Frontiers of Science Speakers

May 2022

ANGELA SHEFFIELD, National Defense University, on detail from the Office of Proliferation Detection, U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Frontiers of Science: AI for Science and Security

RAMIN HASANI, Principal AI & Machine Learning Scientist, Vanguard, Research Affiliate, CSAIL MIT. Frontiers of Science: Liquid Neural Networks: Machine-learning systems that adapt to changing conditions

December 2021

KATE BRODERICK, Senior Vice President Research & Development at Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., Plasmid DNA Vaccines

BRITT KOSKELLA, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley, The Role of Microorganisms and Climate Change on Human Health and Sustainable Agriculture

May 2021

JULIE WILLOUGHBY, Chief Science Officer, Circ, Tackling the expanse of fashion waste

KERRY COOK, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, Predicting the effects of climate on our planet

December 2020

ROSS DONALD KING, Professor of Machine Intelligence, Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, The Automation of Science

DEBORA L. SPAR, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School and Senior Associate Dean, HBS Online, Work, Mate, Marry, Love: How Machines Shape our Human Destiny

May 2020

DAVID SINCLAIR, Ph.D, Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School, The biology of aging in the age of COVID-19

IAN WILSON, Ph.D, Hansen Professor of Structural Biology, Scripps Research, Fighting COVID-19 with Structural Biology

  • Fellow, Royal Society of London
  • Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences

December 2019

GABOR J. TIGYI, Ph.D., Professor of Physiology and Chemistry, University of Memphis, A drug that can save humankind – but should never be used.

  • Member, Academie Europeene Des Sciences, Des Art at Des Lettres, Paris, France,
  • Foreign Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

PAUL F. SOUTH, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Biological sciences, Louisiana State University, Engineering alternative plant metabolism to improve crop productivity.

May 2019

CHRISTOPH A. THAISS, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Microbiome dynamics in human disease

STEVEN BENNER, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution and The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology, Recreating Darwinism from the Bottom Up

  • National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow

December 2018

FARSHAD RAJABIPOUR, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, Cementing the Future with Geopolymers: Opportunities and Challenges

PAMELA SILVER, Ph.D., Elliot T and Onie H Adams Professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School; Full member, Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering, Designing Biology for Health and Sustainability

May 2018

LIANGBING HU, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Materials Science, Clark School of Engineering, UMD, College Park, Wood Nanotechnologies toward Sustainability

GREGG BECKHAM, Ph.D., Senior Engineer, NREL -Recycling in Nature, Disappearing Plastics, Sustainable Acrylonitrile

YuHUANG WANG, Ph.D., Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UMD Meta Cooling Textiles

December 2017

CHONG LIU, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Jeffery and Helo Zink Development Chair, UCLA, Future of Superior Artificial Photosynthesis and N-Fixation

MICHAEL AZIZ, Ph.D., Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Organic Aqueous Flow Batteries for Massive Electrical Energy Storage

GABRIEL ROCKLIN, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular Engineering and Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Global Analysis of Protein Folding Using Massively Parallel Design, Synthesis, and Testing

May 2017

RONALD RAEL, Ph.D., Eva Li Memorial Chair of Architecture and Chair, Graduate Committee, Department of Architecture, University of California Berkeley, Novel Buildings and Components 3-D Printed from Renewable Resources

RUDY JAENISCH, Ph.D., Founding Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology, MIT, Exciting Future of 3-D Cell Neurobiology and Gene Editing

  • Recipient, President's National Medal of Science

NICOLE C. KLEINSTREUER, Ph.D., Deputy Director, NTP Interagency, Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM), Computer Models, Cell-Based Tests, and a National Strategy to Improve Safety Testing

December 2016

PANAGIOTIS ARTEMIADIS, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control (HORC) Lab School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy Arizona State University, Controlling Behavior of Many Devices at Once by Human Thought

NATHAN WILSON, Ph.D., Co-founder of Nara Logics, Turning NeuroSynaptic Intelligence into Digital Decision Networks

JIM SPOHRER, Ph.D., Director of Almaden Services Research at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, Cognitive Systems Serving as Your Research Collaborators

May 2016

DAVID H. SHOEMAKER, Ph.D., Director, MIT LIGO Laboratory. First Detection of Gravitational Waves

ROBERT EPSTEIN, Ph.D., is Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in Vista, California, The Surprising Impact of Invisible Influence on Human Thinking and Behavior

JAMES P. ALLISON, MD, Ph.D., Ph.D. Professor and Chair of Immunology and Executive Director of Immunotherapy platform at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, New Immune T-Cell Checkpoint Blockade Strategy

  • Recipient, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 2018

December 2015

JACQUELINE BARTON, Ph.D., Arthur & Marian Hanisch Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Chemistry of DNA

  • Recipient, President’s National Medal of Science
  • Elected, American Academy of Arts and Science
  • Elected, National Academy of Sciences

NOAH FIERER, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Exploring Microbial Diversity Inside & Outside Our Homes

ABIGAIL MARSH, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown University, The Altruistic Brain

May 2015

STEPHEN KOSSLYN, Ph.D., Dean of Arts & Sciences at The Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, Claremont Colleges, The Role of the Science of Learning in the University of the Future.

STEVEN BOXER, Ph.D., Camille & Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University, How Enzymes Really Work.

  • Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

LONNIE LOVE, Ph.D., Group Leader, Automation, Robotics, and Manufacturing, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Local Motors, Bringing Science to Manufacturing.

LIQUN LUO, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Stanford University, How Neuronal Morphogenesis Works: Olfaction

December 2014

JEFFREY MOORE, Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois, Endowed Professor of Chemistry, Unique Adaptive Smart Materials

NEIL GERSHENFELD, Ph.D., Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bits & Atoms Center 3D Printing: New Frontier and Educational Tool

JOHN HOLDREN, Ph.D., Director Office of Science and Technology Policy, President’s Science Advisor, Report progress on important scientific issues

May 2014

TOM STEITZ, Ph.D., from Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Yale University, Complexities of an ingenuity in determining the structure of crucially important bio-macromolecules involved in gene expression

  • Recipient, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009
  • Elected, National Academies of Sciences

CLAY CHRISTENSEN, Ph.D., Harvard Bus. School. His book Innovator’s Dilemma started global economic revolution.

SARAH KURTZ, Ph.D., NREL Principle Scientist, High-Efficiency Solar Cell Physics - What will it take to reach 50%?

FENG ZHANG, Ph.D., Investigator, McGovern Institute; Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Target and control the expression of any part of a gene at any time CRISPR

  • Elected to National Academy of Sciences
  • Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Dec 2013

THEODORE BERGER, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Neuroscience, Why the mechanism of cognition fits a nonlinear dynamic math model

HARRY ATWATER, Ph.D., CalTech Applied Physics, A unique thin carbon film photovoltaic material that captures all wavelengths of sunlight and increases energy capture from ~10% now to almost 50%.

JEANNE LAWRENCE, Ph.D., Chair, Cellular Biology, UMass Medical School, Constructed an epigenetic RNA silencer that only shuts down the whole errant Trisomy 21 chromosome that causes Down's syndrome.