2024 Ashtekar Frontiers of Science hero banner image.
event
2024 Ashtekar Frontiers of Science Lecture 4
Add to Calendar 2024-02-17T16:00:00 2024-02-17T17:30:00 UTC 2024 Ashtekar Frontiers of Science Lecture 4 100 Thomas Building
Start DateSat, Feb 17, 2024
11:00 AM
to
End DateSat, Feb 17, 2024
12:30 PM
Presented By
Richard Alley and Charles Anderson

“Finding the good news on climate and energy"

Event Series: Frontiers of Science | 2024 Frontiers of Science

2024 Ashtekar Frontiers of Science
Exploring Scientific Progress Over Time

 

Richard Alley.

We enjoy great benefits from energy use, mostly from fossil fuels now, but they cause highly damaging climate changes. Very strong evidence shows that we can use this knowledge to build a larger economy in a cleaner environment with more jobs, improved health, and greater national security more consistent with the Golden Rule. Students today are part of the first generation in human history that knows with confidence that they can build a sustainable energy system, powering everyone everywhere.

Richard Alley, Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences, studies the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to help predict future climate and sea-level changes. He has been honored for research, teaching, and service, including election to the US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. He participated in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (co-recipient, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), and provided requested advice to high government officials from both major political parties. He has authored or coauthored over 400 scholarly publications. He was presenter for the PBS TV miniseries “Earth: The Operators’ Manual,” based on his book. His popular account of climate change and ice cores, “The Two-Mile Time Machine,” was Phi Beta Kappa’s science book of the year. He is happily married with two grown daughters, two stay-at-home cats, a bicycle, and a pair of soccer cleats. Alley earned a doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1987.

 

Charles Anderson

Charles Anderson.

Charles Anderson, professor of biology, studies cell wall dynamics in plants. Plant cell walls contain networks of polysaccharides and proteins that interact with each other and change in composition and organization during cell growth and other developmental processes in plants. Anderson seeks to measure changes in wall architecture during growth, to understand how interactions between cell wall components influence wall structure and remodeling, and to identify and characterize new genes that influence cell wall dynamics. This research will inform efforts to use plant cell walls, which are an abundant and renewable resource, to provide sustainable food, materials, and energy. Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a doctoral degree in cell and molecular biology at Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Berkeley before joining the faculty at Penn State.