Top IUPUI Faculty to Present at Cutting Edge Lecture Series

INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI Office of Academic Affairs is pleased to announce its inaugural Cutting Edge Lecture Series. This series will give the opportunity for the community to engage in dialogues with top university professors about rapidly changing fields of inquiry. A series of lectures will be held in both the spring and fall semesters.

All lectures will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the University Library Auditorium, 755 West Michigan St. They are free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary.

Following are the lectures planned for spring 2007:

• Thursday, March 8
  William Bosron, Interim Dean of the Purdue School of Science
  Genetics of Alcohol Toxicity in Humans
  Alcohol is converted by the liver to the harmless compounds carbon dioxide and water, but through a complex process with toxic intermediate chemical compounds. Individuals with different genetic make-ups process these toxic compounds differently, and these genetic differences correlate with alcohol consumption and alcoholism. This talk will explore the genetic differences in alcohol processing among humans.
• Thursday, March 29
  Rudy Banerjee, Assistant Professor in the IU School of Liberal Arts
  Space-Time Models of Drugs and Violence
  Dr. Banerjee specializes in geo-spatial applications in the realm of preventative health policies. This talk will describe an investigation of the relationship between alcohol outlets and alcohol-related violence in the community.
• Thursday, April 5
  John Ottensmann, Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs and Associate Director of the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment
  A View of Central Indiana in 2040
  Urban development and urban sprawl are issues of increasing concern. This presentation will use the luci2 Urban Simulation Model, a geographic computer model that can forecast urban development scenarios for Central Indiana for 2040, illustrating the implications of alternative policy choices.
• Wednesday, April 11
  William Blomquist, Professor in the IU School of Liberal Arts
  Governing and Sustainability
  Considerable attention from researchers and planners has focused on long-term problems and solutions concerning water supply in the western United States - projects and plans with titles such as Water 2020 and Water 2025 abound. Several such plans and studies are desalination and water recycling, which are important options but for most western communities large-scale operations are unlikely to come on line soon. With several western communities facing supply issues with more immediate timeframes, it is also useful to focus on options for improving water resource management that can be undertaken now.
• Thursday, April 19
  Susan Sutton, Associate Dean for International Programs
  The Ivory Tower is Falling
  The 21st century is the era of globalization, and in this context universities are struggling to rethink their approaches to international learning and research. Older models see internationalization as the province of a few specialists who look outward toward a distant and separate world. Emerging paradigms, in contrast, look for ways to connect universities to global networks of knowledge, practice, and discovery across a wide range of fields. This presentation places IUPUI's international activities in the context of this transformation.

For additional information, please contact Andy Barth at aaspeak@iupui.edu or 317-274-1243.