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Past Events

Monday, 11 Apr 2022

Dare to Speak, Dare to Listen in the Courtroom: Seeking Justice for All
6:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - In 2018, Hon. Rosemarie Aquilina, a Michigan Circuit Court judge, gained worldwide attention when she allowed every one of the victims in the sexual assault case against USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to speak in court before his sentencing. In all, more than 150 women and girls shared their testimony. Hear Judge Aquilina’s powerful story about the importance of speaking and listening as a form of healing. Questions from audience are encouraged. A dessert reception will follow. First Amendment Days 2022

Wednesday, 6 Apr 2022

Old Fertilizer in New Bottles: Selling the Past as Innovation in Africa's Green Revolution
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - A growing number of farmers, scientists, and development experts now advocate a shift from high-input, chemical-intensive agriculture to low-input ecological farming. They are supported by an impressive array of new research documenting both the risks of continuing to follow our current practices and the potential benefits of a transition to more sustainable farming informed by collaborations between farmers and scientists. The new initiatives have been met with a chorus of derision from an unsurprising group of commentators, many associated with agribusiness interests. They argue that only Green Revolution seeds and fertilizers can provide the innovation needed to help regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa grow more food. This narrative, however, flips reality on its head. Ecological innovations are on the cutting edge of new farming practices, while the Green Revolution is selling an outdated 50-year-old model as innovation despite its proven failures. 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.

Impostor Syndrome: Coping Strategies for High Achievers
6:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Imposter Syndrome is defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affected high-achievers and can cause anxiety and depression. Dr. Dawn Bratsch-Prince will explain how to recognize imposter syndrome, her own experiences with it, and how to overcome it. Bratsch-Prince is Associate Provost for Faculty and professor of Spanish at Iowa State University. In this role, she provides leadership in recruiting, advancing, and retaining an excellent and diverse faculty. Among her responsibilities are promotion and tenure, faculty development, orientation and mentoring, honors and awards, department chair training, and leadership development.

Monday, 4 Apr 2022

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.

Friday, 1 Apr 2022

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.

Thursday, 31 Mar 2022

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.

Thursday, 24 Mar 2022

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.

Wednesday, 23 Mar 2022

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.