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How People Learn and the Creativity Of Science - Karen Oates
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Karen Kashmanian Oates is a professor of biochemistry and the Dean of Arts & Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Previously, she worked at the National Science Foundation, where she was a deputy director of the Division of Undergraduate Education charged with supporting innovative programs to strengthen undergraduate education and help revitalize American entrepreneurship and competitiveness. Oates received her BS in biology from Rochester Institute of Technology and her PhD in biochemistry from The George Washington University. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Oncology and Hematology division before beginning her academic career at George Mason University. Sigma Xi Lecture Series

Body of Water: Using the Arts to Tell Iowa's Water Story - Performance & Discussion
7:00 PM – Stephens Auditorium - Body of Water is a multimedia production using video, music and dance to tell the story of water usage and quality within our watersheds and communities. The performance-based project was conceived, choreographed and directed by Luther College dance professor Jane Hawley in conjunction with her Jodi Enos-Berlage, a biology professor at Luther who conducts water quality research. Originally presented in Decorah in 2015, the production highlights how small actions by individuals accumulate into a powerful force, producing an outcome that benefits all. A facilitated dialogue will follow the 1-hour performance. Part of the 10th Annual Iowa Water Conference An exhibit of posters created by the Ames High School Bluestem Institute will precede the performance, 6:00-7:00pm, in the upper lobby of the auditorium. The Lexicon of Sustainability photo-mosaic posters define of water quality from a technical, social, and cultural perspective.

The Diversity and Evolution of the World's Languages - Asya Pereltsvaig
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Linguist Asya Pereltsvaig studies how languages evolve, their commonalities, differences, and what they can tell us about our human past. She received her PhD in Linguistics from McGill University in Montreal and has taught at Yale, Cornell and Stanford, as well as at several European Universities. Her areas of specialization include Slavic languages, syntax and typology, and historical linguistics, and her general academic interests include languages, history and genetics, and the relationship between them. Her most recent book is Languages of the World: An Introduction and The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics, which she coauthored with Martin W. Lewis. Quentin Johnson Lecture in Linguistics

Redefining Global Security - Mary Robinson
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Mary Robinson, the first woman elected president of Ireland, just completed her term as the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Change. She is founder and president of the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice, providing leadership, education and advocacy to secure global justice for those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - the poor, the disempowered and the marginalized. She continues to serve as a member of the Elders, a highly respected independent group of world leaders focused on peace and human rights and founded by Nelson Mandela. She previously served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the United Nations Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice, chronicles her career as a young lawyer crusading for women's rights. Women's Leadership Series and World Affairs Series

ISCORE Keynote Address - Barbara Love
12:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Barbara Love is Professor Emerti of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and speaks widely on how institutions deal with multicultural organizational development and social change. Love is a former teacher with an academic background in history and political science and has worked closely with schools and school systems throughout the United States and abroad. She also consults internationally on empowerment of women, and has published on such issues as internalized racism, self-knowledge for social justice educators, building alliances for change, and black identity development. The 2016 Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, ISCORE, Keynote Address

What Americans Are Eating and a Strategy for Change - Cindy Goody
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Cindy Goody, Senior Director of the Menu Innovation Team at McDonald's USA, develops plans that align with McDonald's U.S. food and nutrition strategy, provides nutritional science expertise, and oversees McDonald's nutritional information development and communication processes. Prior to joining McDonald's USA, she served as a retail and clinical dietitian for Hy-Vee Food Stores. She has been actively involved in the American Dietetic Association and is the author and editor of its professional reference Cultural Food Practices. She has also served as a faculty member for the Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard School of Medicine Continuing Medical Education. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, Goody earned a BS and MS from Iowa State. She holds a PhD and MBA from the University of Iowa. National Affairs Series: When American Values Are In Conflict.

How Kickstarter Is Redefining Success - Perry Chen
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Perry Chen is creator and chairman of Kickstarter, the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Since its launch in April 2009, more than ten million friends, fans, and inspired strangers have pledged more than $2.2 billion to projects on Kickstarter, funding more than 100,000 creative projects including an Oscar-winning documentary. Kickstarter measures success by how well they achieve that mission, not by the size of their profits. Because of the commitment to their mission, Kickstarter recently reincorporated as a benefit corporation. Benefit corporations are for-profit companies that are obligated to consider the impact of their decisions on society, not only shareholders. Murray Bacon Center for Business Ethics Lecture No podcast will be available for this talk.

The Future of Healthy Families - Kathy Edin
4:00 PM – 2019 Morrill Hall - Kathryn Edin is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sociology, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the lives of families in poverty. In particular she studies the domains of welfare and low-wage work, family life, and neighborhood contexts. Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair Lecture Series

Racing Extinction - Documentary & Discussion
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Racing Extinction is the latest documentary from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Louie Psihoyos. The film, which aired in December on the Discovery Channel, takes up the man-made causes behind what biologists call the sixth mass extinction - the spate of plant and animal losses that threatens to eradicate up to half of all living species on Earth within this century. Psyihoyos is known for using innovative, high-tech gadgets to covertly document used the tragic slaughter of dolphins in Japan for his film The Cove. In Racing Extinction he works with activists, scientists, nature photographers and cutting-edge inventors to reveal the black-market trade in endangered species. Part of the University Symposium on Sustainability

Dangerous Years: Climate Change in the Long Emergency - David Orr
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - David W. Orr, a professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College, is a leader in the sustainability movement and known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy and ecological design. He serves as counselor to the president at Oberlin and is the Stephan Minter Fellow at the Cleveland Foundation. Orr is the author of more than seven books, including Down to the Wire, The Last Refuge, The Nature of Design, Earth in Mind, and Ecological Literacy, and is the co-editor of Hope is an Imperative. In an influential article in the Chronicle of Higher Education 2000 he proposed the goal of carbon neutrality for colleges and universities and subsequently organized and funded an effort to define a carbon neutral plan for his own campus. He also organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. Part of the University Symposium on Sustainability and the Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writers Series The Symposium on Sustainability will host a poster display and reception prior to the lecture, 6:30-8:00pm, in the South Ballroom. Help celebrate sustainability efforts and accomplishments on and off-campus.