Calendar

David McCullough is a best-selling author and one of America’s most distinguished historians. His books have led a renaissance of interest in American history. He has received two Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies John Adams and Truman. As an historian, he paints with words, creating pictures of the American people that live, breathe and above all, confront the fundamental issues of courage, achievement and moral character. In his presentation, McCullough will discuss the new presidency and place it in a larger historical context.

Dr. Peter Kareiva, Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy will talk about “Making Conservation Work for People”. Nature provide benefits to people –everything from clean water and flood control, to fiber from forests, and fish from aquatic ecosystems. The scientific and practical challenge lies in developing credible tools that allow routine consideration of nature’s assets (or ecosystem services) in a way that informs the choices we make every day at the scale of local communities and regions, all the way up to nations and global agreements.

A former university professor, Dr. Kareiva’s responsibilities at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) include reporting to the Board of Directors on the state of science in TNC, mentoring TNC scientists, identifying opportunities and shortcomings that warrant science attention if TNC is to fulfill its mission, advising leadership on emerging conservation challenges and serving as one of several external spokespeople. Dr. Kareiva is a co-founder and director of a pioneering collaboration between World Wildlife Fund, Stanford University and The Nature Conservancy called the Natural Capital Project. His current projects emphasize the interplay of human land-use and biodiversity, resilience in the face of global change and evidence-based conservation.

Erik Peterson will visit from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C. think tank. The SEVEN FUTURES project assesses the defining outlines of the world in the year 2025 by examining the "alternative futures" of seven key regions of the world. Seven Futures zooms in on specific policy challenges raised by global strategic trends -- ranging from demographic change to the allocation of scarce resources to systems of governance.

Dr. Louis Gross, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and mathematics and director of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis at The University of Tennessee, will deliver the keynote address for the annual Vaughn Science Lecture.