UBThisSummer Lecture Series to Kick Off with Program on Haiti Earthquake

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo's UBThisSummer Lecture Series will mark its fifth anniversary with a lineup that opens with Andre Filiatrault, who assessed building safety in Haiti this January following a devastating earthquake there, and concludes with Esther Takeuchi, a battery expert who traveled to Washington, D.C., last fall to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama.

Each of seven talks in the series, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4 p.m. on Wednesdays in 225 Natural Sciences Complex, North Campus. Lecture abstracts are available online at http://ubthissummer.buffalo.edu/lectures2.html. The schedule:

• June 2: "The Haiti Earthquake: Overview and MCEER Response," Andre Filiatrault, director of MCEER and professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

• June 9: "The Genomics Revolution and Personalized Medicine," Dan Brazeau, research associate professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

• June 16: "Is Social Science Science?" Joseph Woelfel, professor, Department of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences.

• June 23: "Perverted Justice: Sex Offenders and the Law," Charles Patrick Ewing, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Law School.

• July 14: "From Understanding Volcanic Hazards to Preventing Their Disasters," Michael Sheridan, UB Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Geology, College of Arts and Sciences.

• July 21: "Extracting Intelligence from Social Media Data," Rohini Srihari, associate professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, UB Engineering.

• July 28: "Toward the Bionic Human: Medical Devices and How They Are Powered," Esther Takeuchi, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Greatbatch Professor in Power Sources Research, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The UBThisSummer Lecture Series is just one of many public activities the university is hosting this summer. Other offerings include youth sports camps, music concerts, the UB Mini Medical School and workshops designed to engage high school students in such topics as computational science and physics and art. For a listing of events, visit the UBThisSummer website.