As keynote speaker for the 2026 Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival, Lawrence told a crowd gathered at Lehman Auditorium on Wednesday morning about the year she spent researching plant-animal interactions on the tropical island.

She was tasked with walking a specific route through the forest, starting at dawn, recording every animal she observed and noting what it was doing and eating. She recalled listening to gibbons sing in the mornings, watching macaques leap from tree to tree in the evenings, and seeing her first orangutan in the wild. 

Lawrence, who holds a BA in anthropology from Harvard University and a PhD in botany from Duke University, said she had arrived at college three years earlier “pretending to be a pre-med major so I would have something to say when asked,” but still unsure what she wanted to do. When she returned from that year in Borneo, she discovered a newfound sense of purpose: to save the rainforest. 

“The rainforest had held me for a year, giving me a place to learn about nature and about myself,” she said. “What a gift.”

In the years since, she has devoted much of her life to understanding the human connection to nature and the consequences of actions like deforestation. Her research has taken her around the world to forests in Cameroon, Costa Rica, Mexico, and East Africa, as well as North Carolina and Virginia.

Lawrence spent more than 25 years as a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where she focused on global forest systems and climate dynamics.

In addition to her academic career, she served as a science advisor to the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Change, supporting climate policy and international negotiations. She played a key role in establishing SilvaCarbon, a U.S. interagency program dedicated to forest carbon measurement and monitoring.

For the past four years, Lawrence has worked as chief scientist at Calyx Global, a carbon credit rating agency. At the startup, she leads efforts to ensure the scientific integrity of greenhouse gas ratings. She also directs research and analytics for nature-based solutions and engineered carbon dioxide removal.

“I still do science every day, but my target is different,” she said. “I think of it as the flip side of academic research. I used to study nature’s climate solutions—how forests and land can alter the climate. Now I study how those solutions get put into action, bundled up, and sold as carbon credits. And my job is to make sure [corporations] are delivering the climate impact that they promise.”

In her address, Lawrence spoke about the wonders of photosynthesis—“It takes something you cannot see and turns it into something you can touch and eat”—and the glorious splendor of spring. “Life is simply bursting out all around us, and it’s an amazing thing,” she said.

She recognized her feelings of eco-grief, the sadness she feels about the loss of ecosystems and living beings, and the increasing rate of extinction. “[T]he earth is more than just a place where we live,” she said. “It’s a place we love. We would not feel sadness if we felt no love. So I just want you to remember that. If you are feeling sad about what’s going on in the world, you’re also feeling love.”

Lawrence said she had been encouraged to read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer six years ago but hadn’t found the time. Having recently read the book, which is 91����Ƶ’s Common Read for 2025-26, she expressed appreciation for its wisdom. 

“Trying to know something is a way to love it,” she said. “That’s what I wish for all of you while you’re here in college. Study something deeply. It will change the way you view the world, including yourself, including nature.”

91����Ƶ’s ACE Festival continues Thursday with a full day of student presentations and performances, an authors’ reception and award presentation, and the first-ever ACE Fest Career Fair. For a full schedule of events, visit .

Watch a video recording of the address below!

Thanks to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Daniel B. Suter Endowment, and the Center for Interfaith Engagement for collaborating with ACE Festival and the Provost’s Office to bring Dr. Lawrence to campus.

ACE Fest Keynote Address
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 10:15-11:15 a.m.
Location: Lehman Auditorium
More info:

Dr. Deborah Lawrence, chief scientist and director of forest and land at Calyx Global, will open the 2026 Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival as keynote speaker at 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, April 15, in Lehman Auditorium.

At Calyx Global, a Colorado-based carbon credit ratings agency, Lawrence ensures the scientific integrity of its greenhouse gas ratings. She spent 25 years as an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia, where she conducted global forest and climate research.

She also served as a science advisor to the U.S. Department of State and established SilvaCarbon, a U.S. federal program for forest carbon measurement and monitoring, according to a staff listing on . 

Lawrence holds a BA in anthropology from Harvard University and a PhD in botany from Duke University. 

Her keynote address will reflect on “our connections to nature and how they have changed over the course of my life,” Lawrence said, “informing my scholarship, my work, and my daily life.”

Jennifer Ulrich, chair of the Intellectual Life Committee, said Lawrence’s teaching experience, research, and international background were key factors in selecting her as keynote speaker. 

She said Lawrence readily embraced both the university’s annual theme of environmental sustainability and its Common Read, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, as she developed her address.

“I am grateful for her willingness to speak with us and look forward to her keynote address,” Ulrich said.

91����Ƶ ACE Festival

91����Ƶ’s Academic and Creative Excellence Festival provides an opportunity for students to learn from their peers and to showcase their own research, creative projects, and papers. It’s also an opportunity to continue conversations sparked by 91����Ƶ’s Common Read for the year.

In addition to poster and oral presentations held throughout the day on Thursday, April 15, ACE Fest events include a music department student recital at noon in Lehman Auditorium, an art exhibition opening for senior capstone projects at 4:45 p.m. in the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery, and a wind ensemble concert at 7 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium.

The 17th 91����Ƶ Authors’ Reception and Award Presentation will be held from 3:45-5 p.m. in Old Common Grounds (University Commons 177) on Thursday. The annual event, hosted by the Office of the Provost, recognizes and celebrates winners of the university’s Excellence in Teaching Awards and recipients of student writing awards, as well as 91����Ƶ faculty, staff, and students who have published scholarly work since Jan. 1, 2025. The awards presentation part of the program will begin at 4:30 p.m.

An 91����Ƶ Career Fair, hosted by the Alumni Engagement Office, will be held from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Thursday at the Hall of Nations. It will provide an opportunity for students to interact directly with employers, connect with alumni professionals, explore career options, and potentially secure internships or employment. 

The ACE Festival is hosted by the Provost’s Office and made possible by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Center for Interfaith Engagement, and the Daniel B. Suter Endowment, which supports 91����Ƶ’s commitment to fostering curiosity, discovery, and scientific learning. 

For more information about the festival and a schedule of events, visit .

The stars, projected onto the dome of SSC 101—formerly home to the M.T. Brackbill Planetarium and now part of the D. Ralph Hostetter Natural History Museum—became a reality thanks to recent renovations and improvements by a group of 91����Ƶ engineering students. For their senior capstone project, Adam Stoltzfus, Laura Benner, Hellena Gebremedhin, Micaiah Landis, Lleyton Stutzman, and Rebecca Tezazu, under the guidance of faculty mentor Stefano Colafranceschi, restored and modernized the 91����Ƶ planetarium projector, which was originally installed in 1968 and had been unused since 2007.

On Thursday, as part of 91����Ƶ’s eighth annual Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival, the students presented their work and led demonstrations of the star projector. Their project was one of 32 oral presentations and 64 poster sessions, featuring more than 200 students throughout the day across campus. Poster and presentation topics covered a wide range, from the effects of energy drinks on physical activity and an analysis of homemade kombucha to the repatriation of cultural artifacts at 91����Ƶ and the rise of populist movements throughout history.

Click here to view the schedule from this year’s ACE Festival.

The campus-wide academic conference, held on Wednesday and Thursday, offered students the chance to learn from their peers and showcase their research, creative projects, and papers. It also provided an opportunity to continue conversations sparked by the university’s annual Common Read. 

91����Ƶ President Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman, providing opening remarks before the keynote address on Wednesday, discussed how fitting the festival’s name is. “I love that acronym,” she said. “We have many ‘ACE’ scholars at 91����Ƶ, both among the student body and faculty.”

Author David Williams delivers keynote

The ACE Festival kicked off on Wednesday morning with the keynote by the Rev. Dr. David Williams, whose novel When the English Fall served as the 91����Ƶ Common Read for the 2024-25 school year. Written as the diary of an Amish farmer near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the novel follows him as he tries to protect his family and way of life in the wake of a catastrophic solar storm that brings about the collapse of modern civilization. It was one of Amazon’s top 100 books of 2017, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and was nominated for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award.

Williams, pastor of Poolesville Presbyterian Church in Maryland, read selections from his book and answered questions from moderator Dr. Marti Greene Eads, professor of English at 91����Ƶ. In between readings, Williams spoke about the dangers of doomscrolling social media, the imaginative visions that inspired him to write his novel, and the ways in which our world, and its climate, are changing.

“Has anyone had to clean Texas dust off their car recently?” Williams asked the crowd at Lehman Auditorium. “I’ve lived in Virginia since 1975, and I can’t ever remember that happening—or seeing skies tinged with color and clouded by smoke from northern Alberta. For those who’ve lived in Virginia a while, when’s the last time you remember something like that?”

Watch a recording of the keynote .

Faculty members receive Excellence in Teaching Awards

The 16th annual 91����Ƶ Authors’ Reception and Awards Presentation recognized and celebrated the winners of the university’s Excellence in Teaching Awards. Professors Chad Gusler, Hannah Ferguson, and Hilary Moore were announced as this year’s recipients. 

For testimonials about each award winner, as well as the recipients of the student writing awards, student academic awards, and the names of the 16 faculty authors recognized for their published scholarly works, click on the post below:

Senior VACA majors unveil art installations

Digital media and communication majors Oslyn Mejia Gomez, Noussaiba Garti, and Zack Furr presented their senior capstone projects at the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery and Lee Eshleman Studio Theater during an opening reception on Thursday afternoon. Inspired by street art, graffiti, and paintings of Christian icons, Mejia Gomez used wheatpaste to affix portraits he captured with a fisheye lens. Garti drew from cinema set design and crime scene storytelling to create an installation that explores personal growth and the journey of overcoming self-destructive habits. Furr incorporated photography and interviews with survivors of sexual assault to share their stories with empathy.

At the exhibition, Professor Jerry Holsopple announced 91����Ƶ junior Jasmin Ruiz as the recipient of the Matthew Alan Styer Scholarship Grant, awarded for “exceptional skill and dedication in design and/or photography.”

Matthew Alan Styer ’05, a graduate of 91����Ƶ’s Visual and Communication Arts (VACA) program, worked for 91����Ƶ’s marketing and communications department as a videographer, designer and photographer until 2008. The scholarship endowment honors the memory of Styer, who died from leukemia at age 30 in 2011.

The sound of musical excellence

A student recital at Lehman Auditorium featured performances from vocalists Elie Hoover (soprano), Erin Batten (soprano), Eli Stoll (baritone), Mac Rhodes-Lehman (bass), trombonist Caden Bradley and pianist Fernando Sanchez. Student musicians were accompanied on piano by Harold Bailey. 

Posters made perfect

The winners of this year’s STEM Celebration poster competition are: 

Independent research division

• First place: Abigail Forrest, Maria Longenecker, Elaine Miranda Perez, and Marciella Shallomita
  Knockdown of Cox6b (Complex IV) and ATPsyn𝜷L (Complex V) of the electron transport chain in Glutamate Neurons increases sleep and lifespan of Drosophila
• Second place: Aja Laun, Malachi Peachey-Stoner, and Ella Richer
  Improved methods of eDNA detection of salamanders using probe-based qPCR analysis
• Third place: Iris Anderson, Daisy Hamsher, and Sarah Peak
  Emotional regulation, bullying, and mental health: Exploring the interplay and outcomes in college students

Projects division

• First place: Micaiah Landis, Adam Stoltzfus, and Lleyton Stutzman
  Design and control of a low-cost inverted pendulum system
• Second place: Mariana Acosta and Levi Stutzman
  Bridging communities: Constructing a suspended footbridge in Eswatini

Upperclass division

• First place: M Lashway and Ben Perkin
  Effects of D. stramonium on C. elagans behavior and motility
• Second place: Seungmin Cha, Elaine Miranda Perez, and Whitney Showalter
  Analysis of homemade kombucha
• Third place: Alex Belisle, Maria Longenecker, and Kate Stutzman
  Physiological response to pain: Male and female pain tolerance under cold stress

General chemistry division

• First place: Bennett de Tenley and Emily Donovan
  Comparing the antioxidant capacity of store-bought vs farmer’s market fruits
• Second place: Apekshya Karki and Isaac Miller
  Race to relief: Which tablet dissolves faster-gel or firm tablet?
• Third place: Ephrata Amare and Melissa Miller
  How does the pH of a beverage affect ibuprofen dissolution?

The posters from STEM disciplines (biology, chemistry, environmental science, psychology, biomedicine, and engineering) were judged by an interdisciplinary panel of 91����Ƶ STEM faculty, with winners selected in the four divisions. 

Toys for tykes

Students in the Nursing Care of Children course designed and built toys tailored to the gross and fine motor skills, social skills, and cognitive development of an infant or child of the assigned age, aiming to engage each area of growth through play. Those students were Odesa Elezi, Elijah Spicher, Abigail Foltz, and Gabriella Seal.

Swipe through the photo gallery below for more pictures from the 2025 ACE Festival.

Thanks to everyone who contributed their time and efforts to making the festival a success, including Kirsten Beachy, ACE Festival Chair, and Diane Farrar, ACE Festival Coordinator, 91����Ƶ’s Language and Literature Program, Convocation at 91����Ƶ, Clay Showalter, Daniel House, Aramark staff, Shannon Grinnan and Pioneer College Caterers. Additional thanks to the many faculty mentors and session moderators and to those who helped set up poster shows, administrative support staff, anyone who provided festival assistance, and to everyone who presented and shared their work!

Photos by Macson McGuigan/91����Ƶ and Jon Styer/At Ease Design & Consulting

Earlier this month, as 91����Ƶ students Madelynn Hamm, Vanessa Gardiner and Aja Laun pieced together the slides for their ACE Festival presentation, they received some exciting news. The Smithsonian Institute heard about their work collecting traces of salamander DNA and wanted their help.

Over the past two years, members of the project — guided by faculty mentor Professor Doug Graber Neufeld — collected water samples from the streams of West Virginia and vernal pools of the George Washington National Forest to gather environmental DNA on species of salamanders (the common two-lined salamander and the more elusive tiger and hellbender salamanders). Their project is especially beneficial as it uses a noninvasive approach to monitor species distribution.

On Thursday, at the seventh annual Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival, Hamm, Gardiner and Laun presented on their research methods and findings. Their 15-minute talk was one of 49 oral presentations delivered by more than 85 student presenters throughout the day all across campus — at Campus Center, in Suter Science Center and at Martin Chapel — in the humanities, biology and environmental sustainability, engineering, nursing, political science, education, and more. Topics ran the gamut from managing the invasive species in Park Woods with baby goats (mark your calendars for 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, April 20, to help clear the brush and pet those baby goats) to the historical and modern context of arsenic dye, lead paint and fast fashion.

Click here to view the schedule.

Throughout the day, more than 120 students presented their research at 65 poster displays spread across 91����Ƶ’s campus.

One of those posters was about the use of popular artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT among students at 91����Ƶ. In their research, students Mesa Dula, Jansen Miller and Ben Alderfer found that the majority of 91����Ƶ students who use the AI chatbot use it about one to two days a week, mostly for generating ideas and brainstorming. 91����Ƶ 30% of the 47 students they polled said they did not use ChatGPT at all. Alderfer said he uses ChatGPT often and was curious to see its use among his classmates.

“I think it’s a great tool and I think it’s probably going to become far more prevalent in the next couple years,” he said.

At another display, engineering majors Lleyton Stutzman, Micaiah Landis and Adam Stoltzfus operated a sandbox. Visitors could create mounds or divots in the sand, and a computer would adjust to the new topography by projecting hills and mountains and lakes and rivers. Landis said the sandbox shows them how water flows down mountains and through valleys, which has applications in studying erosion.

Students used the day off from classes to attend the oral presentations, view poster displays, congratulate published authors at a reception, take in the many music and arts events and get a sense of what everyone’s been working on over the past year.

For students who attend the ACE Festival, it gives them the experience of attending an academic conference, said festival coordinator Diane Farrar. For students who present at the festival, it’s a way to showcase their own research, creative projects, and papers, she added.

91����Ƶ President Susan Schultz Huxman, speaking before a keynote address on Wednesday, spoke about the goals of the ACE Festival. The first goal is to recognize excellence in research at 91����Ƶ. A second goal is to raise the visibility of the diversity of scholarship at 91����Ƶ.

“And, number three is to validate liberal arts education — to examine the rigor, the relevance, the impact and interdisciplinary richness of research that pulsates from our liberal arts fields in the humanities, fine arts, social sciences and STEM disciplines,” she said.

Speaking of that keynote address…

Author Douglas Abrams delivers keynote address

A lot of people might know about Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but few know him as well as Douglas Abrams. The New York Times-bestselling author, who co-wrote The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World with Tutu and worked with him for more than a decade, shared the wisdom he’s gleaned from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate — including how to avoid road rage — as well as lessons from many other luminaries. Abrams co-wrote The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times with primatologist Jane Goodall, which was this year’s selection for 91����Ƶ’s Common Read. He spoke about the importance of hope in a world that’s suffering and the dangers of despair and cynicism.

“In one study, communal hope was the best predictor of community well-being,” Abrams said. “Hope and despair are as contagious as any virus. Despair turns us inward. Hope sends us into the arms of others.”

During a talkback session following the address, Mary Ann Zehr, who teaches first-year writing at 91����Ƶ, shared that she had her students read The Book of Hope and that it had resonated with them. She asked Abrams if interviewing Goodall made him a more hopeful person.

“In writing the book, I was able to see this long march through history that we are on and to see the progress we’ve made, and that has been really inspiring,” Abrams replied.

Student artists unveil works at opening reception

An opening reception at Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery showcased the works of four talented 91����Ƶ artists. Cassidy Walker expressed the duality of people and the differences between how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them in a series of mixed-media portraits. Valentina Barahona created a line of packaging design labels for a juice brand that would prove eye-catching to consumers. Mariah Miller used a technique called cyanotype to create a visual representation of how “humans invade and then abandon nature.” Afton Rhodes-Lehman reflected her experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder in a collection of acrylic paintings that juxtapose restrictive and rigid lines with the “chaotic joy” of vibrant colors. The exhibition will run through May 1.

Musicians dazzle at student recital

A student recital at Lehman Auditorium on Thursday featured vocalists Reah Clymer, Arnayja Parker, Riley Quezada, Elie Hoover, Jacob Nissley and Kay Pettus, pianist Rafael de Tablan, clarinetist Luke Haynes, organist Laurel Evans, tuba player Allie Smith and French horn player Tyler Williams. The student musicians were accompanied on piano by Harold Bailey, David Berry and Luke Haynes.

The slate of music performances continued Thursday night with a wind ensemble concert. A university choir concert will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 19, in Lehman Auditorium, and a concerto/aria orchestra concert will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 20, in Lehman.

A bevy of award winners, among both students and faculty, were announced at ACE Festival events on Thursday.

Three faculty members receive Excellence in Teaching Awards

Hosted by the Provost’s Office, the 15th annual 91����Ƶ Authors’ Reception and Awards Presentation recognized and celebrated the winners of the university’s Excellence in Teaching Awards:

Adjunct faculty: David Pruett
Instructors and assistant professors: Allison Wilck
Associate professors and professors: Ji Eun Kim

For more information about each award winner, visit the post below.

The event also recognized three recipients of student writing awards:

First place: Tie between Caleb Metzler, Willy-Nilly Reforestation, Why Diversification is Key, and Brooke Snyder, Microplastics and the Potential Threats They Pose to Humans
Second place: Willem Hedrick, The Effects of Short-Form Video, TikTok, and the Effects of Short-Form Video Content on Adolescents

In addition to the awards, the reception showcased the published scholarly works of faculty, staff and students from the past two years. Featured faculty authors included: Kirsten Eve Beachy, Sarah Bixler, David Berry, Jacob Cook, Shannon Dycus, Marti Eads, Paula Facci, Nancy Heisey, Steven David Johnson, Jim Leaman, Heike Peckruhn, Kevin Seidel, Tim Seidel, Kimberly Schmidt, Daniel Showalter, Mary Sprunger, Andrew Suderman, Paul J. Yoder, Howard Zehr, and Mary Ann Zehr. Chamber musicians Miriam Rhodes and Dr. Benjamin Bergey performed violin music for the reception, which was held at the Sadie Hartzler Library.

Three VaCA students receive Styer scholarship award

At the art exhibition, Professor Steven David Johnson announced the recipients of the Matthew Alan Styer Award:

• Cassidy Walker
• Nussa Garti
• Oslyn Mejia Gomez

The award is given to three rising seniors majoring in the visual arts who have demonstrated exceptional skill and dedication in design and/or photography, Johnson said.

Matthew Alan Styer ’05, a graduate of 91����Ƶ’s Visual and Communication Arts (VaCA) program, worked for 91����Ƶ’s marketing and communications department as a videographer, designer and photographer until 2008. The scholarship endowment honors the memory of Styer, who died from leukemia at age 30 in 2011.

STEM Celebration poster award winners announced

The recipients of this year’s STEM Celebration poster awards are:

Environmental Applications of GIS posters
First place: Joel Kornhaus, Assessing vegetation growth as a result of sand dams
Second place: Tie between Evelyn Shenk and Esme Martin
Honorable mentions: Levi Myers and Laura Craft

Chemistry class
First place: Jenna Oostland, William Bartel and Madelynn Hamm, Water System Health of Local Streams
Second place: Amber Bonds and Maya Tutton
Honorable mentions: Evelyn Shenk, Andrew Arledge and Elaine Miranda Perez

Biology class
First place: Marciella Shallomita, Bioinformatic analysis of cardiac tissue functionality: Implications for the process of bioengineering hearts
Second place: Ethan Neufeld
Honorable mentions: Betty Debebe, Elaine Miranda Perez and Aja Laun

Independent research and projects
First place: Marciella Shallomita, Abigail Forrest, Elaine Miranda Perez and Sadie Oesch, Loss-of-Function In The Drosophila Serotonin Transporter (dSert) Gene Changes Sleep and Activity and Decreases Life Span
Second place: Adesola Johnson, Meredith Lehman and Allysen Welty-Peachy
Honorable mentions: Levi Stutzman, Ivan Betancourt, Myles Dixson, Ben Friesen Guhr, Jonathan Kronimus and Sean Swartley; and Samantha Hensley, Hayley Collins and Sarah Moore

The posters from STEM disciplines (biology, chemistry, biomedicine, engineering, computer science, and psychology) were judged by 91����Ƶ STEM faculty, with winners selected in the four categories. 

And, for one more award…

Office of DEI announces a new staff award for community organizing

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), in conjunction with the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CODI) and Professor Dr. Gaurav Pathania, announced a new award for 91����Ƶ staff employees who promote community organizing and enhance a sense of belonging and inclusivity among diverse groups. 

The Ambedkar-Baker DEI Award for Community Organizing seeks to honor the contributions and legacy of eminent African-American civil rights activist and organizer Ella Baker and social reformer Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, architect of India’s Constitution. This award celebrates staff members at 91����Ƶ who work together to address institutional inequalities and make positive changes. Eligible candidates are those who contribute to building a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming community at 91����Ƶ, fostering a sense of belonging for everyone. Staff members can either be nominated by others or nominate themselves for this award.

Further details about the criteria for this award and the nomination process will be released this fall.

Sponsors for the ACE Festival included Blauch Brothers Inc. mechanical contractors, Park View Federal Credit Union, and Omar’s Hair Salon & Barbershop.

Photos by Macson McGuigan/91����Ƶ and Jon Styer/At Ease Design & Consulting

New York Times-bestselling author Douglas Abrams, who has worked with many of the most inspiring people on the planet — from Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama to Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall — is the keynote speaker for 91����Ƶ’s Academic & Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival.

Abrams will deliver a virtual address titled “Two Truths and Three Lies 91����Ƶ Hope and Humanity” from 10:10 to 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 17, in Lehman Auditorium. His address explores the importance of hope in our lives and how to cultivate it personally and collectively when we need it most. It invites audiences to see hope not as a passive or weak response, but as an act of resistance that challenges the status quo. Following his address, Abrams will remain available for a talkback session until 11:30 a.m.

The talk will draw on his work writing The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (2021) with Goodall (91����Ƶ’s Common Read selection for 2023-2024) as well as his collaborations with leading spiritual teachers, activists and scientists. Together with the Dalai Lama and Tutu, Abrams co-wrote The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (2016), which inspired the documentary .

Abrams lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is the founder of Idea Architects, a literary agency and media development company that helps visionaries create a wiser, healthier and more just world.

He worked with Tutu as his co-writer and editor for more than a decade. He was a senior editor at HarperCollins Publishers and served for nine years as the religion editor at the University of California Press.

91����Ƶ the ACE Festival

The ACE Festival invites keynote speakers to engage the community in conversations around values important to us at 91����Ƶ. The speaker is typically selected with the themes of the year’s Common Read in mind. We invite engagement and response from diverse perspectives, and encourage continued conversation around these themes.

This event is co-sponsored by 91����Ƶ Convocation and the Language and Literature Program. It will be livestreamed on Facebook Live from the .