Chapter lectures
All Sigma Xi lectures are open to the public and are free, except for fundraising events.
Fred H. Smith, A Night Out with the Neandertals, 09 May 2024
Molly Matty, What can we learn from hangry worms? Intestinal to neuronal signaling alters animal behaviors, 29 Feb 2024
Laurie McNeil, Good Vibrations: the Interplay of Music and Physics, 10 May 2023
Richard Alley, Finding the Good News on Climate and Energy, 20 April 2023 [also: visual slideshow]
Paul Lokith, The Meteorology and Climatology of the 2021 Pacific Northwest Mega Heat Wave, 01 Dec 2022
Carlo Abbruzzese, Restoring Oak Forest and Wet Prairie at Washougal Oaks and Lacamas Prairie Natural Areas, 27 Oct 2022
Agustin Fuentes, The Creative Species: Imagination and Collaboration in Human Evolution, 04 May 2022
Amelia Ahern-Rindell, Genetics and Its Applications: From Ancient DNA to Gene Therapy, 27 Apr 2022
Julius McGee, Racial Justice as Climate Justice, 30 Mar 2022
Greg Townley, Conducting Action-Based Research to Address Homelessness in Portland and Beyond, 17 Nov 2021
Oge Marques, Advancements in Artificial Intelligence: Technology, Risks, Applications, and Implications, 05 May 2021
Alexander Hunt, Understanding Motor Control: From Biology to Robotics, 04 Mar 2021
Bangsberg, Cwik, Frank, Messer, The Social Dimensions of Global Pandemics: Challenges and Opportunities, 19 Nov 1020
Joy Mutare Kanu, The courage to heal: Lessons from my mother, 22 Oct 2020
Scott Burns and Linda Mantel, Rieslings and More: Unique Tastes and Terroir of Oregon Wines, 11 Jan 2020
Hannah Highlander, Harnessing the Power of Collaborative Mathematical Modeling for Maximum Impact, at Home and Abroad, 04 Dec 2019
Natalie Munro, From Hunting to Herding: The Emergence of Animal Domestication in Southwest Asia, 06 Nov 2019
James P. Collins, Altering nature with gene drives—We can. But should we? 08 May 2019
Jay L. Nadeau, Eppur Si Muove: Looking for Life in the Solar System, 11 Apr 2019
Carolyn Jones, Rodent models of neuropsychiatric illness and the importance of sleep, 14 Mar 2019
Kimberly Kahn, Understanding and counteracting racial bias in policing, 23 Jan 2019
Scott Burns, Bottle Shock revisited: a wine tasting of pinot noir and more, 08 Dec 2018
Steve L. Reichow, Visualizing life through the lens of a cryo-electron microscopist, 10 Oct 2018
Brooke D. Simmons, Black Holes, Galaxies, and Exoplanets From Your Back Yard , 7 May 2018
Sally C. Seidel, Discovering New Particles, 14 Mar 2018
Jackie Dingfelder, Wicked Water Problems: Can Network Governance Deliver? 07 Feb 2018
Scott Burns, Terroir of wines 6: Tasting trilogies and more, 09 Dec 2017
Scott Burns, Terroir of wines 5: Southern Oregon, 02 Dec 2016
Jim O'Connor, 100 dams down and counting, 5 April 2016
Andrea Bertozzi, Mathematics of crime, 4 Feb 2016
Debra Fischer, Searching for other Earths: the next frontier for exoplanet science, 30 April 2015
Robert F. Butler, Animating Cascadia earthquake risk, 03 Mar 2015
Joseph Gray, Collaborating to understand complex biological systems including cancer, 11 Nov 2014
David H. Peyton, A chemist’s try at overcoming a very clever parasite’s drug resistance, 22 May 2014
Catherine Drennan, Shake, rattle, and roll: capturing snapshots of metalloenzymes in action, 3 April 2014
Mary Lee Jensvold, Conversations with chimpanzees: transforming our view of nature, 6 Mar 2014
Tamara Phillips, Genetic factors influence risk for and protection from addiction, 21 Jan 2014
Scott Burns, Terroir of wines 4: Pacific Northwest, 05 Dec 2013
William Orr, What's new in Oregon geology? There's always something, 21 Nov 2013
Niles Lehman, The origins of life on the Earth, 23 May 2013
Marek Perkowski, A story of three robots, 27 Feb 2013
Dennis L. Jenkins, Archaeology and science at the Paisley Caves, 30 Oct 2012
Cynthia D. Cooper, Modeling human pigmentation with zebrafish stripes, 07 March 2012
Robert L. Strongin, Striving for the simplest possible means of detecting disease, 17 May 2011
Scott Burns, Terroir of wines II: Oregon and the Southern Hemsiphere, 02 December 2010
David Frayer, Neandertals and us, 22 May 2010
James Pankow, SRS Keynote, 16 April 2010
Angela Hoffman, The search for natural products: Taxol, 23 Feb 2010
Scott Burns, Oregon wines: a study of terroir, 4 December 2009
Scott Burns, Cataclysms on the Columbia: the great Missoula floods, 19 November 2009
Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: a guided tour, 8 October 2009
Bill Bradbury, Climate change in Oregon: impacts and opportunities, 21 May 2009
Kimberly Gray, The modern American city: can we ever make it sustainable?, 21 April 2009
David B. Morton, Why does NIH fund fruit fly research?, 19 February 2009
Martin Raphael, Unraveling the mysteries of the marbled murrelet, 8 May 2008
Bret Tobalske, The biomechanics of flight in small birds, 19 March 2008
Michael Wolf, The mathematics of soap films: how nature chooses its shape, 13 February 2008
Brian Atwater, The orphan tsunami of 1700, 7 November 2007
Stanley S. Hillman, Lymph and the ecology of amphibians, 25 October 2007
Jennifer Hooper McCarty, The forensics behind the sinking of the RMS Titanic, 11 October 2007
Robert Buckendorf, Autism: definition, treatments, and current research, 28 February 2007
Erik Sánchez, Pluto, no more..., 31 January 2007
Leslie A. Muldoon, Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, 16 May 2006
Jim Lichatowich, Why does salmon recovery consume so much money for so few results?, 8 March 2006
Rashmi Sinha, Meat, meat-cooking carcinogen, and cancer, 26 January 2006
Guy Consolmagno, Pluto and Planets X: what's a planet? and why does it matter?, 9 Nov 2005
Patrick J. Bartlein, Global warming: the past is key to the future, 11 Oct 2005.
George H. Taylor, Oregon's climate: past, present, and future, 19 May 2005
Andrew Fountain, Glaciers of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, 15 Feb 2005
Gordon Orians, Bird brains: decision-making by blackbirds, 23 Nov 2004
Ruzicka, Hutson, and Pugh, Meteors and meteorites in the Pacific Northwest, 3 Nov 2004
Carolyn Shoemaker, Comet and asteroid hazards, 6 May 2004
Alison Galloway, Forensic analysis of skeletal trauma, 24 Mar 2004
Peter Abrahams, Solar telescopes from 1600 to 1900, 30 Oct 2003
Alex Bourdeau, Archaeology and geomorphology of the Columbia Gorge, 16 Oct 2002
A.J. Timothy Jull, Accelerator radiocarbon dating, 09 May 2002