Previous Sharper Focus/Wider Lens Faculty Speakers
April 2019 – “The Varieties of Healing”
Scott Becker, Residence Education and Housing Services
Mary A. Bedikian, College of Law
William J. Chopik, Department of Psychology
Heather Howard, Department of Anthropology
Clare Luz, Department of Family and Community Medicine
February 2019 – “Digging Up The Past: New Subjects/New Tools”
Stacey Camp, Department of Anthropology and Campus Archaeology Program
Siddharth Chandra, James Madison College and Asian Studies Center
Noah Kaye, Department of History
Sharon Leon, Department of History
October 2018 – “Doubting Science and Technology?”
Kevin Elliott, Lyman Briggs College, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Department of Philosophy
Aaron McCright, Department of Sociology
Georgina Montgomery, Lyman Briggs College and Department of History
Rick Wash, Department of Media and Information
September 2018 – “A Continent of Challenge and Resilience: Africa in the 21st Century”
Carolyn Logan, Department of Political Science
Saweda Onipede Liverpool-Tasie, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
Terrie Taylor, Department of Osteopathic Medical Specialties
Veronique Theriault, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
Leo Zulu, Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences
March 2018 – “All Things Auto”
David Ferguson, Department of Kinesiology
Lisa Fine, Department of History
Hayder Radha, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Tamara Reid Bush, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Mark Wilson, School of Planning, Design and Construction
October 2017 – “Being Russia: The Past, Present and Future of a Superpower”
Lisa Cook, Department of Economics, James Madison College
Kyle Evered, Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences
Sherman Garnett, James Madison College
Matthew Pauly, Department of History
September 2017 – “Water Wars: Our H20 Futures”
David Hyndman, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Jade Mitchell, Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering
Joan Rose, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
William Taylor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
March 2017 – “Transforming the World: The Power of Imagination”
Laura Apol, Department of Teacher Education
Ann Folino White, Department of Theatre
Robert Montgomery, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Vaughn W.M. Watson, Department of Teacher Education
Jeff Wray, Department of English
February 2017 – “A World on the Move: Refugees, Migrants and Immigrants”
Sophia Koufopoulou, Department of Sociology
Stephanie Nawyn, Department of Sociology and Center for Gender in Global Context
Anna Pegler-Gordon, James Madison College and the Asian Pacific American Studies Program
Johanna Schuster-Craig, College of Arts & Letters (German and Global Studies)
David Thronson, College of Law
November 2016 – “Looking at Flint: The Past, Present and Future of the City”
Manuel Chavez, College of Communication Arts and Sciences/School of Journalism
Debra Furr-Holden, College of Human Medicine/Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Rick Sadler, College of Human Medicine/Department of Family Medicine
Mary Schulz, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources/MSU Extension Center for Local Government Finance and Policy
Trixie Smith, College of Arts & Letters/The Writing Center
September 2016 – “Brave New Workplace: The Next Careers?”
Karl Gude, Media Sandbox
Angela Hall, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations
Kenneth Merz, College of Natural Science and Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research
Cheryl Sisk, Neuroscience Program
Kenneth Szymusiak, Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Eli Broad College of Business
April 2016 – “It’s All Politics”
Mike Colaresi, Department of Political Science
Bob Kolt, Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Ann Larabee, Department of English
Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Residential College in the Arts and Humanities
January 2016 – “The Nature of Inequality”
Charles Ballard, Department of Economics
NiCole T. Buchanan, Department of Psychology
Paulette Granberry Russell, Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives
Angie Kennedy, School of Social Work
Django Paris, Department of Teacher Education
November 2015 – “Seeing China”
Howard Bossen, School of Journalism and MSU Museum
Andrea Louie, Department of Anthropology
Jiaguo Qi, Department of Geography and Center for Global Change and Earth Observation
Simei Qing, James Madison College
Pamela Rasmussen, Department of Zoology and MSU Museum
September 2015 – “What’s UP: The Past, Present and Future of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula”
John Beck, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations
Randy Schaetzl, Department of Geography
Wenona Singel, College of Law
Scott Winterstein, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
March 2015 – “The Next Revolutions”
Thomas Dietz, College of Social Science
Jeff Grabill, Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures
Patrick Kwon, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Brian O’Shea, Lyman Briggs College and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Emilee Rader, Department of Media and Information
February 2015 – “Zombies, Apocalypses and Monsters: Real and Imagined”
Megan Donahue, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Malcolm Magee, Department of History and Department of Religious Studies
Glenn Stutzky, School of Social Work
Valeta Wensloff, Department of Media and Information
November 2014 – “Picking up STEAM (Science and the Arts)”
Susan J. Bandes, Museum Studies Program
Robert Root-Bernstein, Department of Physiology
Mark Sullivan, College of Music
Laurie Thorp, Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE)
September 2014 – “The Evolving Nature of Rights”
Joan Howarth, College of Law
Steven Kautz, Department of Political Science and College of Social Science
Laurie Medina, Department of Anthropology
Joan Rose, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
William Strampel, College of Osteopathic Medicine
April 2014 – “What Divides Us/What Unites Us”
Suzanne Evans Wagner, Department of Linguistics, and Germanic, Slavic Asian and African Languages
Kayla Hales, Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies and Media
Dan Kramer, James Madison College and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Chuck Ostrom, Department of Political Science
Sean Valles, Lyman Briggs College and Department of Philosophy
February 2014 – “Questioning Technology”
Lawrence Busch, Department of Sociology
Tobin Craig, James Madison College
Erik Goodman, BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action and College of Engineering
Paul Thompson, Department of Philosophy, Department of Community Sustainability, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics
Logan Williams, Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology
October 2013 – “Detroit: The Past, Present and Future of the City”
Joe Darden, Department of Geography
Zenia Kotval, School of Planning, Design and Construction
Carl Taylor, Department of Sociology
Rodney Whitaker, Jazz Studies Program
September 2013 – “Looking at Sports”
Peter Alegi, Department of History
Deborah Feltz, Department of Kinesiology
John McClendon, Department of Philosophy
John Powell, Department of Kinesiology
April 2013 – “Food and the City”
Mike Hamm, Department of Community, Agriculture, and Recreation and Resource Studies
Chris Peterson, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics
David Tschirley, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics
Helen Veit, Department of History
February 2013 – “Salt Water Encounters: Conducting Research Beneath, Beside and Across the Oceans”
Peter Beattie, Department of History
Eva Kassens-Noor, Global Studies Program and School of Planning, Design and Construction
Nathaniel Ostrom, Department of Zoology
Masako Tominaga, Department of Geological Sciences
Gail Vander Stoep, Department of Community, Agriculture, and Recreation and Resource Studies
November 2012 – “Mapping the Boundaries of Friendship: The Changing Nature and Tools of Relationships”
Saleem Alhabash, Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing and Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies and Media
Raymond Brock, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Nancy Marino, Department of Romance and Classical Studies
Jennifer Watling Neal, Department of Psychology
September 2012 – “At the End: Death and Dying in Perspective”
Marcia Aldrich, Department of English
Marc Basson, Department of Surgery, College of Human Medicine
Leonard Fleck, Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and Department of Philosophy
Lynne Goldstein, Department of Anthropology
Mohammad Khalil, Department of Religious Studies
April 2012 – “Is There an American Character?”
Sheila Contreras, Department of English and Chicano/Latino Studies
Peter Knupfer, Department of History
Stephanie Nawyn, Department of Sociology
Jeff Wray, Department of English
January 2012 – “Confronting Wilderness: Human Interactions with Nature”
Deborah Carmichael, Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures
Michael Nelson; Lyman Briggs College, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Department of Philosophy
William Porter, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Robert Richardson, Department of Community, Agriculture, and Recreation and Resource Studies and Environmental Science and Policy Program
November 2011 – “Understanding Genocide over Time and Place”
Laura Apol, Department of Teacher Education
Christine DeJong, School of Criminal Justice and Center for Integrative Studies in Social Science
Elizabeth Drexler, Department of Anthropology and Peace and Justice Studies
Ken Waltzer, James Madison College and Jewish Studies
October 2011 – “Brain/Mind/Soul: Locating the Human”
Marc Breedlove, Departments of Neuroscience, Psychology and Zoology
Devin McAuley, Departments of Cognitive Science and Psychology
James Nelson, Department of Philosophy
Arthur Versluis, Department of Religious Studies
March 2011 – “Upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa: Context, Consequences and Implications”
Yael Aronoff, James Madison College
Mohammad Ayoob, James Madison College and Muslim Studies (moderator)
Waseem El-Rayes, James Madison College
Najib Hourani, Department of Anthropology
Ani Sarkissian, Department of Political Science