Events are free and open to the public.
| Innovation in Space Discovery: Is There Life Out There? Dr. Lynn Rothschild NASA Scientist |
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General Public Presentation with Question and Answer Session
7 p.m.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Spring Creek Campus Conference Center
2800 E. Spring Creek Pkwy, Plano, Texas
Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild is an evolutionary biologist-astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, and Professor at Stanford and Brown University, where she teaches Astrobiology and Space Exploration, inter alia. She has broad training in biology, with degrees from Yale, Indiana, and a Ph.D. from Brown University. Since arriving at Ames in 1987, her research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. She has co-edited a book on the subject entitled, “Evolution on Planet Earth: The Impact of the Physical Environment” (Academic Press, 2003). Rothschild has studied carbon metabolism and DNA damage and repair in the laboratory setting and on algae, work that has taken her to field sites in such locations as the thermal areas in Yellowstone National Park, New Zealand, Australia, Kenya’s Rift Valley, hypersaline environments in the San Francisco Bay, Baja California and the Bolivian Andes. Her current lab members are actively pursuing topics ranging from radiation resistant invertebrates to resistance mechanisms in halophiles and algae to synthetic biology. Most recently she has taken to the air in conjunction with the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford, flying experiments up to 106,000 feet on high altitude balloons. Courtesy of the Galathea 3, she has also had experiments on a Danish oceanographic cruise from South America to Copenhagen, leading to the only documented rescue by the US Coast Guard of a lost driver in Boston.
Rothschild has been instrumental in developing the field of Astrobiology. She founded and ran the first three Astrobiology Science Conferences (AbSciCon), was the founding co-editor of the International Journal of Astrobiology, and is the former director of the Astrobiology Strategic Analysis and Support Office for NASA. She has been a member of the Astrobiology Institute since its inception, and has been invited to lectures to astrobiology groups and societies worldwide.
Rothschild lectures frequently worldwide, including at the Vatican and Windsor Castle, Mystic Seaport and the Royal Society of London. She appears frequently on radio and television programs, including the BBC, NPR, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, ABC World News Tonight, and the History Channel. Like Darwin, Rothschild is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and also a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and the Explorers Club.
Faculty Sponsors: Cameron Neal, Collin Thomas and Jon Lawson
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Innovation in Career Design Guest Speaker: Daniel Seddiqui |
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General Public Presentation with Question and Answer Session
7 p.m.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Spring Creek Campus Conference Center
2800 E. Spring Creek Pkwy, Plano, Texas
Finding a career, finding your passion and understanding culture and lifestyle, is the most crucial and rewarding experience in life for guest speaker Daniel Seddiqui.
Daniel Seddiqui has traveled all 50 states and worked 50 different jobs in 50 weeks. His mission was to explore the diverse careers, environments, and cultures offered in America.
He's traveled around the entire country and has done just about every job imaginable. He has been a rodeo announcer in South Dakota, a model in North Carolina, a coal miner in West Virginia, a marine biologist in Washington, a border patrol agent in Arizona, a lobsterman in Maine, and just about everything in between.
Don't miss the presentation of this incredible journey with Distinguished Speaker Daniel Seddiqui.
Faculty Sponsors: Gloria Cockerell, Christian Madu, Theresa McKay
| Innovation in Humanitarian Engineering Guest Speaker: Emily Pilloton |
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General Public Presentation with Question and Answer Session
7 p.m.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Spring Creek Campus Conference Center
2800 E. Spring Creek Pkwy, Plano, Texas
Emily Pilloton is the founder and director of Project H Design, a nonprofit that creates and scales product design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness. Using this non-profit organization as her vehicle, Emily has formed a coalition of 300 plus designers around the world who work on a local level to connect the power of design to the people who need it most, and the places where it can make a real and lasting difference. Project H has improved water transport devices in the developing world, and created the Learning Landscape, an active educational playground that promotes more engaged outdoor learning.
Eloquent and passionate about her mission, she lectures on the importance of social action and building, the design revolution, design for empowerment, and design activism for the sake of humanity. She believes that product design should not be focused on “want-driven” consumption of luxury markets, but rather "need-driven" solutions for all demographics traditionally overlooked by the design market. Emily fervently believes that design solutions can empower people, community, and economies, and she has set out to prove her point by challenging the design world to join her in building those solutions:
"We need to go beyond 'going green' and to enlist a new generation of
design activists. We need big hearts, bigger business sense and the bravery
to take action now."
A Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow 2009, Emily was also chosen for The Nifty 50 in the New York Times’ T Magazine, a list of America’s up and coming. She is an industrial designer, architect, writer, and occasional contributor to magazines such as GOOD, ReadyMade, Interior Design Green Zone, ID Magazine and Innovative home. Her work has been reported and showcased in The New York Times, Metropolis Magazine, Dwell Magazine, and GOOD Magazine.
Faculty Sponsor: Elaine Wilkinson
All events are free and open to the public.
For directions to the Spring Creek Campus Conference Center, click on
