Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by water-borne parasitic worms. More than 250 million people are currently infected, with 90% of cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially hosted by water snails, the parasite’s larvae infect people when they come into contact with the contaminated water that rural and poor populations rely upon for their irrigation, washing and fishing. While treatments for the disease exist, the prevalence of reinfection greatly reduces their efficacy. 

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023, the King Center on Global Development invites the Stanford student community to hear from Professor of Oceans Giulio De Leo. His talk will cover the progress made in reducing and eliminating schistosomiasis by targeting the environmental reservoir of the disease: the water snail population.

Join us at 5:30 PM for dinner and the presentation and discussion with Professor De Leo.

About the Speaker

Giulio De Leo is a theoretical ecologist generally interested in investigating factors and processes driving the dynamics of natural and harvested populations and in understanding how to use this knowledge to inform practical management. 

He studies resilience from two very different points of view: On the one hand, he studies populations that prove to be resilient despite our effort to control or eradicate them, namely parasitic and infectious diseases. On the other hand, he works to understand how to increase the resilience of populations of commercial or conservation interest to extensive harvesting, environmental shocks, climate change and land use change. 

He has been working on a number of theoretical and applied problems ranging from the conservation of the European eel to the sustainable management of the abalone fishery in Baja California in the face of climate change, the biocontrol of schistosomiasis in west Africa, and the relationship between resource exploitation, infectious diseases and poverty traps.