The Signature Lecture Series features speakers noted nationally or internationally for their broad, multidisciplinary appeal and compelling bodies of work. Many of the lectures are supported by endowments, while others honor notable figures and milestones in the university’s history. All Signature Lectures are free and open to the public. Capacity is limited for some lectures, with registration required.

Fall 2024 Signature Lectures

Brandon SomSiwar MasannatBrandon Som and Siwar Masannat

Award-winning poets

Sept. 16, 6 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Som is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego. His “Tripas,” a Georgia Review Books imprint, won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His first book, “The Tribute Horse,” won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Masannat is the managing editor, African Poetry Book Fund and Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her poetry collection “cue” was also published in the Georgia Review Books imprint. Masannat’s debut poetry collection, “50 Water Dreams,” was selected by Ilya Kaminsky as the winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Competition.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries, The Georgia Review, The University of Georgia Press and the Georgia Museum of Art
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Gerald Maa, [email protected]


Anabella VillalobosAnabella Villalobos

Senior Vice President and Head of Biotherapeutics and Medicinal Sciences, Biogen

Sept. 18, 11 a.m.
David and Jane Chu Auditorium, College of Pharmacy South Building, with a reception at 10:30 a.m.

Villalobos is internationally recognized for her leadership in drug discovery and medicinal sciences. As vice president of medicinal synthesis technologies and neuroscience medicinal chemistry at Pfizer, she designed Icopezil, a drug that advanced to phase 2 studies and is in the same class as Aricept, the front-line treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Villalobos is a 2023 inductee of the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.

Sponsored by the College of Pharmacy
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Dawn Burden, [email protected]


Eric Nelson Eric Nelson

Robert M. Beren Professor of Government, Harvard University

Constitution Day at UGA Lecture
Sept. 20, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Nelson is an American historian, award-winning author and professor of government. His research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America and on the implications of that history for debates in contemporary political theory. His books have received a variety of awards, and his essays have appeared in a wide range of scholarly journals and edited volumes. Nelson has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs, Jack Miller Center and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Lauren Ledbetter, [email protected]


Belle WheelanBelle S. Wheelan

President, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges

Louise McBee Lecture in Higher Education
Sept. 23, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Wheelan has made significant contributions to higher education. She has served as a faculty member, chief student services officer, campus provost, college president and Virginia’s secretary of education. She was the first African American or woman to hold several of these positions, including her current role as president of SACSCOC.

Sponsored by the Louise McBee Lecture in Higher Education
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Megan Waters Holloway, [email protected]


Daniel AmosDaniel P. Amos

Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Aflac Incorporated

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Oct. 2, 10:20 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Amos is one of the longest-serving CEOs in the FORTUNE 200. His innovative leadership style at Aflac has led to annual revenue growth from $2.7 billion in 1990 to $18.7 billion in 2023. During his tenure, the Ethisphere Institute has recognized Aflac Incorporated as a World’s Most Ethical Company for 18 consecutive years, making Aflac the only insurance company in the world to appear on this list every year since the inception of the award in 2007.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Allison Porter, [email protected]


Saxby ChamblissArnold PurnaroSaxby Chambliss, former U.S. Senator, and Arnold Punaro, defense expert

Russell Library 50th Anniversary Celebration
Oct. 22, 11 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Building, Special Collections Libraries

Chambliss served in the U.S. Senate for two terms following four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his tenure in the Senate, he served as a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Rules Committee and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. His leadership and experience on homeland security and intelligence matters earned him an appointment to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence where he served as vice chairman from 2011 to 2015. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps General, is chief executive officer of The Punaro Group, a firm specializing in federal budget and market analysis, business strategy and capture, acquisition due diligence, government relations, communications, crisis management, sensitive operations and business risk analysis and compliance. He consults for a broad array of Fortune 100 companies and has been recognized by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential individuals in U.S. defense.

Sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Meredith Young, [email protected]


Greg LavenderGreg Lavender

Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and General Manager of the Software and Advanced Technology Group (SATG), Intel Corporation

Nov. 5, 12:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, Mahler Hall, with a reception following in the Hill Atrium

As CTO, he is responsible for driving Intel’s future technical innovation through his leadership of Intel Labs, Intel Federal LLC, and Intel Information Technology (IT). He is also responsible for defining and executing Intel’s software strategy across artificial intelligence, confidential computing, and the growing need for open accelerated computing to support Intel’s range of business and hardware offerings. Lavender joined Intel in June 2021 from VMware, where he served as Senior Vice President and CTO. He has 40 years of experience in software and hardware product engineering, cloud-scale systems architecture and engineering, and advanced research and development. Prior to his role at VMware, Lavender held executive and technology leadership positions at Citigroup, Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems. Lavender holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Georgia, and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in computer science from Virginia Tech.

Sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Calendar: Event Listing to come
Event Contacts: Anna Stenport, [email protected] | Kellie Peyton, [email protected]


Micah CashMicah Cash

Visual Artist

Nov. 7, 5:30 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Investigating how land use and social history influence cultural geography, Cash uses the visual languages of landscape and architecture across media to explore narratives of utilization, demarcation and ownership. His work is featured in solo and group exhibitions as well as private collections throughout North America and Europe. Cash’s monographs include “Waffle House Vistas” and “Dangerous Waters: A Photo Essay on the Tennessee Valley Authority.”

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Callan Steinmann, [email protected]


Saxby ChamblissHeidi HetkampDeborah Roberts

Saxby Chambliss, Former U.S Senator, Heidi Heitkamp, Former U.S. Senator, and Deborah Roberts, Award-winning ABC News Senior National Affairs Correspondent

Johnny Isakson Symposium on Political Civility
Nov. 18, 1:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel

The Johnny Isakson Symposium on Political Civility honors and perpetuates former U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson’s legacy of statesmanship and political civility. Special guests consider how civil debate, mutual respect and common-interest problem-solving advance the public good.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Lauren Ledbetter [email protected]


Krysta HardenKrysta Harden

President and CEO, U.S. Dairy Export Council and Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture

2024 D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards: “Georgia Roots, Global Impact: A Journey Working with People, Industry and Nations on Challenges to Nourishing the World”
Nov. 19, 3:30 p.m.
Masters Hall, Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel

With a focus on agriculture and a heart for sustainability, Harden wants to boost American dairy exports and advocate for sustainable practices in the industry. Harden was named the first female chief executive of the U.S. Dairy Export Council in 2021 after serving in notable positions such as chief sustainability officer at Corteva and DuPont, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and CEO of the National Association of Conservation Districts. Her consistent focus has been on promoting agriculture policy and sustainability, with a particular emphasis on opportunities for women, young people and underrepresented groups, and returning veterans and retirees.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Calendar: Event Listing
Event Contact: Maggie Wooten Brown, [email protected]


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For details about parking on the UGA campus, click here.

Accommodations

Requests for accommodations for those with disabilities should be made as soon as possible but at least 7 days prior to the scheduled lecture. To request an accommodation please notify the event contact.

Lecture Archives

Spring 2024

Yvette Daniels portraitYvette Daniels

Director of University Relations, Georgia Department of Public Health

24th Annual Mary Frances Early Lecture
Feb. 6, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, Mahler Hall

Yvette Daniels serves as director of university relations for the Georgia Department of Public Health. In this role, she leads efforts to establish effective college and university relationships through the promotion of public health programs at the state and local level. Known for her passion for policy, mentorship and relationship-building, Daniels (J.D. ’89) recently completed her term as the 77th president of the University of Georgia Alumni Association Board of Directors in summer 2023. She was the first Black woman president of the organization.

Sponsored by The Graduate School, Mary Frances Early College of Education and the Office of Institutional Diversity
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Frankie Barnes


Kai Chan portraitKai Chan

Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia

Eugene P. Odum Lecture Series in Ecology
Feb. 20, 4 p.m.
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, Room 100

Kai Chan is a sustainability scientist whose work straddles social and natural systems with a focus on values, rewilding and transformative change. A professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Chan leads CHANS lab, where inspiring students study connected human and natural systems. He is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, a former coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Assessment, a lead editor for the new journal People and Nature, a member of Canada’s Clean16 for 2020, a TEDx speaker and co-founder of CoSphere, a Community of Small-Planet Heroes.

Sponsored by the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Allyson Mann


Nicole King portraitNicole King

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and professor of genetics, genomics and development, University of California, Berkeley

Hope T.M. Ritter Lecture in Cellular Biology
March 12, 4 p.m.
Biological Sciences Building, Room 404E

Nicole King is a celebrated biologist and National Academy of Sciences member who studies choanoflagellates to understand the genetic and developmental foundations behind the rise of multicellularity in animals. She received her B.S. in biology from Indiana University and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 2000, she began studying choanoflagellates as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She started her lab at the University of California, Berkeley in 2003, where she is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is interested in gaining mechanistic insights into the origin of animals.

Sponsored by the Department of Cellular Biology
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Julie Stanton


AE Stallings portraitA.E. Stallings

Oxford Professor of Poetry, University of Oxford

Kick-off lecture, University of Georgia Humanities Festival
March 12, 6 p.m.
University Chapel

A.E. Stallings is an American poet who studied classics at UGA and at the University of Oxford, where she now holds the prestigious title of Oxford Professor of Poetry. She has published four collections of poetry: “Archaic Smile,” “Hapax,” “Olives” and most recently, “Like,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has published three verse translations, Lucretius’ “The Nature of Things,” Hesiod’s “Works and Days,” and an illustrated “The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice.” Stallings was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry in June 2023.

Sponsored by the Department of Classics, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the UGA Humanities Council as part of the UGA Humanities Festival
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Dave Marr


Kate Manne headshotKate Manne

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University

Women’s History Month Lecture
March 13, 4:30 p.m.
Miller Learning Center, Room 248

Preeminent feminist philosopher and social critic Kate Manne will present a talk on “The Authority of Hunger,” drawing from her recently published book “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia.” An associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, speaker and author, Manne’s work is primarily in feminist, moral and social philosophy. Her first book, “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny,” came out in 2017. Her second book, “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women,” was released in August 2020. “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia” is her third book. Manne regularly writes opinion pieces, essays and reviews on moral and political topics in venues including The New York Times, The Boston Review, the Huffington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Times Literary Supplement.

Sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Department of Philosophy
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Elise Robinson


J. Michael Kosterlitz headshotJ. Michael Kosterlitz

Harrison E. Farnsworth Professor of Physics, Brown University

Chhabra-Landau Lecture
March 14, 3:55 p.m.
Physics Building, Room 202

Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Cambridge, J. Michael Kosterlitz is the Harrison E. Farnsworth Professor of Physics at Brown University, where his research focuses on theoretical condensed matter physics. In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in using topology to explain phase transitions (now known as Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions) in two-dimensional materials. In 2017 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Sponsored by the Center for Simulational Physics, the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Amberly Tankersley


Christopher Wray portraitChristopher A. Wray

Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability
March 19, 1:30 p.m.
University Chapel

Christopher Wray became the eighth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on August 2, 2017. Prior to his appointment, Wray held several roles in the Department of Justice, including serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, as principal associate deputy attorney general, and as assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Criminal Division, which included counterterrorism investigations at the time. He also spent many years in private practice focusing on government investigations and white-collar crime. He is the recipient of the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the Department of Justice’s highest award for leadership and public service.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Lauren Ledbetter


Eric Betzig headshotEric Betzig

Professor of molecular and cell biology and Eugene D. Commins Presidential Chair in Experimental Physics, University of California, Berkeley

“New Windows Into the Secret Lives of Cells”
March 25, 10:20 a.m.
STEM Research Building II, 1218

Eric Betzig and his colleague Harald Hess built the first super-resolution single molecule localization microscope. For this work, he was a co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A professor of molecular and cell biology, Betzig is also the Eugene D. Commins Presidential Chair in Experimental Physics, a Senior Fellow at the Janelia Research Campus, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Betzig was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

Sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Yohannes Abate


Amanda Murdie headshot

Amanda Murdie and Diana Downs

UGA Regents’ Professors

Charter Lecture
March 27, 11 a.m.
University Chapel

Amanda Murdie is a 2024 Regents’ Professor, Georgia Athletic Association Professor of International Affairs and head of the department of international affairs. Murdie studies international relations, specializing in the behavior of international non-governmental organizations and their interactions with states, local populations and intergovernmental organizations. Most of her work is in the areas of human security, human rights, conflict processes and development. A recent article identified her as one of the top five most productive researchers in the cross-disciplinary field of human rights from 1990 to 2020.

Diana Downs headshotDiana Downs is a 2024 Regents’ Professor and Distinguished Research Professor in the department of microbiology. Downs has made transformative contributions to her field by using genetic analysis to help solve important biochemical mysteries of bacterial life. A key theme of her research is that pulling one thread of metabolism reveals interconnected threads in unexpected ways. Her work has been continually funded for 30 years by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and industry and private foundations. She has published 126 peer-­reviewed papers and has graduated 27 Ph.D. students with five more currently working on their dissertations.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Stacia Fink
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/94899164433?pwd=cjZaWHBNQTByczRXY1F6alFxT3Vadz09


Fereidoon Shahidi headshotFereidoon Shahidi

University Research Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland

J.G. Woodroof Lecture
April 9, 12:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, Mahler Hall

Fereidoon Shahidi is an internationally renowned scholar and a pioneer in nutraceuticals and functional foods. His impressive research portfolio includes discoveries involving lipids, proteins, polyphenols, natural antioxidants and oxidation control in health and disease. Shahidi is the author of more than 1,000 peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters and is the editor or author of 78 books. He is the founder of the International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods and the Nutraceuticals & Functional Foods Division of the Institute of Food Technologists. He is the founding editor-in-chief of several scientific journals including the Journal of Functional Foods.

Sponsored by the Department of Food Science and Technology
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Hannah Kim

Fall 2023

Donna Hyland headshotDonna Hyland

President and Chief Executive Officer, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Sept. 6, 10:20 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries, Room 271

Hyland has played an instrumental role in high-impact projects as CFO, COO, and CEO, including the merger of Egleston and Scottish Rite hospitals, the addition of Hughes Spalding Hospital and Marcus Autism Center and the advancement of the research partnership between Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Under her leadership, Children’s is consistently ranked among the top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. Hyland is also spearheading one of the largest hospital construction projects in the state. The $1.5 billion North Druid Hills campus will include the Arthur M. Blank Hospital, set to open in fall 2024. Hyland’s dedication to pediatric healthcare has led to recognition as one of Georgia’s most influential leaders.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Allison Porter


Mary Sarah Bilder headshotMary Sarah Bilder

Founders Professor of Law, Boston College Law School

Constitution Day at UGA: “The Framing Generation and Female Genius”
Sept. 15, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Bilder is the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College where she teaches in the areas of property, trusts and estates, and American legal and constitutional history. Bilder is the author of three books, numerous journal articles, blogs and op-eds. Bilder’s scholarship and expertise have been featured on the History Channel, C-SPAN, Documentary Group for the Constitution Project and in Annenberg Classroom videos. She was awarded the 2016 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy and the James C. Bradford Prize for Biography from the Society for Historians of the Early Republic.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Lauren Ledbetter


Lynsey Addario headshotLynsey Addario

Award-winning Photojournalist

McGill Lecture: “Of Love & War: Humanity & Resilience on the Front Lines”
Sept. 20, 4 p.m.
Livestream: https://zoom.us/j/99674684368

Addario is an American photojournalist who has been covering conflict, humanitarian crises and women’s issues around the Middle East and Africa on assignment for The New York Times and National Geographic for more than two decades. Addario is the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship. She was part of The New York Times team to win a Pulitzer Prize for overseas reporting out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. She also received the Overseas Press Club’s Olivier Rebbot Award. Addario has been nominated for two Emmy Awards, and she is the 2023 recipient of the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage given by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Sponsored by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
Calendar: Event Listing
Event contact: Diane Murray


Lawrence Hamann headshotLawrence G. Hamann

Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Interdict Bio

Chu Lectureship: “The Arc of Innovation in Small Molecule Drug Discovery: Past, Present & Future”
Oct. 4, 11 a.m.
Pharmacy South, David and Jane Chu Auditorium (Room 101)

Hamann is the co-founder, president, and CEO of Interdict Bio, a new venture-backed biotech company based in San Francisco. Interdict’s powerful, highly innovative therapeutics platform addresses historically undruggable targets in oncology, rare diseases, neurodegeneration and autoimmunity. In his prolific career of more than 30 years in drug discovery, Hamann has led teams responsible for more than 20 clinical stage compounds spanning multiple therapies, modalities and targets. He was awarded the American Chemical Society’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award, and he was inducted into the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame. Hamann earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Michigan.

Sponsored by the College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Dawn Burden


Fred Child headshotFred Child

Host and Senior Editor, Performance Today

“An Old World Instrument for a New World Audience”
Oct. 12, 6:30 p.m.
UGA Performing Arts Center, Ramsey Concert Hall

Child is an Emmy Award-winning classical music media host and personality. He serves as host and senior editor of the most listened-to classical music radio program in America, APM’s “Performance Today.” His two decades as host have seen the program grow in popularity and listenership, as well as in creative scope. He is also a commentator and announcer for “Live from Lincoln Center” on PBS. In addition, he hosts musical events on stages across the country and around the world, enlightening and inspiring classical music audiences of all ages and backgrounds. His wife is composer Wang Jie, and they make their musical home in New York City with a musical Sealyham Terrier named Pilot.

Sponsored by the UGA Performing Arts Center
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Mark Mobley


Abra Lee portraitAbra Lee

Horticulturist and Author

Johnstone Lecture: “The Invincible Garden Ladies”
Oct. 24, 6:30 p.m.
State Botanical Garden of Georgia, Conservatory, Great Room

Lee is a storyteller and author of the forthcoming book “Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country’s Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers.” She has enjoyed a lengthy and successful career as a municipal arborist and airport landscape manager. Her work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Fine Gardening and Veranda Magazine. Lee is a graduate of the Auburn University College of Agriculture and an alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals. In January 2023, she joined Oakland Cemetery, a revered garden cemetery and vibrant park located in downtown Atlanta, as director of horticulture.

Sponsored by the State Botanical Garden of Georgia
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Ellie Lancaster


Gene Dodaro headshotGene L. Dodaro

Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office

Ethics Week Lecture
Oct. 31, 10:30 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Dodaro became the eighth Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2010, when he was confirmed by the United States Senate. He was nominated by President Obama from a list of candidates selected by a bipartisan, bicameral congressional commission. He had been serving as Acting Comptroller General since 2008. Dodaro has testified before Congress dozens of times on important national issues, including the nation’s long term fiscal outlook, efforts to reduce and eliminate overlap and duplication across the federal government and GAO’s “High Risk List” that focuses on specific challenges—from reducing improper payments under Medicare and Medicaid to improving the Pentagon’s business practices. In addition, Dodaro continues to develop GAO’s efforts to meet the needs of Congress in such areas as science, technology and cybersecurity. As Comptroller General, Dodaro helps oversee the development and issuance of hundreds of reports and testimonies each year to various committees and individual Members of Congress.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Will Richardson


Percival Everett headshotPercival Everett

Author and Distinguished Professor of English, University of Southern California

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame: “An Evening with Percival Everett”
Nov. 2, 6 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries

Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, Everett received his MFA from Brown University. He is the recipient of the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Hurston / Wright Legacy Award and the 2006 PEN USA Center Award for Fiction.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Leandra Nessel


Rebecca VanDiver portraitRebecca VanDiver

Associate Professor of African and African American Art, Vanderbilt University

Holbrook Memorial Lecture: “Making the Southern Modern”
Nov. 9, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art, M. Smith Griffith Auditorium

VanDiver is an associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University. With a scholarly background rooted in the disciplines of art history and Black studies, VanDiver is particularly interested in Black women artists in the 20th century. Her talk will focus on the American South’s contribution to twentieth-century modernism, which developed through various styles, themes, and artists, and especially emerged around key sites of artistic instruction such as the University of Georgia and the vanguard programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the region. This program is presented in concert with the exhibition “Southern / Modern,” and will feature a panel discussion including VanDiver; Shawnya Harris, Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art at the Georgia Museum of Art; and Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, George Putnam Curator of American Art at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Callan Steinmann


Colson Whitehead portraitColson Whitehead

Pulitzer Prize-winning Author

Phinizy Lecture: “Reading and Conversation”
Nov. 15, 5:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Whitehead is the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 11 books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys.” His reviews, essays and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Granta and many other publications. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Award, the Carnegie Medal for Fiction and numerous other honors. Whitehead’s latest novel is “Crook Manifesto,” the second in his Harlem Trilogy. It was published in July 2023.

Sponsored by the Department of History and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Dave Marr


Edward Buckler headshotEdward S. Buckler

Research Geneticist, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and Adjunct Professor in Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University

D.W. Brooks Lecture Series and Faculty Awards for Excellence: “Advancing Agriculture: Leveraging Quantitative Genetics and Genomics to Improve Efficiency and Reduce Emissions”
Nov. 16, 3:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, Mahler Hall

Buckler is a USDA-ARS research geneticist and adjunct professor in plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University with an educational background in molecular evolution and archaeology. His group’s research uses genomic, computational and field approaches to dissect complex traits and accelerate breeding in maize, sorghum, cassava and a wide range of other crops. Having applied these technologies to over 2000 species, the Buckler group now is exploring ways to re-engineer global agricultural production systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensure food security, improve nutrition and respond to climate change. With the USDA-ARS, he leads a program to promote the adoption of informatics and genomics tools by plant and animal breeding programs. For his contributions to quantitative genetics and genomics, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014 and in 2017 received the inaugural NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Calendar: Event listing
Event contact: Maggie Wooten Brown

Spring 2023

Joe Lawrence headshotJoe Lawrence

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Porsche Cars North America Inc.

Terry Innovation Speaker Series
Jan. 30, 10:20 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Joe Lawrence is the executive vice president and chief operating officer for Porsche Cars North America Inc. headquartered in Atlanta. In these roles, Lawrence is responsible for sales and dealer network development in the United States and oversees the company’s field operations and the Porsche Academy. Lawrence assumed his current role in August 2013 after serving as president and CEO of Porsche Cars Canada Ltd. for four years. Previously, he worked for 15 years at BMW in the United States, Germany and Canada. Lawrence holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Southern Methodist University and an MBA from Emory University.

Sponsored by Terry College of Business
Event contact: Amelie Gregory


Verda Colvin portraitVerda M. Colvin

Georgia Supreme Court Justice

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
Feb. 28, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Justice Verda M. Colvin was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2021 by Gov. Brian Kemp. She is the first African American woman appointed by a Republican governor to the state’s high court. Previously, she served on the Court of Appeals, having been appointed by Gov. Kemp in April 2020. Her time as judge also includes nearly six years as a Superior Court judge in the Macon Judicial Circuit, during which she served on the Council of Accountability Court Judges. Justice Colvin discovered her love for trial work early in her career as an assistant solicitor in Athens-Clarke County. From there, she went on to serve as assistant general counsel to Clark Atlanta University and then as assistant district attorney in Clayton County. Before becoming a judge, Justice Colvin was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Georgia, where she prosecuted a wide range of offenses from drug trafficking to white collar crime. Born and raised in Atlanta, Justice Colvin attended Daniel McLaughlin Therrell High School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in government and religion from Sweet Briar College in Virginia and her juris doctorate from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Sponsored by the Office of the President
Event contact: Alton Standifer


Malinda Lowery portraitMalinda Maynor Lowery

Cahoon Family Professor of American History, Emory University

Women’s History Month Keynote Address
“Stories of Lumbee Women”

March 21, 4 p.m.
Special Collections Libraries Room 271

Malinda Maynor Lowery is the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University. She is a historian, scholar and documentary film producer who is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She has written two books, over 20 book chapters or articles and has published essays for popular audiences in places such as The New York Times. Films she has produced include the Peabody Award-winning “A Chef’s Life” (PBS, 2013-2018), the Emmy-nominated “Private Violence” (HBO, 2014) and two short films, “Real Indian” (1996) and “Sounds of Faith” (1997), both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies and part of the UGA Humanities Festival
Event contact: Patricia Richards


Kaywin Feldman portraitKaywin Feldman

American archaeologist and director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

“Building a National Collection in a Changing Nation”
March 21, 6:30 p.m.
M. Smith Griffin Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Kaywin Feldman is director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the National Gallery in March 2019, Feldman led the Minneapolis Institute of Art as its Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and president from 2008 to 2019 and directed the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art from 1999 to 2007. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Terra Foundation for American Art and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the White House Historical Association and the Chipstone Foundation. She is a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and past chair of the American Alliance of Museums. She lectures and publishes widely on many aspects of museums in the 21st century. In 2021 Forbes magazine listed Feldman as one of the “50 Over 50” most visionary women making an impact on society.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art, the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts as part of the UGA Humanities Festival and the Willson Center’s Global Georgia public events series
Event contact: Callan Steinmann


Carola Hein portraitCarola Hein

Professor of History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Technical University Delft, Netherlands

HGOR Lecture: “Valuing Water, Culture, and Heritage”
March 27, 4:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Carola Hein is a Professor of History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Technical University Delft in the Netherlands. She is also founder and director of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus PortCityFutures program, and is a Professor of Water, Ports, and Historic Cities with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University and the Erasmus University Rotterdam’s School of History, Culture and Communication. Since early 2022, Hein holds the newly established UNESCO Chair for Water, Ports and Historic Cities.

Sponsored by the College of Environment & Design; the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts; and the Coasts, Climates, the Humanities, and the Environment Consortium (CCHEC), funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation
Event contact: Sonia Hirt


Marcy Carsey portraitMarcy Carsey

Peabody Award- and Emmy Award-winning television producer

Peabody-Smithgall Lecture: “A Conversation with Marcy Carsey”
March 29, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Marcy Carsey has produced some of television’s most iconic programs including “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World,” “Roseanne,” “Grace Under Fire,” “3rd Rock from the Sun,” and “That ’70s Show.” Carsey began her career as an NBC tour guide, working up to “The Tonight Show” before moving to ABC as a programming executive. Best known as co-head of the famed Carsey-Werner Productions, Carsey has produced works that have shaped our understanding of the nuclear family across the last 40 years. She is currently working on “That ’90s Show” for Netflix and has served on the Peabody Board of Jurors since 2016.

Sponsored by the Peabody Awards, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Institute for Women’s Studies
Event contact: Maggie Stephens


Ivette Perfecto portraitIvette Perfecto

George W. Pack Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan

37th Annual Eugene P. Odum Distinguished Lecture: “Food Systems at a Crossroads: Producing Food and Conserving our Planet”
April 4, 4 p.m.
Ecology Auditorium (Room 201)

Ivette Perfecto is the George W. Pack Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan and is a 2022 electee to the National Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on biodiversity and ecosystem services in rural and urban agriculture, especially in Latin and North America. She also works on spatial ecology of the coffee agroecosystem and is interested more broadly in the links between small-scale sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and food security. She is co-author of four books — “Breakfast of Biodiversity”; “Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty”; “Coffee Agroecology”; and “Ecological Complexity and Agroecology.”

Sponsored by the Odum School of Ecology
Event contact: Sonia Altizer


Qijing Zhang headshotQijing Zhang

Clarence Hartley Covault Distinguished Professor in veterinary medicine, Iowa State University

“Antibiotic Resistance: A View Through the One Health Lens”
April 24, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Qijing Zhang has been a faculty member in Iowa State’s Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventative Medicine since 2003 and has also served on the faculty at The Ohio State University. In 2022, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Zhang is a renowned microbiologist and an expert in areas related to antibiotic resistance development, persistence, transmission from animal reservoirs to humans and mitigation strategies.

Sponsored by the College of Veterinary Medicine
Event contact: Fred Quinn


Garnett Stokes portraitGarnett S. Stokes

President of the University of New Mexico

Louise McBee Lecture in Higher Education
May 1, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Garnett S. Stokes is the 23rd president of the University of New Mexico and the first woman to hold the post in the flagship university’s 134-year history. UNM is notably distinctive among flagship R1 institutions due to its status as a Hispanic- and minority-serving institution with New Mexico’s only academic medical center situated in a state with a rich cultural heritage and highly diverse population. Under Stokes’ leadership, UNM has received the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification and has pursued a transformative mission to stimulate innovation, promote excellence, celebrate diversity and ensure New Mexico’s economic prosperity.

Sponsored by the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education
Event contact: Suzanne Graham

Fall 2022

Sanford Levinson headshotSanford V. Levinson

W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas School of Law

Constitution Day at UGA: “Reflections of a Would-be Framer”
Sept. 16, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Levinson is a celebrated legal scholar known for his writings on constitutional law. Levinson is the author of approximately 400 articles, book reviews and commentaries in professional and popular journals and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written six books and edited or co-edited nine others, including a leading constitutional law casebook. Levinson received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.

Sponsored by the School of Public & International Affairs, Department of Political Science, American Founding Group, School of Law, Jack Miller Center


Kristin Leachman portraitKristin Leachman

Contemporary American artist

“Longleaf Lines and the Fifty Forests Project”
Sept. 22, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art, M. Smith Griffith Auditorium

Leachman’s paintings are noted for repositioning abstraction, figuration and geometry, making seamless connections between the subliminal and sublime. Her current project, “Fifty Forests,” explores both pattern and symbolism in the growth formations of trees throughout America’s 50 states. Leachman designed “Senzeni Na?” (“What Have We Done?”), an Academy Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Film in 1990. Her work is featured in the collection of the National Gallery of Art and an oral history interview with Leachman is included in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art


Valerie Boyd portraitRosalind Bentley, Karen Good Marable, Latria Graham, Tayari Jones, and Shay Youngblood

Writers who collaborated with noted author Valerie Boyd

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame: Valerie Boyd Tribute
Sept. 22, 6 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building, Special Collections Library, Room 285

Atlanta native Valerie Boyd was a writer, teacher, editor, and acclaimed biographer of Zora Neale Hurston. Her 2003 book, “Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston,” was celebrated as “the definitive Hurston biography for many years to come.” The book won the Southern Book Award for best nonfiction of the year, and Boyd was named Georgia Author of the Year in nonfiction. Her final books, “Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker” and “Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic,” will be posthumously published in 2022. This panel discussion will feature writers who contributed to “Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic.”

Sponsored by UGA Libraries, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, UGA Press


Shan Cooper portraitShan Cooper

Founder and CEO, Journey Forward Strategies, LLC

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Oct. 5, 10:20 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Cooper’s work focuses on the intersection of business and people strategies. Her company, Journey Forward Strategies, is a consulting firm specializing in leadership development and organization effectiveness. She has received numerous honors, including the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Women of Influence Lifetime Achievement Award, Georgia Trend Magazine’s Most Respected Business Leader Award, and the American Association of University Women’s Woman of the Year Award. In addition, she has been named one of Georgia Trend’s 100 Most Influential Georgians and one of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Power 100” multiple times. She was named one of Black Enterprise Magazine’s Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America in 2017.

Sponsored by a grant from Keith Mason. Part of the Terry Leadership Speaker Series presented by the Institute for Leadership Advancement.


Scott Hershovitz headshotScott A. Hershovitz

Thomas G. and Mabel Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan

“Nasty, Brutish and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids”
Nov. 3, 4 p.m.
Peabody Hall, Room 115

Hershovitz is director of the Law and Ethics Program and professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan. He is the author of “Nasty, Brutish and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids,” an NPR Best Book of 2022. The book uses deft storytelling and a sharp wit to show what philosophy is; why kids are the best philosophers of all; and how they can teach us to puzzle through revenge, rights, consciousness, the size of the universe and other daunting mysteries most grown-ups learn to ignore.

Sponsored by the department of philosophy, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and the Jere W. Morehead Honors College


Andrew Aydin headshotAndrew Aydin and Nate Powell

Co-author and illustrator of John Lewis’s March trilogy

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame: John Lewis Tribute Discussion moderated by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Nate Powell portraitNov. 3, 6 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building, Special Collections Library, Room 285

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis joined the Civil Rights Movement and became one of the founding figures of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while attending Fisk University. With SNCC, Lewis led and participated in peaceful protests against segregation, including sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and Freedom Rides on buses crossing state lines in the South during the early 1960s. Lewis’ activism continued in Congress, where he represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for over 30 years. Hoping to reach a new generation, Lewis wrote a graphic novel series alongside Andrew Aydin with illustrations by Nate Powell. Aimed at young adults, the series March detailed his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. The series garnered critical acclaim, with the final installment receiving the National Book Award in 2016 and a Coretta Scott King Book Award in 2017.

Sponsored by UGA Libraries, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library


Alison Van Eenennaam headshotAlison Van Eenennaam

Professor of Cooperative Extension, Animal Genomics and Biotechnology, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis

2022 D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards: “Science Friction: Can effective communication save genome editing from the fate of GMOs?”
Nov. 8, 3:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

A professor of cooperative extension in animal genomics and biotechnology at the University of California, Davis for 20 years, Van Eenennaam’s current research projects include the development of genome editing approaches for cattle. She has given over 700 invited presentations globally and uses a variety of media to inform audiences about science and technology. A passionate advocate of science, Van Eenennaam received the 2014 Council for Agricultural Science and Technology Borlaug Communication Award and the 2019 American Society of Animal Science Rockefeller Prentice Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences


Cassandra Quave headshotCassandra Quave

Curator of the Herbarium and Associate Professor of Dermatology and Human Health, Emory University

Johnstone Lecture: “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines”
Nov. 9, 6:30 p.m.
State Botanical Garden of Georgia, Conservatory Great Room

Quave leads anti-infective drug discovery research initiatives and teaches courses on medicinal plants, microbiology, and pharmacology. As a medical ethnobotanist, her work focuses on the documentation and pharmacological evaluation of plants used in traditional medicine. Quave’s research is supported by the NIH, industry contracts, and philanthropy. She is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, a past President of the Society for Economic Botany, a recipient of the Emory Williams Teaching Award, and Charles Heiser, Jr. Mentor Award.

Sponsored by the State Botanical Garden of Georgia


Tristan Leavitt headshotTristan Leavitt

Attorney and member of the Merit Systems Protection Board

Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability
Nov. 9, 2 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building, Special Collections Libraries Auditorium, Room 271

An attorney and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Leavitt previously served as MSPB’s general counsel and as the agency’s acting chief executive and administrative officer. Before his roles with MSPB, Leavitt served at the Office of Special Counsel as the principal deputy special counsel, including time as acting special counsel. He also served on Capitol Hill, conducting congressional investigations of government waste, fraud, and abuse and handling various transparency and accountability legislative issues.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs’ Department of Public Administration & Policy


Stephen Klippenstein headshotStephen Klippenstein

Argonne National Laboratory Distinguished Fellow

Coulson Lecture: “Combustion in a Sustainable World: From Molecules to Processes”
Nov. 16, 11:30 a.m.
Interdisciplinary STEM Research Complex, Building 2, Room 1023

Stephen Klippenstein’s cutting-edge, computational chemistry research has significantly impacted a wide range of fields, including sustainable energy, combustion, interstellar chemistry and atmospheric chemistry. He has earned numerous prestigious honors including the Spiers Memorial Lecturer from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Polanyi Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Zeldovich Gold Medal from the Combustion Institute. Klippenstein received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in from the California Institute of Technology, where he conducted theoretical studies of chemical reaction dynamics with Nobel Prize recipient R. A. Marcus.

Sponsored by the department of chemistry and the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry

Spring 2022

Arthur Tress headshotArthur Tress

Photographer

Zoom Artist Talk: Arthur Tress and Appalachia
January 26, 2 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

During five years of world travel, mostly in Asia and Africa, Tress developed an interest in ethnographical photography that eventually led him to his first professional assignment as a U.S. government photographer recording the endangered folk cultures of Appalachia. In 1968, Volunteers in Service to America commissioned him to document the endangered folkways of Appalachia. The ravaged landscape of this region spurred an environmental awareness in his work, including a series on resource extraction and the human costs of pollution. The exhibition “Inside Look: Selected Acquisitions from the Georgia Museum of Art,” features a selection of Tress’s Appalachia photographs.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art


Alice Hill headshotAlice Hill

David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment, Council on Foreign Relations

CITS Global Decisions Series: “The Role of Climate Resilience in International Security”
January 26, 5:30 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

Hill’s work at CFR focuses on the risks, consequences and responses associated with climate change. She previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, where she led the development of national policy to build resilience to catastrophic risks, including climate change and biological threats. Her co-authored book, “Building a Resilient Tomorrow,” was published in 2019. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis. Hill’s new book, “The Fight for Climate After COVID-19,” was published in September 2021.

Sponsored by the Center for International Trade and Security (CITS) and the School of Public and International Affairs


Marilyn Holmes headshotMarilyn Holmes

Retired educator and wife of the late Hamilton Holmes, Sr.

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
February 1, 2 p.m.
Livestream

Holmes is a long-time friend and supporter of the University of Georgia who has helped open doors for students and has made the UGA campus more inclusive through her advocacy and generosity. She is the widow of the late Hamilton Holmes, Sr., one of the first two students to integrate UGA. After a 16-year career in teaching, she retired in 2003. Since then, she has volunteered as a reading tutor in Atlanta Public Schools and Quality Living Services Senior Center. She is a former member of the board of the Atlanta History Center and past Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Speech School.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Arthur Blank headshotArthur Blank

Owner and Chairman, Blank Family of Businesses

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
February 16, 11:30 a.m.
Chapel

Perhaps best known as co-founder of The Home Depot, Blank is now widely recognized for his diverse businesses. In addition to the Blank Family Foundation, Blank’s Family of Businesses includes the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United; the nationwide PGA TOUR Superstore; three ranches in Montana; and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which hosted the 2019 Super Bowl and is home to the Falcons and Atlanta United. Named by ESPN as the 2021 Sports Philanthropist of the Year, Blank is a tireless advocate of using purpose and profit hand-in-hand to benefit the communities around him.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement and the Terry College of Business


Diana Mutz portraitDiana Mutz

Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication and Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, University of Pennsylvania

George S. Parthemos Lecture: “The Influence of Black Lives Matter on the 2020 Election”
February 17, 3:30 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

A Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Mutz conducts research on public opinion, political psychology and mass political behavior, with a particular emphasis on political communication. She is the author of numerous books, including “Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes,” “Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy,” and “In-Your-Face Politics: The Consequences of Uncivil Media.” Her latest book, published in 2021, is “Winners and Losers: The Psychology of Foreign Trade.”

Sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the School of Public and International Affairs


Robert Jones headshotRobert J. Jones

Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

22nd Annual Mary Frances Early Lecture
February 22, 3 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

Jones has served as chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2016. He previously served as president of the University at Albany, State University of New York and is an experienced and accomplished scientist and research university leader. A Georgia native, Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from UGA, and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Under his leadership, Illinois has launched a $2.25 billion philanthropic campaign, created The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and hired an inaugural vice chancellor for diversity, education and inclusion.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, the Mary Frances Early College of Education, and the Office of Institutional Diversity


Kelly Senecal headshotKelly Senecal

Co-founder and Vice President, Convergent Science Visiting Professor, University of Oxford

“Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green”
February 25, 12:40 p.m.
Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, Auditorium (Room 175)

Senecal has long been an advocate of creating cleaner propulsion systems, with a particular focus on computer modeling to enable faster design. In 1997, he co-founded Convergent Science, a global leader in computational fluid dynamics software. Its customers include leading automotive and commercial vehicle manufacturers, tier one suppliers and professional motorsport teams. Starting with his TEDx talk in 2016, he has been promoting a diverse mix of transportation technologies through invited talks, articles and social media. He is co-author of the book “Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green.” A visiting professor at the University of Oxford, Senecal is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers.

Sponsored by the College of Engineering


Diane Davis headshotDiane Davis

Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

HGOR Lecture Series: “Designing and Planning Cities to Foster Inclusion”
March 29, 4:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Davis is an internationally known sociologist whose research interests include the relations between urbanization and national development, comparative urban governance, socio-spatial practice in conflict cities, urban violence and new territorial manifestations of sovereignty. Her books include “Transforming Urban Transport,” “Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Conflicts in the Urban Realm,” “Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America,” “Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation,” and “Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century.”

Sponsored by the College of Environment and Design and the Department of Sociology


John Drake headshotJohn Drake & Claudio Saunt

2021-2022 Regents’ Professors

Charter Lecture Series
April 11, 1 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

Drake is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Odum School of Ecology and founding director of the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases. His research combines evolutionary biology, ecology and epidemiology to develop new quantitative methods that reconcile theory and data, with applications for forecasting the trajectories of epidemics and mapping the distributions of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola and West Nile virus.

Claudio Saunt headshotSaunt is a Distinguished Research Professor and Richard B. Russell Professor of American History in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He is widely recognized as one of nation’s foremost scholars of Native American history and a pioneer in the field of digital history. He is the author of four books, including his most recent, “Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory,” that have been received with widespread acclaim, both within and beyond the scholarly community.

Both Drake and Saunt were named Regents’ Professors this year, an honor bestowed by the board of regents on distinguished faculty whose scholarship or creative activity is recognized both nationally and internationally as innovative and pace-setting.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Jahan Ramazani headshotJahan Ramazani

University Professor and Edgar F. Shannon Professor, University of Virginia

Provost’s Seminar Series: “A Life in Poetry”
April 13, 2 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

Ramazani specializes in modern and contemporary Irish, British, American, Caribbean American, and African poetry. His books include “The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English” and “Poetry in a Global Age.” He is the editor of numerous books and special journal issues including “The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry” and “The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry.” In his latest book, “Poetry in a Global Age,” Ramazani discusses modern and contemporary poems in light of current debates over ecocriticism, translation studies, tourism, and cultural geography.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Natasha Trethewey headshotNatasha Trethewey

Board of Trustees Professor of English, Northwestern University

Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding
April 21, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Trethewey has published five books of poetry, including “Monument: Poems New and Selected” and “Native Guard,” for which she was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. She is also the author of “Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast” and “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir,” a New York Times bestseller. She was named the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States in 2012 and selected for a second term a year later. Her many honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Trethewey earned her bachelor’s degree in English at UGA and also holds a master’s degree from Hollins College and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the Institute for African American Studies, and the Department of English


Anne Molloy headshotAnne Molloy

Emeritus Professor, Trinity College Dublin School of Medicine

Lynn Bailey Lectureship: “Folic Acid—Key to Birth Defect Prevention Globally”
April 27, 11:30 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building, Room 271

Molloy directs the Vitamin Research Laboratory at Trinity College Dublin and has more than 30 years of experience researching the molecular, nutritional and genomic factors that influence folate and related micronutrient functions within the body. Her research accomplishments have established her as a global expert in the area of folic acid in the prevention of neural tube defects and other birth defects. She is an expert scientific advisor and serves on committees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization that determine maternal public health polices domestically and worldwide.

Sponsored by D.W. Brooks Distinguished Professor Emeritus William Flatt

Fall 2021

Annette Gordon-Reed headshotAnnette Gordon-Reed

Carl M. Loeb University Professor of History, Harvard University

Constitution Day: “On Juneteenth: History, Memory, the Present and the Future”
September 17, 11:30 a.m.
Zoom Webinar

Gordon-Reed is a distinguished professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” and “On Juneteenth.” She has received numerous honors, including the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Award, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, the George Washington Book Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Her lecture is part of Constitution Day, an annual celebration of the day that representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed and signed the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

Co-sponsored by the American Founding Group, The Gable Fund of the Department of History, Jack Miller Center, Office of Institutional Diversity, President’s Venture Fund, School of Law, School of Public and International Affairs, and Willson Center for Humanities and Arts


Mary Frances Early headshotMary Frances Early

First Black graduate of UGA and pioneering music educator

Book Launch: “The Quiet Trailblazer: My Journey as the First Black Graduate of the University of Georgia”
September 28, 2:00 p.m.
Livestream

Early made history on August 16, 1962, when she became the first Black graduate from UGA. She earned a master’s degree in music education, later returning to UGA to earn a specialist in education degree in 1967. Early is a civil rights icon and pioneering music educator who inspired and influenced generations of students, schools and Black communities. She played an integral role in the campaign for racial equality at UGA and across the South and remains a tireless advocate in the field of education. On February 25, 2020, the University celebrated the naming of the College of Education in honor of Early. She recently wrote her autobiography, “The Quiet Trailblazer: My Journey as the First Black Graduate of the University of Georgia,” published by the Mary Frances Early College of Education and the UGA Libraries and distributed by the UGA Press.

Co-sponsored by the Mary Frances Early College of Education, UGA Libraries, Office of Alumni Relations, and the Office of the President. Part of the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Desegregation of UGA.


Raphael Bostic headshotRaphael W. Bostic

President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
October 6, 11:30 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Bostic serves as the 15th president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He is responsible for all the institution’s activities, including monetary policy, bank supervision and regulation, and payment services. Bostic previously held the Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at the University of Southern California. Bostic has also served on many boards and advisory committees, including the California Community Reinvestment Corporation, Abode Communities, NeighborWorks, the National Community Stabilization Trust, the Urban Land Institute, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, the National Economic Association and Freddie Mac.

Sponsored by a grant from Keith Mason. Part of the Terry Leadership Speaker Series presented by the Institute for Leadership Advancement.


Martin Moore headshotMartin Moore

CEO, Meissa Vaccines

“Vaccine Biotech: A Journey from South Georgia to Virology to Silicon Valley”
October 22, 11:00 a.m.
Innovation Hub, Room 100

Moore is co-founder and CEO of Meissa Vaccines, a private, clinical-stage, venture-backed biotech company focused on the advancement of vaccines for respiratory viruses. Meissa is currently in clinical trials with two vaccines, one against RSV and one against COVID-19. Moore previously served as an associate professor and director of the Center for Childhood Infections and Vaccines at Emory University. He led the development of the RSV vaccine using a synthetic biology technology, recognized as Emory’s innovation of the year in 2013. Moore holds a B.S. in biology and a Ph.D. in genetics from UGA.

Co-sponsored by the Office of Research and Innovation Gateway


Ismahane Elouafi headshotIsmahane Elouafi

Chief Scientist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

D.W. Brooks Lecture: “How Science, Technology and Innovation Can Accelerate the Transformation of Our Agri-Food Systems”
November 2, 3:30 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

Elouafi is the UN FAO’s first chief scientist, a new position created within the organization’s core leadership structure. With nearly two decades of experience in agricultural research and development in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, she is internationally known for promoting underutilized crops, using non-fresh water in agriculture and empowering women in science. Elouafi previously held the position of director general at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, where she led the development and implementation of long-term strategy. She has received numerous awards, including the National Reward Medal by His Majesty Mohamed VI, the King of Morocco, and the Excellence in Science Award from the Global Thinkers Forum.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Mark Lee Greenblatt headshotThe Honorable Mark Lee Greenblatt

Inspector General, U.S. Department of the Interior

Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability: “If You Want a Friend, Get a Dog: Oversight in the Age of Twitter”
November 8, 1:30 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium, Room 271

Greenblatt leads a nationwide workforce of more than 270 investigators, auditors, evaluators, attorneys and support staff. As the senior official, Greenblatt oversees more than 70,000 U.S. Department of the Interior employees, assesses over $20 billion in grants and contracts, and conducts complex administrative and criminal investigations. He also serves as the vice chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, leading the inspector general community’s mission to combat fraud, waste and mismanagement. Greenblatt is the author of “Valor: Unsung Heroes From Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front.”

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Public Administration and Policy. Part of the 2021 Ethics Awareness Week


Joan Gabel headshotJoan T.A. Gabel

President, University of Minnesota

Louise McBee Lecture in Higher Education: “Fulfilling Higher Education’s Social Contract and Value Proposition”
November 16, 11:00 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Gabel serves as president of the University of Minnesota, where under her leadership the University established its first systemwide strategic plan, surpassed $1 billion in annual research expenditures, achieved record-setting private giving, and advanced transformational partnerships, including NXT GEN MED, the ground-breaking partnership between the university, the Mayo Clinic and Google. Gabel previously served as the University of South Carolina’s executive vice president and provost, and as business dean at the University of Missouri. She was recognized as a shining star by The Wall Street Journal. She is also a Fulbright Scholar and a proud 1993 alumna of the UGA Law School.

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education


Adam Gopnik headshotAdam Gopnik

Writer, The New Yorker

HGOR Lecture: “Catching The Bullet: What I’ve Learned About Art, Science, and the Foxtrot”
November 17, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Gopnik is a writer for The New Yorker and the author of several notable books. He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism three times, the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. Gopnik’s work has been anthologized many times, in “Best American Essays,” “Best American Travel Writing,” “Best American Sports Writing,” “Best American Food Writing” and “Best American Spiritual Writing.” He was awarded the Legion d’honneur by the French President in 2021.

A book signing will follow the lecture, with three of his published works available for purchase: “A Thousand Small Sanities,” “The Table Comes First” and “At the Stranger’s Gate.”

Co-sponsored by the College of Environment and Design, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Part of the 2021 Spotlight on the Arts Festival.


Jennifer Crandall headshotJennifer Crandall

Artist, journalist and filmmaker

Panel Discussion: Perspectives on “Whitman, Alabama”
November 18, 4:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

Crandall is a journalist, photographer and filmmaker whose work explores themes of identity and connection. Her work combines art and poetry to tell the story of what it means to be American. Crandall is the creator of the Emmy-nominated Washington Post series, onBeing, and the Emmy-nominated documentary project “Whitman, Alabama,” now on view at the Georgia Museum of Art. She has received numerous awards, including the Knight-Batten Special Distinction Award for Innovation, an Online News Association Award for Innovation, awards from the White House News Photographers Association and recognition from the American Film Institute.

Co-sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Part of the 2021 Spotlight on the Arts Festival.

Spring 2021

Nikki Giovanni headshotNikki Giovanni

University Distinguished Professor, Virginia Tech

21st Annual Mary Frances Early Lecture
February 2, 3 p.m.
YouTube Livestream

Giovanni’s poems first emerged from the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, and she immediately took her place among the most renowned poets of the era. She has focused her work on raising awareness of social issues, particularly those of gender and race. Giovanni has published over two dozen volumes of poetry, essays, and edited anthologies, as well as 11 illustrated children’s books, including “Rosa,” an award-winning biography of Rosa Parks. She is the recipient of an NAACP Image Award, the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry, and the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award. She has been named woman of the year by Mademoiselle, Ladies Home Journal, and Ebony. Oprah has called her one of the twenty-five living legends.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, Office of Institutional Diversity, Mary Frances Early College of Education, and the Graduate and Professional Scholars


Neil Shubin headshotNeil Shubin

Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Anatomy, University of Chicago

George H. Boyd Distinguished Lecture: “Finding Your Inner Fish: From Expeditions to Enhancers”
February 3, 4 p.m.
Zoom

Shubin is an award-winning paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and science writer. He has developed expeditionary research programs in Canada, Africa, the continental United States, Asia and Greenland over the past 15 years. These research expeditions have led to new insights on the origin of major groups of vertebrates. His research team is also known for the discovery of the Tiktaalik roseae, an ancient fish that lived at the cusp of the transition to land 375 million years ago. Shubin is the author of three books, including “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.” He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sponsored by the Office of Research, Department of Genetics and Department of Cellular Biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and the Developmental Biology Alliance


Calvin Trillin and Charlayne Hunter-Gault headshotCalvin Trillin

Author and Journalist

Discussion with Charlayne Hunter-Gault: “An Education in Georgia: Then and Now”
February 4, 4 p.m.
Zoom

Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist. He has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1963 and is the author of 31 books. Trillin is the author of “An Education in Georgia: Charlayne Hunter, Hamilton Holmes, and the Integration of the University of Georgia.” While working at Time magazine, Trillin covered the entrance of Hunter-Gault and Holmes into the University of Georgia in 1961. He will lead a conversation with alumna Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the University’s first two African American students, who has received numerous awards for her work in print and broadcast journalism. Her awards include two National News and Documentary Emmy Awards as well as two Peabody Awards. The conversation will be moderated by Valerie Boyd, Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence and associate professor of journalism at UGA.

Sponsored by the UGA Press, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Mary Frances Early College of Education, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia


Harold Alona Black headshotHarold Alona Black

Professor Emeritus, University of Tennessee

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
February 9, 9:30 a.m.
Zoom

Black has published over 100 papers in leading academic journals and lectures extensively in the areas of financial institutions and the monetary system. He has served as consultant to companies including SunTrust Bank, Chrysler Financial Corporation, National Bank of Commerce and the Mortgage Bankers of America. Black has received numerous awards, including the Department of Treasury’s Special Achievement Award and the National Credit Union Administration’s Exceptional Service Award. He was cited by the National Association of Federal Credit Unions as one of the 50 most influential figures in credit union history. Black is the University of Georgia’s first black male freshman and in 1966 became the first African American graduate of the Terry College of Business. He is also the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Terry College.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement in the Terry College of Business


Henry Louis Gates, Jr. portraitHenry Louis Gates, Jr.

Peabody Award-Winning Historian and Harvard University Professor

Holmes-Hunter Lecture Series
February 23, 2 p.m.
Zoom

Gates has authored or co-authored 25 books and created 23 documentary films, including “Wonders of the African World,” “Black in Latin America” and “Black America since MLK: And Still I Rise.” His 2013 TV documentaries “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” won an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and his genealogy series “Finding Your Roots” is now in its seventh season on PBS. His newest project, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,” comprises a film series and a companion book that features Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Dr. Gates and Hunter-Gault collaborate each summer on the Hutchins Forum on Martha’s Vineyard, examining contemporary issues on race and social justice from a variety of viewpoints.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Joy Harjo and LeAnne Howe headshotJoy Harjo and LeAnne Howe

U.S. Poet Laureate, Renowned Performer and Writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation

Eidson Distinguished Professor in American Literature, University of Georgia, Member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

“Reading and Conversation: Joy Harjo and LeAnne Howe”
March 10, 4 p.m.
Zoom

Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She was recently appointed to a third term as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Harjo is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She also holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Harjo is the author of nine books, including “An American Sunrise,” “Crazy Brave,” and “Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice.” Harjo has received numerous awards and honors, including the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, two NEA fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Howe’s work connects literature, Indigenous knowledge, Native histories, and expressive cultures. She is co-producer and writer for a new film documentary, “Searching for Sequoyah,” about the life and disappearance of Sequoyah, creator of the Cherokee syllabary in 1841. She received a U.S. Artists Ford Fellowship, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, American Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award and was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar to Jordan.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Institute of Native American Studies


Justice Goodwin H. Liu headshotJustice Goodwin H. Liu

California Supreme Court

119th John A. Sibley Lecture: “Who’s Going to Law School? Trends in Law School Enrollment Since the Great Recession.”
March 30, 3 p.m.
Zoom

Liu joined the California Supreme Court in 2011 as associate justice. He was previously an associate dean and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Liu specializes in constitutional law, education law and policy, and diversity in the legal profession. He currently holds visiting professorships at both Harvard and Stanford universities, where he teaches constitutional law. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford, a master’s degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from Yale University. Liu served as judicial clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel. He also worked as special assistant to the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, as well as helped to launch the AmeriCorps national service program.

Sponsored by the School of Law and The Charles Loridans Foundation of Atlanta


Diane Marie Amann, Stephen R.H. Beach, Pejman Rohani and Ronald L. Simons headshotsDiane Marie Amann, Stephen R.H. Beach, Pejman Rohani and Ronald L. Simons

UGA Regents’ Professors

Charter Lecture Series
April 6, 3:30 p.m.
Zoom

Pejman Rohani, 2020 Regents’ Professor and University of Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Ecology and Infectious Diseases in the Odum School of Ecology and the College of Veterinary Medicine

Rohani’s research focuses on the introduction of the ecological perspectives to infectious disease biology. His work investigates the importance of spatial synchrony in the outbreak of measles and pertussis for predicting the extinction and eradication of these major childhood infectious diseases.

Ronald L. Simons, 2020 Regents’ Professor and Distinguished Research Professor in the department of sociology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Simons’ research focuses on the processes by which social experiences become biologically embedded and influence mental and physical health outcomes. His research suggests that social factors, such as marital, work, financial and social status variables, impact biological aging and the development of chronic illness more so than the effects of diet, exercise, body mass index, smoking and other known health-risk factors.

Diane Marie Amann, 2021 Regents’ Professor and the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law in the School of Law

Amann’s scholarship focuses on the ways that national, regional and international legal regimes interact as they endeavor to combat atrocity and cross-border crime. Her current research will produce the first-ever book, under contract with Oxford University Press, on the roles of women professionals at the 1945-46 war crimes trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

Steven R.H. Beach, 2021 Regents’ Professor and Distinguished Research Professor in the department of psychology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Beach’s scholarship focuses on the way that community, family and marital process affect mental and physical health. His pioneering work and collaborations have shown that strengthening close relationships, including marriage and parenting relationships, can play a critical role in reducing depression and physical health problems, and can buffer the impact of stress from economic and social factors.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Emma Parmee headshotEmma Parmee

Global Head of Discovery Sciences, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson

The Chu Lectureship: “New Directions in Chemistry: Expanding Exploration of Chemical Space”
April 14, 11 a.m.
Zoom

Parmee is considered a leader and top expert in drug manufacturing and development. Most notably, she was one of the lead investigators in the discovery of Januvia, a revolutionary drug that helps lower blood sugar levels in adults with type 2 diabetes without the side effects of some of the previously available treatments. Parmee obtained her Bachelor of Arts and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Oxford University. She also held a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Parmee has almost 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working in numerous therapeutic areas at major pharmaceutical companies, including Merck and now Janssen. She has received numerous awards, including the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award and the Gordon E. Moore Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry.

The Chu Lectureship honors the outstanding accomplishments of Distinguished Research Professor and Professor Emeritus Dr. David Chu, who has spent his entire career researching new drugs for the treatment of viral infections and cancer.

Sponsored by the College of Pharmacy

Fall 2020

Elizabeth Deeley headshotElizabeth Deeley

Global Vice Chair of the Complex Commercial Litigation Practice; Partner, Latham & Watkins, LLP

Diversity and Inclusion Lecture Series
September 16, 9 a.m.
Zoom

Deeley is a seasoned trial lawyer and a top advisor to Fortune 100 companies. She is an active member of the firm’s Women Enriching Business Committee and is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the legal community. Deeley has served on a number of boards, including for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Legal Aid at Work and was a member of the Judiciary Committee with the San Francisco Bar. She is a member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, the Hispanic National Bar Association and the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom. Deeley is a 1992 graduate of UGA with a bachelor of business administration degree.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement


Salimah El Amin headshotSalimah El-Amin and Stephanie Jenkins

Producers, Ken Burns’ Florentine Films

Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection 25th Anniversary Event: Florentine Films Panel Discussion
September 16, 7 p.m.
Facebook Live event

Stephanie Jenkins headshotThis event is part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection. Florentine Films’ archival researchers Stephanie Jenkins and Salimah El-Amin will discuss a behind-the-scenes look at the art and craft of the documentary researcher. El-Amin is a co-producer on a forthcoming documentary film about the life and work of Ernest Hemingway, slated to be released later this year. Jenkins has been working with Ken Burns and Florentine Films since 2010, and she is currently a producer on an upcoming Muhammad Ali film.

Sponsored by UGA Libraries and the Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection


Michael Zuckert headshotMichael P. Zuckert

Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame

Constitution Day 2020: “The Consistency of James Madison: the Bill of Rights”
September 17, 2:30 p.m.
Zoom

Zuckert, a political philosopher, focuses his research in the areas of modern political thought and American constitutionalism. In addition to several articles, his books include “Natural Rights and the New Republicanism,” “The Natural Rights Republic,” and “Launching Liberalism.” Zuckert is also the founder and lead editor of the journal American Political Thought and senior scholar for Liberty!, a six-hour public television series on the American Revolution. He is currently completing “Natural Rights and the New Constitutionalism,” a study of American constitutionalism in a theoretical context.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs, Department of Political Science, and The American Founding Group


Johanna Drucker headshotJohanna Drucker

Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies at UCLA

Provost’s Seminar Series: “Rethinking Assumptions: The Current Value(s) of Academic Work”
September 25, 1 p.m.
Zoom

Drucker is internationally renowned for her work in the history of graphic design, typography, experimental poetry, fine art, and digital humanities. Her research includes modeling interpretation for electronic scholarship, digital aesthetics, the history of visual information design, history of the book and print culture, and critical studies in visual knowledge representation. Drucker’s most recent books are “SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Speculative Computing” and “Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide.” She is currently working on a database memoire, “ALL, the Online Museum of Writing” in collaboration with University College London and King’s College.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Willson Center for Humanities and Art, UGA Libraries, and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences


Susan Schneider headshotSusan Schneider

NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair at the Library of Congress and NASA; William F. Dietrich Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University

Scott and Heather Kleiner Lecture Series in Philosophy: “AI, Your Brain, and the ‘Thought Data Economy'”
October 8, 4 p.m.
Zoom

Schneider writes about the nature of the self and mind, with a focus on issues in philosophy, artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive science, and astrobiology. In her most recent book, “Artificial You: AI and the Future of the Mind,” Schneider explores the philosophical implications of AI, as well as the enterprise of “mind design.” Schneider has worked with NASA on the future of intelligence and currently works with the U.S. Congress on AI policy development. Her work has been featured in notable publications such as The New York TimesScientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Institute for Artificial Intelligence


Carolyn Finney headshotCarolyn Finney

Scholar-in-Residence, Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College

“What’s Race Got to do With It? Christian Cooper, John Muir, and the Nature of Green Space”
October 15, 3:30 p.m.
Zoom

Finney, a storyteller and a cultural geographer, explores the complex intersections of race and the environment. She seeks to increase awareness of how privilege influences how we experience the outdoors and the definition of environmental issues. Finney’s scholarship focuses on gender and environmental management in Kenya and Nepal, as well as on African Americans’ experiences with the outdoors in the United States. Her first book, “Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors” was released in 2014.

Sponsored by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources


Diane Jacobsen headshotDiane DeMell Jacobsen

Chairman, Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation

“The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design”
October 21, 3 p.m.
Zoom

Jacobsen is a distinguished international affairs scholar, curator, business executive, and passionate collector of American art. Most notably, she is the founder of the Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation, which is dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing museum-quality works of American art. The foundation’s collection includes paintings, sculpture, silver and furniture. Jacobsen’s lecture will be presented in conjunction with the Georgia Museum of Art exhibition “The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design,” on view from October 17 through Jan 3.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art


James Stavridis headshotAdmiral James G. Stavridis

United States Navy Admiral (Ret.) and Operating Executive, The Carlyle Group

“Geopolitics and Leadership in the Time of Coronavirus: What Lies Ahead?”
October 27, 5:30 p.m.
Zoom

Admiral Stavridis is a retired four-star officer in the U.S. Navy. He led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 as Supreme Allied Commander with responsibility for Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, counter piracy and cyber security. He also served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command. From 2006 to 2009, he was responsibe for all military operations in Latin America. Stavridis holds more than 50 medals, including 28 from foreign nations. He is a monthly columnist for Time and a chief international security analyst for NBC. Stavridis is also the author of nine books, including “Sailing True North.”

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs and Center for International Trade and Security


Ralph Eubanks headshotRalph Eubanks

Author and Visiting Professor of Southern Studies, English, and Honors in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame 20th Anniversary Celebration: “Georgia’s Literary Past and the Future of Southern Letters”
November 8, 4 p.m.
Livestream

Eubanks, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, is currently a visiting professor of English and southern studies at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of “Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi’s Dark Past,” “The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South,” and “A Place Like Mississippi.” Eubanks is the former editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review at the University of Virginia and served as director of publishing at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., from 1995 to 2013. He has also published essays in The Hedgehog ReviewAmerican ScholarThe Georgia Review, and The New Yorker.

Sponsored by the UGA Libraries, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and The Georgia Review


Julie Borlaug headshotJulie Borlaug

Vice President of External Relations, Inari Agriculture, Inc.

D.W. Brooks Lecture: “Using Innovation and Technology to End Hunger and Poverty”
November 10, 3:30 p.m.
Zoom

Borlaug is the granddaughter of American biologist, humanitarian and Nobel laureate Norman E. Borlaug. As the vice president of external relations for Inari Agriculture, she is continuing the Borlaug legacy and inspiring the next generation by advocating for innovation and technology to end hunger and poverty. Borlaug has developed agricultural partnerships between public, private and philanthropic groups to expand the mission to feed the world’s hungry. She previously served as director of strategic initiatives for Texas A&M Agrilife Research, associate director of external relations for the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, and director of development for the American Cancer Society.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Maxine Clark headshotMaxine Clark

CEO and Co-Founder, The Clark-Fox Family Foundation

Driven by Purpose: Philanthropy and Social Good
November 11, 12:45 p.m.
Zoom

Clark is one of the true innovators in the retail industry. She is chief inspirator of Delmar DivINe, CEO of the Clark-Fox Foundation, and founder and former CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop. In 2013, Clark stepped down from her Chief Executive Bear role to apply her entrepreneurial skills to her passion for improving K-12 public education and to invest in and mentor women and minority entrepreneurs. Her latest venture, Delmar DivINe, is the first collaborative space dedicated to maximizing the human and financial capital of St. Louis’ social initiatives and institutions. Slated to open in 2021, Clark hopes this project will encourage community development and social improvement. She has also published the book “The Bear Necessities of Business: Building a Company with Heart.” Clark is a 1971 graduate of UGA with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and she was the speaker for the university’s summer commencement exercises in 2008.

Sponsored by the Department of Advertising and Public Relations in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication


Marion Nestle headshotMarion Nestle

Professor Emerita, New York University

Inaugural Food, Power, and Politics Lecture
November 12, 3 p.m.
Livestream

Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor Emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. She is also a consumer advocate, nutritionist and author of six award-winning books. Nestle’s research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity and food safety, with an emphasis on the role of food marketing. Among her recent honors are the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College and the Public Health Hero Award from the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley.

Sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, UGA Libraries, and College of Family and Consumer Sciences

Spring 2020

Robert Roeder headshotRobert G. Roeder

Arnold & Mabel Beckman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Rockefeller University

George H. Boyd Distinguished Lecture
January 10, 3:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel, Masters Hall

Roeder is the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The Rockefeller University. His interests are in the mechanism and regulation of transcription in development, differentiation, homeostasis and cancer. Dr. Roeder’s seminal contributions have been recognized by election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization, as well as by numerous prestigious scientific awards and prizes.

Sponsored by the Office of Research


Robert Benham headshotThe Honorable Robert Benham

Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
February 3, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Justice Benham is the first and longest serving African American member of the Supreme Court of Georgia. He became the second African American to graduate from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1970. He was later appointed to the Court of Appeals, where he served for five years before being appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1989, earning his Master of Laws from the University of Virginia that same year. Benham serves as president for the Society for Alternative Dispute Resolution, a trustee of the Georgia Legal History Foundation, chairman of the Judicial Council and the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Ajay Malshe headshotAjay P. Malshe

Professor and Director of the Materials, Manufacturing and System Integration Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University

Innovation District Seminar Series: “Nine Facets of a ‘Profeneur,’ A Professor Entrepreneur”
February 5, 5:30 p.m.
Jackson Street Building, Room 130 (Critique Space)

Malshe is a professor and director of the Materials, Manufacturing and System Integration Laboratory at the Purdue University School of Mechanical Engineering. He specializes in nanomanufacturing, bio-inspired systems, high-density electronic packaging and entrepreneurship in the university’s Institute for Nano Science and Engineering. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, which honors those who have made significant contributions to engineering research and practice, as well as pioneering innovative approaches to engineering education.

Sponsored by the Innovation District


Robert Johansson headshotRobert Johansson

USDA Chief Economist

J.W. Fanning Lecture: “U.S. Farm Outlook 2020: Policy and Uncertainty”
February 17, 10:30 a.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel, Room R

Johansson serves as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief economist. He is responsible for the department’s agricultural forecasts and for advising the secretary of agriculture on economic implications of alternative programs, regulations and legislation. His research includes biofuels policy, water quality and quantity policies, regulatory economics, food security, and regional modeling of agricultural systems. Johansson also serves as the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation board chairman.

Sponsored by the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics


Marion Fedrick headshotMarion Fedrick

President, Albany State University

20th Annual Mary Frances Early Lecture
February 25, 2 p.m.
Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center

Fedrick is the 10th president of Albany State University. Prior to her current role, she served as vice chancellor for human resources at the University System of Georgia. Her professional background includes higher education administration, strategic planning, crisis management and strategic partnership management in both the private and public sectors. Fedrick is a graduate of UGA with a bachelor’s degree in adult education and a master’s degree in public administration.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, Graduate School, and Office of Institutional Diversity


Lawrence Wright headshotLawrence Wright

Staff Writer, The New Yorker

Ferdinand Phinizy Lecture: “The Future of Terrorism”
February 27, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” which spent eight weeks on The New York Times best-sellers list. Wright’s most recent book, “God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State,” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books include “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief” and “The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State.”

Sponsored by the Department of History, Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Global Georgia Initiative, School of Public and International Affairs, and Center for International Trade and Security


Joan Gabel headshotJoan Gabel

President, University of Minnesota

Louise McBee Lecture in Higher Education: “The Evolving Social Contract of Higher Education”
Postponed

Gabel is the first woman president in the University of Minnesota’s 167-year history. Her scholarship focuses on the public higher education mission, ethical governance and women’s leadership. Gabel was previously the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina. She has been recognized with numerous service, research and teaching awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship. Gabel holds a J.D. from UGA.

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education


Adam Gopnik portraitAdam Gopnik

Staff Writer, The New Yorker

College of Environment and Design Lecture Series: “Reconnecting the Arts and Sciences”
Postponed

Gopnik is a writer for The New Yorker and the author of several celebrated books. He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. His work has been anthologized many times, in “Best American Essays”, “Best American Travel Writing,” “Best American Sports Writing,” “Best American Food Writing,” and “Best American Spiritual Writing.” Gopnik received the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Republic.

Co-sponsored by the College of Environment and Design, HGOR, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and the Lamar Dodd School of Art


Gary Gallagher headshotGary Gallagher

John L. Nau III Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia

Gregory Distinguished Lecture: “The Road to Secession and Sumter: Was the Civil War Inevitable?”
Postponed

Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor Emeritus in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. His current research is about the monuments on the battlefield at Gettysburg, with an emphasis on the ways in which Union and emancipation figured in 19th century dedicatory speeches and inscriptions. Among Gallagher’s books are “Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty” and “Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War.” He is the recipient of the William Woods Hassler Award for his lifetime contributions to Civil War studies.

Sponsored by the Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era


Marion Nestle headshotMarion Nestle

Professor Emerita, New York University

Inaugural Food, Power, and Politics Lecture
Postponed

Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor Emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. She is also a consumer advocate, nutritionist and author of six award-winning books. Nestle’s research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity and food safety, with an emphasis on the role of food marketing. Among her recent honors are the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College and the Public Health Hero Award from the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley.

Sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, UGA Libraries, and College of Family and Consumer Sciences


Jack E. Davis headshotJack E. Davis

Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities, University of Florida

Odum Environmental Ethics Lecture: “The Gulf of Mexico: History, Wisdom, and Hope”
Postponed

Davis is a professor of history and Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities at the University of Florida. He specializes in environmental history and sustainability studies. He is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea” and a recipient of the Andrew Carnegie fellowship award. His books include “Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930” and “An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century.”

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Global Georgia Initiative, Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, Department of History, and College of Environment and Design

Fall 2019

Alan Taylor headshotAlan Taylor

Thomas Jefferson Foundation Chair in the Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia

“Competing Constitutions: North America, 1783-1795”
September 16, 1:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Taylor is the author of several books about the colonial history of the United States, the American Revolution, and the early American Republic. Two of his books, “William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early Republic” and “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” have won a Pulitzer Prize. His most recent book is “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.”

Sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the School of Public and International Affairs


John Crowley headshotJohn F. Crowley

Chairman and CEO, Amicus Therapeutics

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
September 20, 10:10 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Crowley has led Amicus Therapeutics, a global biotechnology company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel treatments for persons living with rare and orphan diseases, since 2011. His involvement with biotechnology stems from the diagnosis of two of his children with Pompe disease—a severe and often fatal neuromuscular disorder. To find a cure for them, he left his position at Bristol-Myers Squibb and became an entrepreneur. Crowley is the subject of “The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million—and Bucked the Medical Establishment—in a Quest to Save His Children,” which was later adapted into the film “Extraordinary Measures.”

Sponsored by a grant from Keith Mason. Part of the Terry Leadership Speaker Series presented by the Institute for Leadership Advancement.


Steven Hill

Legal Adviser and Director of the Office of Legal Affairs, NATO

“NATO @ 70: The Rule of Law Alliance”
September 26, Noon
Hirsch Hall, Room 120

Hill leads the multinational legal team in the NATO Office of Legal Affairs, which provides timely legal advice on policy issues, develops consensus solutions for compliance with multinational legal requirements, and promotes and defends the organization’s legal interests in numerous internal and external venues. Prior to joining NATO, Hill was Counselor for Legal Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

Sponsored by the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the School of Law


Irina Bokova

Former Director General, UNESCO

“Preserving Global Cultural Heritage in Times of War and Conflict”
October 1, 5 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Bokova served as Director General of UNESCO for two full terms, from 2009-17, and was the first woman to serve in this role. She has successfully advanced a strong United Nations agenda for the better preservation of humanity’s cultural heritage. In particular, she and UNESCO have been successful in criminalizing the illegal trade in cultural artifacts and in persecuting those who willfully destroy parts of cultural history.

HGOR Endowed Lecture, with support from the School of Public and International Affairs, the Willson Center for Humanities and Art, and the School of Law. Part of the College of Environment and Design 50th anniversary celebration.


Chad Smith

Former Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation

“Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears: The Unlearned Lessons of Populism Today”
October 10, 4 p.m.
Miller Learning Center, Room 248

A major figure in Indian affairs, Smith has advocated on Native issues nationally and internationally, including at the United Nations. Smith served as a professor at Dartmouth College teaching Cherokee History and Native American Law. He is an author of books on leadership, art, and Native American worldviews, including “Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn From All I Observe.”

Sponsored by the Institute of Native American Studies in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences


David Salyers

Entrepreneur and former Chick-fil-A Executive

“START UP …. your future!!”
October 24, 12:30 p.m.
Jackson Street Building, Room 125

Salyers was one of the original two marketing executives at Chick-fil-A, where he was instrumental in the growth and development of the iconic ‘cow campaign’ and championed a marketing department that rose to international prominence. His 2016 book, “Remarkable!,” which he co-wrote with Randy Ross, imparts leadership lessons that can transform one’s workplace culture. An entrepreneur at heart, he is now on the board of three corporations and is involved in nine startups more defined by meaning than money.

Sponsored by Innovation Gateway


Ashley Watson (JD ’93)

Chief Compliance Officer, Johnson & Johnson

Ethics Week Lecture
Nov. 4, 1:25 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

In addition to serving as chief compliance office for Johnson & Johnson, Watson is Vice Chair of the Ethics Research Center, which is committed to creating and sustaining high quality ethics and compliance programs. She previously was senior vice president for ethics and compliance at Merck and also served as the senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief ethics and compliance officer at Hewlett-Packard.

Sponsored by the School of Law and the Terry College of Business


Alvia Wardlaw

Professor of Art History and Director of the University Museum at Texas Southern University

“All of One Piece: The Life and Art of Mary Lee Bendolph”
November 7, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art, M. Smith Griffith Auditorium

Wardlaw is a leading expert in African and African American art who serves on the Scholarly Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Prior to joining the faculty of TSU, she served as curator of modern and contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for 22 years and organized more than 75 exhibitions on African and African American art.

Alfred Heber Holbrook Memorial Lecture


Ertharin Cousin

Payne Distinguished Lecturer, Stanford University

“Achieving Food Security and Planetary Health: A Solvable Enigma”
November 12, 3:30 p.m.
UGA Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, Mahler Hall

Prior to joining the faculty of Stanford, Cousin served as executive director of the world’s largest humanitarian organization, the United Nations World Food Programme, with 14,000 staff serving 80 million vulnerable people across 75 countries. She is a Distinguished Fellow at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment and its Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards


A.E. Stallings (BA, ’90) and John T. Edge

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame Author Discussion, moderated by GPB’s Virginia Prescott
November 17, 4 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, Room 271

Stallings is an American poet who has published three collections of poetry, “Archaic Smile,” “Hapax,” and “Olives,” as well as a verse translation of “Lucretius, The Nature of Things.” She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation and was a 2019 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Edge has served as director since the 1999 founding of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation, he is author of “The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South.” Edge is also the host of the television show “TrueSouth,” which airs on the SEC Network and on ESPN.

Prescott is the Gracie Award-winning host of “On Second Thought” for Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries

Spring 2019

W. Craig Fugate

Former Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Emergency Management Officer, One Concern

College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture: “Seven Deadly Sins of Emergency Management”
Jan. 25, 12:20 p.m.
Coverdell Center, Room 175

Fugate served as President Barack Obama’s FEMA administrator and previously served as emergency management director in Florida. Fugate led FEMA through multiple record-breaking disaster years and oversaw the federal government’s response to major events such as the tornado in Joplin, Mo., Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Matthew.


Freda Scott Giles

Associate Professor Emerita of Theatre and Film Studies and African-American Studies, University of Georgia

Founders Day Lecture: “W.E.B. Du Bois: Dramatist”
Jan. 28, 1:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Giles is a specialist in African-American theatre, directing and acting who recently retired from UGA. She taught theatre courses, directed a number of University Theatre productions and served as associate director for the Institute for African American Studies and as an affiliate faculty member of the African Studies Institute and the Institute for Women’s Studies.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, UGA Alumni Association and Emeriti Scholars


Monica Kaufman Pearson

Former journalist and broadcaster

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
Feb. 7, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

After almost 40 years as a news anchor for WSB-TV, Pearson retired in 2012 and now hosts a weekly radio show on KISS 104.1 FM. During her retirement, she earned a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication magna cum laude from the University of Georgia and has since lectured at UGA, along with other colleges across the state.

Sponsored by the Office of the President

Sponsored by the College of Engineering and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems


Alana Shepherd

Co-founder of Shepherd Center

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Feb. 19, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Shepherd, with her husband Harold and son James, founded Shepherd Center after James sustained a paralyzing spinal cord injury in 1973. Her advocacy for accessibility resulted in the addition of lifts to the MARTA bus system and in making Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport one of the country’s most accessible.

Sponsored by a grant from Keith Mason. Part of the Terry Leadership Speaker Series presented by the Institute for Leadership Advancement.


Stephanie McCurry

R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History in Honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Columbia University

“Reconstructing: A Georgia Woman’s Life Amidst the Ruins”
Ferdinand Phinizy Lecture and Willson Center Global Georgia Initiative
Feb. 22, 5:30 p.m.
Seney-Stovall Chapel

McCurry specializes in the 19th century United States, the American South, the American Civil War and the history of women and gender. Current interests include the history of the United States in the immediate post-Civil War moment, the history of postwar societies and processes of reconstruction in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the matter of marriage, politics and the state in the modern period.

Sponsored by the department of history and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts


Roger Hunter

Program Manager, NASA Small Spacecraft Technology Program

Charter Lecture: “NASA’s Kepler Mission and Small Spacecraft Technologies: Today and Beyond”
March 20, 2:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

On the day of his graduation from UGA with a degree in mathematics in 1978, Hunter was commissioned as an officer in the Air Force, where he served for 22 years. He joined NASA in 2008 and served as project manager for NASA’s Kepler Mission, the first mission capable of finding potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. He currently serves as associate director of the NASA Ames Research Center.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Robert Michael Franklin Jr.

James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor in Moral Leadership, Emory University

Donald L. Hollowell Lecture: “The Vocation of Moral Leadership”
March 21, 3 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

Franklin served as president of Morehouse College from 2007 to 2012. An ordained minister and an insightful speaker, he provides commentary for the National Public Radio program “All Things Considered” and the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting Television. In addition to authoring three books, he has served as program officer in Human Rights and Social Justice at the Ford Foundation.

Sponsored by School of Social Work; the Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights; and the Thomas M. Parham Professorship


Gene L. Dodaro

Comptroller General of the United States

Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability: “The Many Dimensions of Accountability: GAO’s Mission for Congress and the Nation”
March 25, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Dodaro became the eighth comptroller general of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2010, when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Dodaro has testified before Congress dozens of times on important national issues, including the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook and efforts to reduce and eliminate overlap and duplication across the federal government. In addition, Dodaro has led efforts to fulfill GAO’s new audit responsibilities under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Sponsored by the department of public administration and policy and the School of Public and International Affairs


Christopher Emdin

Associate Professor, Director of the Science Education Program and Associate Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Columbia University

Mary Frances Early Lecture: “Teaching and Learning from the Students’ Standpoint”
March 26, 3 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

Emdin is a social critic, public intellectual and science advocate whose commentary on issues of race, culture, inequality and education have appeared in dozens of influential periodicals, including The New York TimesWall Street Journal and Washington Post.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, the Office of Institutional Diversity and the Graduate and Professional Scholars


John M. Turner

President and CEO, Regions Financial Corporation

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
March 27, 10:10 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Turner, a 1989 graduate of the Terry College of Business, joined Regions in 2011 as president of the South region, leading banking operations in Alabama, Mississippi, south Louisiana and the Florida panhandle. In December 2017, he was named president, and in July 2018 became the chief executive officer and was appointed to Regions’ board of directors.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement in the Terry College of Business


Eric Deggans

Television critic, National Public Radio

Peabody-Smithgall Lecture: “Decoding Media’s Coverage of Race, Gender and Differences”
April 3, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Deggans is one of the most prominent media critics working today. As NPR’s first full-time television critic, his stories are regularly broadcast on “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” In addition to his work with NPR, Deggans also contributes to various national media outlets. Deggans chairs the Peabody Board of Jurors, which he has served on since 2013.

Sponsored by the Peabody Awards


David A. Strauss

Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, University of Chicago

John A. Sibley Endowed Lecture: “Are Supreme Court Decisions the Law of the Land?”
April 12, 12 p.m.
Hirsch Hall, Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom

Strauss is a highly regarded constitutional law scholar whose many publications include The Living Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2010). A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the board of directors of the American Constitution Society, Strauss previously served as attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, and special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Sponsored by the School of Law


Susan Herbst

President, University of Connecticut

Louise McBee Lecture: “Division, Incivility and Fear in American Political Culture: What Does It Mean for the Future of Higher Education?”
April 25, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Herbst is the 15th president of the University of Connecticut and the first woman to be selected as president since the school’s founding in 1881. She oversees a university system that includes 10 schools and colleges at the Storrs campus, separate schools of law and social work in Hartford, four regional campuses and the schools of medicine and dental medicine at UConn Health in Farmington. A specialist in political science, Herbst is the author of many scholarly journal articles and books, including her most recent book about incivility in American politics, Rude Democracy.

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education


Charles Stewart III

Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

George S. Parthemos Lecture: “American Elections since 2000: Getting Better, but Not Feeling Better About It”
April 26, 3:30 p.m.
Baldwin Hall, Room 480

Stewart is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research and teaching areas include congressional politics, elections and American political development. His current research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization and Senate elections.

Co-sponsored by the department of political science and the School of Public and International Affairs.

Fall 2018

Carol Berkin

Presidential Professor of History Emerita at Baruch College and the Graduate Center City University of New York

Constitution Day Lecture: “Born in Crisis: The Emergence in the 1790s of an American Identity”
Sept. 17, 1:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Berkin is an American historian and author specializing in the role of women in American colonial history. She has worked as a consultant on several PBS and History Channel documentaries, including “Scottsboro Boys,” which was nominated for a best documentary Academy Award in 2000.

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs and the American Founding Group


Sushil Prasad

Professor and program director at the National Science Foundation Georgia State University

“Innovations in NSF Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research Workforce Development and Education Programs”
Oct. 12, 3:30 p.m.
Boyd Graduate Studies Research Center, Room 328

Prasad is a professor of computer science at Georgia State University and director of the Distributed and Mobile Systems Lab. He has carried out theoretical as well as experimental research in parallel and distributed computing, resulting in more than 140 refereed publications, several patent applications, and about $6 million in external research funds.

Sponsored by the department of computer science


Maria Taylor

Analyst, host and reporter, ESPN

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
Oct 17, 10:10 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

A former UGA basketball and volleyball player, Taylor received her bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2009 and earned a master of business administration in 2013. Taylor is in her sixth season as an analyst, host and reporter for ESPN.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement


Andrea Wulf

New York Times Bestselling Author

Gregory Distinguished History Lecture: “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World”
Oct. 18, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Wulf is an award-winning author of five acclaimed books, including the New York Times Bestselling “Founding Gardeners” and “The Invention of Nature.”

Sponsored by the department of history


David Lubin

Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art Wake Forest University

“Oh Say Can You See: American Art, Propaganda, and the First World War”
Oct. 18, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art, M. Smith Griffith Auditorium

Lubin has lectured at colleges, universities, medical schools and art museums throughout the United States, Europe, China and Australia. His book “Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images” won the Smithsonian Institution’s Charles Eldredge Prize for distinguished scholarship in American art. His latest book is “Grand Illusions: American Art and the First World War.”

Co-sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and the College of Environment and Design


Rebecca Rutstein and Samantha Joye

Artist and UGA Athletic Association Professor of Arts and Sciences

“Expeditions, Experiments and the Ocean: Arts and Sciences at Sea”
Nov. 2, 9 a.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

Rutstein, the university’s Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding, is an artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, installation, and public art and explores abstraction inspired by science, data and maps.

Joye’s research aims to discover, document, resolve and understand complex feedback that drive elemental cycling in coastal and open ocean environments. She led assessment efforts in the Gulf of Mexico immediately following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and is director of the Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf research consortium.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts


Sharon Deem

Director of the Institute for Conservation Medicine at the St. Louis Zoo

“One Health in the Age of the Anthropocene”
Nov. 5, 12:30 p.m.
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources Building 2, Room 100

From wild forest elephants in Gabon and maned wolves in Bolivia to giant tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, Deem has built a career connecting the health of wildlife to people through One Health, an approach that recognizes that the health of people is connected to the health of animals and the environment. She is an award-winning epidemiologist, wildlife veterinarian and conservationist.

Sponsored by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources


Ann E. Tenbrunsel

David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics University of Notre Dame

Ethics Week Lecture: “Blind Spots: Why We Aren’t as Ethical as We Think We Are”
Nov. 7, 2:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Tenbrusel’s research interests focus on the psychology of ethical decision making, examining why employees, leaders and students behave unethically, despite their best intentions to behave to the contrary. She is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books on this topic — including “Blind Spots” (with Max Bazerman), “Behavioral Ethics: Shaping an Emerging Field” (with David De Cremer), “Codes of Conduct: Behavioral Research into Business Ethics” (with David Messick) — and over 50 research articles and chapters.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, Terry College of Business and School of Law


Robert Paarlberg

Adjunct professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and an associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

D.W. Brooks Lecture: “Foodies vs. Aggies: Compromise for a New Food System”
Nov. 8, 3:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Hall

Paarlberg specializes in understanding the space where public policy intersects with food security and human health. He has recently been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council and a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, USAID, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, IFPRI, the World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Marina Walker Guevara

Deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

McGill Lecture: “Trust, Technology and Teamwork Can Reveal a Global Truth”
Nov. 8, 4 p.m.
Journalism Building, Studio 100

Walker Guevara is deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a network of reporters in 80 countries who collaborate on stories of global concern. She has managed the two largest collaborations of reporters in journalism’s history: the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, which involved hundreds of journalists and media partners using technology to unravel stories of public interest from terabytes of leaked financial data. Her work has won and shared more than 40 national and international awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

Sponsored by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication


Nirav Merchant

Director of the University of Arizona Data Science Institute

Georgia Informatics Institutes Lecture: “Learning (for All of Us) in the Machine Learning Era”
Nov. 30, 1 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Masters Hall

Merchant is co-principal investigator for the National Science Foundation’s CyVerse, a national scale cyberinfrastructure for life sciences headquartered at the University of Arizona. Over the last two decades, his research has been directed toward developing scalable platforms for supporting open science and open innovation, with an emphasis on improving research productivity for geographically distributed interdisciplinary teams.

Sponsored by the Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education and the Institute of Bioinformatics

Spring 2018

J. Marshall Shepherd

Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor University of Georgia

Founders Day Lecture: “The Challenges of Communicating Science to Non-Scientists”
Jan. 22, 1:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

A leading international expert in weather, climate and remote sensing, Shepherd is director of UGA’s Atmospheric Sciences Program. He serves as host of The Weather Channel’s Sunday talk show “Weather Geeks” and as a contributor to Forbes magazine. Shepherd served as president of the American Meteorological Society in 2013 and is the recipient of the society’s 2018 Helmut E. Landsberg Award.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, UGA Alumni Association and Emeriti Scholars


Qiu Xiaolong

Novelist

Betty Jean Craige Lecture: “A Chinese Cop in the Global Age”
Feb. 8, 4 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Qui is a poet, literary translator and crime novelist. His critically acclaimed Inspector Chen series – which is set in Shanghai, China in the 1990’s – has been published in 20 languages and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. Qui’s novel “Death of a Red Heroine” won the Anthony Award for best novel in 2001.

Sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts


Scott Colosi

President and CFO of Texas Roadhouse

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
Feb. 9, 10:10 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Colosi has more than 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry. He currently serves as the president and chief financial officer of Texas Roadhouse. Previously, he was the director of investor relations for YUM! Brands, Inc., which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement, Terry College of Business


Michelle Asha Cooper

President, Institute for Higher Education Policy

Louise McBee Lecture: “Tackling Postsecondary Challenges Today”
Feb. 12, 10 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Cooper has served as the deputy director for the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance at the U.S. Department of Education. She also provides commentary to various media outlets including NPR, FOX News, the Washington Post and C-SPAN. Cooper is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Aspen Institute Presidential Fellowship and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement’s EXCEL (Excellence in Chief Executive Leadership) award.

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education


Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Award-winning journalist and alumnae

Holmes-Hunter Lecture: “Giving Voice to the Voiceless”
Feb. 15, 2:00 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

One of the namesakes of UGA’s Holmes-Hunter Academic Building and the annual Holmes-Hunter Lecture, Hunter-Gault was one of the first two African-American students to enroll at UGA. Throughout her celebrated career as a journalist, Hunter-Gault has received numerous honors including two Emmys, a Peabody, two awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She is also the author of “In My Place,” a memoir about her experiences at UGA.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Shirley Brice Heath

Marjorie Bailey Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and Professor of Linguistics, Emerita at Stanford University

Aralee Strange Lecture: “The Arts as Brick and Mortar of Community Building”
Feb. 22, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art

Heath is a linguistic anthropologist whose research focuses on learning through sustained experience in art and/or science as well as across various environments. She has written several books and publications on her work with community building as well as directed and produced short documentaries on the topic. She also serves as the director of research for The Public Theater in New York City.

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and the Aralee Strange Fund for Art and Poetry


Entertainment Industry Panel

Gale Anne Hurd, CEO of Valhalla Entertainment; Will Packer, Emmy-nominated producer Jeff Stepakoff, executive director, Georgia Film Academy; Lee Thomas, division director of the film, music and digital entertainment division at the Georgia Department of Economic Development

Charter Lecture: “Hollywood South: The New $9.5 Billion Georgia Industry”
Feb. 26, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Hurd has produced numerous works of film including “The Walking Dead,” “The Terminator” and “The Incredible Hulk”. She has been awarded numerous honors, including the 2017 Fangoria Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in the horror and science fiction genres as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2011 Hurd became a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and she currently serves as recording secretary for the Producers Guild of America.

Packer has established himself as one of Hollywood’s blockbuster hit makers with eight of his films opening No. 1 at the box office. His work includes the films “Girl Trip,” “Straight Outta Compton” and “Ride Along.” He also was the executive producer of the Emmy-nominated “Roots” remake.

Stepakoff has more than 30 years of experience in writing, producing and content creation in the film and television industry. Some of his most notable television and movie works include “The Wonder Years”, “Dawson’s Creek”, “Tarzan”, “Flipper” and “Major Dad.” Stepakoff also has written popular video games, is a bestselling novelist, and has worked in research and digital art for entertainment companies.

Thomas, a native of Atlanta and a UGA alumnae, served as film division director and location specialist for the Georgia Film and Videotape office, working with movies such as “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “The Blind Side,” “Footloose,” “Zombieland,” and “Fast Five.” She has also worked for the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Sponsored by the Provost’s Office and the Office of Academic Programs


Bakari Sellers

CNN Political Analyst

Mary Frances Early Lecture: “Education, Civil Rights and Equality: Cornerstones for our Future”
April 2, 3 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Auditorium

At age 22, Sellers was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives, making him both the youngest member of the state legislature as well as the youngest African-American elected official in the nation. Sellers represented South Carolina’s 90th district in the state legislature from 2006 – 2014. He has also worked for Congressman James Clyburn and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, Graduate and Professional Scholars and the Office of Institutional Diversity


Dan Barber

Chef and Author

“What Kind of Menu Will Meet the Challenges of the Future? Exploring a New Recipe for Good Food from the Ground Up”
April 10, 2 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Barber is the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and the author of “The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food.” He has received multiple James Beard awards and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Barber has also been featured in the Netflix documentary series “Chef’s Table.”

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Heather Gerken

Dean, Yale Law School

John A. Sibley Lecture: “The Lessons of Lawyering: Why Ours is an Honest Profession”
April 13, 3:30 p.m.
Hirsch Hall, Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom

Gerken is one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional law and election law, and her work on election reform has affected policy at a national level. Gerken’s work as Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law focuses on federalism, diversity and dissent. Her work and scholarship has also been featured in a wide array of publications including The New York TimesBoston GlobeHarvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal.

Sponsored by the School of Law

Fall 2017

Stephanie Stuckey

Chief Resilience Officer, City of Atlanta

Vincent Eleanor Ferguson Lecture
Sept. 13, 5-6 p.m.
Room 123, Jackson Street Building

Stephanie Stuckey served as a state House representative from the Decatur area for 14 years, during which time she was a member of the Judiciary and Natural Resources committees. She then went on to serve as Executive Director of GreenLaw, an Atlanta-based public interest law firm focused on environmental issues. In 2015, she was appointed director of sustainability for the city of Atlanta by Mayor Kasim Reed. In 2016, she was named chief resilience officer for Atlanta, working in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation’s “100 Resilient Cities.”

Sponsored by the College of Environment and Design


Michael J. Klarman

Kirkland & Ellis Professor, Harvard Law School

Constitution Day Lecture: “The Constitution as a Coup Against Public Opinion”
Sept. 15, 2-3 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Michael J. Klarman is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School. He is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His lecture addresses how the framers at the Philadelphia convention managed to write a Constitution that was vastly more nationalist and democracy-constraining than most Americans wanted or expected and how they were able to convince ordinary Americans to approve such a document.

Sponsored by The American Founding Group and the School of Public and International Affairs


Dan Cathy

President and CEO of Chick-fil-A

Terry Leadership Speaker Series: “Celebration of the Impact of S. Truett Cathy”
Sept. 29, 10:10-11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

As CEO of one of the nation’s largest family owned businesses, Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy represents the next generation of leadership for the Atlanta-based fast-food chicken restaurant chain founded by his father, S. Truett Cathy. Eager to incorporate his own skills and talents into the business, Cathy has taken an unconventional, yet personally and professionally rewarding approach, to Chick-fil-A leadership.

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Advancement and the Terry College of Business


Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame Authors Talk and 2017 Awards Ceremony

James C. Cobb, historian; Alfred Corn, poet; Eugenia Price, novelist; Kevin Young, poet

Author Discussion
Nov. 5, 5-6 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Awards Ceremony
Nov. 6, 10-11:30 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

James C. Cobb is the B. Phinizy Spalding Professor of History Emeritus at UGA. A former president of the Southern Historical Association, Cobb has written widely on the interaction among economy, society and culture in the American South. His most recent book is “The South and America Since World War II.”

Alfred Corn has distinguished himself as one of the most original poets writing in the United States. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a prize from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

The late Eugenia Price, best known as a writer of historical fiction, was awarded a Governor’s Award in the Humanities in 1988 for her novels, which helped preserve the history of coastal Georgia. Her novel “Lighthouse” is on the Georgia Center for the Book’s list of 25 books every Georgian should read.

Kevin Young began serving as director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in September 2016 and will be Poetry Editor of The New Yorker starting in November 2017. He previously served as the Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English at Emory University. He has written six poetry collections, edited five more, and is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries


Nina Fedoroff

Evan Pugh Professor Emerita, Penn State University

D.W. Brooks Lecture: “The GMO Wars: What do we do when scientists and citizens deeply disagree?”
Nov. 7, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Mahler Hall, Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel

A former science and technology advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, molecular biologist Nina Fedoroff has spent her career working to ensure that people around the world have enough to eat. She’s a strong proponent of using technology as a means to achieve that goal.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences


Souad Mekhennet

National Security Correspondent, The Washington Post

McGill Lecture: “Being a Female Reporter Behind the Lines of Jihad”
Nov. 15, 4 p.m.
Grady College, Studio 100

Journalist Soaud Mekhennet has gained rare access to the inner circles of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Her latest book, “I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad,” recounts some of her most dangerous assignments. She is a fellow with the New America Foundation and the coauthor of three previous books.

Sponsored by Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication


David Hurst Thomas

Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History

“Unearthing Georgia’s Deep Hispanic Heritage: Still Digging on St. Catherines Island”
Nov. 17, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

David Hurst Thomas has served as curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York since 1972, and, for seven years, served as the chairman of the department of anthropology. Thomas has conducted archaeological research on St. Catherines Island since 1974.

Sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Anthropology

Spring 2017

Alonzo King

Founder, Alonzo King LINES Ballet

“A Life in Art”
Jan. 17, 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
New Dance Theatre

King is an internationally renowned choreographer and the director of the international touring company Alonzo King LINES Ballet, housed in San Francisco. In 2014 King was appointed to the advisory council of the newly established Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University, and in 2005 he was named a Master of Choreography by the Kennedy Center.

Sponsored by the UGA Department of Dance in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Part of the Global Georgia Initiative.


Charles S. Bullock III

Richard B. Russell Chair in Political Science, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor and University Professor, University of Georgia

Founders Day Lecture: “Highlights and Lowlights of the 2016 Election”
Jan. 23, 1:30 – 2:15 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Bullock has established himself as the state’s pre-eminent scholar on Southern politics during his almost four decades at UGA. In 2015, Bullock was named University Professor, an honor bestowed on faculty who have had a significant impact on the University of Georgia beyond normal academic responsibilities.

Sponsored by the Office of the President and the UGA Alumni Association


Keith Parker

General Manager and CEO, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
Feb. 2, 2 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Parker was recognized as the Outstanding Public Transportation Manager by the American Public Transportation Association in 2015 and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council in 2016.

The Holmes-Hunter Lecture honors Charlayne Hunter-Gault and the late Hamilton Holmes, who in 1961 became the first African-American students to enroll at UGA. Held annually since 1985, it focuses on race relations, civil rights and education with implications for inclusion and diversity.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Viet Than Nguyen

Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California

Betty Jean Craige Annual Lecture: “Nothing Ever Dies: Ethical Memory and Radical Writing in The Sympathizer”
Feb. 13, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Nguyen’s The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, while his non-fiction work Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War was short-listed for a 2016 National Book Award.

Sponsored by the Comparative Literature Department in the Franklin College in association with the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and the Dean Rusk International Law Center


Rick Ridgeway

Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Patagonia clothing company

“The Elephant in the Room”
Feb. 21, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Tate Grand Hall

Ridgeway is a mountaineer, adventurer, environmentalist, writer, filmmaker and businessman who oversees vanguard environmental and sustainability initiatives. He was part of the 1978 team that included the first Americans to summit K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

Sponsored by the UGA Office of Sustainability


Colm Tóibín

Irish author, essayist and journalist

Delta Visiting Chair Lecture: “Staying Home, Leaving Home: Ireland and America”
March 16, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.
University of Georgia

Tóibín has written numerous acclaimed novels, short stories, plays, essays and works of criticism and memoir. His award-winning novel Brooklyn was adapted for an Oscar-nominated 2015 film starring Saoirse Ronan.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts


Sandra L. Thurman and Cornelius Baker

Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Policy Advisor, respectively, in the United States Department of State’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State

Global Diseases: Voices from the Vanguard series
“The War Against AIDS, 35 Years and Counting: Are We There Yet?”

March 21, 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Note: The program’s original speaker, Deborah L. Birx, Ambassador-at-Large, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State is unable to attend due to a family health emergency.

Sponsored by the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases


George H. Nash

Senior Fellow, Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal

“American Conservativism and the Problem of Populism”
March 22, 6 – 7 p.m.
Room 248, Miller Learning Center

Nash is the author of a foundational text on American conservatism and a three-volume biography of Herbert Hoover commissioned by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association. His essays have appeared in numerous national publications including the American SpectatorModern AgeNational ReviewNew York Times Book ReviewPolicy Review and Wall Street Journal.

Sponsored by the Office of Academic Programs


Barbara Grosz

Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences, Harvard University

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar: “Intelligent Systems: Design and Ethical Challenges”
March 27, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Mahler Hall, Georgia Center for Continuing Education

The first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Grosz specializes in natural language processing and multi-agent systems. She developed some of the earliest computer dialogue systems and established the research field of computational modeling of discourse.

Sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and the Office of Academic Programs


Joycelyn Elders

Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas School of Medicine

Mary Frances Early Lecture: “Bridging the Gap in Higher Education”
April 5, 3 – 4 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Elders was the 15th Surgeon General of the United States, and the first African American and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public Health Service.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, Graduate and Professional Scholars and the Office of Institutional Diversity

Fall 2016

Akhil Reed Amar

Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University

Constitution Day Lecture: “The Constitution at a Crossroads”
Sept. 16, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Amar teaches constitutional law at both Yale College and Yale Law School. His work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society.

Sponsored by the Department of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs and the School of Law


Sir Ivor Roberts

President of Trinity College, University of Oxford

“Strengthening International Alliances in a World That Wants to Tear Them Apart”
Sept. 28, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Sir Ivor Roberts is the former British Ambassador to Belgrade during the Bosnian Civil War. He served in the British Diplomatic Service for nearly four decades.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Press, School of Public and international Affairs and UGA at Oxford


Lisa Godbey Wood

U.S. District Judge and alumna

Edenfield Jurist in Residence Lecture: “Reflections on Sentencing”
Oct. 13, 3:30 p.m.
Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom

The Honorable Lisa Godbey Wood (J.D. ’90) is the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. She was nominated by President George W. Bush on Jan. 9, 2007.

Sponsored by the School of Law


Joan B. Rose

Professor and Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research, Michigan State University

Georgia Power College of Public Health Endowed Seminar in Environmental Topics: “The Water Microbiome: Expanding our Knowledge of Safe Water”
Oct. 21, 12:20 p.m.
Room 175, Coverdell Building

Rose was awarded the 2016 Stockholm Water Prize for her pioneering work to understand and control pathogens in water.

Sponsored by the Department of Environmental Health Science in the College of Public Health


Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm

Advisory Council member of the Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and CEO emerita of A. Tillander Jewelers in Helsinki and London

“The Russian Imperial Awards and Their Recipients
Nov. 1, 5:30 p.m.
Georgia Museum of Art

Tillander-Godenhielm focuses on the range of jewels and objets d’art crafted in St. Petersburg during the golden age of ornamental design. This lecture is held in conjunction with the exhibition, “Gifts and Prayers: The Romanovs and Their Subjects.”

Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and supported by a contribution from Mr. and Mrs. C. V. Nalley III


William P. “Billy” Payne

Chairman, Augusta National Golf Club and Centennial Holding Company LLC

Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Nov. 3, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Payne (B.S. ’69, J.D. ’73), the sixth chairman of August National Golf Club and chief executive office of the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games, has garnered national and international respect through his business acumen and ongoing commitment to public leadership.

Sponsored by the Terry College of Business’s Institute for Leadership Advancement and supported by a contribution from Terry alumnus and lawyer Keith Mason (BBA ’82, JD ’85)


Jacknife Lee

Music producer

Willson Center / Terry College Music Business Program Visiting Fellow
“A Conversation with Jacknife Lee”

Nov. 3, 4 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Lee, an internationally renowned music producer (R.E.M., U2, Snow Patrol, Weezer), will have a public conversation with music business program director David Barbe.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Terry College Music Business Program


Roy Blount Jr.

Author

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame: “Where I’m Coming From”
Nov. 6, 5 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Blount Jr., author and humorist, is a panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me” and a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries


Cynthia Kenyon

Vice President of Aging Research, Calico LLC

Charter Lecture: “Aging and the Immortal Germline”
Nov. 7, 2:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Kenyon (B.S. ’76), is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the molecular biology and genetics of aging and life extension. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, she is the former president of the Genetics Society of America. In 2014, she joined Google’s biotechnology company Calico, which seeks to slow aging and fight age-related diseases.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Roger Thurow

Senior Fellow in Global Food and Agriculture, Chicago Council on Global Affairs

D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards: “1,000 Days to Change the World: Stories from the Fight Against Early Childhood Malnutrition”
Nov. 7, 3:30 p.m.
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Mahler Auditorium

Thurow served for 20 years as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Europe and Africa. He is the author of three books on the struggle against global food insecurity.

Sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Spring 2016

Ken Kendrick

Managing general partner, Arizona Diamondbacks

Terry Leadership Speaker Series
Jan. 22, 10:10 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

As managing general partner for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Kendrick’s team has twice captured the National League West Division and eliminated more than $200 million of debt. He is also a principal in the development of CityScape, Arizona’s largest commercial / retail real estate development.

Sponsored by the Terry College of Business


Thomas C. Reeves

Professor emeritus, University of Georgia

Founders Day Lecture: “So You Think You’re Smarter than a Robot: The Race between Human Learning and Deep Learning”
January 27, 1:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Reeves is professor emeritus of learning, design and technology in the College of Education. During his career, he has developed and evaluated numerous interactive learning programs for education and training and has been an invited speaker in 30 countries. Reeves co-founded the Learning and Performance Support Lab.

Sponsored by the UGA Alumni Association


David B. Wilkins

Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, Director of the Center on the Legal Profession and Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Harvard University

John A. Sibley Lecture: “The Accountants are Coming — Again!: The Rise and Transformation of the Big 4 Accountancy Firms and What it Means for the Global Market for Legal Services”
Jan. 28, 3:30 p.m.
Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom, Hirsch Hall

Wilkins is a widely published author and speaker whose research focuses on the legal profession and globalization. He has directed more than 50 researchers studying the impact of globalization on the market for legal services in rapidly developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Sponsored by the School of Law and the Charles Loridans Foundation


Sanford Bishop

U.S. Congressman, Georgia’s Second District

Holmes-Hunter Lecture
Feb. 18, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Bishop is serving his 12th term in the U.S. House of representative representing the 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses middle and southwest Georgia. He previously served in the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


William R. Ferris

Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Global Georgia Initiative Series: “The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists”
February 18, 4 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Ferris is the senior associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South. He was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and is former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has written or edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Georgia Museum of Art


Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law and professor of history, Harvard University

Donald L. Hollowell Lecture: “’The Civil Rights Queen:’ Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Racial and Gender Equality in America”
March 17, 7 p.m.
Fine Arts Theatre

Brown-Nagin’s 2011 book, Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement, won the Bancroft Prize in American History, making her the first woman of color to win the honor.

Sponsored by the Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights; the School of Social Work; and The Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies


Richard J. Roberts

Chief Scientific Officer, New England BioLabs

George H. Boyd Distinguished Lecture: “Exploring Bacterial Methylomes”
March 22, 3:30 p.m.
Masters Hall, Georgia Center

Roberts, an English biochemist and molecular biologist who co-discovered introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism for gene-splicing, was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research


Earl Lewis

President, Andrew Mellon Foundation

Louise McBee Lecture
March 24, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Lewis, a noted social historian, was a former provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies at Emory University. He is the author and co-editor of seven books.

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education


Johnnetta B. Cole

Director, National Museum of African Art

Mary Frances Early Lecture: “The Case for Diversity and Inclusion in American Higher Education”
March 29, 3 p.m.
Mahler Hall, Georgia Center

Cole, president emerita of Spelman College and Bennett College for Women, currently serves on the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Sponsored by the Graduate School; Graduate and Professional Scholars; and the Office of Institutional Diversity


Leah Ward Sears

Former Chief Justice, Georgia Supreme Court

Women’s History Month Lecture
March 31, 6:30 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Sears became the first African-American chief justice in the nation when she was appointed Georgia Supreme Court chief justice in 2005. She was the first woman and the youngest person to sit on the bench when she was appointed justice in 1992.

Sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies


Tess Davis

Affiliate researcher, University of Glasgow

Sponsored Lecture: “Tomb Raiders and Terrorist Financing: Cutting off the Islamic State’s Illicit Traffic in ‘Blood Antiquities’”
April 20, 4:30 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Davis, a lawyer who has dedicated the last decade to combatting the illicit antiquities trade, served as executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation before joining the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow.

Sponsored by the Willson Center; Departments of Anthropology, Political Science and Sociology; Office of the Vice President for Instruction; and the Dean Rusk International Law Center.


David Baulcombe

Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Professor of Botany, University of Cambridge

Joe L. Key Symposium
May 12, 8:30 a.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Baulcombe is a world-renowned plant geneticist who made a key discovery in gene silencing. The former UGA postdoctoral fellow has received numerous awards, including election to the Royal Society and knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.

Sponsored by the UGA Plant Center in commemoration of its 30th anniversary

Fall 2015

Bob Inglis

Executive Director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, George Mason University

A University Lecture: “The Climate Conscience of Conservative”
Sept. 15, 3:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Inglis is a former South Carolina congressman and co-founder of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, which promotes free-enterprise solutions to climate challenges.

Sponsored by the Division of Biological Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Public Health, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia Initiative for Climate and Society, Odum School of Ecology and the School of Public and International Affairs


Jack Rakove

William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science and law, Stanford University

Constitution Day at UGA: “What did the Constitution Originally Mean?: Two Interpretations”
Sept. 17, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Rakove is author and editor of several books related to the founding of America, including “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution.”

Sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs and the Law School


Daniel P. Amos and A.D. “Pete” Correll

Chairman and CEO, Aflac Chairman Emeritus, Georgia-Pacific

The Mason Public Leadership Lecture
Sept. 18, 10 a.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries Auditorium

Amos, who earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from UGA in 1973, has served as CEO of Aflac since 1990 and chairman since 2001. Correll, who earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from UGA in 1963, retired as CEO of Georgia-Pacific and has dedicated his life to public service.

Sponsored by the Terry College of Business and supported by a contribution from Terry alumnus and lawyer Keith Mason


Georges C. Benjamin

Executive Director, American Public Health Association

College of Public Health 10th Anniversary Lecture: “Becoming the Healthiest Nation: A Public Health Approach”
Sept. 24, 5 p.m.
George Hall, Health Sciences Campus

Benjamin is one of the nation’s most influential physician leaders and leads the American Public Health Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation in one generation.

Sponsored by the College of Public Health on the occasion of its 10th anniversary


Alice Walker

Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding Lecture: “Standing in Georgia, Writing to the World”
Oct. 14, 3:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

A native of Eatonton, Walker is the author of seven novels, including “The Color Purple,” for which she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts in partnership with the Institute for African American Studies


Deborah Lipstadt

Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Emory University

A University Lecture: “The Holocaust: An American Understanding 1945-2015”
Oct. 22, 3:30 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Lipstadt was appointed by Presidents Clinton and Obama to successive terms on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. A BBC film adaptation of her 2006 book, “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier,” is currently in development.

Sponsored by the Office of the President and Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost


Taylor Branch and Janisse Ray

Award-winning writers

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony: “Reflections on a Writer’s Life”
Nov. 9, 10:30 a.m.
Russell Special Collections Building Auditorium

Branch is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy “America in the King Years.” Ray is an environmental activist and poet known for “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood.” Writers Vereen Bell and Paul Hemphill will be honored posthumously at the induction ceremony.

Sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries

Spring 2015

Paul Kurtz

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Georgia

The Founders Day Lecture: “A New York Yankee in Abraham Baldwin’s Court: (Almost) 50 Years Behind Enemy Lines”
January 26, 1:30 p.m.,
University of Georgia Chapel

Paul M. Kurtz was a faculty member at the University of Georgia School of Law from 1975 to 2013, specializing in criminal law and family law, and served as the law school’s associate dean (1991-2013). The annual Founders Day Lecture recognizes the date that the University of Georgia was established. In 1785, the Georgia General Assembly adopted a charter creating the University as the nation’s first state-chartered institution of higher education.

Sponsored by the UGA Alumni Association and Emeriti Scholars


Glenda Hatchett

Former Chief Presiding Judge, Fulton County, Georgia, Juvenile Court

The Holmes-Hunter Lecture
February 6, 2 p.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Atlanta native Glenda Hatchett, Georgia’s first African-American Chief Presiding Judge of a state court, also presided over the twice Emmy-nominated syndicated show Judge Hatchett. Judge Hatchett previously served as senior attorney for Delta Air Lines and was named by Ebony Magazine as one of “100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America” for her work there. Judge Hatchett also is the author of the national best-selling books Dare to Take Charge and Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say.

Sponsored by the Office of the President


Edward J. Larson

University Professor of History and Darling Chair of Law, Pepperdine University

Spring 2015 Charter Lecture
April 23, 11:00 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

A prolific writer and public speaker, Edward J. Larson is recipient of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History. Larson taught for twenty years at the University of Georgia, where he was chair of the History Department. The author of nine books and over one hundred published articles, Larson teaches, lectures, and writes about issues of law, science, and politics from a historical perspective.

Sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost

Fall 2014

David Mayhew

Sterling Professor of Political Science, Yale University

The George S. Parthemos Lecture: “What Does a President’s Fourth Congress Look Like?”
Oct. 15, 3:30 p.m.
Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, Room 271

David Mayhew is one of the world’s leading authorities on American party politics and Congress. This year marks the 40th anniversary of his landmark book The Electoral Connection.

Sponsored by the Department of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs


Gerald L. Early

Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, Professor of English and African and African-American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

Phi Beta Kappa 100th Anniversary Lecture: “The Birth of the Cool: Race, the Military, and the Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson”
Oct. 17, 11:15 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Gerald Early is a noted essayist and American culture critic. He has served as a consultant on several Ken Burns documentary films, among them Baseball, Jazz, and an upcoming PBS film on the life of Jackie Robinson. Early was nominated by President Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities and began his five-year term in August 2013.

Sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and the Office of Academic Programs


Eric Foner

Pulitzer-prize winning author and DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University

Gregory Distinguished Lecture: “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad”
October 27, 4 p.m.
M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. He is author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.”

Supported by the Amanda and Greg Gregory Graduate Studies Enhancement Fund in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences


Mary Sue Coleman

Retired President, University of Michigan

Louise McBee Lecture: “Public Higher Education in the 21st Century: Can America Continue to Lead?”
December 2, 11 a.m.
University of Georgia Chapel

Mary Sue Coleman served twelve years as president of the University of Michigan (2002-2014) where she was named by Time magazine as one of the nation’s “10 best college presidents.” Previously, Coleman served as president of the University of Iowa (1995-2002).

Sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education

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