Brown’s faculty share their expertise regarding topics of widespread interest to create an ongoing educational link with the University. This segment of Family Weekend allows you to share students’ classroom experiences through lectures by Brown faculty, all of whom regularly teach undergraduate courses and/or interact with students in their research labs. Forums are being added regularly! Check back on the website for new listings.
2012 Forums
SESSION ONE 9:30 A.M.:
A Novel Approach to Sleep: Evidence for Sleep as Environmental Exposure from “College Sleep,” a Study of Brown First-Year Students
Mary Carskadon, Professor, Psychiatry & Human Behavior, The Alpert Medical School of Brown University; Adjunct Professor, CLPS, Brown University; Director, Chronobiology & Sleep Research, EP Bradley Hospital
As human life advances into the 21st century, our sleep patterns deviate further from environmental cues that helped time sleeping and waking in the past. Our life-style choices alter sleep and may pose serious health risks. If we think of sleep as an environmental exposure, sleep patterns are placed in a new light with potential interactions with our genetic make up. Our prospective College Sleep project explored how sleep ‘exposure’ and depressed mood symptoms are related to a specific serotonin gene. This work has implications for understanding how sleep patterns are related to risks of obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
Metcalf Hall, Friedman Auditorium, Room 101, 190-194 Thayer Street
Tradeoffs between Environment and Development in the Brazilian Amazon
Leah K. VanWey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Core Faculty, Environmental Change Initiative; Associate Director, Population Studies and Training Center
Brazil has virtually eliminated illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in the past decade while also becoming a global player in agricultural commodities production. This record and a commitment to renewable energy sources make Brazil a model for developing countries seeking to follow a path different from that of the United States or Europe. Yet there remains a tension between environmental protections and promoting economic development. Come hear about research at Brown that explores this tension through studying the complex social and environmental consequences of Amazonian development of hydroelectric power generation and high-yield mechanized agriculture.
MacMillan Hall, Starr Auditorium, Room 117, 167 Thayer Street
SESSION TWO 11 A.M.:
The 'transition problem' in Nepal: Affirmative Action in South Asia and Beyond
Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences
Professor Loury will discuss his experience speaking at a conference on "affirmative action in global perspective" held in Kathmandu, Nepal last July.
Salomon Center for Teaching, DeCiccio Family Auditorium, The College Green
Northern Manufacturing, Southern Slavery, and the Antebellum Origins of American Business Ethics
Seth Rockman, Associate Professor of History
For the New England manufacturers of hoes, hats, shoes, and shovels, commerce with the South was both lucrative and fraught. The politics of slavery and abolition raised important questions about morality and the market, dilemmas solved only through the articulation of distinctive "business ethics" that still govern commerce more than a century later. This talk should be of particular interest to parents who wish to learn more about the history surrounding this year’s First Reading, Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution.
Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001, The College Green
Heretical ideas that led to the search for the Higgs Boson
Gerald Guralnik, Chancellor’s Professor of Physics
Join Professor Guralnick for this overview of revolutionary ideas starting about 50 years ago that led to our current understanding of modern physics and, particularly, the prediction of the Higgs Boson. Focusing on the evolution, sociology and angst involved in the collaborative effort of Professor Guralnik and his colleagues, come see how this discovery now provides the cornerstone of the "Standard Model" of particle physics.
MacMillan Hall, Starr Auditorium, Room 117, 167 Thayer Street
The Two Faces of Pain: Essential and Intolerable
Diane Lipscombe, Professor of Neuroscience
As a protective mechanism, pain is essential and life without it tragic. But many people develop chronic pain, a disease that resists medical treatments. Why is normal touch intolerable in sufferers of chronic pain? How are scientists studying changes in the nervous system associated with chronic pain? What new information could lead to new treatments?
Metcalf Hall, Friedman Auditorium, Room 101, 190-194 Thayer Street
Painting In and Out of the Net
Wendy Edwards, Professor of Art; Chair of the
Visual Art Department
Professor Edwards will give a presentation of her recent paintings and the influences that have stirred the content of her work. While reaching back to her first years teaching at Brown she’ll discuss the role of color, pattern and netting techniques. She’ll describe the construction of her paintings in relation to surface structures, textiles, and appropriation.
List Art Center, Room 120, 62-64 College Street
Note: Forums are only open to families registered for Family Weekend