IHMC Evening Lectures

Quint Studer spent ten years working with special needs children before entering the healthcare industry in 1984 as a Community Relations Representative. From then until he founded Studer Group, he served as Department Director, Vice President, and Senior Vice President at a number of organizations and as president of Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. Each of these experiences built a platform for creating tools, techniques and systems aimed at improving organizational performance and—most importantly— patient care. In 2000, after numerous requests by organizations for assistance, Studer Group was formed. A recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Studer Group implements evidence–based leadership systems that help clients attain and sustain outstanding results in more than 700 hospitals and organizations across the US. Together, they serve a “national learning lab” in which best practices are harvested, tested, refined, and shared with all health care organizations through peer-reviewed journal articles, Studer Group publications, and products designed to accelerate change. Quint has written five (5) books, two of which are bestsellers. His first book, BusinessWeek bestseller, Hardwiring Excellence is one of the top selling leadership books ever written for healthcare. More than 350,000 copies have been sold. Results that Last—written to teach non-healthcare leaders how to apply Studer Group tactics and strategies to their organizations—hit the Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list of business books. Straight A Leadership teaches senior leaders how to create organizations that can execute swiftly and well in response to a rapidly shifting external environment. Most recently, he coauthored The HCAHPS Handbook: Hardwire Your Hospital for Pay-For-Performance Success.

John Norquist is the President of the Congress for New Urbanism. His work promoting New Urbanism as an alternative to sprawl and antidote to sprawl’s social and environmental problems draws on his experience as big-city mayor and prominent participant in national discussions on urban design and school reform. John Norquist was the Mayor of Milwaukee from 1988-2004. Under his leadership, Milwaukee experienced a decline in poverty, saw a boom in new downtown housing and became a leading center of education and welfare reform. He has overseen a revision of the city’s zoning code and reoriented development around walkable streets and public amenities such as the city’s 3.1-mile Riverwalk. He has drawn widespread recognition for championing the removal of a .8 mile stretch of elevated freeway, clearing the way for an anticipated $350 million in infill development in the heart of Milwaukee. In naming Milwaukee America’s Most-Underrated City in 2001, the Utne Reader said Norquist “understands what makes cities work as well as anyone in America.” Governing magazine named him Public Official of the Year in 1998. He is the author of The Wealth of Cities (Addison-Wesley, 1998) and has taught courses in urban planning and development at the University of Chicago, Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Before he was elected Mayor, John Norquist represented Milwaukee in the Wisconsin Legislature. Fellow legislators elected him to Democratic leadership positions in both the state assembly and state senate. Norquist earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin. He is married to Susan Mudd. They have a son, Benjamin, and daughter, Katherine.

The power of process will be essential for unemotional investing in this age of turbulence. Investors will learn about profit opportunities in 2011 and the power of dividends. Charles “Chuck” Carlson has 28 years of experience in the financial markets. He is Chief Executive Officer of Horizon Publishing, one of the oldest investment newsletter publishers in the country. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Horizon Investment Services, a money management concern. Mr. Carlson is editor of DRIP Investor investment newsletter and is a contributing editor of Dow Theory Forecasts investment newsletter. Mr. Carlson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), holds an undergraduate degree in Journalism from Northwestern University (1982) and an MBA from the University of Chicago (1993). He is the author of nine books, including the best-selling Buying Stocks Without a Broker (McGraw-Hill) and Eight Steps to Seven Figures (Doubleday). His newest book, The Little Book of Big Dividends (Wiley), was published in 2010. Mr. Carlson’s comments appear in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, Money, Business Week, Forbes, Barron’s, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. Mr. Carlson speaks frequently on television and radio shows, including CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, NBC’s Today Show, and Chicago’s WBBM radio. He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana.

The history of asteroid impacts goes back 4.5 billion years and they are the source of the enabling materials of life, but also the bringer of destruction. Now, for the first time, we can, with the help of our machines, stop these very infrequent but inexorable impacts. The technical elements of this audacious claim are fascinating and I will summarize them in the presentation. More challenging still, however, are the geopolitical aspects of the task, albeit these are a bit boring. I’ll quickly summarize this aspect. Finally I’ll discuss the implications of this emerging capability and reflect, with the audience,on where we’re heading with this intrusion into the natural evolutionary order. Russell L. (Rusty) Schweickart is a retired astronaut and business and government executive and serves today as Chairman of the Board of the B612 Foundation, a non-profit private that champions the development and testing of a spaceflight concept to protect the Earth from future asteroid impacts. Schweickart was formerly the Executive Vice President of CTA Commercial Systems, Inc. and Director of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Systems. Schweickart’s satellite and telecommunications work involved him in the development of international communications regulations and policies, including participation in the 1992 and 1995 World Radiocommunications Conferences (WRC) of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). He served at the 1995 WRC as a U.S. delegate. He also worked extensively in Russia and the former Soviet Union on scientific and telecommunications matters. Schweickart is the founder and past president of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the international professional society of astronauts and cosmonauts that promotes the cooperative exploration and development of space and the use of space technology for human benefit. In 1987-88, Schweickart chaired the United States Antarctic Program Safety Review Panel for the Director of the National Science Foundation. The resulting report, Safety in Antarctica, a comprehensive on-site review of all U.S. activities in Antarctica, led to a restructuring of the program, increasing the safety of operations in that hazardous environment. Schweickart joined NASA as one of 14 astronauts named in October 1963, the third group of astronauts selected. He served as lunar module pilot for Apollo 9, March 3-13, 1969, logging 241 hours in space. During a 46 minute EVA Schweickart tested the portable life support backpack which was subsequently used on the lunar surface explorations. Schweickart served as backup commander for the first Skylab mission which flew in the Spring of 1973. Prior to joining NASA, Schweickart was a research scientist at the Experimental Astronomy Laboratory at MIT. Schweickart has also served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force and has logged over 4000 hours of flight time, including 3500 hours in high performance jet aircraft. Schweickart was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (1969) and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale De La Vaux Medal (1970) for his Apollo 9 flight. He also received the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award (Emmy) in 1969 for transmitting the first live TV pictures from space. In 1973 Schweickart was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his leadership role in the Skylab rescue efforts. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society and the International Academy of Astronautics, and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Schweickart is an Honorary Trustee and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.

May 25, 2011 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s speech to a joint session of Congress announcing his decision to send Americans to the Moon “before this decade is out.” Kennedy not only made this momentous decision just four months after becoming president; in the thirty months remaining in his tragically shortened time in the White House, he several times reviewed its wisdom, even as he approved the peaceful but war-like mobilization of resources required to achieve the goal he had set for the nation. In the months just before he was assassinated, Kennedy both proposed turning the Apollo lunar landing program into a joint effort with the Soviet Union and authorized a top-level review of the program’s goal and schedule. This talk, based on Dr. Logsdon’s forthcoming book with the same title, will review JFK’s involvement with Apollo. It will assess the results of Apollo, both in terms of the reasons that led President Kennedy to approve it and in terms of its impact on the U.S. space program over the past four decades. Dr. Logsdon is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Prior to his leaving active faculty status in June 2008, he was on the faculty of the George Washington University for 38 years; before that he taught at the Catholic University of America for four years. He was the founder in 1987 and long-time Director of GW’s Space Policy Institute. He is also a faculty member of the International Space University. He holds a B.S. in Physics from Xavier University (1960) and a Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University (1970). Dr. Logsdon’s research interests focus on the policy and historical aspects of U.S. and international space activities. He is author of The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest and the forthcoming John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon and is general editor of the eight-volume series Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. He has written numerous articles and reports on space policy and history. Dr. Logsdon was a member of the NASA Advisory Council from 2005-2009 and remains a member of the Council’s Exploration Committee. He is a member of the Academic Council of the International Space University. From September 2008-August 2009, he held the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. In 2003, he served as a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He has also served on the Vice President’s Space Policy Advisory Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Research Council. He is a recipient of the NASA Exceptional Public Service, Distinguished Public Service, and Public Service Medals, the 2005 John F. Kennedy Award from the American Astronautical Society, and the 2006 Barry Goldwater Space Educator Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Once described “as hell with the lid off”, in 2009 the City of Pittsburgh was ranked first by the “Economist” and in 2010 as the most livable US city by “Forbes”. How does a city move over thirty years from being one of the most environmentally degraded places— its air, water and land polluted— to a city recognized for its livability, clean environment, green architecture and diverse employment opportunities? Pittsburgh was challenged to redefine itself to survive much earlier than many cities; but now, every city needs to metamorphose to succeed. The rules are changing. The forces of global trade, energy needs, climate change, technology innovation, infrastructure needs and demographics will redefine the critical competitive mix for cities to succeed. Tom Murphy is a senior resident fellow of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the Klingbeil Family Chair for urban development. Murphy, former mayor of Pittsburgh, specializes in public policy, retail/urban entertainment, transportation/ infrastructure, housing, real estate finance and environmental issues. Since January 2006, Murphy has served as ULI’s Gulf Coast liaison, helping to coordinate with the leadership of New Orleans and the public to advance the implementation of rebuilding recommendations. He is working with leadership in hurricane-impacted areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to identify areas appropriate for ULI involvement. Prior to his joining ULI, Murphy served three terms as the mayor of Pittsburgh, from January 1994 through December 2005. During that time, he initiated a public- private partnership strategy that leveraged more than $4.5 billion in economic development in Pittsburgh. Murphy led efforts to secure and oversee $1 billion in funding for the development of two professional sports facilities, and a new convention center that is the largest certified green building in the United States. He developed strategic partnerships to transform more than 1,000 acres of blighted, abandoned industrial properties into new commercial, residential, retail and public uses; and he oversaw the development of more than 25 miles of new riverfront trails and urban green space. From 1979 through 1993, Murphy served eight terms in the Pennsylvania State General Assembly House of Representatives. Murphy served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay from 1970 through 1972. He is a 1993 graduate of the New Mayors Program offered by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He holds a masters of science degree in urban studies from Hunter College, and a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from John Carroll University.

Andrew Aldridge Young, born March 23, 1966, is a United States political operative in the Democratic Party who was a key staff member in the John Edwards 2008 presidential campaign. Andrew Young came to prominence via a scandal in which he claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter’s child, Quinn, born on February 27, 2008. John Edwards had admitted a past affair with Hunter, but denied paternity of the baby even though Edwards was in fact the father. Andrew Young has since renounced that statement. In his book, The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down, he claims that Edwards knew all along that he was the child’s father, but pleaded with him to accept responsibility. On January 21, 2010, John Edwards admitted that he was Quinn’s father. Andrew Young is the son of the Robert T. Young (1935–2009), a Methodist minister who held positions at churches in Asheville, Boone, Statesville and at Duke Chapel, all in North Carolina. Andrew Young’s uncle is the author Perry Deane Young. After earning a bachelors degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a law degree at the Wake Forest University School of Law, Andrew Young was a volunteer for John Edwards’ winning campaign for U.S. Senate. Hired by Edwards in 1999, Andrew Young became his most trusted aide, raising more than $10 million for his various causes and playing a key role in his efforts to become President of the United States. Now a private citizen, he lives in Chapel Hill with his wife Cheri and their three children.

In May 2009 a team of astronauts flew to the Hubble Space Telescope on space shuttle Atlantis. On their 13 day mission and over the course of 5 spacewalks they completed an extreme makeover of the orbiting observatory. They installed the Wide Field Camera- 3, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, repaired the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, as well as a number of maintenance activities. The Hubble Space Telescope story has been a fascinating study in public policy, engineering, ethics, and science. For the first time on orbit the Hubble has a full complement of instruments capable of performing state-of-the-art observations from the near infra-red to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. The early results of the new and repaired instruments hint at a bright scientific future for Hubble and will be presented in the talk as well as a narrative of the adventures on orbit. Dr. John M. Grunsfeld was recently appointed Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). A veteran of five space flights, including three missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope - STS-103 in Dec. 1999, STS-109 in March 2002, and STS-125 in May 2009 - Grunsfeld has logged over 835 hours in space, including nearly 60 hours of Extravehicular Activity during eight space walks. He served as the NASA Chief Scientist detailed to NASA Headquarters in 2003-2004, where he helped develop the President’s Vision for Space Exploration. Dr. Grunsfeld received his B.S. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.S. and Ph.D degrees in physics from the University of Chicago. He has held academic positions as visiting scientist at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, graduate research assistant at the University of Chicago, NASA Graduate Student Fellow at the University of Chicago, Grainger Postdoctoral Fellow in Experimental Physics at the University of Chicago, and senior research fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

The Moon is a unique platform for fundamental astrophysical measurements of gravitation, the Sun, and the Universe. Lunar Laser Ranging of the Earth-Moon distance provides extremely high precision constraints on General Relativity and alternative models of gravity. Lacking a permanent ionosphere and, on the farside, shielded from terrestrial radio emissions, a low frequency (less than 100 MHz) radio telescope on the Moon will be an unparalleled observatory for probing myriad cosmic phenomena from the Sun to the very early Universe. Crucial stages in the acceleration of high energy particles near the Sun, which will be harmful to astronauts exploring beyond the Earth’s immediate environs, can be imaged and tracked with the lunar radio telescope. The evolution of the Universe during and before the formation of the first stars, black holes, and quasars can be traced for the first time with a farside low frequency radio array. Jack Burns is a Professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder. He is also Vice President Emeritus for Academic Affairs and Research for the CU System. Burns received his B.S. degree, magna cum laude, in Astrophysics from the University of Massachusetts, an M.S. degree and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Indiana University. Burns has held a variety of leadership positions in higher education, including serving as Vice President for Academic Affairs & Research for the University of Colorado System, Vice Provost for Research at the University of Missouri – Columbia, and as Associate Dean and Professor of Astronomy for the College of Arts and Sciences at New Mexico State University (NMSU). During his tenure at the University of New Mexico, Burns served as the Director of the Institute for Astrophysics and was a Presidential Fellow. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Burns has over 360 publications in refereed journals, books, and in conference proceedings and abstracts (as listed in NASA’s Astrophysics Data System). His research has been featured on the covers of Scientific American, Nature, and Science. His teaching and research focus on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, supercomputer numerical simulations, astrophysics from the Moon, and public policy issues in higher education and science. Burns is director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR), a $6.5 million center recently awarded by the NASA Lunar Science Institute. Burns is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was recently awarded NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal by NASA Administrator Bolden.

The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Rising living standards of a growing world population will cause global energy consumption to double by mid-century and triple by the end of the century. Even in light of unprecedented conservation, the additional energy needed is simply not attainable from long discussed sources – these include nuclear, biomass, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. The global appetite for energy is simply too much. Petroleum-based fuel sources (i.e., coal, oil and gas) could be increased. However, deleterious consequences resulting from external drivers of economy, the environment, and global security dictate that this energy need be met by renewable and sustainable sources. The dramatic increase in global energy need is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the non-legacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half century. The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level – personalized solar energy – drives inextricably towards the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon neutral and plentiful energy. This talk will place the scale of the global energy issue in perspective and then discuss how personalized energy (especially for the non-legacy world) can provide a path to a solution to the global energy challenge. Daniel G. Nocera is the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of the Solar Revolutions Project and Director of the Eni Solar Frontiers Center at MIT. His group pioneered studies of the basic mechanisms of energy conversion in biology and chemistry. He has recently accomplished a solar fuels process that captures many of the elements of photosynthesis outside of the leaf. This discovery sets the stage for a storage mechanism for the large scale, distributed, deployment of solar energy. He has been awarded the Eni Prize (2005), IAPS Award (2006), Burghausen Prize (2007), Harrison Howe Award (2008), ACS Inorganic Chemistry Award (2009) and the U.N. Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization’s Science and Technology Award (2009) for his contributions to the development of renewable energy. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was named as Times Magazine 100 Most Influential People in the World. Nocera is a frequent guest on TV and radio and is regularly featured in print. In 2008, he founded Sun Catalytix, a company committed to bringing personalized energy to the non-legacy world

Mayor Rick Baker is the current Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida. He was first elected in 2001 to lead Florida’s 4th largest city, re-elected in November 2005 by over 70% of the vote, winning every precinct in the city. In 2008, Mayor Baker was named as the 2008 United States Mayor/ Public Official of the year by Governing Magazine. An accomplished musician, “the guitar-playing mayor,” Rick Baker plays and sings regularly with Sam Stone at the Saturday Morning Market in downtown St. Petersburg. He is also frequently invited to play with local and national acts. Mayor Baker was appointed by Governor Charlie Crist to serve on Transition Team as Group Leader for departments of Transportation, Environmental Protection and Community Affairs, along with the Fish and Wildlife Commission and was appointed Vice Chair of Governor Crist’s Action Team on Energy & Climate Change. He also became Governor Jeb Bush’s appointment to Chair the Municipal Mentoring Initiative and the Century Commission for a sustainable Florida as well as the Chair of the National League of Cities - School Improvement Task Force. Mayor Baker practiced corporate and business law for 19 years, serving as president of Fisher and Sauls, P.A. He authored Mangroves to Major Leagues, a book on the history of St. Petersburg from 23,000 B.C. to 2000 A.D. He holds a B.S. in management, an M.B.A. and a Juris Doctor with honors from Florida State University where he also served as senior class president. He has studied comparative law at Oxford University and worked as a Law intern with Florida Supreme Court Justice Ben Overton. He resides in St. Petersburg with his wife Joyce and has two children.

Meteorites represent an invaluable resource of geological material from the asteroids, sampling their mineralogy, geochemistry, and small-scale structure. Meteorite physical properties, in particular density and porosity, can be tied to recently determined asteroid physical properties. Our measurements show that both meteorite and asteroid porosities appear to increase as one travels further from the Sun. Thus one can envision a solar nebula where distance from the sun controls the composition of the material accreting into planets, and the physical nature of that material. Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ was born in Detroit, Michigan. He earned undergraduate and masters’ degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona, was a researcher at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps, and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989. At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, his research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies, observing Kuiper Belt comets with the Vatican’s 1.8 meter telescope in Arizona, and curating the Vatican meteorite collection. Along with more than 100 scientific publications, he is the author of a number of popular books including his latest, God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion. Dr. Consolmagno has served on the governing boards of the Meteoritical Society; is the past president of the International Astronomical Union, Commission 16 (Planets and Satellites) and secretary of Division III (Planetary Systems Sciences); and presently serves as chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. This year he holds the Loyola Chair for visiting Jesuit scholars at Fordham University.

Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, let’s add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability. Computational thinking is an approach to solving problems, building systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on the power and limits of computing. While computational thinking has already begun to influence many disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities, the best is yet to come. Looking to the future, we can anticipate even more profound impact of computational thinking on science, technology, and society: on the ways new discoveries will be made, innovation will occur, and cultures will evolve. Dr. Jeannette Wing is the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate at the National Science Foundation. In this post, Wing guides and manages $527 million in funding for research in computer and information science and engineering. She received her S.B. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1979 and her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 1983, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2004-2007, she was Head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon. Wing is currently on leave from CMU where she is the President’s Professor of Computer Science. Professor Wing was or is on the editorial board of twelve journals. She has been a member of many advisory boards, including: the Networking and Information Technology (NITRD) Technical Advisory Group to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the National Academies of Sciences’s Computer Science and, Telecommunications Board, ACM Council, the DARPA Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Board, NSF’s CISE Advisory Committee, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board, the Intel Research Pittsburgh’s Advisory Board, and the Sloan Research Fellowships Program Committee. She is a member of AAAS, ACM, IEEE, Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and Eta Kappa Nu. Jeannette Wing is an AAAS Fellow, ACM Fellow, and IEEE Fellow.

The relationship between science and the rest of society has, over time, been a bit of a roller coaster. Although people consistently believe that the benefi ts of science outweigh its costs and risks, individual issues can generate substantial tension. The last decade has been a particularly diffi cult period, with issues like embryonic stem cell research and the teaching of evolution generating substantial tension. This talk will explore the evolving relationship between science and the broader community it serves. Dr. Leshner has been Chief Executive Offi cer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Executive Publisher of the journal Science since December 2001. AAAS was founded in 1848 and is the world’s largest, multi-disciplinary scientifi c and engineering society. Before coming to AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) from 1994-2001. Before becoming Director of NIDA, Dr. Leshner had been the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Dr. Leshner has also held a variety of senior positions at the National Science Foundation focusing on basic research in the biological, behavioral and social sciences, science policy and science education. Dr. Leshner received an undergraduate degree in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiological psychology from Rutgers University. He also has been awarded six honorary Doctor of Science degrees. Dr. Leshner is an elected fellow of AAAS, the National Academy of Public Administration, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and many other professional societies. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and Vice-Chair of its governing Council. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH. Dr. Leshner was appointed by the President of the United States to the National Science Board in 2004.

The appearance of life put the Earth “under new management,” and life has continuously remodeled the atmosphere, oceans and land masses. The Earth’s climate and related life support systems are changing today in ways and at rates that are markedly different from those experienced in recorded human history. 21st century biology must provide the knowledge needed to adapt to these changes, and to recognize possible tipping points well in advance of the onset of environmental degradation, economic hardship, or pandemic disease. The future demands a trans-disciplinary approach to research and education that reaches beyond the science of traditional disciplines to prepare a new generation of scientists and educators to communicate science as a “precise, predictive and reliable” way of understanding life and adapting to a changing world. James P. Collins was appointed Assistant Director for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF) effective October 15, 2005. Collins is also currently Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). Collins served as director of the Population Biology and Physiological Ecology program at the National Science Foundation from 1985 to 1986. Collins received his B.S. from Manhattan College in 1969 and his Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in 1975. Collins has delivered the Pettingill Lecture in Natural History at The University of Michigan Biological Station; the Thomas Hall Lecture at Washington University, St. Louis; the Irving S. Cooper Lecture at Mayo Clinic/Scottsdale; and was a Bonchek Fellow at Franklin and Marshall College. ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awarded him the Distinguished Faculty Award in 2003 and the Gary Krahenbuhl Difference Maker award in 2005. Collins is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). He has served on the editorial board of Ecology and Ecological Monographs, as well as Evolution.