Ithaca High School Science Series: Spring Semester

Post date: Jan 10, 2014 2:30:45 PM

What do scientists do all day? How do your current courses related to future careers? What would it be like to work in a lab Come learn with us! Join us this Spring semester to welcome members of our community to Ithaca High School to discuss their work as scientists. All are welcome! Talks take place in H-Courtyard at Ithaca High School from 5:30–6:30 PM.

January 9, 2014

“Blood, Brains, and Lasers: Using Light to Uncover Neurological Disease”

Chris Schaffer: Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University

February 13, 2014

“Google, Netflix, Pandora: How to Build a Recommender System”

Doug Turnbull: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Ithaca College

March 13, 2014

“Threats to World’s Oceans Resulting From Anthropogenic Increases in Atmospheric CO2”

Bruce Monger: Senior Research Associate , Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University

April 10, 2014

“The Future of 3D Printing: The promise and peril of a machine that can make (almost) anything”

Hod Lipson: Professor, Department of Engineering, Cornell University

ABSTRACT: 3D Printers – machines that can automatically fabricate arbitrarily-shaped parts, layer by layer, from almost any material – have evolved over the last three decades from limited and expensive prototyping equipment in the hands of few, to small-scale commodity production tools available to almost anyone. It’s been broadly recognized that this burgeoning industrial revolution will transform almost every industry, every discipline, and every aspect of our lives. But how? This talk will describe the disruptive principles underlying 3D printing, and their sprawling effect from education to medicine, from art to architecture, and from biology to archeology. And finally – where will this technology go next?

May 8, 2014

“Seeing with Electrons”

Lena F. Kourkoutis: Assistant Professor, Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

ABSTRACT: The smallest element in an electronic device such as your cell phone is a layer just a few atoms across, 10,000 times smaller than the average diameter of a human hair. If the structure of that layer is not precisely controlled your device will fail. With powerful microscopes, which use electrons instead of light, we can see the fine details of the layer and understand materials atom-by-atom. Today, electron microscopes are among the most important tools in the physical and biological sciences to understand the structure of matter. Even the inner workings of a cell can be studied using these instruments. In this talk I will demonstrate the power of this technique by showing you what we can see with electrons.