Grace and Wellness: Vaccines and the Call to Care is a special webinar offered by the Arkansas Conference Board of Global Ministries and Church and Society. This webinar will provide exceptional information about virology and vaccinations from doctors well-versed in their fields.
This event is FREE!
Speakers
Rebecca Nelson received her Master’s Degree in Virology and Immunology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1983. Within months of graduation, she was hired to establish a Clinical virology lab and Immunological testing to complement viral culture. She helped establish Immunology techniques used to support organ transplantation. After twenty years of managing both virology and immunology, she retired and taught Microbiology at UA Pulaski Tech for 10 years.
Dr. Marti Sharkey was born and raised in Fayetteville, AR. She obtained her undergraduate degrees in English and Human Physiology at Rice University and was engaged in research on the effects of cellular metabolism on the survival rate of the then-emerging HIV epidemic. She graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School, pursuing her academic interest in both infectious diseases and vaccinology. She has researched tuberculosis, the BCG vaccine, hepatitis B, and the hepatitis B vaccine. She has a doctorate in medicine and completed her internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. There, she continued to pursue research in vaccines, including participating in research into respiratory syncytial virus vaccines.
She has worked in pediatric medicine and remained involved in vaccine research, and was the lead investigator for the first quadrivalent meningitis vaccine to come to market. In addition, she was the first Pediatric Director for UAMS-NW, helping to start the first medical school in northwest Arkansas. During this time, she also attended Emory School of Public Health for her Master’s in Public Health. Her thesis was on the media’s impact on MMR vaccine hesitancy. During the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Sharkey was called on by the City of Fayetteville to lead the public health effort to confront the novel coronavirus. For the past two years, she has dedicated her time to studying the local epidemiology of the pandemic, public health messaging, and leading mass vaccination efforts. She serves on multiple COVID-19 task forces at the local, regional, and state levels. She was continually called upon to address public health concerns by the Mayor, regional business leaders, and private citizens. She was subsequently recruited to work as a consultant to the CDC in the Immunization Safety Office. Her work has led to numerous publications and multiple awards.