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Past Events
Wednesday, 27 Oct 2021
Massacres, Trains, and Iowa: Connecting the 1912 Villisca Axe Murders to a Cross-Country Serial Killer
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - The Man From the Train is a recent true-crime book written by Bill James and his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In the book, they document a lengthy list of serial axe murders in the early part of the 20th-century that they believe were committed by one man. Their list includes two mass killings in Iowa; the most famous of which is the 1912 murders in Villisca. Eight people, including six children, were killed, and the murders were never solved. But maybe there is an answer. Join us for the story of the incredible historical research Bill and Rachel did to document and connect a cross-country killing spree that happened more than 100 years ago.
Bill James is most known for coining "sabermetrics," which is the scientific analyzing of baseball usually with statistics. He worked for more than a decade for the Boston Red Sox.
Tuesday, 26 Oct 2021
Preprints and the Evolution of Scholarly Publishing
6:00 PM – Online - Open Access Week 2021 with Dr. Richard Sever
WebEx Link:: https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/onstage/g.php?MTID=e48959b103375a4aba8066c8f8ae69f47
Richard Sever is Assistant Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and Co-Founder of the preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv. He also serves as Executive Editor for the Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives and Cold Spring Harbor Protocols journals, and launched the precision medicine journal Cold Spring Harbor Molecular Case Studies.
After receiving a degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University, Richard obtained his PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He then moved into editorial work, first as an editor at Current Opinion in Cell Biology and later Trends in Biochemical Sciences. He subsequently served as Executive Editor of Journal of Cell Science, before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2008.
Monday, 25 Oct 2021
When Life Gives You a Wheelchair, Make Lemonade!
6:00 PM – Online - 2021 Disability Awareness Week Keynote
WebEx Link: https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/onstage/g.php?MTID=e38a3c80d504bbf4c3e04405a7f867e0c
This year's speaker is Zach Anner, who is an award-winning comedian, show host, TV writer, viral sensation, disability advocate, and public speaker. In 2011, he won his own travel show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Rollin’ With Zach. He worked with Rainn Wilson’s media company SoulPancake, hosting the shows Have A Little Faith (which explored world religions), Earth Your While (which started a conversation on climate change), and Top of the Monday (which introduced good news stories). He tried his hand at sports and fitness on his YouTube series Workout Wednesdays, and he journeyed across the country with the help of Reddit in his travel program, Riding Shotgun. His videos have over 100 million views over social media platforms.
Zach was a guest star and a full-time writer on ABC’s hit family sitcom Speechless. He’s an Ambassador for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and has worked with UCPLA Wheels for Humanity, which supplies wheelchairs to people in developing countries. Zach’s memoir, If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny, is a hilariously irreverent and heartfelt memoir about finding your passion and your path even when it’s paved with epic misadventure.
Thursday, 21 Oct 2021
Lead Feet and Worn Brakes: How Motivation and Self-Control Influence Decision-Making
7:30 PM – 117 MacKay - The 2021 Pease Family Scholar in Kinesiology
Dr. Epstein’s expertise is focused on health behavior change and determinants of eating, physical activity and drug self-administration. These issues are directly relevant to a university population. Dr. Epstein will explore how aspects of behavior motivate decision making in relation to these issues.
Dr Epstein is a SUNY distinguished Professor and Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, University at Buffalo. His research interests focus on health behavior change and determinants of eating, physical activity, and drug self-administration. Dr. Epstein is a fellow in numerous scientific organizations and has been the president of the division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology. He's chaired the Behavioral Medicine Study Section at NIH and served on the Advisory Board for the Center for Scientific Research at NIH. He's published over 550 scientific papers and three books.
Canoes, Romance, and Horses: The Journey of Three ISU Students to Best-Selling Authors
6:00 PM – Memorial Union - Trent Preszler, Denise Williams, and Carrie Seim are all ISU grads, were Honors students. They have each written best-selling books in the past couple of years. Trent’s is a memoir called Little and Often, and it details his journey dealing with his father’s death after a long estrangement. Carrie has written two books aimed at kids; her most recent is Horse Girl. Denise’s debut novel is entitled How to Fail at Flirting.
Wednesday, 20 Oct 2021
Runner: One Man's Journey from Sudan to Iowa State to the Olympics
5:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Guor Mading Maker is a former Iowa State University track athlete. He competed for the South Sudanese in the 2016 Olympics. He is a Dinka tribesman.
A screening of the documentary Runner will be at 5:30 pm. Guor will speak and do a Q&A after the film at about 7 pm.
Monday, 18 Oct 2021
Borlaug Lecture: Aquatic Foods for Nourishing Nations
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - The 2021 Normal Borlaug Lecture - World Food Prize Laureate Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted
The emergence of aquatic foods as one of the key opportunities for action in the UN Food Systems Summit 2021 is an important step towards recognizing the potential of aquatic foods in addressing global food and nutrition security, and transforming food, land and water systems. Aquatic foods are superfoods, providing multiple micronutrients and essential fatty acids, crucial for cognition, development and growth in young children and nutrition and health in adults. As aquatic foods are consumed by over 3 billion people and provide livelihood opportunities for over 800 million people globally, it is imperative that we advocate for food and nutrition policies, investments and interventions that include aquatic foods for nourishing nations.
Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted is the Global Lead for Nutrition and Public Health at WorldFish, a One CGIAR entity. She was awarded the 2021 World Food Prize for her ground-breaking research, critical insights, and landmark innovations in developing holistic, nutrition-sensitive approaches to aquatic food systems, including aquaculture and capture fisheries. She was awarded the 2021 Arrell Global Food Innovation Award for research innovation. She played a key role in the development of the WorldFish 2030 research and innovation strategy: Aquatic Foods for Healthy People and Planet. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and Vice Chair of the UN Food Systems Summit 2021: Action Track 4 - Advance Equitable Livelihoods, and also a Food Systems Champion. She plays a pivotal role in promoting aquatic food systems for nourishing nations and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Shakuntala holds a PhD from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (presently: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen), Denmark. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Note: This event will be in person and livestreamed; see link below.
Livestream link: https://iastate.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c8137651-1020-44fd-8ac3-adab00eb81f3
Thursday, 14 Oct 2021
Good Bad People: The Photo-Ethnography of Methamphetamine Use in Rural Alabama
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - The recent rise in the use of methamphetamine (meth) across rural areas in the United States has led to increased “cultural anxiety†about the drug and those who consume it. The general narrative of meth use, which highlights the destruction of meth use on people’s lives, has been heavily influenced by popular television programs and pervasive anti-meth campaigns. However, the lives of people who use drugs are more complex than this. Using data from a two-year photo-ethnography Heith Copes provides a considered, contextualized portrait of those who live in rural poverty and struggle with addiction to methamphetamine. Using traditional ethnographic methods (interviews, observation) and photographs (traditional documentary and portrait photographs, alongside images from family albums, social media pages, and texts) of 52 people from rural North Alabama, Copes documents how those who use meth construct personal narratives, social identities, and symbolic boundaries to gain a sense of agency amidst rural poverty, diminished social status, and tumultuous familial and romantic relationships.
Heith Copes is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His primary research agenda uses qualitative methods to examine criminal decision-making and narrative identity. He has published over 100 refereed journal articles in journals such as British Journal of Criminology, Criminology, European Journal of Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Social Problems. He has been a visiting scholar and speaker at universities across the United States, Europe and Australia, including the University of South Wales, Aalborg University, University of Oslo, University of Queensland, and the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University. In 2014, he received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Southern Criminal Justice Association. He also received the 2017 Ireland Award for Scholarly Distinction from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the current Co-Editor of the journal Deviant Behavior.
Tuesday, 12 Oct 2021
Energy Democracy: Driving Clean Energy Through Local Action
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Jon Carson is the Founder and Managing Partner of Trajectory Energy Partners, a Midwest-based solar development company that works closely with landowners and communities to develop community solar and small utility scale projects with strong local support. Prior to founding Trajectory, Jon spent two years at SolarCity, serving a year each as Senior Director on the Policy and Electric Markets team and as the Senior Director of the Solar Ambassador program.
Prior to joining SolarCity in December 2014, Jon was the Executive Director of Organizing for Action, a grassroots advocacy movement built by millions of volunteers and focused on building local capacity and training the next generation of progressive organizers. Carson was previously the Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Deputy Assistant to the President from January 2011 through January 2013. Before leading OPE, he served as the Chief of Staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) from 2009-2010. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Carson was the National Field Director for President Barack Obama's campaign in 2008 and worked on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition team. Prior to the Obama campaign, Jon worked on political campaigns across the country.
Carson served in the Peace Corps in southern Honduras for two years, building water systems for rural villages and teaching land surveying. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville with a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and received a Master’s Degree in Geography from the University of California-Los Angeles.
Thursday, 7 Oct 2021
Which Side Are You On? The Question Every Police Officer Must Answer
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Cedric Alexander has over forty years in law enforcement, serving as former Chief of Police in DeKalb County, GA, previous President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and member of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing among his accomplishments. Throughout his career, he has been pivotal in reforming troubled police departments and restoring trust between them and their communities. He currently sits on the board of the Innocence Project, working to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
His talk will focus on the shifting awareness of police scrutiny and accountability as well as share first-hand his experiences with being a police officer of color.