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Financial Regulation and Reform - Michael Piwowar
11:00 AM – Stark Lecture Hall, 1148 Gerdin Business Building - Michael Piwowar was appointed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2013 and currently serves as Acting Chairman of the Commission. He was the Republican chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the lead Republican economist on the four SEC-related titles of the Dodd-Frank Act and the JOBS Act. During the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, Piwowar served as a senior economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations. His first tenure at the SEC was in the Office of Economic Analysis as a visiting academic scholar on leave from Iowa State University, where he was an assistant professor of finance.  Stafford Lecture on Banking.

Back to the Future: The Social Justice Origins and Future of Latinx Studies - Ginetta Candelario
8:00 PM – Benton Auditorium, Scheman Building - Ginetta Candelario is professor of sociology and Latin American & Latino/a Studies at Smith College, where her teaching focuses on race and ethnicity in the Americas, Latina/o communities in the United States and Latin American, and Latina feminist activism. Her research interests include Dominican history and society, especially Dominican identity formation. Candelario has been a Fulbright Scholar in the Dominican Republic twice, most recently in 2016, and is the author of Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity From Museums to Beauty Shops. Latino/a Heritage Month No recording will be available for this event.

A Tale of Resiliency, Entrepreneurship and the Value of Mentors - Joe Kerns
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Joe Kerns of Ames-based Kerns and Associates has been a consultant in agricultural operations and the animal production industry for more than twenty-five years. The company’s clients include producers, veterinarians, packers, researchers, and mill operators from more than a dozen states. Kerns advises on procurement and risk management activities related to a range of operations, commodity markets, nutritional factors impacting production, and operational sustainability, leadership, and ownership. Prior to this consulting venture, he directed risk management activities for industry leaders such as ADM, Premium Standard Farms, Continental Grain, and Iowa Select Farms. Kerns is a graduate of Iowa State, where he earned a degree in agricultural business. William K. Deal Endowed Leadership Lecture and part of CALS Week

Portrait of America: How Demographic Change and Economic Inequality Are Reshaping Society - John Iceland
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - John Iceland is Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State University. His research and teaching interests lie in demography, social inequality, and immigration. He has authored four books on these issues: Race and Ethnicity in America (2017), Portrait of America (2014), Poverty in America (3rd edition in 2013), and Where We Live Now: Immigration and Race in the United States (2009). He is currently co-editor of the journal Demography and vice president-elect of the Population Association of America. Iceland served previously as Chief of the Poverty and Health Statistics Branch at the U.S. Census Bureau and was on the faculty at the University of Maryland before joining Penn State. George M. Beal Distinguished Lecture in Rural Sociology

Current Events, Police Response and Hate Crimes - A Campus Conversation
3:00 PM – 198 Parks Library - This campus conversation will focus on current events and their impacts on the ISU community. It will feature information from the Iowa State University Police about hate crimes and will conclude with small group discussions.

Vanishing Vaquitas: Lessons from a Humble Porpoise - Barbara Taylor
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Barbara Taylor, a conservation biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, is actively involved with recent efforts to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise found only in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. Her discussion of the vaquita’s rapid population decline will address broader themes of ocean and coastal conservation, international politics and what individuals can do to protect endangered species. Barbara Taylor leads the center’s Marine Mammal Genetics Program and researches how genetic data can be used in population analysis and conservation. Paul L. Errington Memorial Lecture. Notice: Parking for tonight's lecture will be extremely limited, with campus lots opening to the public at 3pm for the 7pm ISU v. Texas football game. The Memorial Union lot will fill quickly. Plan accordingly. Click here for more info on game-day parking

Why Intelligent Design is NOT Science - Hector Avalos
6:30 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Hector Avalos is Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (1999), Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005), and The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics (2015). Born in Mexico, he received his undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona, and a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School.  In 1991, he became the first Mexican-American to receive a doctorate in Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern Studies from Harvard. Atheist and Agnostic Society Fall Lecture   

Is There Evidence of God from Contemporary Science? - Fr. Robert Spitzer
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Fr. Robert Spitzer served as president of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009. A Catholic priest and Jesuit, he is the author of eight books, including New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy . He appears weekly on EWTN in “Father Spitzer’s Universe,” where he responds to viewer questions on a range of subjects, including reason, faith, suffering, and the existence of God. He has made many other TV appearances, including The History Channel’s “God and The Universe,” the PBS series “Closer to the Truth,” and debating Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow on Larry King Live. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series

Help! You Need Somebody! - Sara Benincasa
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Sara Benincasa is a comedian, mental health advocate and author of Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom. With courage and humor, she shares her experience overcoming mental illness as a young adult, coping with panic attacks, and navigating the highs and lows of college life. Benincasa's eclectic background includes work as an Americorps teacher, janitor, legal assistant, bathtub talk show host, and citizen journalist for MTV News covering the 2008 presidential election. Her memoir, Agorafabulous, is currently being adapted as a television series with Oscar winner Diablo Cody. Mental Health Expo A resource fair with local mental health and substance abuse professionals will be held in the adjoining South Ballroom beginning at 6:00pm. No podcast or recording will be available for this event.

Medical Apartheid: The History of Experimentation on Black Americans - Harriet Washington
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Harriet Washington is a medical ethicist and author of the best-selling book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. She has been a fellow in ethics at the Harvard Medical School, a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University. Her latest book, Infectious Madness, looks at the connection between germs and mental illness. An award-winning medical writer and editor, Washington has worked for USA Today, been a Knight Fellow at Stanford University, and written for such academic forums as The New England Journal of Medicine. National Affairs Series No podcast or recording will be available for this event.