Debórah Dwork is the Rose Professor of Holocaust History and director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a leading authority on university education in this field, as well as in her area of scholarship, the Holocaust. Her award-winning books include Children With A Star, Auschwitz, and Flight from the Reich. The recipient of many prestigious fellowships, Dwork is a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Dwork is currently engaged in two projects. Saints and Liars focuses on Americans — Quakers, Unitarians, secular people, Jews — who traveled to Europe to aid and, step by step, engaged in rescuing people targeted by Nazi Germany and its allies.

In her Athenaeum talk, Dwork asks: To whom did hidden Jewish children belong at war’s end? Who made that decision? And how did the children experience the paths others determined for them?

Professor Dwork’s Athenaeum presentation is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights.

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Steve McGann '73 is a retired U.S. ambassador and a senior advisor of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, D.C. His principal responsibilities at NDU include developing curriculum for implementation of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, the Joint Land Air Sea Strategic Program (JLASS), as well as lecturing on State-Defense Coordination. He previously served as the United States Ambassador to the Republics of Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, and the Kingdom of Tonga and Tuvalu (2008-11). McGann was assigned as Chargé d’Affaires (ad interim) of the United States Embassy in Dili, Timor-Leste (2014). His achievements center on democracy-building, law enforcement cooperation, maritime security, humanitarian assistance, disaster response and the expansion of U.S. diplomatic presence in the Pacific. McGann is a graduate of CMC and serves on the College's Board of Trustees.

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View Video: YouTube with Steven McGann '73

Elaine A. Ostrander is chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She did her postdoctoral training at Harvard and Berkeley, beginning the dog genome project in 1991. Since moving to NIH in 2004, Dr. Ostrander’s lab has focused on advancing canine genomics and finding genes for breed-specific traits. Dr. Ostrander has published over 285 papers and articles and won multiple awards.

In the last few centuries subpopulations of dogs have developed into closed populations as a result of selection for behavior and appearance-related traits. In her Athenaeum talk, Ostrander will discuss recent advances in the canine genome project and reveal genes for cancer and morphologic traits including body size, leg length and skull shape and also address how pet dogs advance human health.

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Nina Tandon is CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. She is the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book that explores the new frontier of biotech. A TED Senior Fellow and an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the Cooper Union, she holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Cooper Union and a master’s degree in bioelectrical engineering from MIT. She also holds both a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and an MBA from Columbia University.

On the cutting edge of science where sci-fi meets reality, Tandon works on growing artificial hearts and bones that can be put into the body, and studies the new frontier of biotech. She believes that the era of engineered tissues—for example, a replacement kidney grown in the lab—is just beginning. In this talk, Tandon will illustrate how we (and our bodies) have lived through most of history (Body 1.0), and then how we evolved into "cyborgs" with implants (such as pacemakers and artificial joints (Body 2.0). Now, Body 3.0 is all about growing our OWN body parts.

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Gordon Phillips is the Charles E. Cook-Community Bank Chair of Finance and professor of finance and business economics at USC's Marshall School of Business. He has expertise in mergers, firm organization, security issuance, and the impact of financial decisions on firms' strategic decisions. Professor Phillips’ Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute at Claremont McKenna College.

View Video: YouTube with Gordon Phillips

Olivia Gatwood and Megan Falley of Speak Like a Girl offer an interactive, feminist show that uses spoken word as a tool to highlight gender inequality and related issues. Through humorous and passionate performances, Gatwood and Falley address issues such as street harassment, body image, rape culture, and the perils of the patriarchy. Critics say that Speak Like a Girl will make you laugh, cry, and rally for change! Together, Megan Falley and Olivia Gatwood are National Poetry Slam and Women of the World Poetry Slam finalists and have been featured on TV One’s Verses and Flow.

Speak Like A Girl’s appearance at at the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the Center for Public Writing and Discourse.

View Video: YouTube with Olivia Gatwood and Megan Falley

David Barboza is the Shanghai Bureau Chief of The New York Times, where he has been posted since 2004. In 2013, Barboza was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for his striking exposure of corruption at high levels of the Chinese government, including billions in secret wealth owned by relatives of the prime minister, well documented work published in the face of heavy pressure from the Chinese officials.” He was also part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. In 2008, Mr. Barboza won The Times’ internal business award, the Nathaniel Nash Award. He has twice won the Gerald Loeb Award for business reporting. Mr. Barboza graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in history and attended Yale University Graduate School. Mr. Barboza’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. Read more...

Victoria Sanford is professor and chair of anthropology and founding director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University, where she studied International Human Rights Law and Immigration Law at Stanford Law School. A prolific author, her books include, among others, Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala and Tierra y Violencia en Guatemala. In August of 2012, she served as an invited expert witness on the Guatemalan genocide before Judge Santiago Pedraz in the Spanish National Court’s international genocide case against the Guatemalan generals. Professor Sanford’s Athenaeum talk is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College. (Photo credit: Julien Charlon)

David Sedaris is a humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. A regular on NPR and in the New Yorker, he is the best-selling author of, among many other books, Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. With sardonic wit and incisive social critique, Sedaris is one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today and has become one of America’s pre-eminent humorists and a master of satire.

Sedaris is currently on a U.S. tour that is getting rave reviews around the country.

(Photo credit: Hugh Hamrick)

SPECIAL NOTES:

The Athenaeum will not serve dinner on the night of Mr. Sedaris’ appearance.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

Mr. Sedaris will begin signing books in the Athenaeum lobby at 6:45 pm. The show will begin at 7:30 pm. He will speak for about an hour, followed by 20 to 30 minutes of Q & A. He will continue to sign books (for as long as it takes) after the show.

Seats for this event will be extremely limited and restricted to CMC students, faculty, and staff. Faculty and staff are limited to bringing one additional immediate family member.

Seating is on a first come-first serve basis only.

Seats cannot be held for others.