Colwell Honored at United Nations for Her Work in Using Satellite Data to Predict Cholera Outbreaks

Rita Colwell, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, today received the 7th Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) Creativity Award in a ceremony at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The PSIPW award, considered one of the most prestigious international awards focusing on water-related scientific innovation, recognizes the collaborative research by Colwell and Shafiqul Islam from Tufts University in using chlorophyll information from satellite data to predict cholera outbreaks at least three to six months in advance.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera. The World Health Organization estimates it sickens 3 to 5 million people each year, causing up to 130,000 deaths.

Colwell is an internationally acclaimed oceanographer and microbiologist who has spent the bulk of her career studying cholera bacterium. Colwell and her team were the first to identify linkages between phytoplankton, zooplankton and cholera. Islam applied Colwell’s findings and related chlorophyll and phytoplankton information obtained from NASA satellites to develop cholera prediction models.

Currently, their team is testing this satellite-based model—where hydrology and microbiology meet epidemiology and engineering—with ground-based observations for different regions of the world.

For a video overview of Colwell’s research on cholera, go here.