The Faculty Lecture Series

The Faculty Lecture Series, presented by the Office of the Dean of the College, offers Â鶹´«Ă˝ faculty the opportunity to share recent research with students, staff and their colleagues during open lectures throughout the academic year.

Lecture dates and topics are posted to this page and to the Â鶹´«Ă˝ events calendar as they become available. Please check event entries for location and audience. Some lectures are available on-demand (links provided below).

The Faculty Lecture Series

2023-2024

September

Preston McBride, Assistant Professor of History, and student Colin McAfee, will present "A Lethal Education: A History of U.S. Boarding Schools for Native Americans."

Konrad Aguilar, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, together with students Esteban Ayala, Evelyne Knight, and Chloe Marple, will present “Contractivity of Quantum Channels.”

October

Miriam Merrill, Director of Athletics and Professor of Physical Education, on:

Beyond the Scoreboard: Exploring the Essence of the Department of Physical Education and Sagehen Athletics

November

Nicholas Ball, Associate Professor of Chemistry, on:

Activating Excellence through Chemistry

March

Keri Wilson, Assistant Professor of Biology, on:

The role of prostaglandins in mediating invertebrate reproduction

April

Ernesto Gutierrez Topete, Chau Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Linguistics and Cognitive Science, and Pomona class of 2017,

Occlusive salience among Spanish-English bilinguals: Evidence from code-switching

2022-2023

Wednesday, September 21, 2022
 (on-demand recording)
Edray Goins, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics

Wednesday, November 16, 2022
The Most Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Crisis & the Movement for Court Reform
Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Professor and Chair of Politics

Thursday, February 16, 2023
Composing Ourselves
Tom Flaherty, John P. and Magdalena R. Dexter Professor of Music and College Composer

Thursday, March 30, 2023
TBD
Carolyn Ratteray, Associate Professor of Theatre; Co-Chair of Theatre

Thursday, April 19, 2023
Effects of Police Force Size and California Criminal Justice Reforms on Crime Rates
Stephen Marks, Elden Smith Professor of Economics

2021-2022

* The Fall 2021 series has been spread out over the full 21-22 academic year.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Learn About The Hive
Fred Leichter, Founding Director of The Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity (The Hive)

Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The Black Mathematician Chronicles: Our Quest to Update the MAD Pages
Edray Herber Goins, PhD., Professor Mathematics and Statistics

Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Galaxies Without Dark Matter: A Challenge for the Standard Paradigm?
Jorge Moreno, Assistant Professor Physics and Astronomy

Wednesday, February 16, 2022
The Writerly "Nature" of G. E. Lessing According to His Brother Karl Around 1790
Friederike von Scherwin-High, Professor and Chair of German and Russian

2020

*Based on the change in schedules and the move to entirely remote interactions, the Fall 2020 series has been spread out over the full 20-21 academic year.

Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Math…with a conscience?
Gizem Karaali, Professor of Mathematics

Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Japan’s Aging Peace
Thomas Le, Assistant Professor of Politics

Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Sequences and Poems
Prageeta Sharma, Professor of English

Thursday, February 18, 2021
Nature’s Weapons of Mass Reproduction
Dwight Whitaker, Professor and Chair of Physics & Astronomy

Thursday, March 18, 2021
Developing Narratives for Marginalized Voices During a Pandemic
Giovanni Ortega, Assistant Professor of Theatre & Dance

Thursday, April 15, 2021
Localizing the Global: Cities and International Human Rights
Heidi Haddad, Associate Professor of Politics
View recorded lecture (Localizing the Global: Cities and International Human Rights)

2019

Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Chemistry that Clicks - Industrial Collaborations that Enrich Undergraduate Research
Nicholas Ball, Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Music in Motion, Music as Motion
Joti Rockwell, Associate Professor of Music; Music Theory; Coordinator of American Studies

Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Text Simplification - Improving Information Accessibility
David Kauchak, Associate Professor of Computer Science

Wednesday, October 23, 2019
The Impact of Technology and Long-Term Archeological Research on Perceptions about the Ancient Maya and Caracol, Belize
Arlen F. Chase, Visiting Professor of Anthropology

Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Ecology of Claremont - Insights for a Sustainable Future
Wallace Meyer III, Director of the Bernard Field Station and Associate Professor of Biology

Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Is Diversity Good for Business?
Manisha Goel, Assistant Professor of Economics

2018

Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Prime time math:  little green men, locust hordes, and cybersecurity
Stephan Garcia, W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Mathematics

Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Speaker TBD

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Alma Zook, Professor of Physics

Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Scrutinizing Politicians in Democratic Athens: How the Athenians Chose and Confirmed their Officials
Benjamin Keim, Assistant Professor of Classics

Wednesday, November 28, 2018
A Paraphrase of Herbert’s “Love" (3)
Aaron Kunin, Associate Professor of English; Chair of English

2017

Building the Republic: The Founding Fathers as Architects and Urban Planners
Susan McWilliams, Associate Professor of Politics

Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Paradox, Reason and Inquiry
Peter Thielke, Professor of Philosophy

Wednesday, October 25, 2017
“Smart” Drugs, in Sickness and in Health
Karen Parfitt, Professor of Neuroscience

Wednesday, November 15, 2017
RNA + Bacteria + Evolution = Sensors!
Jane Liu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Carceral Technologies, Biblical Affects, U.S. Theopolitics
Erin Runions, Professor of Religious Studies

2016

Wednesday, September 14
On The Gelatinous
Kyla Tompkins, Associate Professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies

Wednesday, September 28
Asking The Auks About Climate Change
Nina Karnovsky, Associate Professor of Biology

Wednesday, October 12
Spirit and Culture in the Flesh: Pedagogies of Connection
Joyce Lu, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance

Wednesday, October 26
Few Other Ways Out: Anticipating the Outcomes of Revolutions 
Colin Beck, Associate Professor of Sociology

Wednesday, November 9
Forecasting Economic Activity Using Financial Variables 
​Pierangelo De Pace, Associate Professor of Economics

Wednesday, November 23
Sagehen Spirit: Updates, Insights and Lots of Blue and Orange!
Lesley Irvine, Director of Pomona-Pitzer Athletics

Wednesday, November 30
The Deeds to Deuterium 
Daniel O’Leary, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry

2015

Wednesday, September 16
A Tiny River that Built an Empire: The Santa Ana in the Making of Market and State in Southern California
Heather Williams, Associate Professor of Politics

Wednesday, September 30
Functions, Formulas and Dendritic Cells: Using Mathematics and the Immune System to Fight Cancer
Ami Radunskaya, Professor of Mathematics

Wednesday, October 14
Emotional Currencies: What Happens When Poor Immigrants Return Home to Spend and Give Money
Hung Thai, Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies

Wednesday, October 28
Drone Media: Power Asymmetries Associated with the Automation of Surveillance, Sense-Making and Response
Mark Andrejevic, Professor of Media Studies

Wednesday, November 11
How a Tune Creates Meaning: Music and Prosody in “This Land Is Your Land”
Alfred Cramer, Associate Professor of Music

Wednesday, December 2
Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Pragmatic Approach
Tahir Andrabi, Stedman-Sumner Professor of Economics

2014

Wednesday, September 17
Napoleon’s Closet: The Emperor, the Priest, and the Men Who Invented Fashion Magazines
Margaret Waller, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures

Wednesday, September 24
Fracking, Peaking, and America’s Energy Future
Rick Hazlett, Stephen M. Pauley M.D. ’62 Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geology

Wednesday, October 15
Lessons From the Making of Latino San Francisco
TomĂ s Summers Sandoval, Associate Professor of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and History

Monday, October 27
What the Cocks Fight Over: Eggs and Human Rights in Contemporary Hispaniola
April Mayes, Associate Professor of History

Monday, November 17
Art and Labor in a Time of War: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Workers’ Education, and World War II
Frances Pohl, Dr. Mary Ann Vanderzyl Reynolds ’56 Professor of Humanities and Professor of Art History

Wednesday, December 3
The Origins of Life on Earth, and Why Your Earliest Relatives Ate Rocks
E.J. Crane, Associate Professor of Biology

2013

Biotechnology and the Law: Pomona Science On Trial
Len Seligman, Professor of Biology

Irony on Trial: Oscar Wilde v. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Kevin J.H. Dettmar, W.M. Keck Professor of English

Zoned Crystals and the Pace of Earth Processes
Jade Star Lackey, Associate Professor of Geology

Film with No Leader, Movement without Edge: Politics, Fantasy, and Japanese Left Cinema 
Jonathan M. Hall, Assistant Professor of Media Studies

Neon Slaves, Electric Savages or How Does a Wired Thing Understand? Mapping Black Women’s Agency via Afrofuturism
Valorie Thomas, Associate Professor of English/Africana Studies

The Hunger Games, Utopias, and Concentration Camps
Oona Eisenstadt, Fred Krinsky Professor of Jewish Studies & Associate Professor of Religious Studies

2012

Spurring Pomona-Pitzer Soccer: Player Development in the English Premiership and at Pomona-Pitzer
William Swartz, Professor of Physical Education and Soccer Coach

Finding Life's Music Through Statistical Noise
Johanna Hardin, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Progress on Pythagoras and the Value of Interdisciplinary
Richard McKirahan, Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy

A Graph-Based Perspective on the World
Tzu-Yi-Chen, Associate Professor of Computer Science

Machine Project Presents!
Mark Allen, Associate Professor of Art

Zap! Pow! Bam!  Superman Fights the Nazis
Lynn Rapaport, Henry Snyder Professor of Sociology