Matthew Siderhurst
Professor of Chemistry
91短视频

Tephritid fruit flies are among the most damaging horticultural pests worldwide, damaging fruits and vegetables through the tropics and subtropics.  Areawide pest management, in which neighboring farmers coordinate their control practices, has the potential to increase horticultural production and profits for small farmers in developing countries.  In this talk I鈥檒l be reflecting on my sabbatical work with a project focused on improving fruit fly control in mangoes funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.  I鈥檒l discuss my research in Australia and Hawaii and how this relates to other parts of the project in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Dr. Matthew Siderhurst is a professor of chemistry at 91短视频. He completed undergraduate studies at Goshen College and did his PhD work at Colorado State University before completing a postdoctoral fellowship with the USDA in Hilo, Hawaii. His research interests are diverse including recent projects on insect chemical ecology, coffee quality, spruce volatiles (odors), and insect tracking. Matt鈥檚 interests outside of chemistry and biology include Ultimate Frisbee, board games, science fiction, and foreign TV crime shows, with the pandemic threatening to make him into an ultrarunner.听

In the 1940s, six in ten Americans hadn鈥檛 gone past the eighth grade. Today a majority have attended college.  But surveys show that Americans today are no better educated about politics.  A majority don鈥檛 even know that we have three branches of government.  What鈥檚 gone wrong? The answer to the question would seem to be that we have a voter problem.  But Shenkman argues what we actually have is a human being problem.  In his talk he draws on research in history and science to explain why modern humans fail so often at tasks they should be good at (like deciding which politicians we can trust with power). He also asks why, despite obvious improvements in our democracy 鈥� such as the extension of voting rights to African Americans in 1965 鈥� the system seems to be so frustratingly unequal to the challenges we face.  He ends his talk on an optimistic note.  Science shows that for all their faults human beings share one gift that saves them time and again:  our adaptability to change and our willingness in the end to face reality.  

Rick Shenkman is the founder of George Washington University’s聽, a website that features leading historians’ perspectives on current events. He can regularly be seen on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. He is a New York Times best-selling author of seven history books; his latest book is聽Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics聽(Basic Books). Educated at Vassar and Harvard, Mr. Shenkman is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter and the former managing editor of KIRO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. In 1997 he was the host, writer and producer of a prime time series for The Learning Channel inspired by his books on myths. In 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. He gives lectures at colleges around the country on several topics, including American myths and presidential politics.

An ecotone is a landscape ecology term for the zone where two neighboring habitats interact. In his presentation, Kevin will explore how ecotones might help us think about the interactions between our readings of scripture and of literature. He will draw on his recent sabbatical-year experience teaching at the Oregon Extension, share a little about his forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press titled聽Rethinking the Secular Origins of the Novel: The Bible in English Fiction, 1678鈥�1767, and look ahead to his next writing project on ecology, scripture, and science fiction by discussing Octavia Butler’s聽Parable of the Sower.听

Dr. Kevin Seidel is an Associate Professor of English at 91短视频. He teaches first-year college writing, a number of general education and humanities classes, and a wide range of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary poetry and science fiction. Originally from California, Kevin came to 91短视频 from the University of Virginia, where he received his Ph.D. in English Literature and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Before that he earned a master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He teaches and writes about the changing relationship between religion, secularism, and literature. He is a long-time practitioner of Scriptural Reasoning, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims gather to read each other’s scripture. And his book tentatively titled Rethinking the Secular Origins of the Novel: The Bible in English Fiction, 1678鈥�1767 will be published by Cambridge University later this year.

Muslims and the Making of America
Amir Hussian, PhD
Professor of Theological Studies
Loyola Marymount University
“There has never been an America without Muslims.” Amir Hussain, an American Muslim, contends that Muslims played an essential role in the creation and cultivation of the United States. 
Dr. Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, the Jesuit university in Los Angeles. He teaches courses on Islam and comparative religion. From 2011 to 2015, Amir was the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and he is currently on the board of directors of the American Academy of Religion. He is an advisor for the television series The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. His most recent books are the two volume textbooks for Oxford University Press published last year, World Religions: Western Traditions and World Religions: Eastern Traditions.  The author or editor of 6 other books, he has also published over 60 book chapters and scholarly articles about religion.

Dr. Jared Peifer offers the monthly University Colloquium presentation on 鈥淭he Morality of Socially Responsible Investing.鈥� Peifer is Assistant
Professor of Management at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch
College in New York.听 He is an economic sociologist who has done
significant research on the economics and sociology of socially
responsible investing.

(Please note that his slides can be downloaded by clicking on the “download” link following “eBook” above)

For the October University Colloquium address, Dr. Greta Ann Herin presents on 鈥淩egional and Age-dependent Variability in Calcium Dependent Inactivation of Calcium Channels in the Striatum.鈥�

presents from his his sabbatical for the monthly University Colloquium lecture.

Associate professor , gives a presentation on his 12-13 sabbatical entitled 鈥淩ock. Lichen. Forest: Representing Biodiversity in the Pacific Northwest.鈥�