Dr. Ross Kauffman, an assistant professor of public health at Bluffton University, will address Ebola in a campus forum on Tuesday, Jan. 6.

Free and open to the public, Kauffman’s presentation on “Ebola and Fear: A Public Health Perspective” will begin at 11 a.m. in Bluffton’s Founders Hall.

He will discuss both the history and biology of the disease and responses to the recent outbreak, while seeking to place them in the context of other public health challenges.

Now in his fourth year at Bluffton, Kauffman earned his doctoral degree in epidemiology from The Ohio State University College of Public Health in 2009.

His public health research has involved work with a variety of populations, including the Amish, Appalachian communities and prisoners. He was the principal investigator in a two-year, Centers for Disease Control-funded study of smoking and tobacco in Ohio prisons. He continues to collaborate on several projects in the area of tobacco prevention and cessation, including an ongoing grant exploring how neighborhood characteristics impact cigarette smokers’ attempts to quit.