Category: Presentations and Talks

Douglas Emlen, Montana Regents Professor of Biology at the University of Montana, will host a public lecture, “Extreme weapons: A natural history,” at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 12 in 231 Hubbard Hall. He will also host a technical lecture, “The evolution of extreme weapons: Lessons from a rhinoceros beetle,” at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13 in 209 Hubbard Hall

Emlen studies how animal structures evolve to extreme proportions. He focuses on weapons of sexual selection, including antlers and especially the outlandish horns of rhinoceros beetles. His research leads to an exploration of the human military arms races and the most powerful weapons on the planet. Emlen is known for making complex scientific information easy to understand and has been featured in the New York Times and National Public Radio’s Science Friday.

The Watkins Visiting Professorship was created in 1974 by the Watkins Foundation. The grant is now provided through the Watkins fund, a part of the Wichita State Foundation and Alumni Engagement’s endowment. For more information about the lecture series, contact Dr. David Eichhorn, associate dean for faculty development and research, at 316-978-6659.

The Department of Biological Sciences spring 2024 seminar series begins at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 29 in 231 Hubbard Hall with Dr. Jeremy Ross of the University of Oklahoma, with his talk “Extreme weather ecology of migratory grassland birds.”

Seminars are open to the public and undergraduates are encouraged to attend.

Interstellar Seminar is fortunate to host Kansas native Todd Barber, a JPL engineer that drives spacecraft, at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday Jan. 24 remotely in 104 Jabara Hall and on Zoom. He will talk about his experiences driving Voyager, the only interstellar spacecraft.

Barber has worked with Galileo at Jupiter, Cassini at Saturn, Deep Impact, Dawn and the Mars missions that landed Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance.

Yolanda and Gene Camarena — the dynamic Entrepreneurs-in-Residence duo at the Barton School of Business for the spring 2024 semester — will provide a keynote presentation as part of the James Schwartz Lecture Series, “Unlocking Success: Key Insights from Visionary Entrepreneurs on Building, Innovating, and Transforming Futures.”

Gene is the president and CEO of La Raza Pizza, Inc., and Yolanda is a dedicated leader in social justice and equity advocacy in education, bringing unparalleled expertise and insights to our academic and entrepreneurial community.

The keynote event is at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 22 in the Woolsey Hall Auditorium.

Doors open at 9 a.m. All are welcome and encouraged to attend this free event.

Join the Department of Mathematics and Statistics for a public lecture by Dr. Jue Yan from Iowa State University.

The lecture, titled “Cell-average-based Neural Network Method for time-dependent Problems,” will take place at 3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26 in 372 Jabara Hall. Refreshments will be available at 2:30 p.m. in 353 Jabara Hall.

The Philosophy Department welcomes John Symons, philosopher of technology from KU, for a talk entitled “How will AI change science?” from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec 7 in 261 Rhatigan Student Center, Olive Room.

Join the Department of Physics for its next physics seminar at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29 in 226 Jabara Hall and on Zoom. The seminar features Jian Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.

The Department of Biological Sciences’ fall 2023 seminar series continues from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 20 in 218 Hubbard Hall. Join Dr. Tania Kim, Ph.D. from Kansas State University, for her talk, “The landscape ecology of insect arthropods: Examples from a Kansas agroecosystem.”

Seminars are open to the public and undergraduates are encouraged to attend.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will host Dr.  Kami Hull from the University of Texas Austin Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at its next colloquium from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15 in 224 McKinley Hall.

Dr. Hull will discuss “Transition Metal Catalyzed Alkene Amination.”

Colloquiums are open to the public and undergraduates are encouraged to attend.

Join Lesley Dill as she discusses her exhibition, “Lesley Dill, Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me,” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 in the Beren Gallery of the Ulrich Museum of Art. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m.

The exhibition represents an ongoing investigation into the voices and personas of the American past. For Dill, the voices grew from early America’s obsessions with divinity and deviltry, and on fears of the wilderness “out there” and inside everyone. The extremes of both shaped history and gave pulse and heat to the words of activists such as John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Anne Hutchinson and Dred Scott. Dill writes: “These personas and their times stir something deep in my own family history and sense of self. I am compelled to explore this period in America’s history when limited access to diversity of written word ignited the bravery of these figures in response to their times.”