Changing Aid: Responding to Disasters

Description

Join us as we welcome to American University Dr. Alla Shapiro: a physician, Soviet Jewish refugee, and most recently an author, who will share excerpts from her memoir, Doctor on Call: Chernobyl Responder, Jewish Refugee, Radiation Expert. In a true-life drama pitted against a lack of disaster preparedness and bureaucratic mismanagement, Dr. Shapiro relays her first-hand experience as a first physician-responder to the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. Her story is one of extraordinary resilience in the face of adversity. As a first physician-responder in a pivotal moment in global history, she was forced to engage in bureaucratic cover-ups within the Soviet government and endure personal and professional discrimination as a Jewish citizen in the USSR. Dr. Shapiro’s background is in pediatric hematology and oncology and she is currently one of the world’s leading experts in developing drugs against radiation exposure.

Dr. Shapiro will give remarks, and a conversation with AU professor Ernesto Castañeda will follow the lecture. There will be an audience Q&A at the end of the event.