MGG student Eric Walters promotes science communication with Sacramento Science Idol
On a Wednesday evening, the Streets Pub and Grub in midtown Sacramento was packed. Though, it was oddly quiet for a busy night. The crowd’s attention was focused on Eric Walters, a microbiology Ph.D. student studying the parasite Giardia.
“Though over a billion people are infected by [Giardia] every year and suffer from diarrhea and malnutrition, not a lot of people study it,” Walters said, standing in front of a screen which usually plays sports games. “The papers that do get published on it end up in journals with names like ‘Neglected Tropical Diseases.’ Why does nobody care?”