Bert Jacobs spends a lot of time learning to fight viruses with biological tools (read more). But he also knows that education is a key tool to help prevent the spread of disease.

Every summer, Jacobs joins a group of student volunteers in Tanzania, Africa. Together, they present HIV education programs in schools.

About two-thirds of all people infected with HIV/AIDS live in Sub- Saharan Africa. In Tanzania alone, about 1.5 million people live with HIV.

Jacobs helps to train the student volunteers. The students come from ASU and the University of Arizona for the eight-week program. “Support for International Change” is the volunteer group sponsoring the program.

Jacobs teaches virology—the study of viruses—for science majors. But he also teaches a course on HIV/AIDS for non-science majors.

He brings in guest speakers as part of the course, including doctors, HIV-infected patients, and others. He hopes to inspire his students the way his own professors inspired him in the past. “I’ve had psychology students tell me, ‘This stuff is cool. I want to be a virologist!’ Just as important—or more so— I’ve had a lot of people tell me, ‘I want to go into HIV education,’’ says Jacobs. “Probably the biggest effect we can have on HIV today is through education.”

Jacobs says that disease prevention is not just a job for biologists. Anyone who is developing outreach and education programs must understand cultural differences. Anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and of course, teachers can all be helpful.

“In Africa, I spent a long time talking to volunteers about cultural differences. Those were some of the most productive discussions we had there,” he says.

The ASU scientist says that coming home from Africa was almost as much of a culture shock as going.

“Tanzanian people were the friendliest people I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “By the end of three weeks, I knew more people on the street to say hello to than I do from living in Tempe, Arizona for seven or eight years. By the end of the month it took an hour to walk across the one-mile village. You were always stopping to talk with new friends.”