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Past Events

Wednesday, 7 Oct 2009

Audio-Only Broadcast - Celebrating 150 Years of Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: Variation - Jonathan Weiner
7:00 PM – 333 Science II - Live Audio Broadcast - Professor Jonathan Weiner, author of Beak of the Finch, will deliver the second lecture in the "150th Anniversary of the Origin of Species" Series hosted by The Reading Odyssey and the Darwin Facebook Project. This lecture is the second of five lectures in the Fall of 2009 to celebrate Darwin's seminal publication. Join fellow listeners at 6:30 p.m. for refreshments and sociability. This is a live audio-only broadcast from Columbia University. A Q&A by e-mail will follow.

Technology and the Globalization of Opportunity - Mary Jane Hagenson
6:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Mary Jane Hagenson is vice president of technology at Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC. She previously served as vice president of specialty chemicals and specialty plastics for Phillips Petroleum Company, now ConocoPhillips. Hagenson holds seven U.S. patents and was nominated for Phillips' Inventor of the Year in 1991. She earned an MS and PhD in biomedical engineering from Iowa State University. Before joining Phillips, she had research assignments at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Iowa, and Iowa State University. Part of the Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series and the Women in STEM Series.

Iowa Traditions in Transition: Negotiating Identity, Performing Folklore - Riki Saltzman
1:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - Riki Saltzman has been the Folklife Coordinator for the Iowa Arts Council, Department of Cultural Affairs, since 1995. She works with a variety of communities and individuals to provide assistance with multicultural and diversity issues, project development, event planning and the presentation of traditional arts and artists. In collaboration with Iowa Public Radio, Saltzman produces "Iowa Roots," a radio series and website that explore the state's cultures and traditions. She has also researched and developed a website on place-based food in Iowa with funding from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Her most recent work is Iowa Folklife 2, an online multicultural folklife curriculum and a companion to Iowa Folklife: Our People, Communities, and Traditions. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Series: Iowa in the Global Community.

Tuesday, 6 Oct 2009

Sustainable Energy Innovation at Iowa State
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Larry Johnson, Director of the BioCentury Research Farm and the Center for Crops Utilization Research, will provide a brief update on the work to be done at the new BioCentury Research Farm and moderate the discussion. Jim McCalley, Harpole Professor in Electrical Engineering, will discuss his ongoing study of the country's energy and transportation infrastructure and how new technologies can best be mixed with elements of the existing power system to produce cost-effective, sustainable energy and transportation systems. Victor Lin, professor of chemistry, director of the ISU Center for Catalysis and a program director for the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, will describe how nanotechnology is being used to re-engineer how biodiesel is refined more cheaply and environmentally friendly. A reception and student poster display will precede the lecture from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Oak Room, Memorial Union. Part of the Live Green! Sustainability Series.

Lessons Learned: Strategies for Success Among Underrepresented Minorities and Women in Undergraduate Engineering - Freeman Hrabowski
9:00 AM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Freeman Hrabowski has served as President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, since 1992. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. Hrabowski is coauthor of Beating the Odds and Overcoming the Odds, both of which focus on parenting and high-achieving African American males and females in science. He was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report in 2008 and is a recipient of the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education and the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Lee's 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. College of Engineering Diversity Fair Keynote Speaker.

Monday, 5 Oct 2009

Ames City Council Candidate Forum
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - The Government of the Student Body will host a forum with Ames City Council candidates. Candidates will address issues of concern to Iowa State University students and take questions from audience members. Participants include Mayor Ann Campbell, at-large candidates Sheli Dougherty, Mike Miller and Peter Orazem; Ward 3 candidates Jeremy Davis, Ryan Doll and Brian McLain; and Ward 1 candidates Dan Rice and Tom Wacha. Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, will moderate.

Tuesday, 29 Sep 2009

Global Warming and Public Policy: The Impact of President Obama's G–20 Address on Climate Change - Mark Bryden
7:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - President Obama addressed the G-20 Summit leaders and organizations of industrial and emerging-market countries on September 24, in Pittsburgh. The focus was securing a sustainable future for all countries, including progress on long-term issues such as climate change. Kenneth "Mark" Bryden, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State, will offer commentary and lead a discussion on Obama's address. He has an active research and teaching program in the areas of sustainable engineering, appropriate technology, decision science, and simulation based engineering science. Bryden is also the president of Engineers for Technical and Humanitarian Opportunities for Service (ETHOS), an international NGO focused on the issues of household energy in the developing world.

Sunday, 27 Sep 2009

The True Price of Victory: Curator's Lecture - Lea Rosson Delong
2:00 PM – Christian Petersen Art Museum, 1017 Morrill Hall - Lea Rosson Delong discusses her scholarship on Christian Petersen and explores the strong side of this gentle sculptor. She received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. In addition to contemporary art, she has concentrated on American art of the Depression era, curating exhibitions and writing about the southwestern painter Alexandre Hogue and about New Deal art of the Midwest.

Thursday, 24 Sep 2009

Toward a Post Carbon Food System - Richard Heinberg
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow in Residence at the Post Carbon Institute, is the author of eight books including The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies; Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World; The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism, and Economic Collapse; and Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. He writes a regular column for the Ecologist magazine and has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, Yes! Magazine, and The Sun, as well as on websites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, and Counterpunch.com. He has been featured in many film documentaries, including End of Suburbia and Leonardo DiCaprio's 11th Hour. Part of the Live Green! Sustainability Series and the National Affairs Series.

Please Don't Come Back from the Moon & Other Stories : A Fiction Reading - Dean Bakopoulos
7:00 PM – Maintenance Shop, Memorial Union - Dean Bakopoulos is a new faculty member in the Iowa State Creative Writing Program and author of the novel Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, a New York Times Notable Book. He has lectured at many universities about the economic and environmental problems facing the post-industrial Rust Belt and has published related essays and criticism. His one-act plays "Phonies" and "Wayside" have been produced at Alley Stage in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. 

The winner of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, he is the former director of both the Wisconsin Book Festival and the Wisconsin Humanities Council. Bakopoulos earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Part of the Eco-Voices Series.