“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon, Beautiful Boy, 1980
Pitt alumna, Janet Stout, PhD, (IDM ’81, ’92) loves telling the story about how a simple telephone slip-up serendipitously brought her to the School of Public Health and a full-circle moment years later.
A 1979 biology graduate from the former Clarion State College (now PennWest Clarion) in Pennsylvania, Stout was trying to reach Pitt’s Department of Biological Sciences about the status of her application when an operator transferred her to Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (IDM) at Pitt’s then-Graduate School of Public Health.
Stout, currently executive vice president and founder of the Pittsburgh-based Special Pathogens Laboratory and research associate professor at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, doesn’t recall with whom she spoke on that long-ago phone call with IDM, but by the time she hung up, she was intrigued enough to meet with the department’s chair Robert Yee, PhD.
“Because of the connection between microbiology and disease and the understanding of disease, I instantly knew [IDM] was a better fit for me, and where I belonged,” she says.
Passionate about the study of bacteria, Stout later met IDM faculty member Victor Yu, MD, who also led the infectious disease section at the Pittsburgh Veterans Hospital, now the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center.
“It just so happened that Dr. Yu was very deep into investigating an ongoing outbreak of the newly discovered Legionnaires’ disease,” she says. “I came knocking at the time when they were initiating this very intensive multidisciplinary team.”
Essentially, Stout walked through the door into what would become her lifelong career—the study of Legionnaires’ disease prevention and its ecology and epidemiology. Under her leadership, the Special Pathogens Laboratory has been at the forefront of both Legionnaires’ research and advocacy for the last several decades.
When Stout, now an internationally recognized expert in Legionnaires’ disease, looks back at her early days at the school, she’s particularly thankful for the opportunities provided.
“The faculty taught me how to think critically, which honed my intellectual skills,” she says. “My first publication as an MS microbiologist was in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1982. I give all the credit to faculty at the school, particularly Dr. Yu, who always worked to elevate students.”
Today, Stout is a similar champion of Pitt Public Health students by creating the Dr. Janet E. Stout Endowed Scholarship for Infectious Diseases, a $1 million graduate scholarship supporting an IDM doctoral student. The award, based on merit and need, provides tuition and other education and research-related expenses throughout the student’s entire time at the school. Stout also gives of her time and expertise as a member of the Board of Visitors, a volunteer advisory board that provides guidance on the school's strategic planning efforts and educational objectives.
“My goal is to unburden a student passionate about public health microbiology from the worry of ‘How do I fund my work and come out of my graduate studies without a mountain of debt?’” she says. “For me, it’s a goose pimple kind of moment and a wonderful opportunity.”
And a way to pass on much more than a bit of kismet.
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