Lecture Previews
“Almost Something from Nothing”: Richard D. McCullough
Today at 4:30 p.m.
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)
Richard D. McCullough, the vice president for research at Carnegie Mellon and the Thomas Lord professor of chemistry, will speak of his journey from a community college to a postdoctoral degree from Columbia and the decisions that shaped his career. Most recently, in July 2007, Carnegie Mellon appointed McCullough as the vice president for research, where he will encourage interdisciplinary and cross-college research as well as technological growth. Previously, McCullough served as the dean of the Mellon College of Science after roles as a professor of chemistry and the head of the chemistry department in 1998. His education consists of a B.S. from the University of Texas at Dallas and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.
Besides his position as the vice president of research, McCullough is also a world-renowned expert in printable electronics and the discoverer of regioregular polythiophenes. This discovery helped to create plastic solar cells and plastic transistors.
Women and Children in the Millennium Development Goals
Friday at 7:30 p.m.
La Roche College,
Zappala College Center
As part of La Roche College’s “Global Problems, Global Solutions” Conference, Sheryl WuDunn, the first Asian-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, will speak on Friday relating to the conference’s theme of Women and Children in the Millennium Development Goals. WuDunn is already well-known for works written with her husband Nicolas Kristof, including China Wakes and her most recent co-authored book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. A New York Times bestseller, the book describes women and the challenges they face around the world, and it has been discussed on shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show. The work also received a Beacon Award from the White House Project, a nonpartisan organization with a goal of advancing women’s leadership, this year.
WuDunn also has received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the George Polk Award, and the Overseas Press Club Award.
WuDunn’s previous positions include vice president in the investment management division at Goldman, Sachs & Co., commercial loan officer at Bankers Trust, executive and journalist for The New York Times, and The Times’s first evening news anchor of a program for digital cable, among others.
Identities in Conflict: The Recognition of Migrants, How Exceptional is New York as an Immigrant City?
Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
Adamson Wing
(Baker Hall 136A)
Nancy Foner is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and will discuss New York as a key to immigrant histories. She wrote in the lecture abstract that “New York’s remarkable ethnic and racial diversity, its immigrant history, and institutions have combined to make it a receiving city that, in many ways, is like no other in the United States.”
The lecture will highlight how immigration has affected the social construction of race and ethnicity in New York. Specifically, Foner claims that immigration has changed intergroup relations to a particular “New York way.”