Town & Gown Talks: 2020-2021
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Nazita Lajevardi - JUNE 15, 2021Today we had the pleasure of spending an hour and 20 minutes with Professor Nazita Lajevardi (Dept. of Political Science). Dr. Lajevardi received her Ph.D. from the University of San Diego in 2017 and her J.D. in 2012 from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Her work focuses on issues related to race and ethnic politics, political behavior, voting rights, and immigration. Her latest book, Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia, offers the first systematic examination of the status of Muslim Americans in U.S. democracy. Dr. Lajevardi’s presentation is entitled: "Why Hostility Towards Muslims Matters for Politics."
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Dean Rehberger - June 1, 2021Today we had the pleasure of spending an hour and 20 minutes with Professor Dean Rehberger (History and MATRIX). Dr. Rehberger is the Director of MATRIX and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at MSU. Dr. Rehberger specializes in developing digital technologies for research and teaching. He has given presentations for educators and cultural heritage workers around the world. Dr. Rehberger oversees MATRIX’s project planning, research and development, coordinating many of the grant-funded projects for the Center. Today Dr. Rehberger talked about an important online collaboration among the Department of History, MATRIX, and University of Maryland’s College of Arts and Humanities entitled Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade.
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Brendan Mullan - MAY 25, 2021Today we had the pleasure of spending an hour and 20 minutes with Dr. Brendan Mullan (Sociology & Social Science Scholars). Dr. Mullan received his Ph.D. in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania and has gone on to write books, articles and policy publications on topics ranging from demography and development to migration and inequality. Dr. Mullan previously served as the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs and as the Acting Director of the Center for Integrative Studies at MSU. In addition to his research and outreach and service, Dr. Mullan leads the first year Social Science Scholars research seminar at MSU. His presentation is entitled "The Demography of East Lansing, Mich."
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Deborah Moriarty - May 4, 2021Today we had the privilege to meet with Professor Deborah Moriarty. She is professor of piano and chair of the piano area at MSU’s College of Music, where she is a recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award. A Massachusetts native, Moriarty made her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age 11. A medal winner in the “Concours Debussy,” she is an active recitalist and soloist with orchestras throughout the eastern United States and has performed in Belgium, Japan, Colombia, Mexico, China, Italy, Uzbekistan, India, and the former Soviet Union.
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SCOTT WOLFE - APRIL 20, 2021Today we had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Scott Wolfe (School of Criminal Justice). Dr. Scott Wolfe received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2012. His research focuses on policing, organizational justice, legitimacy, and criminological theory. He is currently engaged in a study, funded by the Bureau of Justice, to help the Saginaw Police Department and other local and federal law enforcement agencies to develop focused deterrence strategies to combat gang-related violence. The title of Dr. Wolfe’s presentation was "Using Science to Understand Policing."
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Shahnaz Masani - APRIL 13, 2021Today we had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Shahnaz Masani. Masani graduated with a Life Sciences degree from St. Xavier's College in Mumbai India, received her master's degree in Zoology from the University of Pune and her Ph.D. in Genetics from Michigan State University. She now teaches and conducts research as a professor in the Lyman Briggs College. Masani's doctoral work and our talk today were both focused on the use of gene editing technologies, like CRISPR/Cas9 to understand the development of B-cells, which are an important component of the immune system.
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Social Science Scholars - APR. 6, 2021Today we had the pleasure of spending an hour and 20 minutes with three accomplished Social Science Scholars talking about their research. You’ll recognize them all as regular Town & Gown moderators. The presentations are as follows:
Wisdom Henry: "Neighborhood change In Chicago: A Case Study of Gentrification, Disinvestment, and Displacement and their Consequences on African Americans." Tyler Hoguet: "Public Land in the United States: Different Models and Different Outcomes." Emily Saxon: "Comparing Sexual Misconduct Prevention Strategies." |
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RANDY NAPOLEON - MARCH 23, 2021Today we had the pleasure of meeting with one of America’s most accomplished jazz guitarists. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Ann Arbor, Randy Napoleon began his journey in jazz immediately after finishing his studies at the University of Michigan. A highly accomplished player of the jazz guitar, who spent several years touring, Randy Napoleon joined the MSU College of Music faculty in fall 2014. He has performed on or arranged over seventy records and released five of his own, has played on The Tonight Show and Late Night With David Letterman (among other programs), and has performed at such venues as the Royal Albert Hall and The Sydney Opera House.
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NATHAN MOORE - MARCH 3, 2021Today we had the pleasure of meeting with one of MSU’s leading climate scientists. Dr. Nathan Moore completed his B.A. in Physics in 1993 from the University of Virginia and received a M.S. in Physics in 1997 from the University of Oregon. He earned his Ph.D. in Earth and Ocean Sciences from Duke University in 2004. As an associate professor in the Geography Department at MSU, with joint appointments at the Center for Global Change & Earth Observations and MSU's AgBioResearch, Dr. Moore has research projects in China, East Africa, and the Amazon. His current NASA-funded project for Amazon basin research looks at how deforestation in the Amazon affects levels of rainfall.
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BURTON GERBER - FEBRUARY 19, 2021Today we had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Burton Gerber who graduated from MSU in 1955 and served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 39 years as a case officer and Chief of Station in three Communist countries. In 2006, he received MSU’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and, with his late wife Rosalie, has endowed scholarships at MSU. Mr. Gerber now teaches at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and has co-written two books on the ethics and the importance of espionage: Transforming U.S. Intelligence (2005) and Vaults, Mirrors, and Masks (2010). Mr. Gerber is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a Knight of Malta. His career in Moscow is described in detail in David Hoffman’s best-selling The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal (2016).
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JOE DARDEN - JANUARY 15, 2021Today we had the privilege to meet with Joe Darden (Department of Geography). Professor Joe Darden received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1972. A former Fulbright Scholar and recipient of a Distinguished Faculty Award, Darden has written several books on African American history and the history of Detroit. He is currently working on a book entitled “Detroit After Bankruptcy: Are There Trends Toward an Inclusive City?”
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Betsey Sneller - January 8, 2021Today we had the privilege to speak with Dr. Betsy Sneller. Professor Sneller received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania and is the co-director of the MSU Sociolinguistics Lab. She works on language change in general (ranging from how kids acquire language variation and push forward language change, to large-scale population studies of dialect change) and is now studying how social distancing during the pandemic is affecting ongoing language changes in Michigan.
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JASON MOSER - DECEMBER 18, 2020Today we had the privilege to meet with Jason Moser (Department of Psychology). Professor Jason Moser received his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 2009. He is now an associate professor of Psychology and runs the Clinical Psychophysiology Lab. Professor Moser’s research seeks to uncover how differently the brain works in those suffering from anxiety. The title of his talk was "Can We Make Managing Stress and Anxiety More Manageable? Insights from Psychological Science and Neuroscience."
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ALAN ARBOGAST - DECEMBER 11, 2020Today we had the privilege to meet with Alan Arbogast, Chair of the Department of Geography at MSU. Professor Alan F. Arbogast obtained his PhD from the University of Kansas in 1995. A physical geographer, Arbogast specializes in the formation of American landscapes, including the Great Plains and the dunes of the Great Lake region. His textbook, Discovering Physical Geography, is used at over 60 colleges and universities around the country. The title of his talk was "The Geography and Evolution of Michigan's Coastal Sand Dunes."
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NWANDO ACHEBE - DECEMBER 4, 2020Today we had the privilege to meet with Nwando Achebe (Department of History). Professor Nwando Achebe received her Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2000. She is an award winning author, teacher, and historian at MSU. Achebe’s most recent book is Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa, which we got to hear from and discuss in her talk today. She has also appeared in and consulted on documentaries for the History Channel and A&E Network.
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John Waller - November 27, 2020Today we had the privilege to speak with Dr. John Waller. Professor Waller received degrees in history from the universities of Oxford and London and is the director of MSU’s Social Science Scholars Program. He is the author of books on the nature of scientific discovery, the history of medicine, the history of child labor, episodes of mass psychogenic illness, and the history of genetics and ideas about race. His talk today was entitled, "The World's Strangest Event? The Bizarre Dancing Plague of Strasburg, AD 1518."
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Siddharth Chandra - NOV. 20, 2020Today we had the privilege to speak with Professor Siddharth Chandra. He received an A.M. in economics from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. Chandra’s research interests include behavior and policy relating to addictive substances, the causes of genocide, and the history of disease. The title of his very prevalent talk today was "Lessons from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in U.S. & Asia Research."
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