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The Pros and Cons of Interdisciplinary Research - Stephen Gilbert
5:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, 101 College of Design - Stephen Gilbert, associate director of Iowa State's Virtual Reality Applications Center and its graduate program in Human Computer Interaction, will describe some of the challenges and benefits of conducting research across disciplinary boundaries. Gilbert worked for ten years in the software industry before returning to academia. He has a BS from Princeton in civil engineering and operations research and a PhD from MIT in brain and cognitive sciences. He joined Iowa State in 2007 as a lecturer in Psychology and since 2012 is an assistant professor in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. Graduate and Professional Students Research Conference Keynote Address A 3-Minute Thesis Competition will precede Stephen Gilbert's talk at 4:15 pm.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - Elizabeth Kolbert
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer for The New Yorker, an award-winning environmental journalist, and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Her new book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, and introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction. Part of the World Affairs Series and the Wildness, Wilderness & the Environmental Imagination Series.

Emerging Issues in Agriculture - Jim Blome
7:00 PM – Dolezal Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall - Jim Blome is the president and CEO for Bayer CropScience and the head of Crop Protection for the North American region. During his career he has served in executive positions in some of the nation's largest agricultural companies. Blome has launched several initiatives at Bayer CropScience North America to support the future of agriculture, including the Young Farmer Sustainability Award and the North American Bee Care Center. He grew up on a family farm in Hubbard, Iowa, and graduated from Iowa State in 1985 with bachelor's degrees in agronomy and pest management. The Carl and Marjory Hertz Lecture on Emerging Issues in Agriculture.

Intervention Programs for Patients with Parkinson's Disease - Chris Hass
3:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Chris Hass is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology at the University of Florida. His work focuses on the efficacy of intervention programs for improving quality of life, neuromechanical control, and disease progression in Parkinson's disease. His research is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and Autism Speaks. He also collaborates on funded projects from the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Department of Veterans Affairs. He has held academic positions at Columbia University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Parkinson's Disease Research Forum

Understanding Movement Impairment in Parkinson's Disease - Colum MacKinnon
2:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Colum MacKinnon is an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota. His team studies how the brain controls movement in people with neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease. He is also using brain imaging methods to study the neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of movement disorders. His current work focuses on three areas: the relationship between freezing of gait and sleep disorders in people with Parkinson's disease, the mechanisms by which external cues facilitate gait initiation in Parkinson's disease, and the mechanisms of impaired control of repetitive movements in Parkinson's disease. MacKinnon was previously on the faculty in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences at Northwestern University and a neurophysiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Parkinson's Disease Research Forum

Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology's Designs on Nature - Daisy Ginsberg
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg explores the shared territory of science, engineering, art and design as a Design Fellow with the international research project Synthetic Aesthetics. She is especially interested in new roles for design in emerging fields like synthetic biology, which aims to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, ranging from biofuels to medical applications. Daisy Ginsberg studied architecture at Cambridge University, design at Harvard University, and earned an MA in design interactions at the Royal College of Art. She is coauthor of the forthcoming book Synthetic Aesthetics and guest-edited a recent issue of the scientific journal Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. National Affairs Series on Innovation and Women in STEM Series

Republican Candidates for U.S. Senate: Forum - Hosted by the College Republicans
6:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Candidates vying for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate will participate in a campus forum. A June 3 primary will determine the Republican nominee for retiring Senator Tom Harkin's seat in the November congressional elections. Participating candidates include twenty-five-year Air Force veteran Sam Clovis, former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker, State Senator Joni Ernst, and Navy veteran and Iowa State graduate Scott Schaben. Kevin Kimle, the Rastetter Chair of Agricultural Entrepreneurship at Iowa State, will moderate. Part of the Campaign 2014 Series, providing the university community with opportunities to question candidates before the June primary election.

Social Justice: A Spoken Word Performance - Andrea Gibson
8:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Andrea Gibson is a spoken word poet who advocates for solidarity and equality. The winner of the first ever Women's World Poetry Slam, Gibson offers listeners a new means by which to examine social justice issues. Her performances cover topics ranging from global poverty and worker exploitation to environmental degradation and the dangers of international warfare. Gibson is the author of two books of poetry, The Madness Vase and Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns. Her albums include Truce, When the Bough Breaks, and Yellowbird.

Soil Health and Sustainability - Ray Archuleta
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Ray Archuleta is a soil agronomist at USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. His work promotes conservation practices like no-till farming and the use of cover crops to improve soil health. Archuleta has more than twenty-five years of experience with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, working in New Mexico, Missouri, Oregon, and now at the NRCS East National Technology Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has held positions as a soil conservationist, nutrient and irrigation specialist, water quality project manager and area agronomist. He also spent two years in Guatemala as a livestock specialist in the Peace Corps. Shivvers Memorial Lecture.

Interior Mythologies - Literary Readings & Discussion - Natalie Diaz & K. L. Cook
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Natalie Diaz is the author of the poetry collection When My Brother Was an Aztec. She is a recipient of the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. Diaz is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. She earned a BA from Old Dominion University, where she received a full athletic scholarship. She played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion to earn an MFA. Diaz lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she works with the last speakers of Mojave and directs a language revitalization program. K. L. Cook is the author of three books of fiction. His most recent book, Love Songs for the Quarantined, won the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. His novel, The Girl from Charnelle, won The Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction, and his first book, Last Call, won the inaugural Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. He is an associate professor of English at Iowa State and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment. Part of the Wildness, Wilderness & the Environmental Imagination Series