The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) will host a symposium about biological warfare and bioterrorism – particularly focusing on the recent anthrax outbreaks – Friday, Oct. 26, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in Room JO 4.614 of the Jonsson Building on the UTD campus. The symposium is free and open to the public.

Panelists will include five experts on various aspects of biological warfare and bioterrorism from the U.T. Dallas faculty and around the world:

  • Steve Black, official historian, United Nations Commission on Iraq. Black is a former fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
  • Dr. Malcolm Dando, professor, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, U.K. Dando is the author of Biological Warfare in the 21st Century.
  • Dr. John Ellis van Courtland Moon, retired professor of history, Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg, Mass. Moon is an expert on the history of biological warfare and edited Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945. He also testified about the topic before President Reagan’s Chemical Warfare Review Commission.
  • Dr. Mark Wheelis, lecturer, Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Microbiology, University of California, Davis. Wheelis is an expert on biological weapons and the history of biological warfare. He has acted as a lobbyist and technical expert on biological weapons control and can provide insight into how terrorists or hostile governments might mount a biological attack and how it could be detected.
  • Dr. Marie Isabelle Chevrier, associate professor of political economy, UTD School of Social Sciences. Chevrier is an expert in both biological and chemical warfare and arms control and has been quoted in the media on several occasions related to recent events.

Each of the panelists will speak for about 10 minutes, and the forum then will be open for questions and comments from the audience.

The main entrance to UTD is on University Boulevard on the north side of Campbell Road between Coit and Floyd Roads.

The group is gathering at UTD to work on a book funded by NATO that will address the history of biological weapons from World War II to the present.

About UTD

The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 7,000 undergraduate and 5,000 graduate students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university’s Web site at www.utdallas.edu.