February 20, 2017

Learn about a different research topic each month by talking with a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer from the comfort of your own computer. Using Adobe Connect, American Scientist editors moderate Q & A discussions with the lecturers. The public can participate by joining the online sessions and asking the lecturer questions about that month’s topic. Live updates from the sessions are posted on American Scientist’s Twitter account, @AmSciMag, with #AmSciTalks. 

Recordings of past sessions are available on American Scientist’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/AmSciMagazine. Recorded topics include After Fukushima: Nuclear Power Programs Around the World, Searching for the Chemical Origins of Life, and Prehistoric Decisions Preserved in Artifacts. We hope you can participate in the following upcoming sessions: 

March 2, 10–11 a.m. Eastern Time
Gender Equity in STEM  
Guest: Paula Rayman, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is a nationally recognized scholar in the field of work organization, labor, and public policy and has been recognized for her leadership on advancing women in STEM. Her presentations have discussed how institutions can work toward diversity, equity, and innovation. Rayman is also director of the Middle East Center for Peace, Development, and Culture; a Senior Fulbright Scholar award recipient; and the co-author of The Equity Equation: Fostering the Advancement of Women in the Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering. She was the founding director of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at UMass Lowell and was the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded initiative, Project Techforce: Women and Men in Information Technology Workplaces and co-principal investigator for the NSF-funded Project WORKING WISE (Women in Science and Engineering). 
Link to participate: https://sigmaxi.adobeconnect.com/equity/ 
Note: This session was originally scheduled for later in March but was postponed. March 2 is the updated and confirmed date. 


April 11, 3:30–4:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Using Nanoparticles for Consumer Products and the Environment
Guest: Alexander Orlov, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, is also a faculty member of the Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research, an affiliate faculty of the chemistry department, affiliate faculty at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, and a visiting professor at Cambridge University. Orlov’s principle research activities are in the development of novel materials for energy generation, structural applications, and environmental protection. He was awarded the U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the U.K. National Endowment for Science Technology and Arts CRUCIBLE award. He was selected to the Fellowship of the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry and to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering program. He was made a Kavli Fellow in 2014 by the Kavli Foundation and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. 
Link to participate: https://sigmaxi.adobeconnect.com/nanotechnology/


May 9, 3:30–4:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Making a Quantum Leap for Computers 
Guest: Susan N. Coppersmith, the Robert E. Fassnacht Professor and Vilas Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is a theoretical condensed matter physicist who has worked on a broad range of problems in the area of complex systems and has made substantial contributions to the understanding of subjects such as glasses, granular materials, the nonlinear dynamics of magnetic flux lattices in type-II superconductors, and quantum computing.  Coppersmith is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also been elected to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences. 
Link to participate: https://sigmaxi.adobeconnect.com/computers/

For updates about these sessions, and future sessions, go to the Sigma Xi calendar at http://community.sigmaxi.org/events/calendar.