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Eating Tomorrow: The Battle for the Future of Food
5:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - The 2022 Shivvers Memorial Lecture Dr. Timothy A. Wise is author of the recent book Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. He is a senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, where his work focuses on agribusiness, family farmers and the future of food, and a senior research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, where he founded and directed its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. His previous work includes directing the Small Planet Institute’s Land and Food Rights Program and serving as executive director of the U.S.-based aid agency Grassroots International. He is also author of Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico. Wise lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Why Is It So Hard to Make Self-Driving Cars?
1:00 PM – See Zoom Link or Communications 1230 - This is a hybrid event. You may view the lecture in person at 1230 Communications or via Zoom: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/94787336376 Why is self-driving so hard? Despite the enthusiastic involvement of big technological companies and the massive investment of many billions of dollars, all the optimistic predictions about self-driving cars “being around the corner” went utterly wrong. I argue that these difficulties emblematically illustrate the challenges raised by the vision for trustworthy autonomous systems. These are critical systems intended to replace human operators in complex organizations, very different from other intelligent systems such as game-playing robots or intelligent personal assistants. I discuss complexity limitations inherent to autonomic behavior but also to integration in complex cyber-physical and human environments. I argue that existing critical systems engineering techniques fall short of meeting the complexity challenge. I also argue that emerging end-to-end AI-enabled solutions currently developed by industry, fail to provide the required strong trustworthiness guarantees. Professor Joseph Sifakis is Emeritus Research Director at Verimag Laboratory. His current area of interest is trustworthy autonomous systems design with focus on self-driving cars. In 2007, he received the Turing Award for his contribution to the theory and application of model checking. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, of the French National Academy of Engineering, of Academia Europea, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a Grand Officer of the French National Order of Merit, a Commander of the French Legion of Honor. He received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 2012.

Climate Change in Iowa: Howe We Got Here, How We Can Choose a Better Future Together
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Spring 2022 LAS Dean's Lecture This event will be recorded. The recording will be posted on the Lectures website at Recordings > Available Recordings for two weeks. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that human-caused warming of our climate is unequivocal. What does that mean for Iowa? Climate change has brought more than just higher temperatures, but also a number of interrelated, seemingly contradictory outcomes, such as more extreme precipitation, more drought and (especially surprising) cooler summers. William (Bill) Gutowski, climate scientist and professor in the department of geological and atmospheric sciences, will explain why climate scientists should not just say what should be done, but instead work together with fellow community members to co-investigate and co-develop the knowledge about and actions for climate change. He will demonstrate how individuals who specialize in sociology, English, journalism, philosophy and other perhaps unexpected areas can help empower communities to take climate change actions that will be effective. Gutowski advocates that together, we can respond to expected climate change in a way that fits the concerns, motivations and, especially, the values of the communities that scientists interact with.

Understanding the Fatigue Experienced by People with Multiple Sclerosis
7:00 PM – 117 MacKay - Roger Maro Enoka is professor and former chair of the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research interest is in the area of Neuromuscular determinants of motor function (movement) in health and disease. He is the director of the Neurophysiology of Movement Lab. According to Web of Knowledge, Professor Enoka has 328 publications, which have been cited a total of 17,101 times. His most frequently cited paper (1750 citations) is titled "Neurobiology of Muscle Fatigue.” Dr. Enoka’s expertise in the area of muscle function and disease will be of interests to students in Kinesiology, pre medical fields, gerontology, biomedical sciences, biology and veterinary medicine.

Shifting Gender Equality from Afterthought to Guiding Goal of Agricultural Innovation
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Gender is integral to the agricultural innovation process, from technology development to access to inputs that shape technology adoption. Yet, there is a distinct lack of attention to gender relations, power and agency in agricultural innovation systems, leading to attention to gender and social inclusion remaining an afterthought in agricultural innovation processes. This talk begins with a general exploration of gender in innovation and design, shifting to a critical look at gender in agricultural innovation. Through examples from crop improvement, the talk will explore frameworks and approaches for inclusive design, innovative tools and methods that integrate crop improvement and gender research, and how intrahousehold dynamics shape crop trait preferences, varietal adoption and seed systems. Dr. Hale Ann Tufan is a Research Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Global Development and Plant Breeding and Genetics, at Cornell University. Her work focuses on building gender responsive crop improvement systems, through curriculum development and training, leading research on priority setting, market research, gender research and on-farm testing. She has a multidisciplinary background spanning Ph.D.-level research in molecular plant pathogen interactions at the John Innes Centre, UK, plant breeding with CIMMYT, international agricultural research for development program management, and gender capacity and strategy development across SSA.

Personal Reflections on the War in Ukraine
7:30 PM – See WebEx Link - Webex Link: https://bit.ly/3tf47NK The war on Ukraine has brought suffering and death to its people. The whole world has watched as Russia attacks infrastructure, civilians, and nuclear power plants. Russia is growing increasingly isolated as financial institutions, businesses, and cultural entities cut ties with the country. The possibility of nuclear war and the effects on the world economy have shaken many. This panel will focus on the impacts the war is having on Ukranian-Americans and those who have worked in Russia. Panelists: Svitlana Zbarska, Lesya Myroslavivn Hassall, Nancy Brannaman, ​​​​​​​Vitalij Pecharsky

Personal Reflections on the War in Ukraine
7:30 PM – Webex - Webex Link: https://bit.ly/3tf47NK This event will be recorded. The recording will be posted on the Lectures website at Recordings > Available Recordings for two weeks. The war on Ukraine has brought suffering and death to its people. The whole world has watched as Russia attacks infrastructure, civilians, and nuclear power plants. Russia is growing increasingly isolated as financial institutions, businesses, and cultural entities cut ties with the country. The possibility of nuclear war and the effects on the world economy have shaken many. This panel will focus on the impacts the war is having on Ukranian-Americans and those who have worked in Russia.

George Washington Carver and the Liberatory History of Black Agriculture
6:00 PM – WebEx - The book Freedom Farmers revises the historical narrative of African American resistance and breaks new ground by including the work, roles, and contributions of southern Black farmers and the organizations they formed. The book traces the origins of Black farmers’ organizations to the late 1800s, emphasizing their activities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Whereas much of the existing scholarship views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of Black people, Freedom Farmers reveals agriculture also as a site of resistance by concentrating on the work of Black farm operators and laborers who fought for the right to participate in the food system as producers and to earn a living wage in the face of racially, socially, and politically repressive conditions. Moreover, it provides an historical foundation that has added meaning and context for current conversations regarding the resurgence of agriculture in the context of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces including Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans. Dr. Monica M. White is the Distinguished Chair of Integrated Environmental Studies (2021-25) and associate professor of Environmental Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology and the Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. She is the first Black woman to earn tenure in both the College of Agricultural Life Sciences (established 1889) and the Nelson Institute (established 1970). Her research investigates Black, Latinx, and Indigenous grassroots organizations that are engaged in the development of sustainable, community-based food systems as a strategy to respond to issues of hunger and food inaccessibility in both contemporary times and the twentieth century. As the founding director of the Office of Environmental Justice and Engagement (OEJ) at UW-Madison, she works toward bridging the gap between the university and the broader community by connecting faculty and students to community-based organizations that are working in areas of environmental/food/land justice toward their mutual benefit. Her first book, Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement, was published by University of North Carolina Press in January 2019. It received the First Book Award from the Association of Association for the Study of Food in Society, (2020), the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award from the Division of Race and Ethnic Minorities Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (2019), and an Honored Book Award from the Gendered Perspectives section of the Association of American Geographers (2019).

It's a Different World Out There: Leadership in the States
7:30 PM – Webex - 2022 Mary Louise Smith Chair Former New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez will present “It’s a Different World Out There: Leadership in the States” on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, as the 34th recipient of the Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics. While states are often referred to as “laboratories of democracy,” Martinez believes that they are increasingly becoming battlefields for the nation’s most intractable and difficult policy fights. In her presentation, Martinez will discuss how state executive leadership must navigate issues such as balancing budgets, overseeing public education, making heath care decisions, competing with other states for jobs and business investment, and responding to natural disasters in today’s political climate. This event will be recorded. The recording will be posted on the Lectures website at Recordings > Available Recordings for two weeks.

Mysterious Ways: The Weird, Wild World of Christian Rituals
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Seth Andrews, a video producer and former Christian broadcaster, now hosts www.thethinkingatheist.com, one of the most popular online atheist communities in the world. The Thinking Atheist is not a person. It is an icon encouraging all to reject faith and pursue reason and evidence. Seth has authored five books: "Deconverted," "Sacred Cows," "Ghost Stories," "Confessions of a Former Fox News Christian," and his new 2022 offering, "Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot." He also hosts The Thinking Atheist podcast on Spreaker, a broadcast that has been downloaded over 50 million times since its launch in 2010. With a mix of humor and heart, Seth Andrews has spoken for audiences large and small in the U.S, Canada, Europe, and Australia about his former faith, the promotion of science and skepticism, the importance of Humanism in this often crazy world, and why we should all pursue a personal relationship with reality.