Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series
Through the Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series, the Institutes and Centers at Discovery Park District brings science and technology thought leaders to campus to engage with the Purdue community.
Upcoming Lectures
Sociogenomics: Promises and Challenges of Studying Molecular Genetics and Complex Traits
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Melinda Mills, known globally for groundbreaking research that combines social science with molecular genetics to explain demographics, will speak at Purdue on “Sociogenomics: Promises and Challenges of Studying Molecular Genetics and Complex Traits,” on Oct. 29.
Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford, is recognized for her work in sociogenomics, the study of human behaviors and demographic outcomes. Integrating genetics with the study of social behavior, Mills examines shifts in global aging, longevity and disparities in population growth and decline worldwide. She also studies significant flows of migrants and refugees, and population-related environmental threats.
Mills’ work helps uncover the genetic basis of fertility-related traits and behaviors, providing new insights into how genes and social environments combine to influence reproductive choices and outcomes. She led the first genome-wide association studies that identified genetic loci linked to the timing of first childbirth and the number of children, which established a new direction in the field of social genomics. Her research also explores genetic influences on self-control, sleep patterns and externalizing behaviors such as risk-taking.
Previous Lectures
A Watershed Moment to Propel 21st Century Water Resilience
Monday, April 29, 2024
Susan Hubbard, a national leader in watershed research and deputy for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Diana H. Wall
Monday, April 4, 2021
We are especially pleased to invite Dr. Diana Wall as our next Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer at Purdue University. Please join us on Monday, April 5 from 1:30-2:30 pm for this virtual seminar. (Must register here to receive WebEx seminar details).
Bio:
Diana H. Wall is a world-renowned ecologist and the inaugural director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. She is an ecologist and environmental scientist internationally recognized for her research documenting and exploring the complexity of biodiversity in soils, the importance of this biodiversity for ecosystem health, and the consequences of human activities on soils globally. Her research in agricultural and less managed ecosystems has emphasized how life in soil, from microbes to invertebrates, contributes to ecosystem services. Wall’s more than 25 years of research in the Antarctic continues to clarify the critical links between climate change and soil biodiversity. In 2014, she was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.
Seminar Abstract:
Soil biodiversity, estimated at 25% of all known species on earth, is crucial for life aboveground. Soil biodiversity (animals and microbes) performs functions such as nutrient cycling and decomposing waste and provides many benefits, such as disease suppression, pest management, and climate regulation. There is growing scientific evidence indicating that soil biodiversity and the ecosystem functions and services they provide can optimize the successful implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this talk, Dr. Wall will discuss the state of knowledge on the emerging field of soil biodiversity science and implications for sustainability under current and future environmental change.
Sponsors:
Discovery Park
Lilly Endowment Inc.
Purdue Center for the Environment
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, College of Agriculture
Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence
WebEx Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture: Katepalli Sreenivasan
Thursday, May 5, 2020
See here to view the recorded WebEx lecture: https://youtu.be/7R6tAY69fSU
We are especially pleased to invite Dr. Katepalli Sreenivasan as our first WebEx Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer at Purdue University. This inaugural WebEx lecture is in response to the new normal we are all adjusting to and enables us to broaden our access to distinguished scholars. Please join us on Thursday, May 7 from 3:30-4:30 pm for this seminar. (Must register here to receive WebEx seminar details).
Seminar Abstract:
Born in a family of modest means in an oppressed community, Salam pulled himself onto the high ground of human achievement by the force of his own personality. He became a great scientist laced with rich and grand ideas, and shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg; spent most of his adult life in England and Italy while maintaining close ties with Pakistan; knew many scientists all across the world, both distinguished and nascent, as well as politicians and generals, and felt at home with all varieties of people; skillfully used high-level connections to build fine international institutions such as the International Center for Theoretical Physics or ICTP (which now bears his name) and the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS, now The World Academy of Sciences), both in Trieste, Italy. Salam used these institutions to organize first-rate scientific meetings and acted as a one-man standard bearer for science in many third world countries, now known politically correctly as developing countries; worked tirelessly to establish centers of excellence in several of them; relentlessly advocated the advancement of science in developing world, especially in Arab-Islamic countries, as a means for economic development. Salam’s concern for developing countries was genuine and he was, in a certain sense, a universal man; it was he who wrote and believed that, “Scientific thought is the heritage of [all] mankind.”
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series - Dr. David Relman
Tuesday, September 9, 2019
Seminar Abstract: The diversity and intimacy of our relationships with the communities of microbes that live in and on our body is nothing short of breathtaking. Recent findings raise questions about how these relationships get started early in life, the ways in which they contribute to human health and disease, and how these relationships are maintained in the face of disturbance, especially the major disturbances produced by modern health care and lifestyle. Given the known and suspected benefits that humans derive from their microbiota, the stability and resilience of this ecosystem are critical properties that deserve attention. We have undertaken longitudinal studies in human subjects, some of whom are monitored before and after a standardized pulse, or acute disturbance, with the goals of describing the temporal dynamics of the human microbiome, and identifying features that are associated with stability in the face of disturbance as well as recovery of a prior state. A predictive understanding of the microbiome and the mechanisms that underlie resilience will inform effective strategies for its manipulation, so as to maintain or restore health, and avoid or mitigate disease. At the same time, these same strategies could be exploited to cause harm; awareness and oversight of these emerging capabilities are critical.
Speaker Bio: David A. Relman is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in Medicine, and Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. He is also Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and served as Science Co-Director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (2013-2017), at Stanford. He is currently director of a new Biosecurity Initiative at FSI. Relman trained at MIT and then Harvard Medical School, followed by clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and then a postdoctoral fellowship in microbiology at Stanford.
Relman was an early pioneer in the modern study of the human indigenous microbiota (microbiome). A landmark paper in 2005 was one of the first to describe the human gut microbiota with molecular methods. Most recently, his work has focused on human microbial community assembly, and community stability and resilience. Principles of disturbance and landscape ecology are tested in clinical studies of the human microbiome. Previous work included the development of methods for pathogen discovery, and the identification of several historically important and novel microbial disease agents. One of those papers was selected as “one of the 50 most important publications of the past century” by the American Society for Microbiology.
Among policy-relevant activities in health and biological security, Relman served as vice-chair of the National Research Council Committee that reviewed the science performed for the FBI 2001 Anthrax Letters investigation, chair of the Forum on Microbial Threats (2007-2017), a member of the Committee on Science, Technology & Law (2012-2015), and is currently a member of the Intelligence Community Studies Board (2016-), all at the U.S. National Academies of Science. He was a founding member of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity (2005-2014), a member of the Working Group on Biodefense for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (The White House) (2016), and served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2012-2013). He also serves in a variety of capacities as advisor to the US national security communities. He was a recipient of NIH Pioneer and Transformative Research Awards, and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Hideo Ohno " Why We Need Spintronics in the Era of IoT and AI"
Wednesday, September 9, 2019
"Why We Need Spintronics in the Era of IoT and AI"
Abstract: Development of spintronics non-volatile nanodevices and their integration with CMOS circuits has resulted in realizing low-energy, yet high performance integrated circuits for the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and high performance computing and artificial intelligence. I start by pointing out that the usage of electric power by the IT sector will be significant in our future society along with the fact that for IoT it is essential to have low-power processing capability.
The talk will showcase several demonstrations that these challenges can be met by integration of non-volatile spintronics nanodevices with CMOS circuitry. Endurance and low supply-voltage operation make these spintronics device the only non-volatile alternative for the current volatile working memories such as DRAM and SRAM. The spintronics device commonly used is magnet tunnel junction (MTJ), which can scale down to 20 nm with the perpendicular-easy-axis CoFeB-MgO system, is the device most widely employed for such a purpose.
Bio: Professor Hideo Ohno received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1982. He studied as a visiting graduate student at Cornell University in 1979 and joined Hokkaido University from 1982. He was a visiting scientist at the IBM T.J.. Watson Research Center from 1988 - 1990. He was appointment Professor at Tohoku University in 1994 and has served as President of Tohoku University since 2018. His research interests include spintronics and semiconductor science and technology. He received the IBM Japan Science Award, the IUPAP Magnetism Prize, the Japan Academy Prize, the Tohoku University Presidential Prize for Research Excellence, the 2005 Agilent Technology Europhysics Prize, the IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2009, the Thompson Reutures Citation Laureate, the JSAP Outstanding Achievement Award, the IEEE David Sarnoff Award, the JSAP Compound Semiconductor Electronics Achievement Award, the Leo Esaki Prize, the C&C Prize, the MEXT Commendation for Science and Technology and the ISCS Welker award. He has been an honorary professor of the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Japan Society of Applied Physics, the American Physical Society, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Steven Koonin, "Certainties and uncertainties in our energy and climate futures"
Tuesday, April 4, 2019
Please view Dr. Steven Koonin's recorded seminar here: https://youtu.be/FY5gEwZHKI8
Abstract: Discussions of the energy-climate nexus necessarily involve (but often conflate) aspects of science, technology, economics, policy, behavior, and values. Seeing the way forward with clarity is greatly helped by clearly separating what is (or was) from what will be / could be / should be. In this discussion, Koonin will first discuss the certainties and uncertainties in our understanding of the earth’s changing climate and its response to human influences. The historical record, climate models, and projections through the next century will be reviewed in ways not usually covered in policy-informing summaries. Koonin will then discuss the global challenges of both reducing human influences
Bio: Steven E. Koonin, a University Professor at New York University, was the founding director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress from 2012-2018. Before joining NYU, Dr. Koonin served as the second Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy from May 2009 through November 2011. In that capacity, he oversaw technical activities across the Department’s science, energy, and security activities and led the Department’s first Quadrennial Technology Review for energy. Before joining the government, Dr. Koonin spent five years as Chief Scientist for BP plc, where he focused on alternative and renewable energy technologies. Dr. Koonin was a professor of theoretical physics at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1975-2006 and was the Institute’s Provost for almost a decade. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the JASON advisory group. Dr. Koonin holds a B.S. in Physics from Caltech and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from MIT (1975) and is a trustee of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Dario Gil, "The Future of AI and Quantum Computing"
Friday, January 1, 2019
View Dr. Gil's recorded DPDLS seminar here: http://bit.ly/2TjVAV6
Seminar Abstract: The recent extraordinary progress in AI has been enabled by modern advancements in computing. Algorithmic ideas available for decades have been brought to life thanks to Moore’s law and innovations in microprocessor and computing architectures. As Moore’s Law slows and data volumes explode, we can expect to see new innovations emerge that will allow rapid progress to continue. This presentation will cover today’s state-of-the art computing for AI, as well as a roadmap of algorithmic and hardware innovations that will lead us into the decades to come. Quantum computing is another game-changing approach to computation. Building upon decades of foundational research, we can now exploit the laws of quantum mechanics to provide a potential “quantum advantage” in certain calculations that conventional computers cannot manage alone. IBM has produced the world’s first quantum computers accessible via the cloud. A community of more than 100,000 users has performed in excess of six million experiments with these systems, generating more than 130 external research papers. After an overview of key concepts, this presentation will review how IBM’s superconducting qubit implementation and Qiskit software framework is enabling researchers, developers and industrial partners worldwide to explore this new technology.
Bio: Dr. Dario Gil is the Director of IBM Research, one of the world’s largest and most influential corporate research labs. The research division of IBM is a global organization with over 3,000 researchers across 12 laboratories and 21 locations devoted to advancing the frontiers of information technology. He is the 12th Director in its 74 year history. Prior to his current position, Dr. Gil was the Chief Operating Officer of IBM Research and the Vice President of AI and Quantum Computing, areas in which he continues to have broad responsibilities across IBM. Under his leadership, IBM was the first company in the world to build programmable quantum computers and make them universally available through the cloud. A passionate advocate of collaborative research models, he co-chairs the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, a pioneering industrial - academic laboratory with a portfolio of more than 50 projects focused on advancing fundamental AI research to the broad benefit of industry and society. Dr. Gil received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Thirumalai Venky Venkatesan, Road to ultra-low switching Energy Memories to artificial neurons
Monday, December 12, 2018
Memory devices are responsible for a significant fraction of the energy consumed in electronic systems- typically 25% in a laptop and 50% in a server station. Reducing the energy consumption of memories is an important goal. For the evolving field of artificial intelligence the compatible devices must simulate a neuron. We are working on three different approaches towards these problems- one involving an organic metal centred azo complex, the other involving oxide based ferroelectric tunnel junctions and the last involving real live neuronal circuits.
In the organic memristors that we have built on oxide surfaces the device performance exceeds the ITRS roadmap specification significantly demonstrating the viability of this system for practical applications. More than that these organic memories exhibit multiple states arising from interplay of redox states and counter ion location studied by in-situ Raman and UV-Vis measurements leading to the possibility of neuronal systems. This organic family of molecules systems is extremely stable and reproducible- a significant departure from conventional organic electronics. On the oxide front the significant results are that ferroelectricity is seen even in two atomic layers of BaTiO3 or BiFeO3. Oxygen vacancy motion can also play an important role in changing the device characteristics leading to synaptic characteristics. Last but not the least, oxide surfaces can be utilized to force neurons to grow at specific places on a surface giving the potential for fabricating live neuronal circuits.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Simon Hunt, Cybercrime funds evil – How cybercriminals spend their money, and using lasers and the dark web to thwart them
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
In this talk, Simon will present a perspective on the daily arms race security professionals in the payment arena fight against their criminal counterparts. Focus will be placed on how criminals monetize their activity using payment and banking networks to cash out their illicit gains, and what they spend that money on. Covering topics such as dark web data mining, ATM network control, cash-out attacks, and physical compromises of payment devices via skimmers, shimmers, cameras, and more, he will discuss the fine line between cyber-defense and offense. Hunt will also delve into the “evil scientist” side of protecting cashless payment networks using caustic chemicals, electron and x-ray microscopes, lasers, and picosecond imaging technology.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Robert O. Work, The New National Defense Strategy: Pursuing “Urgent Change at Significant Scale”
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
In 2018, the Trump Administration published its first National Defense Strategy, sub-titled “Sharpening America’s Competitive Military Edge.” The strategy is based on the presumption the United States is entering into a new era of great power competition, which will be more strategically challenging than the immediate post-Cold War Era. This talk will explain the thinking behind the strategy; discuss seven national security challenges that must be addressed; and outline the changes to the defense program that are necessary to address them. The talk will end with a discussion about projected future defense budgets, and the choices they are likely to pose to future defense leaders.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Arup K. Chakraborty, How to Hit HIV Where it Hurts
Thursday, April 4, 2018
Vaccination has saved more lives than any other medical procedure. But, some pathogens have evolved which have defied successful vaccination using the empirical paradigms pioneered by Pasteur and Jenner. Professor Chakraborty will describe how bringing together theoretical/computational approaches from physics and engineering, especially statistical mechanics, with immunology is beginning to confront this challenge by developing some of the principles necessary for rational design of vaccines that may eliminate these scourges. One characteristic of many pathogens for which successful vaccines do not exist is that they present themselves in various guises. HIV is an extreme example because of its high mutability, and it continues to wreak havoc, especially in developing countries. He will describe the development of models to translate data on HIV protein sequences to knowledge of the HIV fitness landscape, and tested the resulting predictions against in vitro and clinical data (with collaborators). Based on these studies, a therapeutic T cell-based vaccine was designed, which is now being advanced to pre-clinical studies in monkeys. He will also describe work pertinent to how vaccination may induce broadly neutralizing antibodies that can neutralize diverse HIV strains –this work lies at a crossroad of immunology, evolutionary biology, and statistical physics.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Bridging the Basic-Applied Dichotomy and the Cycles of Invention and Discovery
Tuesday, April 4, 2018
In this talk Venkatesh(Venky) Narayanamurtiwill reflect on the genesis of the Information and Communications revolution and through an analysis of the hard case of Nobel Prizes in Physics to show that the causal direction of scientific discovery and radical invention are often reversed. They often arose in a culture of so called “applications oriented research” in industrial laboratories and he will use those examples to enumerate the key ingredients of highly successful R&D institutions. His views have been shaped by his own personal experiences in industrial research, U.S National Laboratories and research intensive universities. By exploring the daily micro-practices of research, he will show how distinctions between the search for knowledge and creative-problem solving break down when one pays attention to how path breaking research actually happens. He will highlight the importance of designing institutions which transcend the ‘basic-applied’ dichotomy and contrasting them with models of the classic but still influential report Science, The Endless Frontier. The need for new integrative institutions to address global challenges such as climate change and alternative energy sources will be discussed.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Bill McKibben, Hot Times: Reports from the Front Lines of the Climate Fight
Thursday, April 4, 2018
Bill McKibben,Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College,Founder and Senior Advisor, 350.org, will present a talk titled, “Hot Times: Reports from the Front Lines of the Climate Fight,” at 7:30 p.m. in Fowler Hall in Stewart Center. McKibben’stalk will be followed by a facilitated discussion led by Justin Dearborn, CEO of TRONC Inc. McKibben’sDiscovery Park Lecture Series talk is also part of the official launch of Purdue’s new Environmental and Sustainability Studies (ESS)Certificate. The event is co-sponsored by the C4E, the College of Liberal Arts, and the PCCRC.
A book signing will follow. www.billmckibben.com/eaarth/eaarthbook.html
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Robert Latiff, Some Implications of Technology Innovation on Future War and the Future Soldier
Thursday, March 3, 2018
Dr. Robert H. Latiff, Maj. Gen. (Ret), will describe the new and emerging technologies which are, and will be, applied to war fighting. It will describe the long and symbiotic relationship between technology innovation and weapons and will describe how we are seduced by and addicted to technologies in our civilian lives and in the military. The talk will delve into the moral and ethical implications of some of these new technologies applied to war fighting and will describe the implications for the individual soldier. Finally, the author will describe the large separation between the military and the public and the dangers that separation presents, and will make some recommendations on how we should proceed.
A book signing will follow. The book is available at: https://goo.gl/PZCvV8
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Gene Robinson, Me to We: Searching for the Genetic Roots of Social Life
Wednesday, March 3, 2018
Gene E. Robinson obtained his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1986 and joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. He holds a University SwanlundChair and is also the director of the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) and director of the Bee Research Facility. He served as an interim director of the IGB from 2011-2012, director of the Neuroscience Program from 2001-2011, and leader of the Neural and Behavioral Plasticity Theme at the IGB from 2004-2011. He is the author or co-author of over 275 publications, including 26 published in Science or Nature; has been the recipient or co-recipient of over $50M in funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Agriculture and private foundations; pioneered the application of genomics to the study of social behavior, led the effort to gain approval from the National Institutes of Health for sequencing the honey bee genome, and founded the Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium.
Robinson serves on the National Institute of Mental Health Advisory Council and has past and current appointments on scientific advisory boards for companies with significant interests in genomics. Dr. Robinson’s honors include: University Scholar and member of the Center of Advanced Study at the University of Illinois; Burroughs WellcomeInnovation Award in Functional Genomics; Founders Memorial Award from the Entomological Society of America; Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship; Guggenheim Fellowship; NIH Pioneer Award; Honorary Doctorate from Hebrew University; Fellow, Animal Behavior Society; Fellow, Entomological Society of America, Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences; and member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Ben Santer, How a Sentence Changed Climate Science: Lessons Learned from the 1995 Climate Report
Monday, March 3, 2018
In November 1995, after three days of deliberations in Madrid’s Palacio de Congresas, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reached the historic finding that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. This sentence changed the world. While other individuals and national scientific organizations had reached similar conclusions before Madrid, the “discernible human influence” statement marked the first time that the international climate science community had spoken so clearly and forcefully. The reaction was swift. The “discernible human influence” conclusion led to Congressional investigations, charges of “scientific cleansing”, allegations of corruption of the peer-review process and professional misconduct, and claims of political tampering. Santerspent several years addressing such criticism. This lecture is a reflection on some of the scientific and personal lessons he learned after publication of the IPCC’s 1995 Report. Many of these lessons still have relevance in today’s world.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Greg Hyslop, Changing the World Through Aerospace Innovation
Friday, March 3, 2018
The aerospace industry has had a dramatic effect on society by allowing people to achieve something they’re physically unable to do on their own: achieve flight. Since the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903, the industry has continuously made technical breakthroughs that have led to aircraft that are more and more capable –and that have brought about remarkable changes in our quality of life. As the pace of technological change continues to accelerate, industry observers foresee the emergence of next-generation air vehicles happening sooner rather than later to provide society with potentially profound improvements. This lecture will explore the recent achievements in aerospace, as seen through the perspective of the world’s biggest aerospace company, and will spell out potential revolutionary new ways that aerospace could change the world.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Joe Fargione, Natural Climate Solutions
Wednesday, January 1, 2018
Joe Fargione is Science Director for The Nature Conservancy’s North America Region. His research seeks ways to balance human energy and food demands with environmental conservation. Solutions include using nature to help mitigate climate change, appropriate siting of new energy development and new sources for conservation funding from investments in nature’s benefits.
Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, he received a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College, a PhD in Ecology from the University of Minnesota and held faculty positions at the University of New Mexico and Purdue University. Fargione’s dozens of scientific publications have been cited over ten thousand times and have generated national media coverage, including by NBC Nightly News, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The Onion, among others. Fargione is a native of Minneapolis, MN where he resides with his wife and children.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Minister Kazuhiro Suzuki
Thursday, November 11, 2017
Talk: The U.S.-Japan Economic Relationship under President Trump and Prime Minister Abe
Minister Kazuhiro Suzuki was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C. on September 16, 2016. He began his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 1986. During his time in the Foreign Ministry, he has held a variety of positions, including Principal Deputy Director of the Northeast Asia Division, in charge of the Korean Peninsula, and Senior Coordinator in the Foreign Policy Bureau. One of his overseas postings was as a Political Counsellor at the Embassy of Japan in the People’s Republic of China from 2004 to 2007. From August 2007 to October 2013, he served as Director for Japan-U.S. Security Affairs, and for embassies and consulates management, and then, Director of Aid Policy and Management for the International Cooperation Bureau. He served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative of Japan to the African Union from December 2013 until September 2016, simultaneously acting as the Co-Chairman of the African Union Partners Group in the diplomatic corps of Addis Ababa.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Tokyo, Master’s degree in Political Science from Stanford University and Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Dona Crawford
Monday, October 10, 2017
In a world where everyone has a very powerful computer in their phone, their watch, and their eyehlasses, why do we still need supercomputers, or high oerformance computers (HPC)? This talk will present the value of HPC for solving grand challenge problems in national security, scientific discovery and economic competitiveness. It will also describe advances in HPC, challenges in taking it to the next level and the global competition.
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Jim McClelland
Tuesday, September 9, 2017
Jim McClelland
Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement for the State of Indiana
Toward Better Lives and Stronger Communities—Bringing the Pieces Together
Sharing experiences in opioid and substance abuse mitigation.
In January 2017, Governor Eric Holcomb appointed Jim McClelland to the newly-created position of Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement for the State of Indiana. He reports to the Governor and also chairs the Indiana Commission to Combat Drug Abuse.
McClelland is charged with coordinating, aligning, and focusing the relevant work of a wide array of state agencies that in various ways touch substance abuse issues directly or are indirectly related to those issues. In addition, he seeks to leverage the state’s resources with those of entities in other sectors to respond as effectively as possible to the current opioid crisis and to substantially reduce the likelihood of a similar crisis arising from the abuse of addictive substances in the future.
In 2015 McClelland concluded a 45-year career with Goodwill Industries, the last 41 of those years as President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, based in Indianapolis. He has served on the boards of numerous not-for-profit organizations at local, national, and international levels and chaired several of them. He currently serves on the Dean’s Council of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business – Indianapolis, the Advisory Board of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, and the Board of Directors of Building Tomorrow.
A native of Florida, McClelland earned a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Reception
Reception at 2:30 p.m., Mann Hall, First Floor Atrium
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecturer: Michael Freedman: Building a Quantum Computer 101
Friday, May 5, 2017
Video Recording: Building a Quantum Computer 101, Michael Freedman
About the presentation: Michael Freedman will share his perspective on how we should approach building a quantum computer, starting with the mathematical roots and moving through the physics to concrete engineering and materials growth challenges on which success will hinge. He will then discuss a new, enhanced, collaboration between Microsoft and Prof. Mike Manfra’s team at Purdue.
Michael Freedman is director of Station Q, Microsoft’s Project on quantum physics and quantum computation located on the UCSB campus. The project is a collaborative effort between Microsoft and academia directed towards exploring the mathematical theory and physical foundations for quantum computing. Freedman joined Microsoft in 1997 as a Fields Medal- winning mathematician whose accomplishments included a proof of the 4?dimensional Poincare conjecture, the discovery (with Donaldson and Kirby) of exotic smooth structures on Euclidian 4?space, applications of minimal surfaces to topology, and estimates for the stored energy in magnetic fields. He has received numerous awards and honors: election to the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Veblen prize, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Medal of Science. His work since joining Microsoft has been primarily on the interface of quantum computation, solid state physics, and quantum topology.
This event is open to the public
Sponsors: Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series, Lilly Endowment Inc. and the Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy
Rosina M. Bierbaum: Advancing Resilience Through the Multilateral Environmental Agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals
Thursday, March 3, 2017
The inter-connectedness of environmental issues requires that efforts to ameliorate one problem be evaluated to ensure that actions are not ineffective, inefficient, or exacerbate other problems. Climate change adds an additional conundrum, since past is no longer prologue. If planning and management of natural and built systems are based on historical trends, ecological and infrastructure limits will be exceeded. Researchers must help practitioners develop suitable indicators, best practices, and ‘lessons learned’ from the wealth of experience in the international development arena to guide future resilience efforts. The confluence of the Sustainable Development Goals and Multilateral Environmental Agreements offers a unique opportunity to advance the resilience agenda internationally, and the academic community has a key role to play.
Dr. S. Julio Friedman: The Core of the Clean Energy Economy
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Low-cost, clean energy represents an enormous economic opportunity as well as an environmental and national security imperative. To maintain high reliability, low, cost, and minimal environmental impacts requires major investments in advanced technology to deliver new solutions to market. Innovation in finance, business models, and policy is also important. Changing national and global markets as well as changing political dynamics have created an utterly new circumstance where the cost, performance, and footprint of US energy infrastructure and the global markets they support can lead to dramatic improvements in climate risks, energy security, and economic performance.
Ronald F. Lehman II: Technological Surprise: When Science Alters Society, Security, and Strategy
Wednesday, November 11, 2016
The Honorable Ronald F. Lehman II, Former Director, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Next year, the world will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite. Placed in orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, Sputnik I was largely a technology demonstration. Nevertheless, the "Sputnik Crisis" humiliated a superpower, catalyzed mankind's greatest national security technology competition, encouraged risky geo-strategic behavior, and transformed the world. Few technological surprises match the impact of Sputnik, and, like Sputnik itself, few are totally unanticipated. Their consequences, however, are often not those expected.
A former strategic arms negotiator and Assistant Secretary of Defense, Ambassador Ronald Lehman will examine how past generations have dealt with technological surprise and explore key lessons learned that can benefit future generations. The rapid advance and spread of science and technology is widely acknowledged, but timely prediction and response are complicated by the multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, and multi-national intensity of modern science and technology. Rather than looking to see who is following in our path, we need to recognize that friends and foe alike can draw from many latent technology portfolios to follow our lead, leapfrog, or go in other directions. Drawing upon his experience in and out of government, Ron Lehman will illustrate how strategies to manage risks associated with surprise shape national defense programs, deterrence policies, and disarmament negotiations.
Vikram Rao: Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas Needs New Analytical and Processing Methods/Seminar and Book Signing
Friday, November 11, 2016
Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas Needs New Analytical and Processing Methods
Vikram Rao, Executive Director, Research Triangle Energy Consortium
Book signing in the MRGN Atrium at 11:30 a.m.
University, North Carolina State University, RTI International and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Its mission is to illuminate national energy priorities, and those of the world by extension, and to catalyze research to address these priorities.
Vikram Rao advises the non-profit RTI International, venture capitalist Energy Ventures AS, and firms BioLargo Inc., Global Energy Talent Ltd., Biota Technology Inc., Melior Innovations Inc. and Eastman Chemicals Company. He retired as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Halliburton Company in 2008 and followed his wife to Chapel Hill, NC, where she is on the UNC faculty. Later that year he took his current position. He also is past Chairman of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission.
Rao’s book Shale Gas: the Promise and the Peril was released in 2012 by RTI Press and can be found at www.rti.org/shalegasbook. It is written for general audiences and is intended to inform on the heated debate on fracturing for shale gas. The Revised Edition with six new chapters and extensive revision was released on August 8, 2015 http://www.rti.org/shaleoilandgas. His forthcoming book with Dr. Rob Knight, Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas: Analytical Chemistry, Geochemistry and Biochemistry Methods, is scheduled for release by Elsevier Press in October, 2016.
Lynn J. Good: Evolving Expectations and the Energy System
Thursday, October 10, 2016
While reliable, affordable electricity underpins economic growth and modern society, additional priorities have emerged. Customers expect more from their energy company including environmental stewardship and the adoption of emerging technology to provide more choice, convenience and control. How well energy companies like Duke Energy navigate this evolving intersection of expectations will have important implications for the environment, the economy and local communities for decades to come. Please join us to hear Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent in meeting these evolving expectations.
Steven E. Koonin: Adventures in Urban Informatics
Wednesday, March 3, 2016
Steven E. Koonin is founding director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, a consortium of academic, corporate, and government partners that pursues research and education activities to develop and demonstrate informatics technologies for urban problems in the “living laboratory” of New York City.
Previously the U.S. Department of Energy’s undersecretary for science, Koonin also has been a faculty member at the California Institute of Technology, a research fellow at the Niels Bohr Institute, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, provost of Caltech and chief scientist at BP.
For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; in just a few more decades, the world's population will exceed 9 billion, 70 percent of whom will live in cities. Enabling those cities to deliver services effectively, efficiently, and sustainably while keeping their citizens safe, healthy, prosperous, and well-informed will be among the most important undertakings in this century. Koonin will review how we are establishing a center for urban science and focus on bringing informatics to the study and operation of urban systems. He will touch on the rational, the structure, and the substance of the Center’s work and the ways in which it will enrich NYC and contribute to global issues. Taxis, lights, sewers, phones, and buildings will all enter into the discussion in novel way
Dr. Robert M. Kaplan: Do We Need a New Paradigm for Biomedical Research?
Monday, February 2, 2016
Robert M. Kaplan has served as Chief Science Officer at the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health, where he led the behavioral and social sciences programs. He was formerly Distinguished Professor of Health Services and Medicine at UCLA, where he led the UCLA/RAND AHRQ health services training program and the UCLA/RAND CDC Prevention Research Center. He was Chair of the Department of Health Services from 2004 to 2009. From 1997 to 2004 Kaplan was Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, at the University of California, San Diego. He is a past President of several organizations, including the American Psychological Association Division of Health Psychology, Section J of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Pacific), the International Society for Quality of Life Research, the Society for Behavioral Medicine, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Kaplan is a former Editor-in-Chief of Health Psychology and of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. His 18 books and over 500 articles or chapters have been cited more than 28,000 times. Kaplan is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine).
Jim Whitehurst: The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance
Thursday, February 2, 2016
Jim Whitehurst - President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source enterprise IT products and services
Lecture: 1:30 p.m., Burton D. Morgan Center, Room 121
Book Signing: 2:30 p.m., Room 102, Café
Whitehurst has proven expertise in helping companies flourish—even in the most challenging economic and business environments. He began his career in 1989 at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Chicago, Illinois and held several corporate development leadership roles at the firm.
On September 11, 2001, Delta Air Lines asked Whitehurst to serve as their acting treasurer. That same week, he led the company’s secured debt offering, winning the Thomson-IVR “Deal of the Year” for reopening the capital markets. In 2002, he joined Delta full time as senior vice president-finance, treasury and business development, ultimately being named chief operating officer in 2005.
In January, 2008, Whitehurst joined Red Hat as president and CEO. Since then, he has more than doubled the company’s revenue and led significant global expansion, opening development centers and sales offices around the world. Under his leadership, Red Hat was named to Forbes’ list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” in 2015, 2014, and 2012; added to Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 stock index in 2009; and named one of the best places to work by Glassdoor in 2014.
Jill M. Hruby: Engineering Excellence in the National Interest
Thursday, November 11, 2015
Jill Hruby received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1981, and earned her master’s degree in the same field at the University of California at Berkley. Hruby joined Sandia National Laboratories in 1983 and worked in diverse fields such as renewable energy, nuclear weapons, microsystem development, and materials science. With over 30 years of service, she is currently the President and Laboratories Director of Sandia National Laboratories.
Hruby will discuss Sandia’s work in anticipating and solving the nation’s most difficult security challenges, highlights of the Labs’ programmatic focus throughout her career, the importance of the Labs’ academic alliances in attracting and retaining new talent, and engineering careers in public service.
