You know how in zombie movies the president is always like, "Where are all of these zombies coming from?" and then an action hero is like, "I don't know, sir, but I know someone who does," and then the hero flies to some secluded village just in time to save a bearded dude from getting bitten, only to fly him back to D.C. where the dude is like, "See this map? This is the outbreak now. See this other map? This is where it will be in twenty-four hours."

That guy. That's the guy we're talking about.

Welcome to the wonderful world of epidemiology. (Zombies not included.)

 

Let's see, the displacement of the zombie should be equal to the initial velocity multiplied by time plus the—yeah, I'm pretty sure we have time to grab a Frappuccino before they get here. (Source)

Look outside. You probably don't see any corpses shambling about asking for your brains, but rest assured: If zombies did show up tomorrow, an epidemiologist would be on the case figuring out how the infection originated, how far it's likely to reach, and how fast it will spread. In fact, there has already been at least one epidemiologist paid by the government to look into this exact scenario. That lucky person gets paid $73,000 a year to think about zombies...and other diseases (source). 

But enough about the undead. Let's talk about the not-dead. You know, humans that are alive and feel like staying that way. All of them depend on epidemiologists to protect their communities before and after calamity strikes. You may not have realized it, but a tiny percentage of your paycheck every two weeks goes to the pocket of someone with that exact job description in your city. He or she spends every single day monitoring every possible path deadly infection might take to make sure you don't get sick.

Pretty neat, right?

And that's pretty much what epidemiologists do: collect data, draw conclusions from it, assess danger, and then try to convince the people who can do something about it to actually do so. Often, they perform these sacred duties for a local government, but it's not rare to find them working for the private sector either, running case studies and research initiatives for health insurance or pharmaceutical companies.

Like we said: If you decide that predicting dark futures for humanity (and then, hopefully, stopping them) is your thing, then you can expect to be paid pretty well for it. Most people in the field are stacking around $73,000 a year, and it's not unheard of to climb up and over $100,000 if you've been at it long enough (source). Just don't expect to buy that yacht for a few years while you pay down a substantial load of student debt.

Living the life of an academically-minded disease fortuneteller takes patience and time to do it right. Yes, there's decent scratch to be made, but to get paid for your expertise means actually becoming an expert first, so you're going to have to read a lot of books and write a lot of papers to get there.

 

"Man, Jimbo, look at these lines! I swear, fleeing the city in a state of panic during impending disaster is worse than Disney World sometimes." (Source)

On the up side, you're basically guaranteed to be the first one to know when it's time to evacuate your home in the face of imminent doom, and it shouldn't be too difficult to land a job directly out of college.

The world needs good scientists—especially the sort that keep the world from dying a horrible, pox-ridden death—so there are plenty of systems in place to set up promising epidemiologists with work that needs doing as quickly as possible. Enjoy that. It's something to get excited about.

Just promise us you'll remember your friends and drop us a line before it's too late...if you know what we mean.

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