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Dan
Werb

Dan Werb is a writer and epidemiologist with expertise in HIV, addictions, and drug policy. He has won a Canadian National Magazine Award, the inaugural National Institute on Drug Abuse Avenir Award, and a Trailblazer Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He is also the author of City of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands, a book about Tijuana’s femicide. Werb currently holds a dual appointment as assistant professor at the University of Toronto in the Institute for Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation and in the Division of Global Public Health at the University of California San Diego. He lives in Toronto. 

Award History

2022 Winner

Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
for The Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search for a Cure

Jury Citation

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most disruptive event in world history since the Second World War. More than one million people have died, the global economy has been shaken, anti-science populist extremism has become a potent force, and other issues like climate change have been overshadowed by the debate over public health measures. Dan Werb tells us how we got here through an authoritative, scientific explanation of coronaviruses. The Invisible Siege is a scientific detective story that leaves the reader frightened that the villain is still on the loose, and maybe in the house.”