Sept. 8, 2013

Aydogan Ozcan

Computational Imaging and Diagnosis for Telemedicine and Global Health

Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Ohio Staters Traditions Room, 4–5 pm



With more than six billion cell-phone users in the world, the majority of them in developing parts of the world, new opportunities exist to put their technology to work in point-of-care diagnostics and/or microscopic imaging applications to improve health care. This is especially important in areas where medical facilities and infrastructure are extremely limited or non-existent. Ozcan introduces new imaging and detection architectures using novel theories and numerical algorithms to address immediate needs of telemedicine for global health problems.



Aydogan Ozcan is a professor at UCLA leading the Bio- and Nano-Photonics Laboratory at the Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering Departments. He has 22 issued patents—all of which are licensed—and more than 15 pending patent applications. He is author of one book and co-author of more than 250 peer reviewed research articles. Ozcan has received several awards, among them: the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award, SPIE Early Career Achievement Award, ARO Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award and MIT’s TR35 Award for his seminal contributions to near-field and on-chip imaging, and telemedicine based diagnostics.

Innovate UCLA

Oct. 13, 2013

Bernie Krause

The Great Animal Orchestra



Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Cartoon Room, 4–5 pm



A musician and naturalist and one of the world's leading experts in natural sound, Krause has spent his life discovering and recording nature's rich chorus. Searching far beyond our modern world's honking horns and buzzing machinery, he has sought out the truly wild places that remain, where natural soundscapes exist virtually unchanged from when the earliest humans first inhabited the earth. Krause shares fascinating insight into how deeply animals rely on their aural habitat to survive and the damaging effects of extraneous noise on the delicate balance between predator and prey. But natural soundscapes aren't vital only to the animal kingdom, Krause explores how the myriad voices and rhythms of the natural world formed a basis from which our own musical expression emerged.



From snapping shrimp, popping viruses, and the songs of humpback whales-whose voices, if unimpeded, could circle the earth in hours—to cracking glaciers, bubbling streams, and the roar of intense storms; from melody-singing birds to the organ-like drone of wind blowing over reeds, the sounds Krause has experienced and describes are like no others. And from recording jaguars at night in the Amazon rain forest to encountering mountain gorillas in Africa's Virunga Mountains, Krause offers an intense and intensely personal narrative of the planet's deep and connected natural sounds and rhythm.

Wild Sanctuary

Nov. 17, 2013

Risa Wechsler

Building the cosmos: how simulations shed light on the dark universe



Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Cartoon Room, 4–5 pm



Recent advances in observations of the cosmos have allowed us to peer into the earliest moments of our Universe, and have dramatically changed our picture of its contents. Wechsler will walk you through how cutting-edge simulations allow us to be a fly on the wall during the formation of the cosmos, and shed light on the physical processes that created the Universe we see today.

Risa Wechsler is an associate professor in the physics department at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

Dec. 8, 2013

Paul Kwiat

The Quantum Information Revolution



Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Ohio Staters Traditions Room, 4–5 pm



More than a century after Einstein's revolutionary suggestion that light is composed of particles, the quantum information revolution seeks to use the almost magical properties of nonclassical physics to enable new feats in information processing that would be difficult or impossible without the quantum advantage. Kwiat will discuss how quantum randomness, superposition, and entanglement can be used to realize perfectly secure cryptography, ultra-fast computation, and completely non-invasive photography. Time/appetites permitting, Kwiat may also give a brief lesson in Quantum Cooking.

Paul Kwiat is the Bardeen Chair in Physics, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, he has given invited talks at numerous national and international conferences, and authored over 135 articles on various topics in quantum optics and quantum information. His research includes quantum interrogation and optical implementations of quantum information protocols, particularly using entangled photons.

Jan. 12, 2014

James Gentile

Carcinogens in the Environment: Separating Fact from Fiction



Lecture: Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Wexner Center Café, 4–5 pm

Open a newspaper, turn on the TV, go online—and we are deluged with information about “carcinogens” in the environment, along with “anticarcinogens” that can protect us from gene mutations that might give rise to some form of cancer.

Gentile gives examples below that he believes are representative of issues in which perceived risk versus reality are at odds with one another relative to human exposures to environmental agents. His talk will take a deeper look at the complex world of “environmental carcinogenesis” to better understand the balance between reality versus perception relative to chemicals present in our foods and in our environment.



The phenomenon of understanding real risk versus perceived risk from environmental chemical or physical agents is not new. For example, when Rachel Carson’s lyrical, yet scientifically flawed, book Silent Spring--an eloquent case that pesticides, especially DDT, were poisoning both wildlife and the environment and endangering human health--was released in 1962, the emotional public reaction launched the modern environmental movement –a very good thing. DDT became the prime target of a growing anti-chemical and anti-pesticide movement during the 1960s. Unfortunately, reasoned scientific discussion and sound data gathered from a risk/benefit analysis never took place.

Another example is cooking with microwaves. Humans have been heating meals for thousands of years using fire, or the sun. Microwaving food is a relatively new process, only a few decades old. "Nuking" a pizza, or leftover food, is a quick and easy way to get a hot meal and burn the roof of your mouth, but is it worse for you than firing up the oven or, perhaps, using lighter-fluid saturated charcoal? From an environmental standpoint, a microwave uses much less electricity than a conventional oven, and there is no need for combustible petroleum products to ‘start the fire.’ In fact, microwaving meat can actually eliminate up to 90% of carcinogens over conventional high-temperature methods, such as pan frying or grilling directly over an open flame, which have been linked to various cancers.

Gentile is Dean for the Natural Sciences at Hope College, and Past-President of Research Corporation for Science Advancement. He has a PhD in genetics and formerly held an endowed professorship, and was dean at Hope College (MI). He is president of two separate scientific societies as well as past editor-in-chief for the international journal Mutation Research. He is a former member of both the Michigan Hazardous Waste Site Review Board and U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board, as well advisory boards for NIOSH, NSF, and NIH. He served on both the NRC Committee on Undergraduate Science Education and the NAS Science Education and Life Science Boards. He is a National Academies Education Mentor.

Gentile had a leadership role in the publication, Biology 2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. He also served on the National Science Board Commission on science education and was a co-chairperson of the National Academies Summer Institutes for Education in Biology. He was a governor for the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research, a council member for the Council on Undergraduate Research, and on the executive committee for Project Kaleidoscope. He is the recipient of the Alexander Hollaender Research Excellence Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Illinois State University, the Cancer Medallion of the Japanese National Cancer Institute, the Science Medal of Distinction of Pisa, Italy, and is an AAAS Fellow. His research focus is environmental mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, with an emphasis on metabolism of carcinogens plant and animal systems, and the association between inflammation and cancer.

Feb. 9, 2014

L. Mahadevan

Sickle Cell Anemia: Physics and Physiology of a Molecular Disease



Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Ohio Staters Traditions Room, 4–5 pm



Sickle cell anemia arises from a single mutation that leads to the intermittent stoppage of blood flow, wreaking havoc in the body. Understanding the pathophysiology of this disease links nano-scale macromolecular biochemistry to the physics of soft systems. L. Mahadevan, describes how in-vitro experiments and theoretical models lead to predictive quantitative diagnostics for this disease, while setting this in the broader context of evolutionary dynamics.

L. Mahadevan received his PhD from Stanford in 1995, and started his career at MIT, before moving to Cambridge University where he was the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems and a Fellow of Trinity. Since 2003, he has been at Harvard, where he is currently de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Physics. His work centers around using mathematics to understand the physical and biological organization of matter in space and time, particularly at the scale of the everyday world and is thus closely tied in with experience and experiments. Among other honors, he is currently a MacArthur Fellow (2009-present).

March 2, 2014

Mike Reed

Mathematics and Human Physiology

Lecture: Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theater, 3–4 pm

Reception: Ohio Union Ohio Staters Traditions Room, 4–5 pm

What does mathematics have to do with biology anyway? What are the uses and misuses of statistics? Why is it so hard to understand biological systems? Why does the medical system often change its mind about diagnosis and treatment? Reed will discuss these questions directly and in the context of specific examples drawn from human and animal physiology.

Our metaphors for how our body works are deeply misleading and this is especially true of the brain. Although we compute, we are not circuit boards. The electrophysiology of the brain is affected by the biochemistry of the brain, the endocrine system, and the changing patterns of gene expression and anatomical connections. All of these systems affect behavior and, in turn are affected by behavior and each other. Reed will talk about both depression and Parkinson’s disease.

Einstein famously remarked that “God does not play dice with the world," because he was dismayed at the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. Maybe, or maybe not—but biological systems make use of randomness to accomplish specific biological goals—Reed will supply examples.

Finally, Reed will discuss how the biological revolution has changed science and the science workforce.

Mike Reed is professor of mathematics at Duke University and senior scientific advisor at Ohio State’s Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI). He received a BS from Yale University and PhD from Stanford University.

April 13, 2014

Jane Wang

Falling Paper and Insect Flight

Her work is driven by a fascination with the puzzles and beauty around us. She will discuss puzzles and mathematics about the dynamics of falling paper and the tricks used by insects to fly.

Jane Wang is a professor of physics and mechanical engineering at Cornell University. A theoretical physicist, Wang studies the physics of living organisms. Her research aims to identify, investigate, and discover new phenomena in a broad range of physical and biological systems. She has worked on problems in statistical physics of turbulence and turbulent diffusion, fluid dynamics, and applied mathematics. Her recent work has focused on understanding the physics of insect flight: how do insects fly, why do they fly the way they do, and how can we infer their 'thoughts' from their flight dynamics. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1996. She was then a NSF-NATO postdoctoral fellow at the department of theoretical physics of Oxford University and a visiting member at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. She joined Cornell in 1999, where she is now a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and physics. She is a member of the American Physical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Her work is supported by an NSF Early Career Award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and a Radcliffe Fellowship in Science.

Dragonfly at Cornell