In 2014, Sabeti was part of a team led by Christian Happi, a Cameroonian geneticist, which used advanced genomic sequencing technology to identify a single point of infection from an animal reservoir to a human in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. RNA changes suggests that the first human infection was followed by exclusive human to human transmissions. The work led her to be named one of "TIME Magazine"'s Persons of the Year in 2014 (Ebola Fighters), and one of the "TIME" 100 most influential people in 2015.