Recent and Upcoming Events

2023-2024 Events

Lifto Amundson Lecture & New Member Initiation, April 4th, 2024

The Lifto Amundson Lecture, presented by Ingrid Daubechies, will begin at 5 PM in Farber Hall in Old Main and is held in partnership with IdeaFest and the Department of Mathematics. New member initiation and a reception will follow.

Ingrid Daubechies earned her Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She currently holds the title of James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. Although her degree is in (theoretical) physics, she thought she would become an engineer while growing up. Her mother was heartbroken when she opted for pure science instead, and predicted Ingrid would end up in the gutter, jobless. Fortunately, matters turned out better. Her academic work focuses on mathematical methods for the analysis of signals, images and data, with applications in many directions. She enjoys working in collaboration with others, in her scientific work as well as otherwise. The latter include, most recently, a collaborative mixed media art installation that celebrates the beauty, creativity and fun of mathematics.

Recent Events

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Suzanne Marchand, October 26, 2023

Suzanne Marchand is LSU Systems Boyd (University) Professor of European Intellectual History at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Professor Marchand obtained her BA from UC Berkeley in 1984, and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992. She served as assistant and then associate professor at Princeton University before moving to LSU in 1999. She is the author, most recently, of Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe (Princeton UP, 2020), which was awarded the Ralph Gomory Prize of the Business History Conference. She has received fellowships from the ACLS, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others, and in 2022-23 will be working on a book titled Herodotus and the Instabilities of Western Civilization as a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and Princeton’s Humanities Center.  

Lifto Amundson Lecture & New Member Initiation, April 25th, 2023

The Spring 2023 Lifto Amundson Lecture and initiation of new members took place at 4:30 PM on April 25, 2023 in Beacom Hall 133 (auditorium). The lecture was held in conjunction with the Department of Physics' Astronomy Day Lecture. The lecture was presented by Dr. Kate Scholberg, Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of Physics at Duke University.

Kate Scholberg is a neutrino physicist whose broad research interests include experimental particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. She is affiliated with multiple scientific collaborations, including Super-Kamiokande, Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Scholberg serves as as a spokesperson of COHERENT and was also a co-founder of SNEWS, the SuperNova Early Warning System. In 2022, she became an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Scholberg received her B.S. at McGill University and her M.S. and Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology.

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Mark Hayward, October 6-7, 2022

Professor Hayward delivered a public lecture entitled "Improving Our Nation's Health" on Thursday, October 6th at 5:30 PM in Farber Hall (Old Main).

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Mark D. Hayward is a professor of sociology and Centennial Commission Professor in the Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Hayward is a health demographer and population health scientist. Currently, his work focuses on two issues: 1) “upstream institutional levers” of U.S. adult mortality trends and disparities, and 2) early life developmental origins of cognitive aging in the older population. He is a recipient of the Matilda White Riley Award from the National Institutes of Health for his contributions to behavioral and social scientific knowledge relevant to mission of NIH. He has served on numerous scientific advisory boards at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, major foundations (Robert Wood Johnson and Pew), and major federal agencies (e.g., the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Health Statistics). Professor Hayward also is the current editor of his field’s major journal, Demography. He received his B.A. at Washington State University and his PhD from Indiana University.

New Member Initiation, April 12, 2022

The Spring 2022 Phi Beta Kappa initiation took place on April 12, 2022 at 5:30 PM in Farber Hall in Old Main. Alpha Chapter welcomed eleven new members.

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Victoria Sork, October 7-8, 2021

Professor Sork delivered a lecture entitled "Why Trees Go Nuts - Climate, Birds, Humans" on Thursday, October 7 at 5:15 PM in Farber Hall, Old Main.

Professor Sork is an accomplished leader, a renowned evolutionary and conservation biologist, a passionate teacher, a dedicated mentor, and a respected administrator. She maintains an active research program studying evolutionary and ecological processes in tree populations with a particular commitment to discovering how long-lived trees will survive rapid climate warming. Author of ~140 publications, her research spans conservation genomics, evolutionary biology, and plant ecology. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Sciences and the California Academy of Sciences. Professor Sork received her BS from University of California Irvine and a PhD from the University of Michigan. She has been a professor at UCLA since 2001 where she served as department chair for five years and Dean of Life Sciences for 11 years. Professor Sork is now the Director of the UCLA Missouri Botanical Garden and Herbarium. Throughout her career, she has been an advocate for inclusive excellence in education and research, student success, and faculty diversity.

Phi Beta Kappa Lifto Amundson Lecture presented by Dr. Zsuzsa Csergő, April 21, 2021 .

2021's Lifto Amundson Lecture, followed by new member initiation was held online at 6 PM Central Time on April 21, 2021. The lecture was presented by Dr. Zsuzsa Csergő, Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Professor Zsuzsa Csergő (PhD in Political Science, The George Washington University, 2000) specializes in the study of nationalism in contemporary European politics, with particular expertise on post-communist Central and Eastern Europe.  Before joining the Queen’s faculty, Dr. Csergő was Assistant Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Women’s Leadership Program in U.S. and International Politics at the George Washington University.  From 2013-2019, she was President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), the leading international scholarly association in the field of nationalism and ethnicity studies.  Currently, she is Director of the association’s online initiative “Virtual ASN.”

New Member Initiation, April 22 & 28, 2020

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alpha Chapter welcomed its new members in two virtual initiation ceremonies. 

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Valerie Hudson, October 10-11, 2019

Valerie M. Hudson is Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security.

Professor Hudson's research includes foreign policy analysis, security studies, gender and international relations, and methodology. Hudson is one of the Principal Investigators of The WomanStats Project (http://womanstats.org), which includes the largest compilation of data on the status of women in the world today. Winner of numerous teaching awards and recipient of a National Science Foundation research grant and a Minerva Initiative grant, she was recently named a Distinguished Scholar of Foreign Policy Analysis by the International Studies Association. She is the author/co-author of Sex and World Peace,The Hillary Doctrine, Foreign Policy Analysis, Bare Branches, and (forthcoming) The First Political Order: Sex, Governance, and National Security.

Phi Beta Kappa Lifto Amundson Lecture presented by Dr. Kevin Terraciano, April 17, 2019.

Professor Kevin Terraciano presented "Memories of Indigenous Heroes in the Conquest of Mexico" at 4:30 pm in the Muenster University Center Ballroom.  Professor Terraciano was hosted by the Department of History and by Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Terraciano is a Professor of History and Director of the Latin American Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. April 17, 2019.

Alpha Chapter welcomed new members on April 17, following the Lifto Amundson Lecture.  The initiation ceremony took place in the MUC Ballroom and was followed by our spring banquet.  

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Paula Stephan, October 18-19, 2018

Paula Stephan is professor of economics at Georgia State University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Stephan's research focuses on the economics of science and the careers of scientists and engineers. Recent work examines how bibliometric measures discourage risk taking in science, the relationship between international mobility and scientific productivity, how gender pairing between student and advisor relates to the productivity of PhD recipients and the economics of the postdoctoral position. She is the author of How Economics Shapes Science and co-author of Striking the Mother Lode in Science. She serves on the National Academies Committee on the Next Generation of Researchers, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and member of the Board of Reviewing Editors, Science.  She was named ScienceCareers’ first Person of the Year in 2012.