The Faculty Lecture Series, presented by the Office of the Dean of the College, offers Pomona College faculty the opportunity to share recent research with students, staff and their colleagues during open lectures throughout the academic year.
Lecture dates and topics are posted to this page and to the Pomona College events calendar as they become available. Please check event entries for location and audience. Some lectures are available on-demand (links provided below).
The Faculty Lecture Series
2022-2023
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Excursions in Monodromy of Belyi Lattes Maps (on-demand recording)
Edray Goins, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
The Most Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Crisis & the Movement for Court Reform
Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Professor and Chair of Politics
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Composing Ourselves
Tom Flaherty, John P. and Magdalena R. Dexter Professor of Music and College Composer
Thursday, March 30, 2023
TBD
Carolyn Ratteray, Associate Professor of Theatre; Co-Chair of Theatre
Thursday, April 19, 2023
Effects of Police Force Size and California Criminal Justice Reforms on Crime Rates
Stephen Marks, Elden Smith Professor of Economics
2021-2022
* The Fall 2021 series has been spread out over the full 21-22 academic year.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Learn About The Hive
Fred Leichter, Founding Director of The Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity (The Hive)
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The Black Mathematician Chronicles: Our Quest to Update the MAD Pages
Edray Herber Goins, PhD., Professor Mathematics and Statistics
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Galaxies Without Dark Matter: A Challenge for the Standard Paradigm?
Jorge Moreno, Assistant Professor Physics and Astronomy
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
The Writerly "Nature" of G. E. Lessing According to His Brother Karl Around 1790
Friederike von Scherwin-High, Professor and Chair of German and Russian
2020
*Based on the change in schedules and the move to entirely remote interactions, the Fall 2020 series has been spread out over the full 20-21 academic year.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Math…with a conscience?
Gizem Karaali, Professor of Mathematics
View recorded lecture (Math…with a conscience?)
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Japan’s Aging Peace
Thomas Le, Assistant Professor of Politics
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Sequences and Poems
Prageeta Sharma, Professor of English
View recorded lecture (Sequences and Poems)
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Nature’s Weapons of Mass Reproduction
Dwight Whitaker, Professor and Chair of Physics & Astronomy
View recorded lecture (Nature's Weapons of Mass Reproduction)
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Developing Narratives for Marginalized Voices During a Pandemic
Giovanni Ortega, Assistant Professor of Theatre & Dance
View recorded lecture (Developing Narratives for Marginalized Voices During a Pandemic)
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Localizing the Global: Cities and International Human Rights
Heidi Haddad, Associate Professor of Politics
View recorded lecture (Localizing the Global: Cities and International Human Rights)
2019
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Chemistry that Clicks - Industrial Collaborations that Enrich Undergraduate Research
Nicholas Ball, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Music in Motion, Music as Motion
Joti Rockwell, Associate Professor of Music; Music Theory; Coordinator of American Studies
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Text Simplification - Improving Information Accessibility
David Kauchak, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
The Impact of Technology and Long-Term Archeological Research on Perceptions about the Ancient Maya and Caracol, Belize
Arlen F. Chase, Visiting Professor of Anthropology
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Ecology of Claremont - Insights for a Sustainable Future
Wallace Meyer III, Director of the Bernard Field Station and Associate Professor of Biology
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Is Diversity Good for Business?
Manisha Goel, Assistant Professor of Economics
2018
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Prime time math: little green men, locust hordes, and cybersecurity
Stephan Garcia, W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Mathematics
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Speaker TBD
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Alma Zook, Professor of Physics
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Scrutinizing Politicians in Democratic Athens: How the Athenians Chose and Confirmed their Officials
Benjamin Keim, Assistant Professor of Classics
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
A Paraphrase of Herbert’s “Love" (3)
Aaron Kunin, Associate Professor of English; Chair of English
2017
Building the Republic: The Founding Fathers as Architects and Urban Planners
Susan McWilliams, Associate Professor of Politics
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Paradox, Reason and Inquiry
Peter Thielke, Professor of Philosophy
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
“Smart” Drugs, in Sickness and in Health
Karen Parfitt, Professor of Neuroscience
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
RNA + Bacteria + Evolution = Sensors!
Jane Liu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Carceral Technologies, Biblical Affects, U.S. Theopolitics
Erin Runions, Professor of Religious Studies
2016
Wednesday, September 14
On The Gelatinous
Kyla Tompkins, Associate Professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies
Wednesday, September 28
Asking The Auks About Climate Change
Nina Karnovsky, Associate Professor of Biology
Wednesday, October 12
Spirit and Culture in the Flesh: Pedagogies of Connection
Joyce Lu, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance
Wednesday, October 26
Few Other Ways Out: Anticipating the Outcomes of Revolutions
Colin Beck, Associate Professor of Sociology
Wednesday, November 9
Forecasting Economic Activity Using Financial Variables
Pierangelo De Pace, Associate Professor of Economics
Wednesday, November 23
Sagehen Spirit: Updates, Insights and Lots of Blue and Orange!
Lesley Irvine, Director of Pomona-Pitzer Athletics
Wednesday, November 30
The Deeds to Deuterium
Daniel O’Leary, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry
2015
Wednesday, September 16
A Tiny River that Built an Empire: The Santa Ana in the Making of Market and State in Southern California
Heather Williams, Associate Professor of Politics
Wednesday, September 30
Functions, Formulas and Dendritic Cells: Using Mathematics and the Immune System to Fight Cancer
Ami Radunskaya, Professor of Mathematics
Wednesday, October 14
Emotional Currencies: What Happens When Poor Immigrants Return Home to Spend and Give Money
Hung Thai, Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies
Wednesday, October 28
Drone Media: Power Asymmetries Associated with the Automation of Surveillance, Sense-Making and Response
Mark Andrejevic, Professor of Media Studies
Wednesday, November 11
How a Tune Creates Meaning: Music and Prosody in “This Land Is Your Land”
Alfred Cramer, Associate Professor of Music
Wednesday, December 2
Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Pragmatic Approach
Tahir Andrabi, Stedman-Sumner Professor of Economics
2014
Wednesday, September 17
Napoleon’s Closet: The Emperor, the Priest, and the Men Who Invented Fashion Magazines
Margaret Waller, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures
Wednesday, September 24
Fracking, Peaking, and America’s Energy Future
Rick Hazlett, Stephen M. Pauley M.D. ’62 Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geology
Wednesday, October 15
Lessons From the Making of Latino San Francisco
Tomàs Summers Sandoval, Associate Professor of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and History
Monday, October 27
What the Cocks Fight Over: Eggs and Human Rights in Contemporary Hispaniola
April Mayes, Associate Professor of History
Monday, November 17
Art and Labor in a Time of War: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Workers’ Education, and World War II
Frances Pohl, Dr. Mary Ann Vanderzyl Reynolds ’56 Professor of Humanities and Professor of Art History
Wednesday, December 3
The Origins of Life on Earth, and Why Your Earliest Relatives Ate Rocks
E.J. Crane, Associate Professor of Biology
2013
Biotechnology and the Law: Pomona Science On Trial
Len Seligman, Professor of Biology
Irony on Trial: Oscar Wilde v. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Kevin J.H. Dettmar, W.M. Keck Professor of English
Zoned Crystals and the Pace of Earth Processes
Jade Star Lackey, Associate Professor of Geology
Film with No Leader, Movement without Edge: Politics, Fantasy, and Japanese Left Cinema
Jonathan M. Hall, Assistant Professor of Media Studies
Neon Slaves, Electric Savages or How Does a Wired Thing Understand? Mapping Black Women’s Agency via Afrofuturism
Valorie Thomas, Associate Professor of English/Africana Studies
The Hunger Games, Utopias, and Concentration Camps
Oona Eisenstadt, Fred Krinsky Professor of Jewish Studies & Associate Professor of Religious Studies
2012
Spurring Pomona-Pitzer Soccer: Player Development in the English Premiership and at Pomona-Pitzer
William Swartz, Professor of Physical Education and Soccer Coach
Finding Life's Music Through Statistical Noise
Johanna Hardin, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Progress on Pythagoras and the Value of Interdisciplinary
Richard McKirahan, Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy
A Graph-Based Perspective on the World
Tzu-Yi-Chen, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Machine Project Presents!
Mark Allen, Associate Professor of Art
Zap! Pow! Bam! Superman Fights the Nazis
Lynn Rapaport, Henry Snyder Professor of Sociology