Search For Lectures

Breaking the Creative Barriers between Art and Science: A Panel Discussion
7:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - A discussion with artists Dennis Dake, Barbara Walton, Dean Biechler and Ingrid Lilligren, and scientists Tong Wang and Paul Canfield from the exhibit Breaking the Creative Barriers between Art and Science, currently on display in the Pioneer Room. The show features collaborative work created by teams of ISU artists and scientists. The exhibit showcases the artists' creations and includes posters summarizing the scientific research that informs each artwork, illustrating how the sciences are fertile ground for creative and artistic imagination. The exhibit is on display through November 12, 2007.

African Ambassadors and Leaders Speak about Poverty, Food Security, Health, Education and Governance in Africa
7:30 PM – Lush Auditorium, Kildee Hall 125 - A panel of top diplomats and distinguished leaders from across Africa will discuss poverty, food security, HIV/AIDs, information and computer technologies and nurturing democratic reforms. The event is a unique opportunity to hear from African leaders, themselves, about their efforts to address the challenges of the continent. Invited speakers include H.E. Hawa Ndilowe, Ambassador of Malawi; H.E. Peter Ogego, Ambassador of Kenya; H.E. Amadou Ba, Ambassador of Senegal; H.E. Keerteecoomar Ruhee, Ambassador of Mauritius; Hon. Amina Salum Ali, Africa Union Ambassador; Andrew Makenete, ABSA Bank, South Africa; Dr. Lindiwe Sibanda, Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network; Michael Kijjambu, 1000 Cups of Coffee, Uganda; and Mamadou Diarrah, First Secretary, Embassy of Mali. This event is being organized by Iowa State's African Studies Forum, in conjunction with the World Food Prize Organization's 2007 Norman E. Bourlaug International Symposium. Part of the World Affairs Series.

A Longing to Understand - A One-Woman Play performed by Jane Cox
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Jane Cox is a professor and stage director in the Iowa State University Theatre Program. She has been involved with over two hundred-fifty productions as an actress, designer, or director. Her one-woman shows have been performed in over twenty states as well as at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian. "The Longing to Understand" is the story of Barbara McClintock, the maize geneticist who discovered mobile genetic elements called transposons, or "jumping genes," in corn. In 1983, at the age of eighty-one, McClintock was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for this work. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Series "The Book of Life in a Genomic Age."

The Village at the Other End of the Pipeline: Imagining the Future of the Global Energy Economy - Lisa Margonelli
6:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Journalist Lisa Margonelli writes about the global culture and economy of energy. She has written for Slate, CNN, NPR, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal. Margonelli is a graduate of Yale University and is currently a fellow at the New America Foundation. Her book Oil on the Brain: Travels in the World of Petroleum will be published in February 2007. Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.

Making Peace Between Heaven and Earth: A Faith-Based Approach to Social and Environmental Transformation - Susan Drake Emmerich
8:00 PM – Pioneer Room, Memorial Union - Susan Drake Emmerich is a nationally known speaker on faith-based environmental stewardship and the founder and CEO of Emmerich Environmental Consulting. She founded and directed the nonprofit Tangier Watermen's Stewardship for the Chesapeake and helped produce the Telly and Aurora Award-winning PBS documentary on the Tangier Watermen's Initiative. As a U.S. negotiator she was involved in the 1992 Earth Summit, Biological Diversity Convention, Global Climate Convention, and International Coral Reef Initiative. She has also worked for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, EPA, and Department of Interior and served as the director of the East Coast office of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies and as vice president of the Au Sable Institute's board of directors. Currently, Emmerich is an assistant professor at Trinity Christian College, where she teaches environmental science and directs an environmental research partnership between Trinity Christian College and the Lake Katherine Nature Preserve. Part of the Areopagus Lecture Series.

In Good Conscience - A Film
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - The film In Good Conscience chronicles the true story of Sister Jeannine Gramick, who is defying a Vatican edict that she shut down her compassionate ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics and silence herself permanently on the subject of homosexuality. Her battle takes her all the way to Rome where she attempts an audience with her key adversary over the years - none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - the Inquisitor, who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

Globalization: Threats and Opportunities - Tom Vilsack
6:30 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Tom Vilsack was first elected Governor of Iowa in 1998 and was reelected to a second four-year term in 2002. On November 30, 2006, he formally launched his candidacy for the Democratic Party's nomination for president in the 2008 election but ended his bid on February 23, 2007. In May 2007, Vilsack joined the Des Moines office of the Minneapolis-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney and is of counsel. Vilsack received a Bachelor's degree in 1972 from Hamilton College in New York. He received the J.D. in 1975 from Albany Law School. Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.

Agricultural Research and Food Security in Africa - Monty Jones
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Monty Jones, the 2007 Norman Borlaug Lecturer, is the executive secretary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), based in Ghana. He received the 2004 World Food Prize for his breakthrough achievements in creating a new rice variety specifically bred for the ecological and agricultural conditions in Africa. Jones, the first African to win the World Food Prize, began his career in 1975 with the West Africa Rice Development Agency (WARDA). In 1991 he was appointed head of WARDA's Upland Rice Breeding Program, where he developed NERICA, a "New Rice for Africa." Jones subsequently worked to distribute NERICA rice to farmers in Africa's villages through partnerships among WARDA, policymakers, NGOs, and research and extension services as well as a community-based outreach program. Jones was born and educated in Sierra Leone. He completed a PhD in plant biology in 1983 at Birmingham University in the United Kingdom and received an honorary Doctor of Science in 2005. 2007 Norman Borlaug Lecture. Prior to the Lecture, there will be a reception and student poster display from 7 to 8 p.m. in the South Ballroom of the Memorial Union.

Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime - Kenneth Helphand
6:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, College of Design - Kenneth Helphand is a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Oregon, where he has taught since 1974. He has guest lectured at numerous universities and is a regular visiting professor at the Technion - the Israel Institute of Technology. His research is in landscape history and theory with a particular interest in the contemporary American landscape. His works include Colorado: Visions of an American Landscape and Yard Street Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space. Most recently he published Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime, an examination of gardens of war in the twentieth century, including gardens built behind the trenches in World War I, in the Warsaw and other ghettos during World War II, and in Japanese-American internment camps. Helphand is a graduate of Harvard's Graduate School of Design. The P. H. Elwood Lecture in Landscape Architecture.

The Economics of Investing in Children: The Role of Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills - James J. Heckman
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Daniel McFadden). His recent research deals with such issues as evaluation of social programs, econometric models of discrete choice and longitudinal data, the economics of the labor market, and alternative models of the distribution of income. Heckman has been the director of the Center for Social Program Evaluation, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, at the University of Chicago since 1973. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the John Bates Clark Award of the American Economic Association, the Jacob Mincer Award for Lifetime Achievement in Labor Economics, the University College Dublin Ulysses Medal, and the Aigner award from the Journal of Econometrics. The T.W. Schultz Lecture.