Hilldale Lecture Series – Past Lectures

Hilldale Lectures in the Biological Sciences

Lars Chittka, MSc, PhD, Dr habil, FLS, FRES, FRSB
Professor in Sensory and Behavioural Ecology
Queen Mary University of London
“The Mind of a Bee” (2023-2024)

Jeannine Cavender-Bares
Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
University of Minnesota, and
Director of the NSF Biology Integration Institute ASCEND (Advancing Spectral biology in Changing ENvironments to understand Diversity)
Plant Diversity, spectral biology and giving back to a planet in crisis (2022-2023)

Molly Przeworski
American population geneticist and Professor of Biological Sciences and Systems Biology at Columbia University
Why Do Germline Mutation Rates Depend on Sex and Age? (selected 2020-2021; held 2022-2023)

Hao Wu
Asa and Patricia Springer Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School
Associate Director of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital
Inflammasomes at the Crossroads of Basic Science and Therapeutic Translation (2021-2022)

Professor Patrick Cramer
Department of Molecular Biology, Director
Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry
Transcription of the eukaryote genome: mechanisms and regulatory strategies (2019-2020)

Professor Alim Louis Benabid, MD, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Biophysics at Joseph Fourier University
“Is there a future for Brain Computer Interface and Artificial Intelligence in Neurosurgery during the next decade? Yes, of course!” (2018-2019)

Stephen Goff, Ph.D., Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Higgins Professor of Biochemistry, College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University
Transcriptional Silencing of Retroviral DNAs in Embryonic Cells (2016-2017)

Joel Gelernter, M.D., Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience,
Director, Division of Human Genetics, Yale School of Medicine
Navigating Addiction Genetics with a Map of the Human Genome (2015-2016)

Matthias Mann, Director, Department of Proteomics & Signal Transduction, Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry:
From Genomics to Proteomics: Technologies and Applications of High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry in Biology and Medicine (2014-2015)

Mark Chase, Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
Polyploidy, Diploidization and Angiosperm Diversification: Insights from Nicotiana (Solanaceae) (2012-2013)

Elinor Ostrom, Distinguished Professor, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, and Senior Research Director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington; and Founding Director, Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University:
Polycentric Institutions to Cope with Ecological and Social Diversity (2011-2012)

Brenda Milner, Professor, Montreal Neurological Institute and Professor, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University:
Brain and Memory: The Excitement of Discovery (2010-2011)

Paul W. Ewald, Professor of Biology and Director, Program on Disease Evolution, University of Louisville:
The Causes and Prevention of Cancer: the Quiet Evolutionary Revolution (2009-2010)

Dale Bauman, Professor of Animal Science, Cornell University:
Functional Foods and Dairy Fat: Opportunities and Challenges (2006-2007)

Francis Collins, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute; and Associate Chief, Genetic and Molecular Biology Branch, National Institutes of Health:
Consequence of the Human Genome Project for Medicine and Society (2000-2001)

Susumu Tonegawa, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine (1987), Amgen Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, and Director, Center for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Somatic Origins of Antibody Diversity (1998-1999)

Thomas Eisner, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology, Cornell University:
The Hidden Value of Nature (1996-1997)

Bruce M. Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences, and American Cancer Society Research Professor, University of California – San Francisco:
Centrosome: Structure and Role in Early Development (1995-1996)

Steven A. Rosenberg, Chief of Surgery, National Cancer Institute, and Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences:
The Future of Cancer Treatment (1994-1995)

Merril Eisenbud, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Medicine, The Institute of Environmental Medicine, New York University Medical Center:
The Modern Environmental Movement: An Historical Perspective (1992-1993)

Donald Metcalf, Research Professor of Cancer Biology, University of Melbourne, and Assistant Director of the Walter Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Royal Melbourne Hospita:
The Molecular Control of Blood Cell Formation (1990-1991)

Edward O. Wilson, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and Curator in Entomology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University:
Global Biodiversity: Status, Future, and Promise (1989-1990)

David Botstein, Professor in Biology and Earl A. Griswald Professor of Genetics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vice-President, Genentech, San Francisco, California:
How Molecular Genetics Has Influenced Our Understanding of Inherited Disease (1988-1989)

Eric R. Kandel, Professor, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and Senior Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute:
The Long and Short of Long-Term Memory (1987-1988)

W. French Anderson, Chief, Laboratory of Molecular Hematology, National Institutes of Health:
Prospects for Human Gene Therapy (1986-1987)

Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, and Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University:
Charles Darwin and the Science of History (1985-1986)

Sidney Udenfriend, Director, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology:
Biochemistry and Regulation of Enkephalins (1984-1985)

Paul Berg, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1980), and Willson Professor of Biochemistry, Stanford University:
Novel Minichromosomes for the Analysis of Gene Function I Mammalian Cells (1983-1984)

Ira Herskowitz, Professor and Vice-Chairman, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Head, Division of Genetics, University of California – San Francisco:
Determination of Yeast Cell Type by Transposable Genetic Elements: Cassettes and What They Do When They Are Not Moving (1982-1983)

Carroll M. Williams, Benjamin Bussey Professor of Biology, Harvard University:
A Singing Spring: Insect Control Without Poison (1981-1982)

Gerald R. Find, Professor of Biochemistry, Cornell University:
The Contribution of Yeast to Modern Biology (1980-1981)

John R. Hogness, President, Association of Academic Health Centers:
What Health Care System? (1979-1980)

Philip Handler, President, National Academy of Sciences, and James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry, Duke University:
Pangs of Science (1978-1979)

Niko Tinbergen, Professor of Zoology, Oxford University, and Fellow of the Royal Society:
Man: Guinea Pig of Evolution (1977-1978)

Jane Goodall, Gombe Research Center; Visiting Professor in Psychiatry and Human Biology, Stanford University:
Recent Research on Chimpanzee Behavior (1975-1976)

Margery W. Shaw, Professor of medical Genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences:
The New Genetics and the Law (1974-1975)

Carl B. Huffaker, Director, International Center of Biological Control, University of California – Berkeley and Riverside; Professor of Entomology, Berkeley:
Biological Control in the Management of Pests (1973-1974)

No lecture presented in 2013-2014, 2008-2009, 2007-2008, 2005-2006, 2004-2005, 2003-2004, 2002-2003, 2001-2002, 1999-2000, 1997-1098, 1993-1994, 1991-1992 or 1976-1977.

Hilldale Lectures in the Physical Sciences

Gigliola Staffilani
MIT Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Mathematics
A Small Window into Wave Turbulence Theory (2023-2024)

Gil Kalai
Henry and Manya Noskwith Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Professor of Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
The Argument of Quantum Physics
and
Quantum Computers, Predictability & Free Will (2022-2023; postponed from 2021-2022)

John Sutherland
Group Leader in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England
Origins of the RNA-Protein World – Lost in Translation (2018-2019 but postponed to 2021-2022)

Professor Marcia Bjornerud
Walter Schober Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geology
Lawrence University
“Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World” (2019-2020)

Lecture from 2018-2019 was held in 2021-2022.

Professor Richard Lipton, Georgia Institute of Technology
Computer Science Theory: Past, Present, and Future (2017-2018)

Frank H. Shu, University Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley and San Diego
Reversing Climate Change Economically (2016-2017)

Peter Sarnak, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics, Princeton University, and
Permanent Faculty Member at the Institute for Advanced Study
Sums of Squares and Golden Gates (2015-2016)

William Cook, Professor in Combinatorics & Optimization at the University of Waterloo
In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation (2013-2014)

Uri S. Alon, Professor of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science
Simple Building Blocks of Complex Biological Systems (2012-2013)

David Charbonneau, Professor of Astronomy, Harvard University
The Last Generation of Lonely Astronomers (2010-2011)

Persi Diaconis, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, Stanford University
From Magic to Mathematics and Back (2009-2010)

Glen MacDonald, Professor of Geography and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA
Arctic Warming and Global Climate Change: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going? (2006-2007)

Barry Mazur, Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University
Bernoulli Numbers and the Unity of Mathematics (2004-2005)

Richard M. Karp, Professor of Computer Sciences, University of California-Berkeley
Computers as Puzzle-Solvers: The Challenge of Efficient Search (2003-2004)

Gabor Somorjai, Professor of Chemistry, University of California-Berkeley
Surfaces: Favorite Media of Evolution and New Technologies (2001-2002)

Margaret Geller, Professor of Astronomy, Harvard University
So Many Galaxies, So Little Time (1998-1999)

Yuan T. Lee, President, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Meeting the Challenge of the 21st Century (1997-1998)

Ivar Ekeland, Professor of Mathematics, University of Paris-Dauphine
Variational Principles and Symplectic Geometry: From Galileo’s Pendulum to Modern Symplectic Geometry (1995-1996)

Norman Hackerman, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Rice University
Why Support Academic Research? (1994-1995)

Heinrich Rohrer, Nobel Laureate in Physics, IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
Atom by Atom, Molecule by Molecule (1992-1993)

Leon M. Lederman, Professor of Physics, University of Chicago
Science: Is It Still The Endless Frontier? (1991-1992)

Jerrold Meinwald, Professor of Chemistry, Cornell University
The Chemistry of Everyday Insect Life: Violence, Sex, and Drugs (1990-1991)

George Andrews, Professor of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University
The Amazing, Romantic Story of Ramanujan’s Mathematics (1989-1990)

Michael Tinkham, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, Harvard University
The New Superconductors: What Is the Reality? (1988-1989)

Walter Alvarez, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, University of California-Berkeley
Impact Crises and Mass Extinctions of Life on Earth (1987-1988)

Edward C. Stone, Project Scientist for the Voyager mission and Professor of Physics, California Institute of Technology
The Voyager 2 Encounter with Uranus (1986-1987)

Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics (1979) and Josey Professor of Science, University of Texas-Austin
How Many Dimensions Are There? (1984-1985)

Alexander Malahoff, Chief Scientist, National Ocean Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
New Minerals and Exotic Animals of the Ocean Floor (1983-1984)

Paul MacCready, President, AeroVironment, Pasadena, California
Impractical Airplanes, Practical Visions (1982-1983)

Edward Teller, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and University Professor Emeritus, University of California-Berkeley
Energy from Heaven and Earth (1981-1982)

Edwin H. Land, Chairman of the Board, Consulting Director of Basic Research, Polaroid Corporation
Why is the Spectrum Colored? (1980-1981)

Freeman Dyson, Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study
The Future of Desire and the Future of Fate (1979-1980)

Mark Kac, Professor of Mathematics, Rockefeller University
When is Random Random? (1978-1979)

Murray Gell-Mann, R.A. Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology
Is the World Really Made of Quarks, Leptons, and Bosons? (1977-1978)

Elliott W. Montroll, Albert Einstein Professor of Physics, and Director of the Institute for Fundamental Studies, University of Rochester
On Quantitative Aspects of Social Phenomena (1976-1977)

Hans A. Bethe, Nobel Laureate in Physics (1967) and Professor of Physics, Cornell University
The Need for Nuclear Power (1974-1975)

Philip H. Abelson, President of Carnegie Institute of Washington and Editor of Weekly Magazine Science
Energy Problems of the Next Decade (1973-1974)

No lecture presented in 2014-2015, 2011-2012, 2008-2009, 2007-2008, 2005-2006, 2002-2003, 2000-2001, 1999-2000, 1996-1997, 1993-1994, 1985-1986 or 1975-1976.

Hilldale Lectures in the Social Sciences

Eileen Crimmins, PhD
AARP Chair in Gerontology and Director of the Center on Biodemography and
Population Health at the University of Southern California
Healthy Aging: The Interaction of Social and Biological Factors (2023-2024)

Olivia Mitchell, PhD, International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor
Professor of Insurance & Risk Mgmt. and Business Economics & Public Policy
New Developments in Retirement Risk Management (selected 2021-2022; held 2022-2023)

Anne Case, PhD, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs
Emeritus at Princeton University
The Great Divide: Education, Despair & Death (selected 2020-2021; held 2021-2022)

Professor Laura Hamilton
Chair of Sociology
University of California, Merced
Administering Austerity in the New University (2019-2020)

No lecture was held in 2018-2019

Peter Bearman, PhD, Jonathan R. Cole Professor of the Social Sciences, Columbia University
Reciprocity, Transitivity and Identity in Human Groups (2017-2018)

James W. Loewen, Author of the bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me
How History Keeps Us Racist – And What To Do About It (2016-2017)

Francis Fukuyama, Director, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
America the Vetocracy (2015-2016)

James Fowler, Professor of Medical Genetics and Political Science, University of California, San Diego:
How Social Networks Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do (2014-2015)

James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University:
Four Domestications: Fire, Plants, Animals and Us, or the Late Neolithic Multi-species Resettlement Camp (2013-2014)

Jacob Hacker, Professor of Political Science, Yale University:
Has American Politics Betrayed the Middle Class? (2011-2012)

Stephen D. Houston. Professor of Social Science an Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology, Brown University:
Beyond Writing: Notation and Memory at the Margins of Script (2010-2011)

Jacquelyn Campbell, Chair and Professor of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University. National Program Director, Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Scholars Program:
Keeping Women Safer in Communities and the Health Care System: 25 Years of Research and Advocacy (2009-2010)

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean and Professor of Law, University of California-Irvine:
Civil Liberties and the War on Terror – Past, Present and Future (2008-2009)

William Taubman, Professor of Political Science, Amherst College:
Nikita Krushchev: The Mand and His Era (2007-2008)

Laura Pulido, Associate Professor of Geography and Program in American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California:
Race, Regions and the Black/White Binary: Latinos in the New South (2005-2006)

Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany:
Smart Heuristics: An Adaptive Intelligence of the Unconscious (2002-2003)

Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University:
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000-2001)

Frans de Waal, Professor of Psychology, Emory University:
Good Natured: Animal Origins of Human Morality (1999-2000)

Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago:
Social Cascades: Why and When Things Change Very Quickly (1998-1999)

Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University:
The Cult of Saints and Relics in Some Buddhist and Christian Traditions (1996-1997)

Fredrik Barth, Professor of Anthropology, Emory University:
Toward an Anthropology of Knowledge (1995-1996)

Charles Goodhart, Professor of Banking and Finance, London School of Economics:
European Monetary Union: A Progress Report (1994-1995)

Anthony Giddens, Professor of Sociology, Cambridge University:
Modernity, Identity, and Sexuality (1993-1994)

James V. Wertsch, Professor of Psychology, Clark University:
The Individual-Society Antinomy in Sociocultural Research (1992-1993)

Marilyn Strathern, Professor of Anthropology, University of Manchester:
Displacing Knowledge: Kinship and Technologies of Reproduction (1991-1992)

Paul Ekman, Professor of Psychology, University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine:
About Face: Information Signaled by Facial Expression (1990-91)

Robert L Heilbroner, Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research:
Thinking About Capitalism (1988-1989)

Judge Pierre Leval, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York:
The Press, the Courts, Libel and the First Amendment (1987-1988)

Walter Murphy, Professor of Politics, Princeton University:
The Art of Constitutional Interpretation (1986-1987)

Marshall Sahlins, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago:
Social Science; or the Tragic Western Sense of Human Imperfections (1985-1986)

Herbert Simon, Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University:
What is Creativity? A Psychological Theory Supported by Computer Simulation (1984-1985)

Thomas S. Kuhn, Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
What Are Scientific Revolutions? (1983-1984)

Lawrence M. Friedman, Professor of Law, Stanford University:
On American Legal Culture: A Century of Change (1982-1983)

Erving Goffman, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania:
Perception Constraints and Social Interaction (1981-1982)

Robert M. Solow, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
What Do Economists Know, If Anything? (1980-1981)

Sandra Scarr, Professor of Psychology, Yale University:
How do Families Affect the Intellectual Development of their Children? (1979-1980)

William J. Wilson, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago:
The Declining Significance of Race: Myth or Reality? (1978-1979)

Urie Bronfenbrenner, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, and Psychology, Cornell University:
Who Cares for America’s Children? (1977-1978)

Robert Nisbet, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University:
Patterns of Social Change (1976-1977)

Louis H. Pollack, Dean, University of Pennsylvania Law School:
The Constitution, Past and Present: A Bicentennial Perspective (1975-1976)

Simon Kuznets, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, Harvard University:
Economic Growth Revisited (1974-1975)

Benjamin I. Schwartz, Professor of History and Government, Harvard University:
The Crisis of Culture in 20th Century China (1973-1974)

No lecture presented in 2012-13.