Civic Engagement in Diverse Latinx Communities: Learning from Social Justice Partnerships in Action
7:00 PM – 2630 Memorial Union - Dr. Mari Castañeda will discuss approaches to university-community partnerships within Latinx communities. Such partnerships highlight the importance of developing collaborative higher education pedagogies that recognize Latina/o/x communities as specific sites of creative and dynamic civic engagement. The lecture will provide a context to explore community-university projects that bring together faculty, students and local community partners in efforts to learn from and bear witness to the lived experiences and cultural wealth of Latine communities in the United States.Dr. Castañeda is the dean of Commonwealth Honors College and professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the recipient of the UMass System President’s Public Service Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award for community-engaged scholarship, and the UMass Amherst Distinguished Academic Outreach Award. Dr. Castañeda's fields of study include civic and community engagement, cultures of care in academia, global communications, and Latina media/cultural production. 

Will Wilson and the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange Series
5:30 PM – Brunnier Art Museum, 295 Scheman Building - As an Indigenous artist working with both historic and contemporary processes in photography, Will Wilson (Diné) is endeavoring to recreate a contemporary vision of Native North America. Historically, Edward S. Curtis and other early Euro-Americans used photography as a method of recording the disappearing Native population, which led to the image of Native Americans as frozen in time. Through the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange series, Wilson is radically altering this static image and engaging with his sitters in the creation of their own contemporary representations.Note: This lecture will not be recorded.

Reflecting on My Parents’ Holocaust Journeys: Finding Forgiveness and Celebrating My Family's Legacy
6:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Dr. Alex Kor's late parents, Michael and Eva Mozes Kor, each survived concentration camps during the Holocaust; Eva and her twin sister were victims of Jose Mengele's experiments. Kor will highlight his parents' incredible journeys in the decades after. He will share how Michael and Eva's sense of humor helped them lead happy and productive lives out of the shadow of the Holocaust. For anyone who may be struggling with day-to-day challenges, Kor believes that learning how his parents persevered will provide a perspective to help others. Kor traveled to Auschwitz more than 20 times with his late mother. He is a member of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center Board of Directors. Kor assisted in establishing the exhibit “Eva Kor from Auschwitz to Indiana” at the Indiana Historical Society to honor his mother. Kor's book, A Blessing, Not a Burden: My Parents' Remarkable Holocaust Story & My Fight to Keep Their Legacy Alive, offers a thorough account of his parents' extraordinary lives and their positive impact on him.Originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, Dr. Alex Kor a bachelor's degree B.S. in Chemistry from Butler University and a masters in science in Exercise Physiology from Purdue University. He earned his D.P.M. from the Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Kor is a full-time podiatrist for Hendricks Regional Health in Danville, Indiana, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor for Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine. This lecture will be recorded and ready to view on the Available Recordings page approximately 24-36 hours after the conclusion of the event. The recording will only be available for three weeks from the date of the lecture.

The Death of D.E.I. in America … What’s Next?
6:00 PM – 2630 Memorial Union - The State of Iowa government and the Trump Administration are working to eliminate federal and public university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs (DEI). This sweeping change provoked protests nationwide and on campus at Iowa State. DEI initiatives have been the norm in government and public institutions for decades, but conservatives see DEI's elimination as a mandate for the return of merit-based hiring. This lecture from author and political commentator Vince Everett Ellison will provide the student body with an opportunity to hear about this issue from a conservative viewpoint and provide insight into why DEI's elimination is necessary and how conservatives can continue to fight to eliminate this ideology on a cultural level.Ellison is no stranger to advocating for the death of DEI. He has written four books condemning Democrats for their ideology and political tactics, the most recent of which is titled: The End of Tolerance: How Democrats Use the Sin of Tolerance to Destroy America (2024). His other books are: Crime Inc.: How Democrats Employ Mafia and Gangster Tactics to Gain and Hold Power (2023); 25 Lies: Exposing Democrats' Most Dangerous, Seductive, Damnable, Destructive Lies and How to Refute Them (2022); and The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them (2019). In addition, Ellison has provided commentary on numerous radio shows, TV programs, and podcasts, including The Sean Hannity Show, The Ingraham Angle, OAN: One America News, The Joe Pags Show, The Brian Kilmeade Show, and The Howie Carr Show, as well as receiving the GOP nomination for the South Carolina 6th Congressional District in 2000.This lecture will be recorded and ready to view on the Available Recordings page approximately 24-36 hours after the conclusion of the event. The recording will only be available for three weeks from the date of the lecture.

A Revolution in Computing: Next-Generation Arithmetic
6:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - For 50 years, "floating-point operations per second" (FLOPS) has been the currency of technical computing performance. The rise of AI and the end of Moore's law have made us realize that IEEE standard floating-point (invented by Intel in 1977) is long overdue for replacement. Dr. John Gustafson will present a new way to represent real numbers on computers that is both mathematically sound and follows engineering design goals. The approach can more than double speed and energy efficiency for everything from Machine Learning to Computer Graphics to High-Performance Computing. This is a watershed, a revolution. And it is well underway.John Gustafson is an American computer scientist and businessman, renowned for his contributions to high-performance computing (HPC). He is best known for Gustafson's Law, which provides a model for predicting the performance of parallel computing systems.Gustafson was raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and pursued his passion for science from a young age. He earned his degree in Applied Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1977, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1981 and 1982, respectively.Throughout his career, Gustafson has held several prominent positions, including Chief Technology Officer at Ceranovo, Inc., Chief Graphics Product Architect and Senior Fellow at AMD, and Director of Intel Labs-SC. He also led the reconstruction of the Atanasoff–Berry computer and invented the unum number format, a variable-precision number system.Gustafson has received numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Gordon Bell Prize in 1988 and the International Atanasoff Award in 2006. His contributions have significantly advanced the field of high-performance computing, making him a key figure in the industry.

Breaking Barriers: Women Leading the Future of Agriculture and Livestock
7:00 PM – 0127 Curtiss Hall - International Women in Agriculture Day LectureDr. Salma Sultana is recognized as the first female entrepreneur and development worker in the livestock sector in Bangladesh. She is the founder of the Model Livestock Advancement Foundation and the Model Livestock Institute and Veterinary Hospital in Dhaka. In acknowledgment of her significant contributions, Dr. Sultana was named one of the top 100 Asian scientists by Asian Scientist magazine in 2021. Additionally, in 2020 she received the prestigious World Food Prize Norman Borlaug Field Award recipient, for her work with veterinary outreach, treatment, and education to small-scale farmers in Bangladesh.This lecture will be recorded and ready to view on the Available Recordings page approximately 24-36 hours after the conclusion of the event. The recording will only be available for three weeks from the date of the lecture.

Bodily Autonomy for All: Lessons from the Intersex Movement
6:00 PM – 2630 Memorial Union - Bodily Autonomy for All: Lessons from the Intersex Movement explores how the fight for intersex rights offers powerful insights into broader struggles for bodily autonomy. Drawing from personal experience and activism, Pidgeon Pagonis challenges secrecy and medical authority while highlighting the importance of informed consent, self-determination, and justice for all bodies. Pagonis was raised as a girl but was born with both female and male sexual organs. Despite multiple surgeries before they were a teenager, Pagonis wasn't told the truth until they turned 18. Pagonis shared their story in their book Nobody Needs to Know.Pagonis has worked for more than a decade as an intersex advocate to shed light on the human rights violations endured by intersex people. Their goal is to help end the non-consensual irreversible medical procedures meant to discipline unruly intersex bodies. Pagonis's accessible advocacy helps people complicate their preconceived binary notions about “biological differences”. This event is part of a Women’s and Gender Studies Lecture Series funded by the Mellon Foundation’s Affirming Multivocal Humanities Grant, which was awarded to Dr. Winfrey and the WGS program in the fall of 2023.This lecture will be recorded and ready to view on the Available Recordings page approximately 24-36 hours after the conclusion of the event. The recording will only be available for two weeks from the date of the lecture.

The Role of Storytelling within Scientific Misinformation
7:00 PM – 3580 Memorial Union - 2025 Sigma Xi Spring LectureScience and storytelling mean different things when they speak of truth. This difference leads many to blame storytelling for presenting a distorted view of science and contributing to misinformation. Yet others celebrate storytelling as a way to engage audiences and share accurate scientific information. This talk will help disentangle the complexities of how storytelling intersects with the understanding of science. Even with their differences, the underlying purpose of both science and narrative seek to make sense of the world and find our place within it. While narrative can indeed lead to scientific misinformation, narrative can also help science counter misinformation by providing meaning to reality that incorporates accurate science knowledge into human experience.Michael Dahlstrom is the director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University and holds a Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Professorship. His research explores how storytelling impacts the communication of science and the ethical considerations involved. Dahlstrom’s work extends across diverse scientific contexts, including risk, health, agricultural, and environmental communication, and has been published in leading journals, such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PLOS Biology, Communication Research and Science Communication. He is also co-editor of Ethics and Practice in Science Communication, an edited volume focusing on the often-overlooked ethical challenges underlying science communication. Dahlstrom is a Kavli Fellow and is also a past head of the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.