2019 ‘Frontiers in Science’ Public Lecture Series
Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science will host its 2019 “Frontiers in Science” series with seven different lectures, on Fridays from Jan. 11 through April 5. This year’s speakers include experts in the fields of anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geosciences, mathematics and physics. All lectures begin at 3:30 p.m. and will take place at FAU’s Boca Raton campus.
‘Potential for Restoring Earth’s Damaged Ecosystems’ with Holly Jones, Ph.D.
Friday, Jan. 11 at 3:30 p.m.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, BC 126
Jones is a restoration ecologist who works at the intersections of ecological theory, community ecology, invasive species biology, and ecosystem ecology. She has broad research interests that include using ecosystem resilience theory and ecosystem service theory to prioritize restoration and using geospatial information to prioritize climate change adaptation strategies.
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‘How the Astrobiology of Meteorites is Creating Next Generation Hard Drives’ with Heshan Illangkoon, Ph.D.
Friday, Jan. 18 at 3:30 p.m.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, BC 126
We reside in an information age where data is everything. With each selfie, tweet and status update, humanity increases its digital footprint at a rate rapidly outpacing our storage capacity. In short, we are running out of memory and we need more storage space. DNA is quickly becoming an attractive medium due to its exponentially higher data storage density, energy efficiency and extended lifetime in comparison to current silicon binary systems.
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‘New Frontiers in Radiation Oncology-Proton Therapy’ with Dr. Tim R. Williams
Friday, Jan. 25 at 3:30 p.m.
FAU General Classroom North, GN 102
Proton therapy is one of the most advanced radiation treatments available to cancer patients, the technology is expensive, and the implementation is complex. Some centers are thriving, while others are struggling. Development time can take many years, with numerous false starts and financial twists and turns. Dr. Williams, a past president of ASTRO, will present his personal experience as a user road map. His presentation will review the process of evaluating the chances for the successful development of a new proton therapy program. Learn what is necessary to make an informed purchasing decision, including what data to collect, how to identify specific patient populations which would benefit, and the strategies to employ to ensure a positive return on investment for this feature of your cancer program.
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‘Mating Between Species: Why Do It and What Are the Consequences’ with Kate Detwiler, Ph.D.
Friday, Feb. 8 at 3:30 p.m.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, BC 126
Biologists use species as the fundamental unit to categorize and describe life on earth. However, nature is complex, and biologists struggle with how to define what a species is. One challenge is that species boundaries can be permeable opening the possibility for hybridization to occur. Hybridization between clearly defined species raises two fundamental questions: Why did individuals mate with members of another species and what are the consequences? This lecture addresses these questions by reviewing recent research from hybridization studies, highlighting new genomic approaches that expand our ability to track movement of genetic material between species.
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‘Biomedical Imaging: Extending the Powers of Human Observation’ with Elizabeth Brainerd, Ph.D.
Friday, Feb. 15 at 3:30 p.m.
FAU General Classroom North, GN 102
Our abilities to see from the miniscule and the immense, and high-speed imaging acts like a microscope for time, slicing it into tiny pieces that can be reassembled to track motions of the fastest organisms on earth. Imaging modalities such as CT, MRI and PET scanning probe inside humans and other animals to visualize bones, muscles and organs that are normally hidden from view. Brainerd will review overall advances in biomedical imaging and then focus on a new technology developed in my research group, X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM).
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‘How to Keep Your Genome Secret’ with Kristin Lauter, Ph.D.
Friday, March 1 at 3:30 p.m.
FAU General Classroom North, GN 102
This talk will describe a mathematical solution for securely handling outsourced computation in the cloud, using homomorphic encryption. One application is to provide private storage and computation on genomic data, to protect the long-term privacy of the data. Many other applications in the health, financial, and public sectors can make use of homomorphic encryption techniques to securely and privately store and compute on encrypted data. Current solutions for Homomorphic Encryption are based on hard problems in number theory related to lattices. This talk will survey the theory and practice of homomorphic encryption today.
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‘Watching Proteins in Fast Motion’ with Feng Gai, Ph.D.
Friday, March 15 at 3:30 p.m.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, BC 126
Proteins are tiny machines essential to life. They are present in each and every cell of living organisms, performing a variety of different tasks required for cells to function. It is imperative to understand how proteins achieve their functional form or structure, as well as what factors affect this process. The challenge is that proteins can fold faster than the blink of an eye, making it very difficult to directly observe the motions of any beads, due to the lack of a camera capable of taking snapshots along the folding path. In this talk, we will discuss the scientific community’s ongoing efforts to overcome this limitation. __________________________________________________________________________
‘Our Place in the Universe’ with Jason Kalirai, Ph.D.
Friday, April 5 at 3:30 p.m.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, BC 126
From Galileo, to Edwin Hubble, to scientists using NASA's Space Telescopes, our understanding
of what our place in the universe is has been overthrown numerous times. In this talk, Kalirai will shape a roadmap to answer the next installment of this question, “Are we alone?”
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For more information, contact Zach Greathouse at 561-297-3524 or zgreatho@fau.edu.
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