Browse All Upcoming Lectures

Wake Up the “Watchdog”: Ensuring Our Government Doesn’t Misuse Our Taxes
6:00 PM – 2630 Memorial Union - Rob Sand is the State Auditor, a position he was first elected to in 2018; he is currently the only Democratic Party statewide officeholder in Iowa.  Rob is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Iowa College of Law. He interned in Washington, D.C. for Democratic Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, and then began working for Democratic campaigns in Iowa. After graduating law school, Rob was appointed Assistant Attorney General, and he became the lead prosecutor for two high profile cases: the Iowa Film Office tax credit scandal and the Hot Loot fraud scandal.  Since becoming state auditor, Rob developed the Public Innovations and Efficiencies Program, which awards fiscal efficiency in government. He has not endorsed Democratic candidates or campaigned for other candidates. This is part of his commitment to a balanced approach to his Truth and Anti-Partisanship approach to public service. This lecture will be recorded and ready to view on the Available Recordings page approximately 24-36 hours after the conclusion of the event.

Demystifying AI: What Adoption Success Looks Like for Humans
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - One of the first movers in Responsible AI, Olivia Gambelin is a world-renowned expert in AI Ethics and product innovation whose experience in utilizing ethics-by-design has empowered hundreds of business leaders to achieve their desired impact on the cutting edge of AI development. Olivia works directly with product teams to drive AI innovation through human value alignment, as well as executive teams on the operational and strategic development of responsible AI.Olivia is the author of the book Responsible AI: Implement an Ethical Approach in Your Organization with Kogan Page Publishing. Responsible AI guides readers step-by-step through the process of establishing robust yet manageable ethical AI initiatives for any size organization, outlining the three core pillars of building a responsible AI strategy: people, process and technology. It provides the insight and guidance needed to help leaders fully understand the technical and commercial potential of ethics in AI while also covering the operations and strategy needed to support implementation.As the founder of Ethical Intelligence, the world’s largest network of Responsible AI practitioners, Olivia offers unparalleled insight into how leaders can embrace the strength of human values to drive holistic business success. She is the creator of The Values Canvas, co-founder of Women Shaping the Future of Responsible AI (WSFR.AI), founding Editorial Board member for Springer Nature’s AI and Ethics Journal, and sits as an advisor for the Ethical AI Governance Group (EAIGG) and The Data Tank. She has advised various organizations from Fortune 500 to Series A startups across the healthcare, financial, and media sectors in utilizing ethics as a decision-making tool for success in artificial intelligence.Olivia splits her year between San Francisco where she is an active member of Silicon Valley’s ecosystem of startups and investors, and Brussels where she advises on AI policy and regulation.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 Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake
5:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Free-market economists often have noted that there are winners and losers in a competitive capitalist world. The question of how to deal with the difficult real-life consequences faced by the losers, however, has largely been ignored. Populist politicians have tried repeatedly to address the issue by creating walls—of both the physical and economic kinds—to insulate communities and keep competition at bay. While recognizing the broad emotional appeal of walls, economist Glenn Hubbard argues that because they delay needed adaptations to the ever-changing world, walls are essentially backward-looking and ultimately destined to fail. Taking Adam Smith’s logic to Youngstown, Ohio, as a case study in economic disruption, Hubbard promotes the benefits of an open economy and creating bridges to support people in turbulent times so that they remain engaged and prepared to participate in, and reap the rewards of, a new economic landscape.Glenn Hubbard is Director, Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, dean emeritus, and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. Hubbard received his BA and BS degrees summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida and also holds AM and PhD degrees in economics from Harvard University. In addition to writing more than 100 scholarly articles in economics and finance, Glenn is the author of three popular textbooks, as well as co-author of The Aid Trap: Hard Truths About Ending Poverty, Balance: The Economics of Great Powers From Ancient Rome to Modern America, and Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System. His commentaries appear in Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, Nikkei, and the Daily Yomiuri, as well as on television and radio.From 2001 until 2003, he was chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. In the corporate sector, he is on the boards of TotalEnergies, BlackRock Fixed Income Funds, and MetLife (where he is chair). Hubbard is co-chair of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation; he is a past chair of the Economic Club of New York and a past co-chair of the Study Group on Corporate Boards.

Civic Engagement in Diverse Latinx Communities: Learning from Social Justice Partnerships in Action
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Mari Castañeda will discuss social justice 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 social justice 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 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. 

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 Architect 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.