Sarah Luna, PhD (EIS ’16) died in a plane crash May 20, 2019 traveling to a rural health clinic in Alaska as part of her duties as a senior epidemiologist with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, a position she took after finishing EIS in the summer of 2018. Sarah served as an EISO in the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, where she worked on outbreaks of foodborne illness in places as varied as a small town on the Utah-Arizona border and a Marine Corps Recruit Depot in California.

During the inaugural TED-style session at the 2018 EIS conference, Sarah delivered an insightful and inspirational talk titled, Food Behind Bars: When Food Safety Isn’t Enough, unveiling the broad consequences of our failure to provide adequate nutrition to incarcerated individuals in the United States. To honor Sarah’s indomitable spirit and unwavering commitment to public health and the underserved, the EIS program will name future TED-style sessions at the annual EIS conference the Sarah Luna Memorial TED-style Sessions.

Sarah meant many things to many people. She was a daughter, sister, best friend, dance partner, nutritionist, epidemiologist, EIS classmate-turned-family-member, coworker, SAS tutor, roommate, Lieutenant, and so much more. She was funny, brilliant, tenacious, optimistic, and thoughtful. She cared more about her family and friends than we can ever know. She was the glue of an EIS class. She spent her life in service to others and died in her commitment to that service.

Your gift to the CDC Foundation will honor Sarah’s legacy by helping fund a scholarship in her name that will create opportunities for young people and early career scientists to advance public health for years to come.

Sara Lowther began her public health career at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, where she completed a Master of Public Health degree while serving as a project assistant in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) HIV/AIDS Surveillance Branch. After graduation, Sara served as fellow at CDC, providing surveillance coordination for the Respiratory and Enteric Viruses Branch. This work solidified her interest in pursuing doctoral studies in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. After completing her doctorate degree, Sara began her career with the United States Public Health Service in July 2008 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer assigned to the Minnesota Department of Health. Following EIS, she worked as a research scientist in the Division of Viral Hepatitis and, in 2011, moved to the Global Immunization Division (GID). Sara was an integral member of the CDC Kenya Country Office, first serving as GID’s program director for polio and immunization activities, and then becoming the Division of Global Health Protection’s (DGHP) Resident Advisor for the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP). She returned to Atlanta in 2019, bringing her expertise and country experience to her leadership role in DGHP.

When she passed away, she was acting lead of the Epidemiology Technical Support Unit for the FETP Team in the Workforce and Institute Development Branch. Sara was passionate about FETP as a means to develop and mentor young field epidemiologists around the world and build global field epidemiology capacity.

Infectious disease prevention and training future public health leaders were causes important to Sara throughout her career. The Sara Lowther Memorial Fund will support an award for a FETP fellow or recent graduate to conduct a project that makes significant contributions to infectious disease prevention and control in their country. The award will be presented annually at International Night during the EIS conference. Support the Sara Lowther Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) Memorial Fund.