Lectures
Past President's Distinguished Lectures
Dr. Marcia McNutt
National Academy of Sciences president
State of Science in America and the Future of Innovation
4:00 p.m. | Monday, Oct. 21, 2025 | K-State Alumni Center
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Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou
T.R. Klaenhammer distinguished professor at North Carolina State University
Insights from the Genome Editing Revolution
3:00 p.m. | Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025 | K-State Alumni Center
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Past Lectures
The lectures below were held under the original Provost's Lecture Series on Excellence in Scholarship.
No lectures were hosted between Academic Years 2019-2024.
Dr. Barbara Schaal
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Mary-Dell Chilton
Distinguished Professor at Washington University, St. Louis
Science and Technology for the Public Good
3:30 p.m. | Thursday, March 15, 2018 | 1018 Throckmorton Hall
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No lecture took place in Academic Year 2017.
Carl E. Wieman
Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2001
Taking a Scientific Approach to Science and Engineering Education
4:30 p.m. | Thursday, September 17, 2015 | 103 Cardwell Hall
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Dr. Randy Schekman
Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2013
How Cells Export Proteins
3 p.m. | Monday, May 11, 2015 | K-State Student Union Forum Hall
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Dr. Kary B. Mullis
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry,1993
The Unusual Origins of PCR
3 p.m. | October 16, 2013 | K-State Student Union Forum Hall
Dr. Ron Kaback
Professor of Physiology, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics,
University of California, Los Angeles
Lacy: The Great White Permease
4 p.m. | Wednesday, October 31, 2012 | Leadership Studies Town Hall
Dr. Paul Ehrlich
National Academy of Sciences Member, 1985
Population, Environment and the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere:
Can We Save the World?
10:30 a.m. | Wednesday, March 7, 2012 | K-State Student Union Form Hall
Biography
Paul Ralph Ehrlich biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. He is an entomologist specializing in butterflies. He is the co-founder, with Peter H. Raven of the field of coevolution, and has undertaken long-term studies of the structure, dynamics, and genetics of natural butterfly populations. He has also been a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation, and the environment as matters of public policy. Ehrlich is best known his popular and widely discussed 1968 book The Population Bomb. He has won numerous major prizes including a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and considered the highest award given in the field of ecology, Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America, 2001, distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, 2001, and the Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the Generalitat of Catalonia, 2009. Dr. Ehrlich has published numerous books and peer reviewed publications.
Additional Information available at:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/CCB/cgi-bin/ccb/content/paul-r-ehrlich
Dr. Naomi Oreskes
University of California-San Diego
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
October 18, 2010
No lecture took place in Academic Year 2010.
Dr. Robert Webster
National Academy of Sciences Member ,1998
Fellow of the Royal Society, London, 1989
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Emergence and Control of Pandemic Influenza
2 p.m. | November 13, 2008 | Frick Auditorium, Mosier Hall
Biography
Dr. Webster is a member of the Infectious Diseases Department at St. Jude Children's Hospital. He received his Ph.D. from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Webster's interests include the structure and function of influenza virus proteins and the development of new vaccines and antivirals; the importance of influenza viruses in wild birds as a major reservoir of influenza viruses and their role in the evolution of new pandemic strains for humans and lower animals. His curriculum vitae contains over 400 original articles and reviews on influenza viruses. He has mentored many individuals who have been successful in contributing to our knowledge of influenza as an emerging pathogen.
Abstract
Pandemic influenza is a zoonotic disease caused by the transfer of influenza A viruses or virus gene segments from aquatic bird reservoirs to humans and domestic animals. In wild aquatic birds-the natural hosts of influenza viruses-these viruses exist in harmony with their hosts and are non-pathogenic. After transfer to other species influenza viruses evolve rapidly. In humans pandemics of influenza emerge at irregular intervals; in the last century three major pandemics occurred including the catastrophic 1918 Spanish H1N1 pandemic, the 1957 Asian H2N2 and the 1968 Hong Kong H3N2 pandemics and the reemergence of the H1N1 Russian influenza in 1977. In the interim seasonal influenza occurs that can cause high mortality in the young and the elderly with peaks of activity in the winter months in temperate and throughout the year in tropical countries.
Among the influenza A viruses there are 16 hemagglutinin and 9 neuraminidase subtypes. Of the hemagglutinin subtypes the H2, H5, H6, H7, and H9 viruses are considered to have future pandemic potential. In my presentation the potential of each of these will be discussed and the options of control strategies will be evaluated.
Additional Resources
Dr. Ruth DeFries
Columbia University
Landuse Dynamics in Tropical Landscapes
September 20, 2007
Dr. Peter Agre
Duke University
Aquaporin Water Channel: From Atomic Structure to Clinical Medicine
October 8, 2007
Dr. Alan Leshner
American Assoiation for the Advancement of Science
Current Context for Science, Society and Public Policy
March 2, 2006