Category: Presentations and Talks

The College of Engineering and Department of Aerospace Engineering are hosting Dr. Melkior Ornik, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, from 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 25 in 209 Wallace Hall. Dr. Ornik will present “Guaranteed Resilience of Uncertain Autonomous Systems” to students, staff, faculty and industry partners.

The Ulrich Museum of Art welcomes NEH Fellowship Award-winning writer and scholar Dr. Derrais Carter to speak on his research, which examines Black masculinity, Black queer culture and Black popular music at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 27 in 210 McKnight Art Center.

Carter’s presentation will closely connect to themes represented in the exhibition “Devan Shimoyama: Rituals” (currently on display in the museum’s Polk/Wilson Gallery), and will give fresh context and new perspectives to the works. Having formerly taught in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona, Carter is now associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies at University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Join a public lecture by Dr. Qi Zhang, professor from the University of California, Riverside. The lecture, titled “A rigidity result for ancient Ricci flows,” will take place at 3 p.m. Friday, March 28 in 372 Jabara Hall. Refreshments will be available at 2:30 p.m. in 353 Jabara Hall.

Janet Iwasa is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah and director of the Genetic Science Learning Center. Iwasa will present “Visualizing the tiny worlds inside our cells,” at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 27 in 211 Hubbard Hall. An exhibition of her work illustrating molecular and cellular visualizations, “Tiny worlds,” will show March 21-31 in the Clayton Staples Gallery, McKnight Art Center.

Iwasa is the head of the Animation Lab at Utah, and her broad goal is to create accurate and compelling molecular and cellular visualizations that support research, learning and scientific communication. Her award-winning illustrations and animations have appeared in scientific journals including Nature, and Science and Cell, as well as in the New York Times. Her work has also been featured on television and in museum exhibits. As a postdoctoral fellow, she created a multimedia exhibit with Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak of Harvard University and the Museum of Science, Boston, and later worked on biological visualizations as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. She received her doctorate from the University of California, San Francisco for her work on the actin cytoskeleton in the laboratory of Dyche Mullins, and completed 3D animation training at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects.

Fairmount College, the School of Digital Arts, and the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries are co-sponsoring her visit. 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 University Foundation’s endowment.

Mark Esposito — global AI expert and the spring 2025 executive-in-residence at the Barton School of Business — will provide a keynote presentation, “The AI Revolution: Charting Our Course Through the Digital Frontier,” as part of the James Schwartz Lecture Series.

The keynote event is at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 16 in 110 Woolsey Hall, Frank A. Boettger Auditorium.

Doors open at 9 a.m. Following the presentation, a book signing and reception will be held in the Woolsey Hall Atirum. All are welcome to attend the event at no additional charge.

The Department of Biological Sciences’ spring 2025 seminar series continues with a presentation from Dr. Chien-An “Andy” Hu, Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday, March 24 in 218 Hubbard Hall. He will give a public lecture titled, “Biomedical Sciences and Precision Oncology.”

Seminars are open to the public and undergraduates are encouraged to attend. For more information, visit wichita.edu/biology.

Chi Sigma Tau will host an anti-hazing presentation from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 13 at 208 Hubbard Hall. The presentation will discuss the importance of hazing prevention and actions to stop hazing

Join the next physics seminar at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 12 in 127 Jabara Hall. The seminar features Dr. Michael Wagman from Fermilab. The title of this talk will be “Why do Nuclei Stick together?”

Dr. Wagman is an expert in lattice QCD and effective field theory. His research aims to understand how the complex phenomena present in nuclei emerge from QCD and predict features of nuclear structure and interactions required to interpret experimental searches for new physics.

The seminar series brings several speakers to WSU each semester and is funded by the Eddy and April Lucas Fund, Wichita.

Join the Shockers Vote coalition for a presentation and discussion about U.S. election and security. Shockers Vote will host David Levine for a discussion about U.S. election’s security and integrity with a focus on access, legitimacy and security. The event is open to all WSU staff, students, faculty and community. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 12 in 233 Rhatigan Student Center, Santa Fe Trail Room. For more information, email CivicEngagement@wichita.edu or call 316-978-7016.

About the speaker: David Levine is a senior fellow at UMD’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, who works to ensure that eligible voters can vote, free and fair elections are perceived as legitimate, and election processes are properly administered and secured. He is also an election security adjunct professor at George Mason University, an advisory committee member for the Global Cyber Alliance’s Cybersecurity Toolkit for Elections, an advisory council member for The Election Reformers Network, a member of the Election Verification Network and a contributor to the Fulcrum. Previously, he worked as the senior elections integrity fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, where he assessed vulnerabilities in electoral infrastructure, administration and policies. And before that he was the Ada County, Idaho Elections Director, managing the administration of all federal, state, county, and local district elections for 25% of the state’s population.

Join a public lecture by Dr. Chunmei Wang, University of Florida, titled, “The Finite Expression Method as a Symbolic Approach for Scientific Machine Learning” at 3 p.m. Friday, March 14 in room 372 Jabara Hall.

Refreshments will be available at 2:30 p.m. in room 353 Jabara Hall.