Woods Lecture Series 2023-2024
Dr. Pablo Borboroglu
Saving Species: My Life & Work Protecting Penguins
Monday, October 2, 2023, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts
Join the 2023 Winner of the Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Dr. Pablo Borboroglu, as he recounts his lifelong journey to save penguins. Dr. Borboroglu will share the challenges of conservation work, from protecting 32 million acres of ocean and costal habitat to co-founding the Global Penguin Society, an international conservation coalition for the world’s penguin species. Learn how he took risks to save penguins in some of nature’s wildest places.
Dr. Talithia Williams
Data Driven Strategies for Eliminating Health Disparities
Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts
A host of the PBS series, NOVA Wonders, Dr. Talithia Williams is a groundbreaking professor, popular TED speaker, inspiring author, and passionate STEM/STEAM advocate. Her latest book, Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics, reflects Williams’ passion to re-brand the field of mathematics as anything but dry, technical, or male-dominated. Renowned for her popular TED Talk, Own Your Body’s Data, she advocates for all of us to deploy data as a way of taking charge of our own health.
Dr. Ed Boyden
Engineering the Brain
Thursday, November 30, 2023, 7:30 PM
Shelton Auditorium
Ed Boyden is a Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the MIT McGovern Institute, and professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering at MIT. He leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for analyzing and repairing complex biological systems, such as the brain, and applies them systematically to reveal ground truth principles of biological function and to repair these systems.
Dr. Eugenia Cheng
Is Math Real: How Simple Questions Lead Us To Mathematics’ Deepest Truths
Thursday, February 1, 2024, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts
Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician and concert pianist. Alongside her research in Category Theory and undergraduate teaching her aim is to rid the world of “math phobia”. Her first popular math book “How to Bake Pi” was featured on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert; “Beyond Infinity” was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2017; she has also written two children’s books, and her books have been translated into 17 languages. Her newest book “Is Math Real?” was released in 2023.
Dr. Eric Breitung
Putting Art Conservators Out of Business with Preventive Conservation & Science
Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 7:30 PM
Shelton Auditorium
Dr. Breitung leads the Preventive Conservation Science Laboratory in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Scientific Research, is a leader of the Testing and Standards group in the American Institute for Conservation’s Materials Working Group, and provides lectures, data, and resources to under-resourced collection stewards as a means of preserving collections well beyond his local museum.
Dr. Anna Lembke
Dopamine Nation – A neuroscience informed approach to compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine overloaded world
Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 7:30 PM
Shelton Auditorium
Anna Lembke, MD is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she is the author of more than a hundred peer-reviewed publications, has testified before the United States House of Representatives and Senate, has served as an expert witness in federal and state opioid litigation, and is an internationally recognized leader in addiction medicine treatment and education.