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Past Events

Wednesday, 16 Apr 2008

Getting Away with Murder: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths - Stefan Timmermans
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Stefan Timmermans, professor of sociology at UCLA, one of the world's leading medical ethnographers. His most recent book, Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths, is based on three years of observing medical examiners perform autopsies. His research bridges medical sociology and science studies. Specific research interests include how sudden, unexpected deaths are dealt with in Western societies and how change occurs in contemporary health care. Timmermans is also coauthor of The Gold Standard: The Challenge of Evidence-Based Medicine and Standardization in Health Care and author of Sudden Death and the Myth of CPR.

The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming - Bjorn Lomborg
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, is the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. In 2004 TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 globally most influential people, and the UK's Guardian newspaper recently named him one of the "50 people who could save the planet." Lomborg has questioned the priority given to solving global climate change, arguing that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring a safe, fresh water supply. As the organizer of the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus, he brought together internationally recognized economists to prioritize opportunities to solve the world's biggest problems. This and the subsequent conference he organized for UN ambassadors resulted in his publications How to Spend $50 billion To Make The World A Better Place; Global Crises, Global Solutions; and Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Tuesday, 15 Apr 2008

Department of Defense Operations in the Twenty-first Century - Jack Bell
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Jack Bell, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the principal logistics official within the senior management of the Department of Defense. He served as the first chief of staff of the State Department's Afghanistan Reconstruction Group in Kabul, Afghanistan, advising the President's Special Envoy and Ambassador to Afghanistan on efforts to accelerate political stability, reconstruction, and economic development in that country. His work in the private sector included senior management positions at US Airways, American Airlines, and Burlington Northern Railroad. A captain in the Marine Corps, Bell served tours in Vietnam, Okinawa, and the Caribbean. He earned a B.A. in business administration from Northwestern University and an M.A. in international relations from the University of South Carolina. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Undergraduate Research as a Catalyst for Enhanced Learning - David Lopatto
3:10 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - David Lopatto is a professor of psychology at Grinnell College, where he has taught since 1981. He has studied the impact of undergraduate research on student cognition, attitude, and career choice for more than eight years and will talk about the benefits of undergraduate research from the perspective of both the student and the faculty mentor. Lopatto has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Ohio University. His talk is part of the Second Annual Iowa State Undergraduate Research Symposium and Iowa State's 150th Anniversary Celebration.

Friday, 11 Apr 2008

COMEDY! - John Oliver from THE DAILY SHOW
10:00 PM – Stephens Auditorium - Doors open at 9:15 p.m. - John Oliver is a regular writer and correspondent on the Emmy Award-winning Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He won the Breakout Award at the Aspen Comedy Festival 2007, has starred in sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival, and hosted the satirical stand-up show Political Animal with Andy Zaltzman. He plays Dick Pants in Mike Meyers' upcoming movie The Love Guru.

A Winning Strategy from the Biggest Loser - Matt Hoover
5:00 PM – Maintenance Shop, Memorial Union - Iowa native Matt Hoover took home the grand prize as a contestant on Season Two of NBC's The Biggest Loser. He will talk about how he overcame the weight gain that ended his career as a competitive athlete, which lead to drinking problems, depression, and overeating. He arrived at The Biggest Loser Ranch in March 2005 weighing 339 pounds and left nine months later, 157 pounds lighter and a changed man. He was a two-time State Wrestling Champion for Belle Plaine High School and a member of four NCAA Championship teams. He was also a Junior National All-American and National runner-up, winning seven state Freestyle/Greco titles before an injury kept him from reaching his Olympic dreams.

VEISHEA Opening Ceremony with Clayton Anderson
12:00 PM – Central Campus (Moved to Beardshear Hall due to rain) - Astronaut and Iowa State alum Clayton Anderson will share his experiences spending 152 days in space and on the International Space Station. He joined the Johnson Space Center in 1983 and held a number of positions before being selected as a mission specialist in 1998. In June 2007 he launched to the International Space Station aboard Shuttle Atlantis with the crew of STS-117. During his 152 day stint onboard the ISS, Anderson performed three spacewalks, totaling 18 hours of extravehicular activity. He holds a a master of science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State University (1983). Part of the Iowa State 150th Anniversary Alumni Lecture Series.

Thursday, 10 Apr 2008

Censoring Freedom: How the Quest for Security is Trumping Your Constitutional Rights - Mark Goodman
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Mark Goodman is the Knight Professor of Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University and an expert on student free expression in the United States. He served as the executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Virginia, for over twenty years, counseling student journalists and advisers about legal rights and responsibilities. Goodman received the Gerald M. Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication in 2007. He holds a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Duke University. Part of the First Amendment Day Celebration.

Continental-Scale Ecology in a Connected World - Debra Peters
7:30 PM – Molecular Biology Building Auditorium, Room 1414 - Debra Peters is a research scientist at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Jornada Experimental Range, located in the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem (Las Cruces, New Mexico). She is the Principle Investigator for the Jornada Long-Term Ecological Research Site. Her areas of research include the roles of fire and grazing in grassland systems, global change effects on ecosystem dynamics across spatial scales, boundary and ecotone dynamics, and spatially-explicit simulation modeling of ecosystem dynamics. Dr. Peters recently provided leadership for the National Science Foundation in the establishment of the National Ecological Observatory Network. She has a B.S. in biology from Iowa State University, an M.S. in biology from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. in range science from Colorado State University. The Paul L. Errington Memorial Lecture and part of the Iowa State 150th Anniversary Alumni Lecture Series.

Lessons from Two of the Nation's Largest Disasters, from Someone Who Was Involved in Both - Scott Hamilton
4:00 PM – Stark Auditorium, 1148 Gerdin Business Building - Scott Hamilton, a 1982 management graduate of the College of Business at Iowa State University, was Vice President of Investor Relations at WorldCom when it spiraled into bankruptcy amid the country's largest accounting scandal and was a public information officer for the State of Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. His background includes communications and marketing leadership positions in corporate, government and agency environments. He is currently a partner in a public affairs consultancy in Jackson, Mississippi. In addition to his degree from Iowa State, Hamilton holds an MBA in International Business from George Washington University. Part of the Iowa State 150th Anniversary Alumni Lecture Series.