Search For Lectures

Lucky Fish: A Reading - Aimee Nezhukumatathil
4:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a father from South India. Her recently published book of poetry, Lucky Fish, moves from India to the Philippines to New York state to capture a rich life, richly lived. Her other collections include At the Drive-in Volcano, winner of the Balcones Prize, and Miracle Fruit, winner of the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award and the Global Filipino Award. Aimee Nezhukumatiathil was a Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing in Madison and is currently an associate professor of English at State University of New York-Fredonia, where she teaches creative writing and environmental literature. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness and the Creative Imagination.

Writing from the Margins - A Conversation with Daniel Woodrell and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
2:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Daniel Woodrell is the author of Winter's Bone, whose film adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Woodrell has set most of his eight novels in the Missouri Ozarks, where he grew up and now lives. Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a father from South India. Her recently published book of poetry, Lucky Fish, moves from India to the Philippines to New York state. She teaches creative writing and environmental literature at the State University of New York-Fredonia. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness and the Creative Imagination

Food and Farm Policy in the United States: Building the Economy and National Security with Public Health - Michael Hamm
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Michael Hamm is the C. S. Mott Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Michigan State University, where his work focuses on developing sustainable community and regional food systems from the producer to the consumer. It encompasses such areas as policy development, small-scale farm viability, equity in food access, and institutional markets. Hamm was previously on the faculty at Rutgers University, where he served as Dean of Academic and Student Programs at Cook College. While at Rutgers he was cofounder and director of the New Jersey Urban Ecology Program, facilitator for the New Jersey Cooperative Gleaning Network and the founding director of the Cook Student Organic Farm. He earned his PhD at the University of Minnesota. The 2011-12 Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences.

Hydraulic Fracturing: Potential Impacts on Drinking Water - Stephen Osborn
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Stephen Osborn is a hydrogeologist with an expertise in natural gas geochemistry and water quality issues specific to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. He was the lead author on a recent study at Duke University that shows methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas extraction in northeastern Pennsylvania andupstate New York. Osborn is currently an assistant professor in the Geology Department at California State Polytechnic University Pomona. He has also worked as a consultant, conducting hydrogeologic and environmental investigations in the northeastern and southwestern United States. Osborn holds a Master's degree in soil science from the University of California at Riverside and in geology from Georgia State University. He earned his PhD from the University of Arizona. Part of the National Affairs Series and the Live Green! Sustainability Series.

Living as an Ordinary Radical - Shane Claiborne
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Shane Claiborne is a founding partner of The Simple Way, a new monastic community in inner-city Philadelphia. He has become something of a revolutionary role model for those disillusioned with today's materialistic, "pop Christianity." He is the author of the several books, including The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President, and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers. Claiborne graduated from Eastern University and did graduate work at Princeton Seminary. His varied ministry experience has included a ten-week stint working alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta, a year spent serving a wealthy mega-congregation outside Chicago as well as three weeks in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series.

The Discovery of Quasi-Periodic Crystals - Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Dan Shechtman, an Iowa State professor of materials science and engineering and research scientist for the Ames Laboratory, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The honor was awarded for his discovery of quasicrystals, crystalline materials with a periodic atomic structure deemed impossible in modern crystallography. Initially controversial, Dr. Shechtman's findings have changed long-held definitions and ideas about matter and atomic arrangement. He is also the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. He joined Iowa State and the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory in 2004. Reception to follow.

The Case for Patenting New Plants - Ed Sease
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Edmund J. Sease is a trial lawyer with more than thirty years of experience litigating intellectual property cases. He has represented clients before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and argued before the United States Supreme Court in a precedent-setting case on the patent eligibility of genetically modified plants. He holds a degree in chemistry and graduated from Drake University Law School, where today he is an adjunct professor. He has taught copyright, trademark and patent law as well as courses in intellectual property litigation. Part of the Who Owns Life? Intellectual Property in Biotechnology and the Life Sciences Symposium

Confronting Family Violence and Sexual Assault: Community Responses - Chuck Cychosz
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Ames Police Chief Chuck Cychosz will discuss community efforts and best practices for handling violence against women. Jerry Stewart, Director of Public Safety at Iowa State, and representatives from Youth and Shelter Services, ACCESS and the Story County Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) will participate in the discussion. Part of the Women & Gender Studies Program 35th Anniversary Celebration. No audio recording available for download or podcasting.

Sustainable Farming and the Fine Wine Industry - Trent Preszler
6:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Trent Preszler is Chief Executive Officer of Bedell Cellars. Bedell Cellars pursues sustainability in all farming, winemaking, and business practices. They have been making sustainable wine since the company's inception in 1980. After joining Bedell as National Brand Manager, he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in 2006 and became CEO in 2010. Now at age thirty-three, he is one of the youngest winery CEOs in the world and has led Bedell through its important brand, facility, and personnel transformations during Michael Lynne's ownership. An active scholar in addition to running a winery, Preszler's writings have been published by Oxford University Press, the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, and the Huffington Post. He is currently on the Board of Directors of WineAmerica and the New York Wine and Grape Foundation. He earned degrees in agriculture from Iowa State University, Edinburgh University (U.K.), and a doctorate in Viticulture from Cornell University. Part of the National Affairs Series.

Who Owns Life? Gene Patents in Law, Ethics and Policy - Margo Bagley and David Resnik
3:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Changing Tides or A Drop in the Bucket? Challenges to Plant Patenting in the U.S. and Abroad - Margo Bagley is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, specializing in patent law and intellectual property. She has a degree in chemical engineering and has worked in products research and development for the Coca-Cola Company and Procter & Gamble, where she was co-inventor on a U.S. patent for improved peanut butter. She received her JD from Emory University and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The Ethics of Patenting Human DNA - David Resnik is author of Owning the Genome: A Moral Analysis of DNA Patenting. He was a professor of Medial Humanities at the East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine and later on the faculty at the University of Wyoming, where he directed the Center for the Advancement of Ethics. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of North Carolina and a JD from Concord University School of Law. Part of the Symposium Who Owns Life? Intellectual Property in Biotechnology and the Life Sciences