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Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School - Adam Ruben
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - A reception and poster session will precede the lecture, 5-7pm, in the South Ballroom. Adam Ruben, comedian and molecular biologist, is the author of the book Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School, which discusses the "sadistic and often hypocritical world of post-baccalaureate education through grad students' own bloodshot eyes." Ruben has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University and teaches an undergraduate stand-up comedy class there. He writes the humor column "Experimental Error" in the journal Science, is a blogger for the Journal of Visualized Experiments, has appeared on the Food Network's Food Detectives, the Science Channel's Head Rush, NPR's All Things Considered, and co-hosts Outrageous Acts of Science on the Science Channel. Part of the Graduate & Professional Student Senate Research Conference This event is free and open to the public. Registration for other symposium activities is encouraged and free of charge. Online registration form

The Future of Computing - Peter Freeman
12:30 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Peter A. Freeman is the founding dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing and former assistant director of the National Science Foundation. He is widely known for his efforts to advance science and engineering research and education and has been responsible for a number of activities that continue to have a major impact on computing, including the Information Technology Research Program, cyberinfrastructure initiatives, and the GENI Internet Research project. He will discuss the future of computing while looking at developments of the past fifty years, including supercomputers, the Internet, Google, the iPhone, and massive software systems. Freeman served as the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech from 1990 until 2002 before joining NSF. Graduate & Professional Student Senate Research Conference Keynote The keynote address is free and open to the public. Registration for other symposium activities is encouraged and free of charge. Online registration form

Applying an Iowa State Education to Life: A Tribute to My Teachers - Ted Crosbie
7:00 PM – Dolezal Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall - Ted Crosbie is known for leading the establishment of one of the world's largest plant breeding programs at Monsanto Company. He also serves as Iowa's chief technology officer, a position to which he was first appointed by former governor Tom Vilsack in 2005. Crosbie recently retired from Monsanto, after serving the company in senior leadership positions since 1996. Most recently, he was vice president and executive leader of integrated farming systems. In this role, he pioneered the effort to develop and implement agronomic solutions and precision agriculture programs for farmers. He also served terms as vice president of global plant breeding and director of global wheat breeding. Crosbie earned all three of his degrees at Iowa State, including a master's and doctorate in plant breeding. The Carl and Marjory Hertz Lecture on Emerging Issues in Agriculture

Climate Change Red Alert! Can Traditional Indigenous Knowledge Rescue the World? - Daniel Wildcat
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Daniel R. Wildcat, Yuchi, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, is the director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center and dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. The Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center provides support for programs of interest to American Indian and Alaska Native communities and has most recently focused on the effects of climate change on indigenous communities. Wildcat has authored a variety of articles and books, including Power and Place: Indian Education in America, which he co-wrote with the late Vine Deloria, Jr. His book Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge draws on American Indian cultural practices and nature-centered beliefs to advocate a modern strategy to combat global warming. Richard Thompson Memorial Lecture

How American Women are Changing Politics - Michelle Bernard
7:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Michelle Bernard is an attorney, author, political analyst and the founding president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. She is a frequent political and legal analyst on MSNBC, appears regularly on The McLaughlin Group, is a guest commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and is a contributor for the Huffington Post and the Washington Post's "She the People." Bernard is a strong believer in independent thought and giving a voice to the principles of limited government, free markets and personal responsibility.​ Her books include Women's Progress: How Women are Wealthier, Healthier and More Independent Than Ever Before and Moving America Toward Justice: The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 1963-2013. Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics

Pills and Thrills That Kill: Emerging Drugs of Abuse - Linda Kalin
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Linda Kalin is the executive director of the Iowa Poison Control Center. She has over twenty-five years of experience in clinical toxicology and speaks frequently about drugs of abuse, including prescription drugs and opioid painkillers. This presentation will focus on the ever-changing synthetic drugs hitting the market, including how to recognize these substances and their symptoms, how they're obtained and used, and the impact they're having on communities. Kalin began her career as an emergency room nurse and in 1989 became Iowa's first Certified Specialist in Poison Information. She was instrumental in the development of the statewide poison control center in 2000.

The Arc of Memory: Building a Progressive Historic Preservation Movement - Max Page
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Max Page, a professor of architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will discuss how the historic preservation movement contributes to building more sustainable, meaningful, and fair communities. His talk looks ahead to the fiftieth anniversary of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which established the policies by which we in the United States preserve our physical past. Page was one of three scholars to receive the 2013 American Academy in Rome Prize for Historic Preservation and Conservation. He has written or edited a number of publications about architectural history, urbanism, and the politics of urban development. They include The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900-1940; The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York's Destruction; and Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States. Donald Benson Memorial Lecture in Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Mathematics of Crime - Andrea Bertozzi
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Andrea Bertozzi is the Betsy Wood Knapp Chair for Innovation and Creativity and a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is an applied mathematician whose work includes geometric methods for image processing, crime modeling and analysis, and swarming dynamics. Her expertise is in nonlinear partial differential equations and fluid dynamics. Bertozzi completed all her degrees in mathematics at Princeton. She was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago, the Maria Geoppert-Mayer Distinguished Scholar at Argonne National Laboratory, and was on the faculty at Duke University prior to UCLA. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. Sigma Xi Lecture Series.

GMO Technology and the Future of Food - Kevin Folta
7:00 PM – Dolezal Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall - Kevin Folta is a professor in and chairman of the Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida. He runs the Bio-talk-nowledge-y website, a program designed to help scientists learn the facts about biotechnology and then better communicate them. His research focuses how plants sense and respond to various wavelengths of light, and how LED illumination can be used to control plant traits. His lab also examines the genetic basis of key plant traits using modern genomics tools. Folta received his PhD in molecular biology from University of Illinois at Chicago and previously worked at University of Wisconsin.

The Last Bhopa: The Effects of Modernization on Folk Culture in India - Praveen Singh Rathore
8:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, 101 College of Design - Praveen Singh Rathore is a documentary filmmaker and director of the organization Music of Rajasthan. He has worked extensively with the traditional folk musicians and artisans of rural Rajasthan, a state in northwestern India. Rathore will screen his 15-minute film "The Last Bhopa" and discuss how development in India has impacted the lives of traditional musicians and artisans, including Bhopas, semi-nomadic priest singers of the folk deities in Rajasthan. Rathore received training in audio-visual archiving at the American Resource Center for Ethnomusicology in Gurgaon, India. He has coordinated cultural programming for international festivals and performances in the vicinity of Jodphur, India, including the Rajasthan International Folk Festival.