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
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
distinguished alumna and independent scholar
affiliated with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon
Time and Location TBD
Past
Liliane Weissberg, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Science emerita and Professor of Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies at University of Pennsylvania Defining Enlightenment: Kant, Mendelssohn, Arendt (2026-2027)
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)
Upcoming
There is currently no lecture scheduled in the Biological Sciences
Past
Dr. Zea Borok
Helen M. Ranney Professor
Chair, Department of Medicine
University of California, San Diego
Beyond the barrier: alveolar epithelial cell plasticity in health and disease (2025-2026)
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)
Upcoming
Larry Weber
Edwin B. Green Chair in Hydraulics
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering at the University of Iowa
Time and location TBD
Past
Jerry Mitrovica
Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University
Taking the fingerprints of global sea level change (2025-2026)
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)
Upcoming
Jennifer Karas Montez
Professor of Sociology at Syracuse
Time and location TBD
Past
Sendhil Mullainathan, PhD
Peter de Florez Professor at MIT
We’re Building the Wrong AI (2025-2026)
The video of this even will be posted to the La Follette YouTube page soon.
Dean Spade
Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
Sticking Together in Hard Times (2024-2025)
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)