Keynote Speaker Bio and Panelists

Keynote Speaker 1: Dr. Marta Wayne

DEAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER AND ASSOCIATE PROVOST

Dr. Wayne is a professor of Biology, specializing in the evolution & ecology of infectious disease and evolutionary genetics. Wayne’s research has taken her to México to work with a collaborator studying the monarch butterfly migration and to spend a sabbatical with a collaborator in Canada working on infectious disease. Wayne’s international engagement began when, as a postdoc, she participated in a trinational young investigators’ workshop (Germany, Japan, and the US) sponsored by the international scientific organization, Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution (SMBE). Later, as president of SMBE, Wayne has worked to broaden geographic representation within the society, including helping to schedule SMBE’s first annual conference in Latin America. Here at UF, she co-developed a new study abroad program, UF in Cusco. She has mentored UF undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs from around the world and has received awards for teaching and mentoring.

A faculty member in the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences since 1998, Wayne was chair of the Department of Biology from 2014-2021. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies.

Dr. Wayne provides leadership in the operation of the International Center and international engagement in scholarship, research, and teaching. She helps with the recruitment and success of international students, both undergraduate and graduate. She also promotes UF international alliances and seeks to increase international interaction for all members of the UF community.

Keynote Speaker 1: Dr. Sarah McKune

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND GLOBAL HEALTH & THE CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

Sarah L. McKune, MPH, Ph.D. is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health and the Center for African Studies. She holds a B.A. in French and Sociology from Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., and earned a Master’s in Public Health from Emory University in 2002. She completed a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida’s School for Natural Resources and the Environment in 2012 and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow for a collaborative effort between UF and the CGIAR’s collaborative research program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS).

Dr. McKune joined PHHP in 2013 as the Director of Public Health Programs, a position from which she ran the campus and online MPH and Public Health Certificate programs for the College. In 2016, she joined the Department of Environmental and Global Health in a joint appointment with the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. She is affiliate faculty in the School for Natural Resources and the Environment and advises students from a variety of units across campus, including Sustainable Development, Anthropology, Food and Resource Economics, Medical Geography, and Sociology, as well as those operated by EGH, including Public Health and One Health.