Speaker Series

The Parlee Center regularly hosts outstanding citizen-scientists and experts on the intersection of science and society.

Upcoming Speakers

Wednesday Oct 23rd, 2019

The Impact of Climate Change on Appalacian Communities

Henderson is the co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.

Wednesday Nov 6th, 2019

Exxon Mobil’s Role in Climate Change Denial

Geoffrey Supran is a research associate in Harvard University’s Department of the History of Science.

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Recent Speakers

The Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good is proud to have hosted the following speakers in recent years.

Tuesday Oct 1st, 2019

For Everything There Was a Season: Retracing Craighead’s Footsteps

Scientist/guide Trevor Bloom will explain how shifts in plant and animal life cycle events reveal how climate has changed in the Greater Yellowstone Region.

Wednesday Sep 11th, 2019

Finding the Good News on Energy and Environment

Dr. Richard Alley, a world-renown expert on ice and climate change, will present the evidence that we can build a sustainable energy system that avoids the pollution causing climate change.

Wednesday Feb 27th, 2019

When We Hurt Migrants, We Hurt Americans

HOW SHOULD WE LIVE TOGETHER?
Journalist Claudia Kolker describes what she learned on the border about our child detention policies – and how they are damaging the American workers who must carry them out.

Tuesday Feb 12th, 2019

Risks of Brain Injury in High School and College Sports

SCIENCE AS A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD
A panel of experts will explore what we know, and don’t know, about the risks of brain injury in high school and college sports.

Monday Feb 4th, 2019

The Neurological Consequences of Brain Injury in Football

SCIENCE AS A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD
Dr. Ann McKee will speak about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease most commonly found in athletes participating in boxing, American football, ice hockey, other contact sports, and military service.

Monday Nov 5th, 2018

Requiem for a Running Back

WHAT SHOULD MATTER TO ME?

Follow Director Rebecca Carpenter’s odyssey across America, as she learns about the brain disease that enveloped her father, Lew Carpenter, star running back and assistant coach of the legendary Green Bay Packers.

Sunday Nov 4th, 2018

Requiem for a Running Back

WHAT SHOULD MATTER TO ME?

Thursday Oct 18th, 2018

The Human Microbiome: The Role of Our Second Genome in Health and Disease

SCIENCE AS A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING. Dr. Jim Brown, an expert on the human microbiome - the collective genome of the thousands of species of microorganisms that live naturally within us - will speak on the role of that genome in human health and disease.

Wednesday Oct 10th, 2018

Challenges of Antibiotic Drug Development

SCIENCE AS A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING. Dr. Steve Rittenhouse explains how the ability of bacteria to rapidly evolve resistance makes the development of new antibiotics a challenging task indeed.

Tuesday Oct 2nd, 2018

Clínica de Migrantes: A Screening & Talk

WHAT SHOULD MATTER TO ME? The documentary Clínica de Migrantes: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness follows the work of the staff of Puentes de Salud, a Philadelphia medical clinic that serves the city’s undocumented immigrant communities.

Monday Sep 10th, 2018

Healing Hurt People

WHAT SHOULD MATTER TO ME? Dr. Ted Corbin will speak on the vulnerability of young people, particularly young men of color, to repeated acts of violence, and on treatment programs designed to break the cycle.

Wednesday Apr 11th, 2018

Human Impact of the Opioid Crisis in Philadelphia

Roland Lamb, Deputy Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, will speak on the human impact of the opioid crisis in Philadelphia.

Thursday Mar 22nd, 2018

Kensington Blues by Jeffrey Stockbridge

A public talk presented by Ursinus College Arts & Lectures

Wednesday Mar 14th, 2018

The Origin Story of the Opioid Epidemic

How the marketing of OxyContin generated billions of dollars and millions of addicts.
Patrick Radden Keefe, staff writer at The New Yorker, explains the origin of the opioid epidemic, a story he first told in The Family that Built an Empire of Pain (The New Yorker, Oct. 30, 2017).

Thursday Feb 15th, 2018

Talking About Science in a Changing Society

Dr. Jayatri Das, Chief Bioscientist at The Franklin Institute, explains her passion for communicating science to the public, a task more essential than ever in today’s changing society.

Monday Jan 29th, 2018

Plans of Mice and Men: From Bench Science to Science Policy

Dr. Ian Simon reflects on the satisfactions and challenges of a career in science policy, and on the chain of events that moved him from bench science to policy analysis.

Wednesday Nov 8th, 2017

The Future of GMOs is Not (Just) About Science

Richard L. Wallace, PhD, is professor of environmental studies at Ursinus College and co-director of the college’s Robert and Shurley Knaefler Whittaker Environmental Research Station.

Monday Oct 23rd, 2017

Food Evolution

The documentary film, Food Evolution, explores food-related challenges we face globally, the critical role that science will play in addressing them, and the public perceptions and misperceptions involving the science of food.

Wednesday Oct 11th, 2017

Agriculture in 2050: The Path Forward

As the third speaker in our series on genetically engineered crops, Mr. Hunter examines how many people we need to feed by 2050 and how this can be done sustainably.

Monday Sep 25th, 2017

Lock-in: What to do when crop technologies fail?

Dr. David Mortensen, an expert on ecologically-based pest management, argues that our dependence on genetically-engineered (GE), herbicide-resistant crops threaten our ability to sustainably feed the growing world population.

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