Janet E. Stout
Dr. Janet E. Stout is president and director of Special Pathogens Laboratory, and research associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Internationally recognized for pioneering research in Legionella, her expertise includes disinfection and control strategies for the prevention of Legionnaires’ disease and other waterborne pathogens. Dr. Stout is credited as the first to demonstrate the link between the presence of Legionella in hospital water systems and Legionnaires’ disease. This seminal discovery shifted the focus from cooling towers to water distributions systems as the primary source for Legionnaires’ disease. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1982, her findings changed the direction of research and expanded the water treatment industry’s approach to controlling Legionella. To date, Dr. Stout has evaluated every major Legionella disinfection technology used today.
A clinical and environmental microbiologist for more than 30 years, Dr. Stout has published more than 100 publications of seminal research on Legionnaires’ disease in major medical and scientific peer-reviewed journals. In addition, she has coauthored Legionella chapters in the American Journal of Infection Control (APIC Text), the Manual of Clinical Microbiology, and UptoDate.com. Dr. Stout has served on editorial review boards for Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, International Journal of Environmental Health, the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and Water Research.
An advocate for prevention, Dr. Stout assisted in developing the first Legionella prevention guideline in the United States, which is adopted as a proactive model by national and global health agencies and organizations. She is a board member and serves on the Legionella committee for the Cooling Technology Institute. Dr. Stout is also member of the ASHRAE committees for Legionella Guideline 12 and ANSI / ASHRAE Standard 188 Legionellosis: Risk Management in Building Water Systems.
A much sought after speaker, Dr. Stout presents at numerous national and international scientific and professional conferences, and is a regularly invited speaker to the International Symposium on Legionnaires’ disease, the Royal Society of Public Health, and the European Working Group on Legionnaires’ disease.
Dr. Stout holds a PhD in infectious disease microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh.