Describing the Competencies for Online Teaching Success (COTS)
Lawrence Ragan is Director of Faculty Development for Penn State's World Campus. Dr. Ragan is charged with directing the design and development of a wide range of faculty development services and systems. He has presented internationally on the topics of instructional design, multimedia development, faculty development issues, and instructional design for distance education. His current areas of research includes the articulation of strategies, techniques and methods that faculty can use to manage their online teaching workload, and the definition of the core competencies required for online teaching success. Read abstract >> Part of the TLT 2009 Colloquium.

Thursday, May 28, 2009, 10:00 am, Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1

Major Themes in Evolutionary Medicine
Stephen Stearns is the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. He specializes in life history evolution, which links the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, in evolutionary medicine, and in evolutionary functional genomics. His books include Evolution in Health and Disease, 2nd ed., with J.C. Koella (Oxford, 2008); Evolution, An Introduction (Oxford, 2000) with Rolf Hoekstra; and Watching from the Edge of Extinction (Yale, 1999) with his wife Beverly Peterson Stearns. He was founding editor of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Co-sponsored by the Department of Ecology and Evolution. A Darwin Day 2009 event.

Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:30 p.m., Student Activities Center Ballroom A

On Innovation in American Mathematics Education
Philip “Uri” Treisman is professor of mathematics and executive director of the Charles
A. Dana Center at UT Austin. He chairs the Chancellor's Advisory Panel for Mathematics and the steering committee of the Urban Mathematics Leadership Network, a coalition seeking to improve pre- K–12 mathematics teaching and learning, as well as the design team of the Strategic Education Research Partnership, focused on creating new knowledge to solve urgent problems of American education. He was named “2006 Scientist of the Year” by the Harvard Foundation for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. Co-sponsored by the Center for Science and Mathematics Education.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 4:00 p.m., Student Activities Center Auditorium

The Love-Hate Relationship with Experts in the Early Modern Atlantic
Karen Ordahl Kupperman is Silver Professor of History at NYU. Her scholarship focuses on the Atlantic world in the 16th and17th centuries, particularly contacts between Europe and America and the ways that participants interpreted each other. The Jamestown Project was published by Harvard University Press in 2007, as was Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (2nd ed.) Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, 2000) won the AHA's Prize in Atlantic History. Among her current projects is a critical edition of Richard Ligon's A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes (1657, 1673). Part of Worlds of Lion Gardiner Conference. Read abstract >>

Friday, March 20, 2009, 4:15 p.m., Wang Center

Trust and Distrust in Education
Adriaan Peperzak is Arthur Schmitt Chair of Philosophy at Loyola University. His lecture will explore the extent to which teachers and pupils need to learn a balanced way of trusting and distrusting obvious demands imposed on them by the society in which they live and whether the dominant ethos can function as the uncontested standard for education. His recent books include Philosophy between Faith and Theology: Addresses to Catholic Intellectuals (Notre Dame University Press, 2005) and Thinking: From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation (Fordham University Press, 2006). Presented by the Stony Brook Trust Institute.

Monday, March 30, 2009, 4:30 p.m., Humanities Building, Room 1006

Diplomacy in Times of Global Change
Harald Braun, a Stony Brook alum, is a senior German diplomat with extensive experience in both international diplomacy and business, including IBM and Siemens. An economist and historian, he has served in diplomatic posts on four continents and with the UN, including chief political officer in Washington DC, special envoy for Afghanistan reconstruction, deputy national security adviser to the German chancellor and, currently, minister plenipotentiary in Paris. Since 2008, he is part-time Research Professor for Global Studies and Diplomacy for SB's Institute for Global Studies (SBIGS). Co-sponsored by SBIGS and the Center for Global and Local History.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 4:00 p.m., Student Activities Center Auditorium

Live from Australia: The Coral Reef Crisis
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is director of the Heron Island Marine Lab, located on the Great Barrier Reef, and professor of Marine Science at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is one of the most distinguished coral reef experts in the world. Research in his laboratory includes remote sensing, the ecology and physiology of the coral-algal symbiosis crucial in reef growth, and measures of disease and environmental stress in corals. In a special teleconferenced seminar, Jeffrey Levinton of Stony Brook University will interview Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg via satellite on threats to the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs throughout the world. Read abstract >>

Friday, April 17, 2009 7:30 p.m., Wang Center Theater

Technology and the Era of Personalized Medicine
David Walt is Robinson Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and a Stony Brook alum. He serves on many government advisory boards and on the editorial advisory board for numerous journals. Dr. Walt is the Scientific Founder and a Director of Illumina Inc. and Quanterix Corp. He has received many national and international awards for his fundamental and applied work in the field of optical sensors and arrays, is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Read abstract >>

Monday, April 27, 2009 4:00 p.m., Wang Center, Lecture Hall 2