UCSC Review Summer 1996

UCSC alumna wins Pulitzer Prize

Alumna Laurie Garrett received the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism, Columbia University announced in April. She is the first UCSC graduate to win a Pulitzer Prize.

A science and medical reporter, Garrett won the award for a series of articles last year in Newsday about the 1995 outbreak of the ebola virus in Zaire.

Garrett (Merrill '75) visited UCSC during the spring quarter as a Regents' Lecturer. During her visit, she delivered a public lecture echoing the title and substance of her recent book, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. In it she describes a grave threat posed by a whole new host of infectious diseases.

Garrett drew upon more than a decade of worldwide reporting to write The Coming Plague. The book's 750 pages chronicle a legion of infectious diseases.

"Humanity's ancient enemies are, after all, microbes," Garrett writes. "They didn't go away just because science invented drugs, antibiotics, and vaccines. They didn't disappear from the planet when Americans and Europeans cleaned up their towns and cities in the postindustrial era. And they certainly won't become extinct simply because human beings choose to ignore their existence."

Garrett received the 1995 Alumni Achievement Award, the highest honor given to graduates by UCSC's Alumni Association.