Hilldale Lecture Series Funded Lectures

Since 1973-1974, the Hilldale Lecture Series has showcased distinguished thinkers whose contributions to contemporary culture and science have received international recognition and acclaim. One lecture is funded annually in each division.

To view the most recently sponsored Hilldale Lectures, please click on the tabs below.

Upcoming

Liliane Weissberg
Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and
Sciences at University of Pennsylvania

Time and Location TBD

Past

Karen Pinkus, Professor Emerita of Romance Studies and Comparative Literature, Cornell University
Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at Cornell University
Literary Narrative Confronting a ‘Just and Orderly Transition’ (2024-2025)

Professor William Chester Jordan
Dayton-Stockton Professor of History
Princeton University
“The First Crusade and Jewish Martyrdom” (2019-2020)

Professor Thomas Mullaney
Associate Professor of Chinese History at Standford University
“Asymmetries in Global Information and Language Technology, 1800 to the Present” (2018-2019)

Professor Yves Citton, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis
The Humanities as Arts of Attention in the Age of Computational Mediarchy (2017-2018)

Harry J. Elam, Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education,
Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Drama, and
Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Stanford University
Why Theater is Still Relevant in the 21st Century (2015-2016)

Upcoming

Alison Brown, MS, PhD, RDN
Program Director in the Clinical Applications and Prevention Branch
of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health

Time and location TBD

Past

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)

Upcoming

Jerry Mitrovica
Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University

Time and location TBD

Jane Rigby
Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space
Telescope at NASA

Time and location TBD

Past

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)

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