Campus Events

April 18-19, 2008

CLIMATE CHANGE IS LOCAL

in collaboration with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
the first installment of our Science and the Public Series

a free public event on local aspects of global climate change
at the Pyle Center, UW-Madison campus (702 Langdon St)

*Space is limited for the complimentary lunch on Saturday, April 19. Please RSVP by emailing sts@ssc.wisc.edu or calling 262-5956. Please indicate if are vegetarian.

Click here for event poster (PDF).


Program and Schedule:

FRIDAY, APRIL 18: Public Lecture by John J. Magnuson
7pm, Pyle Center Auditorium (Rm. 121), 702 Langdon Street

" Global Climate Change in Wisconsin"

While global in its extent, climate change is realized locally in conditions and impact. Changes in lake ice has become a miner's canary providing a strong local and global indication of change. The long records of lake ice at many places around the Northern Hemisphere help us realize the difference between climate change and variations in weather from year to year and climate from place to place. The hydrologic cycle reemphasizes this message because the direction and magnitude of change differs markedly around the globe. Impacts need to be dealt with as best we can, but differently in different places by different groups of people dependent on how they and their livelihood are affected.

Saturday, April 19: Public Panel Discussion
10:00am-12:00pm, Pyle Center Auditorium (Rm. 121), 702 Langdon Street

"Climate Change is Local"

Moderator:
Dominique Brossard
Assistant Professor, Journalism & Mass Communication
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Panelists:

Lewis Gilbert
Interim Director, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tracey Holloway
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences and Civil & Environmental Engineering
Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Casey Nagy
Chief of Staff, Office of the Chancellor
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Peter Taglia
Staff Scientist, Clean Wisconsin


Saturday, April 19: Box Lunch* and Facilitated Discussion
12:15pm-1:30pm, Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street
*Space is limited for the complimentary lunch. Please RSVP by emailing sts@ssc.wisc.edu or calling 262-5956. Please indicate if are vegetarian.


About the Participants:

Speaker John J. Magnuson is an Emeritus professor of Zoology and Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He participated in the 1995 and 2001 Intergovernmental Panel (IPCC) contributing to the sections on the impacts of climate change on freshwater lakes and streams. He also was one of the authors of Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region. John and his family have lived in the Madison area since the late 1960s.

Moderator Dominique Brossard is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. After getting a M.S. in Plant Biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie de Toulouse (France), she worked for 5 years for Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) in its Change Management Services Division where she led a number of projects aiming at formulating strategic communication plans. She then went to Cornell University where she earned an M.P.S and a Ph.D. in Communication. After her Ph.D., Brossard joined the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII) as Communication Coordinator, a position than combined public relations with marketing communication and strategic communication. The goal of ABSPII (a multimillion dollar project) is to develop bio-engineered products that will ultimately be commercialized in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. Brossard’s role was to supervise campaigns favoring the products’ adoption in target countries, to coordinate the marketing communication efforts during the development and delivery of the products and to manage all public relations components related to the project.

Brossard’s research interests broadly focus on the area of strategic communication, more particularly in the context of science and health, as well as on media effects on various forms of participatory behavior. Her dissertation research examined media effects on participatory behavior for decision-making related to controversial science and explored questions such as the following: should more information be provided to the public and if yes by which channels? Do citizens think that public opinion has to be taken into account for controversial scientific issues, or are scientists’ views more important? What is the role of knowledge, trust in different institutions, and media use in promoting participatory behavior? Brossard’s research integrated these questions in a broader framework and tested a model explaining public participation for controversial science that was based on political communication, risk communication, and media effects theories. In other work, Brossard has examined the role religion, communication contexts and mass media, might play in the expression of political participation. Other collaborative work includes the analysis of the impacts of social setting, network heterogeneity and informational variables on political participation. Finally, Brossard’s research in health communication aims to develop theoretical frameworks for the design of campaigns for various health related behaviors, such as smoking or binge drinking.

Panelist Lewis Gilbert became interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW–Madison in July 2007. He came to the institute in 2005 as associate director. Before that, he helped design, implement, and manage interdisciplinary programs at several other universities.

He was a founding member and, from 1999 to 2003, executive director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. For six years before that, he led a variety of other strategic initiatives at Columbia. He helped organize research teams of earth, life and social scientists, which, under his guidance, launched more than 10 major local and international projects.

He left the Earth Institute in 2003 and established his own consulting business but continued to teach a course, Environmental Policy, Politics and Management, for Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Throughout his career, he has focused on improving the links between scientific understanding and decision- and policy-making. He has written and spoken on the theory of interdisciplinarity and on sustainability and been involved in discussions about the governance of science and technology.

Panelist Tracey Holloway is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin--Madison in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Civil and Environmental Engineering. She works with the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), and is a member of the Energy Sources, Systems and Policy Cluster. Holloway earned her Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University, working at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). As a graduate fellow through the Princeton Environmental Institute, she also completed a certificate in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Her undergraduate degree (Sc.B.) is from Brown University in Applied Mathematics, and her post-doctoral work was done at Columbia University's Earth Institute.

Prof. Holloway's research examines air pollution chemistry and transport at regional and global scales, especially the mechanisms underlying transport across international borders. East Asia and the Great Lakes Region of North America are two active study regions, for which she employs the EPA Community Multi-scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) to assess regional air pollution, and the Model of Ozone and Related Tracers (MOZART) to analyze pollution on global scales. She is also interested in the role of models in the policy process, particularly atmospheric chemistry models and their application to energy use strategies, public health assessments, and international environmental treaties. Her work has been supported by grants from the Department of Defense, NASA, and the EPA.

Panelist Casey Nagy presently serves as Chief of Staff to Chancellor John Wiley. Prior to this appointment, Nagy served terms as Chief of Staff to the Provost and as an attorney for the University of Wisconsin–Madison, following several years of private law practice in the areas of employment and civil rights. He is the author of a recently published novel, and lives in Madison with his wife and family.

Panelist Peter Taglia is the Staff Scientist at Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy organization located in Madison, Wisconsin. Peter is a professional geologist and has a BA in environmental geology from the University of Montana and a MS in hydrogeology from the UW-Madison. Prior to Clean Wisconsin, Peter spent five years working for an environmental consulting firm and is experienced in conducting environmental investigations, preparing environmental remediation plans and developing environmental impact statements at superfund sites, energy facilities and power plants.

Peter is currently working in numerous aspects of climate change mitigation, with an emphasis on electrical generation, terrestrial and geological carbon sequestration and biofuels analysis. In May of 2007 Peter was appointed to two working groups of Governor Doyle's Task Force on Global Warming, the electrical generation work group (which he is also co-chair) and the technical advisory group. In October of 2007 Peter was part of a Midwest delegation to tour advanced gasification power plants in Europe, including the Nuon IGCC power plant in the Netherlands that uses 30% biomass with coal for electrical generation.

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February 7-8, 2008: Visualizing Science
(co-sponsored by the Holtz Center)

Visualizing Science is one in a series of public conferences on New Directions in Visual Culture hosted by the Visual Culture Cluser at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Thursday, February 7:

Public Lecture by Michael Lynch
(Professor, Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University)
"Drawing Attention to Nano: Fantastic Realism and Other Modes of Visual Impression Management in Nanotechnology"
5:30pm, Chazen Museum of Art, (800 University Avenue) Room L140.

Starting about thirty years ago, historians of science and art historians began taking an interest in what James Elkins later called “images that are not art,” including diagrams, optical and digital images, maps, models, and graphs. (Ironically, such non-art images have lately become fashionable as art.) In past work, I have studied the composition and use of various types of non-art images, including electron micrographs, digital images of astronomical objects, and illustrations in field guides. My main interest has been in how visualization exacts and enacts discipline, both in terms of the objective fields displayed and in the practices of investigating those fields. This presentation concerns nanotechnology: a field that has become known for conspicuous indiscipline in its use of imagery. Although the coherence and very existence of “nano” remains questionable, it has produced a proliferation of popular images, ranging from fantastic nanobots placed in hyperrealistic nanoscapes to crude atomic drawings that resemble children’s fingerpaintings. In some respects, nano images trade on compositional and expository practices that are characteristic of many other technical renderings, but the publicity and controversy that surrounds nano highlights the ethical tensions involved in simulating invisible realms by placing them in classic realistic compositions.

Friday, February 8:

Visualizing Science: A Research Colloquium
Organized by Shiela Reaves (Professor, Life Sciences Communication)
9:00am-12:10pm, Pyle Center Auditorium, 702 Langdon Street

Participants include:
Dominique Brossard (Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication)
Laurie Beth Clark (Professor, Art)
Wendy Crone (Associate Professor, Engineering Physics) and Greta Zenner (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center)
Meghan Doherty (PhD Candidate, Art History)
Joan Fujimura (Professor, Sociology)
Steve Hilyard (Associate Professor, Art)
Judith Houck (Assistant Professor, Medical History and Bioethics)
Michael Lynch (Professor and Director of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University)
Daniel Kleinman (Director, Holtz Center for Scinece and Technology Studies)
Patty Loew (Associate Professor, Life Sciences Communication)
Lynn Nyhart (Professor, History of Science)
Shiela Reaves (Professor, Life Sciences Communication)
Dietram Scheufele (Professor, Life Sciences Communication)
Tom Still (Wisconsin Technology Council)

"Topical Contextures and Objectivity." A workshop with Michael Lynch.

1:15pm-3:15pm. Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street, Room TBA.
The workshop will involve examples and exercises in which participants explore how visualization is featured in scientific communication, demonstration, and argument. Topical contexture is a term used to describe the relationship between arrangements of visible details and the gestalt forms they compose. Seating is limited. Advanced registration is required. Directions about joining will be posted soon.

3:30pm-4:00pm: Exhibition Viewing and Curators' Talk in Kohler Art Library, 800 University Avenue. Guest co-curators Amy Noell and Beth Zinsli (PhD Students, Art History) discuss "The Scientist's Eye: Dialogues between Art & Science."

" Visualizing Science" is co-sponsored by the Eye Research Institute, the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, and the Departments of Art, Art History, Medical History and Bioethics, and Sociology.

November 2-4, 2007: Tales from Planet Earth
(co-sponsored by the Holtz Center)

Tales From Planet Earth is a three-day festival showcasing environmental films from around the world. This journey across the globe will explore how stories told through film shape our understanding of nature and inspire action on behalf of environmental justice and the diversity of life. All festival events are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Donations help support the festival and will be accepted at the door.

The festival is the first public outreach event of the newly established Center for Culture, History, and Environment within the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. The Center’s mission is to bring together faculty, staff, graduate students and others from a wide array of disciplines to explore changing relationships between people and environment over time. Because human interactions with the natural world are always mediated by institutions, politics, ideas, and values, an important component of the Center’s mission is to understand how knowledge, beliefs, political economy, and culture have shaped, and been shaped, by the environment.

From travelogue-expedition films to the experimental avant-garde, from the worlds of Walt Disney to those of Jacques Cousteau, cinema has been central to how we see, think about, consume, and politicize nature in the past, present, and future. Tales From Planet Earth offers a unique opportunity for audiences to watch, reflect on, and discuss the power of film as a force of environmental change.

Films include:

Everythings's Cool (Friday, November 2 at 7:45pm)
Flock of Dodos (Saturday, November 3 at 11:00am)