Interdisciplinary Experts on Climate Change
The Climate Change Program Speaker Series is excited to feature an outstanding lineup of academics, authors, and community practitioners with expertise in climate change and its impacts. Our goal for the series is to bring diverse voices onto campus that help to connect faculty from across disciplines, expose students to new perspectives, increase attention to climate change, and leave audience members feeling empowered as problem solvers. Unless otherwise noted, each program is free of charge and open to the public.
Registration buttons will be added on a rolling basis. For more information, contact climatechange@wustl.edu.
Upcoming Speakers
There are not currently any upcoming events scheduled. Please check back for new events to be added.
In the meantime, if you’d like to explore campus events, please visit Happenings at WashU.
Past Speakers
Daniel Jacob
Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at Harvard University
Methane in the climate system: using satellites to locate emissions and enable action
May 8, 2023 at 11am (lunch at noon)
Women’s Building Formal Lounge
Methane is a major greenhouse gas, and controlling methane emissions is central to a climate policy of avoiding two degrees of danger. But the sources of methane and the causes of the current rise are poorly understood. Here I will show how new satellite observations of atmospheric methane can play a crucial role in better quantifying methane emissions from the global scale down to point sources, providing a global monitoring system in support of climate action.
This year’s Climate Change Speaker Series is supported by the Office of the Provost and WashU’s ten-year strategic vision, Here and Next, designed to mobilize research, education, and patient care to establish WashU and St. Louis as a global hub for transformative solutions to the deepest societal challenges. When we bring our community together around topics that expand our knowledge and our perspectives, we stimulate the open, vibrant environment that will make our strategic vision possible.
Stay tuned for more speakers!
Shannon LaDeau
Community and Disease Ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY
Urban Legacies, Mosquito Ecology, and Human Exposure Risk
March 1, 2023 from 4-5:30pm
Location: Whitaker Auditorium & Atrium
In partnership with INCEES as well as Here and Next
Washington University Faculty Panel | Keynote Presentation | Reception to follow
Vector-borne disease (VBD) is a growing risk to urban communities across the globe. Rising cases of mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya in temperate cities highlight critical gaps in understanding of how interacting ecological and socio-economic conditions influence VBD risk in complex, seasonal landscapes. Our multidisciplinary research team explores important trends and mechanisms explaining changing mosquito-human exposure in Baltimore City, MD (USA). Our results show how legacies of race-based investment continue to influence variability in mosquito abundances and human exposure, and that interacting poverty and climate forces can affect mosquito traits that are important to fitness and viral transmission. Finally, we explore how changing climate and urban greening efforts continuously refine the heterogeneous riskscape of VBD in temperate cities and consider relevant scales of predictability and management potential.
WashU Panel:
- Kim Medley, Director of Tyson Research Center (Moderator)
- Teresa Gildner, Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology
- Rachel Penczykowski, Assistant Professor of Biology
- Sharon Deem, Wildlife Veterinarian and Epidemiologist
This year’s Climate Change Speaker Series is supported by the Office of the Provost and WashU’s ten-year strategic vision, Here and Next, designed to mobilize research, education, and patient care to establish WashU and St. Louis as a global hub for transformative solutions to the deepest societal challenges. When we bring our community together around topics that expand our knowledge and our perspectives, we stimulate the open, vibrant environment that will make our strategic vision possible.
Sacoby Wilson
Professor in the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health
Bending the Arc Towards Justice: Transforming Public Health Through Community-Engaged Research and Practice
April 5, 2023 from 12-1pm
Location: Clark-Fox Forum, Hillman Hall
Together with the Washington University Climate Change Program (WUCCP) Speaker Series, Environmental Studies, and the Office of the Provost and WashU’s ten-year strategic vision, Here and Next, we are excited to welcome Sacoby Wilson from the College Park School of Public Health at the University of Maryland to the Clark-Fox Forum.
Wilson’s talk: “Bending the Arc Towards Justice: Transforming Public Health Through Community-Engaged Research and Practice” will describe how historic and contemporary discrimination and racism drives environmental, climate, and energy injustices and related health issues.