a wing span of seven inches, after two days of searching on a tiny island. The creepy crawly is only found on Little Barrier Island, in New Zealand. The species was wiped off the mainland by rats accidentally introduced by Europeans.

See what else RCAS Distinguished Explorer Mark has been up to.

• Ants: ‘A Global Safari With A Cast Of Trillions’ NPR “Fresh Air” interview by Terry Gross

Archaeologist Steve Lekson is changing the past, or at least our ideas about the past. His work at prehistoric ruins throughout the Southwest convinces him that ancient Native American societies were more complex, connected, and cosmopolitan than the average textbook leads us to believe.

RCS Distinguished Explorer Award Presentation:

Date: Friday Feb. 4, 2011
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Eaton Chapel, Beloit College Campus
Admission: FREE!

Lekson, a professor and curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado, will discuss his explorations, discoveries, and controversial ideas when he receives the 2011 Roy Chapman Andrews Society Distinguished Explorer Award. The award and acceptance lecture, “The Rhythm of Regional Interaction in the Ancient Southwest,” will be presented in a public ceremony on Friday, February 4, at 4:30 p.m. in Eaton Chapel on the Beloit College campus in Beloit, Wisconsin.

My Life as Indiana Jones – School Presentation

Date: Friday Feb. 4, 2011
Time: 9:45 am
Location: Beloit Memorial High School Auditorium (1225 4th St. Beloit WI)
Grades: 6 – 12  (open to the public)
For More Information: 608-514-1722

Dr. Lekson’s visit to Beloit also will include a presentation to area students titled “Digging in the Southwest: My Life as Indiana Jones, Sort Of” at Beloit Memorial High School. He will also meet with Beloit College classes and students and participate in a celebratory dinner with members and friends of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society.

Mass migrations, alignments that connected ancient towns, rulers who were really kings—these are part of the new picture, the “big picture,” of Southwestern archaeology that Dr. Lekson proposes. “Great things happened in the ancient Southwest,” he says. Not all archaeologists buy into his theories. Still, reviewers have called his new book, A History of the Ancient Southwest, a “magnum opus—a highwire act that strings hundreds of bold ideas into a dazzling new synthesis” and “one of the most provocative and forward-looking books in archaeology today… written with literary flair, wit, and a dash of sarcasm.”

Dr. Lekson’s most recent excavations have been at Black Mountain pueblo, a huge ruin in the bleak Chihuahua Desert of southern New Mexico. The site may be a “missing link” between the famous Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures of the Southwest.

The tenth explorer and first archaeologist to receive the Distinguished Explorer Award, Steve Lekson has been discovering and digging ancient sites for nearly 40 years. Before moving to the University of Colorado, he served as President and CEO of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado, and as an archaeologist with museums in Arizona and New Mexico. His explorations have been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, and National Park Service.

Report from the Field: Stephen H. Lekson

Please use the above links if ordering books. Proceeds support Dr. Lekson’s efforts and RCAS.

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The RCAS Distinguished Explorer Award program:

A principal focus of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. Founded in 1998, the Society’s mission is to honor the legacy of one of the most celebrated explorers of the 20th century by educating the public about Andrews’s life, work, and adventures; promoting the value of scientific exploration and discovery; and emphasizing Andrews’s lifetime ties to Beloit (in addition to growing up in and staying connected to the city, he was a 1906 graduate of Beloit College).

For information about tickets for the celebratory dinner and reserved seating at the award ceremony, contact the Roy Chapman Andrews Society c/o Visit Beloit,(608) 514-1722, and at www.roychapmanandrewssociety.org.

The last three years saw the University of Colorado working at three very different Southwestern sites: Pinnacle Ruin, a Mesa Verde migration village in central New Mexico in 2008; Chimney Rock, a spectacular Chaco “outlier” in southwestern Colorado in 2009; and Black Mountain, a huge adobe pueblo possibly linking Mimbres and Casas Grandes in southernmost New Mexico in 2010.

Pinnacle Ruin sits atop a 100′ tall, sheer-sided butte near the remote headwaters of the Rio Alamosa, northwest of the small town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  The area was famous as the homelands of the eastern Chiricahua Apache. In the 1880s, the rugged mountains around Pinnacle Ruin rang with battles and ambushes; eventually, the Chiricahua Apaches were driven out and exiled to Oklahoma.  Pinnacle Ruin represents a much earlier but equally dramatic chapter in southwestern history: the abandonment of the Mesa Verde region by Pueblo peoples in the late 13th century.  A sizable village of Mesa Verde people moved 250 miles south to establish a “colony” atop a defensible butte: Pinnacle Ruin.  In 2008, we completed the sixth and final season of work at the 200-room masonry pueblo.

Chimney Rock, soon to become a National Monument, is one of the most spectacular ruins in the Southwest.  In high pine forests west of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the site sits atop a knife-edge ridge 1,000′ above the valley below, and next to two huge natural stone pillars.  Chimney Rock is a classic Chaco “outlier” – an outpost of the great 11th century regional center of Chaco Canyon, 90 miles away in northwest New Mexico.  Chimney Rock and Chaco were linked by an elaborate line-of-sight communication system, perhaps relaying news of astronomical events observed through the “sight” of the two pillars.  In 2009, the University of Colorado had an opportunity to excavate part of this remarkable site.

Black Mountain is visually less impressive –  a flattened adobe pueblo in the bleak Chihuahua Desert – but historically just as important as Pinnacle Ruin and Chimney Rock.  The site, which has never been previously excavated, is a probable link between the Mimbres phase (A.D. 1000 to 1150, famous for its highly artistic black-on-white pottery) and Casas Grandes (A.D. 1250-1450, the last great Southwestern city).  Black Mountain is demographically and geographically between Mimbres in New Mexico and Casas Grandes in northern Chihuahua.  In 2010, the University of Colorado began a program of excavations to determine if this site is indeed the “missing link” between the two famous southwestern cultures.

The three sites illustrate the remarkable history that characterized the Southwest.  My current work uses these sites and others to delineate a new history of the ancient Southwest – a history dramatically different than the conventional view of the Southwest as a never-changing cultural backwater.  Great things happened in the ancient Southwest, at sites like Pinnacle, Chimney Rock and Black Mountain!

One of the world’s leading ocean explorers,  Sylvia Earle received the 2010 Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer award Friday, February 5, at Eaton Chapel on the Beloit College campus.

Her acceptance lecture, “Exploring the Deep Frontier” emphasized the fragile nature of the ocean which serves as a life support system for us all.

Dr. Earle’s visit included a presentation to area students titled “The World Is Blue” at Beloit Memorial High School. She also met with Beloit College students and attended a celebratory dinner with members and friends of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society.

According to Earle, Beloit native Roy Chapman Andrews was a “personal hero since childhood.” Following Andrews’ example, she has led expeditions throughout the world  and shares her discoveries with millions of people via print and electronic media.

Raised on a small farm in New Jersey, Sylvia Earle grew up exploring the nearby woods and studying plants and wildlife. She received scholarships for college and eventually earned a Ph.D. from Duke University. Now a world leader in ocean exploration and conservation, she has been called a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine, and “Her Deepness” by The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine. She has received numerous scientific and environmental awards and prizes, honorary degrees, and TV profiles.

Sylvia Earle is passionately concerned with conservation and protection of the seas. She states that we are all connected to the sea: “our fate and the ocean are one.” Yet degradation, overfishing, and pollution are causing massive damage to the oceans, the world’s “life-support systems.” According to Earle, “there’s still time—but not a lot—to turn things around.” Protected areas such as marine sanctuaries constitute less than one percent of the ocean area, but further exploration, research, and preservation provide hope for the future.

The Distinguished Explorer Award program is a principal focus of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. Founded in 1998, the Society’s mission is to honor the legacy of one of the most celebrated explorers of the 20th century by educating the public about Andrews’ life, work, and adventures; promoting the value of scientific exploration and discovery; and emphasizing Andrews’ lifetime ties to Beloit.

Contact the Roy Chapman Andrews Society via e-mail

Check out Sylvia Earle’s Facebook Fan Page.