The CALS Speaker Series aims to bring in distinguished guest speakers to provide our community with insightful perspectives on a variety of topics. All presentations are free and open to the public.
Dignity and Freedom Without Poverty: Why Oxfam Works the Way it Does and Where to From Here?
Monday, April 7
10:30 a.m. to Noon
Idaho Student Union Building, 4th Floor
James Morrissey is the research lead on data and learning innovation, climate, energy and extractive industries at Oxfam America. He has worked on, studied and researched issues of international development for the past 20 years. Morrissey grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where he studied ocean and atmosphere science, and then disaster risk science at the University of Cape Town — where his work focused on the impacts of flooding and fires in informal settlements. He subsequently won a Rhodes Scholarship to study international development at the University of Oxford. His master’s and doctorate work focused on understanding the relationship between climate change and rural-urban migration with a focus on the highlands of northern Ethiopia. Following a research fellowship at Oxford, Morrissey moved to the U.S. where he has worked at Oxfam America for 10 years, focusing on the nexus of climate, energy and extractive industries. Over the last 20 years he has worked on all manner of climate issues, from humanitarian concerns, to refugees, to food and agriculture issues, to issues of energy and extractive industries. His research has primarily been focused on sub-Saharan Africa.
Morrissey will discuss how Oxfam’s rights-based approach to development came to be and reflect what current trends mean for realizing Oxfam’s vision of a world where everyone has the opportunity to live a life of dignity and freedom without poverty. The talk will reflect his own views on these questions and not the formal position of Oxfam.
Igniting Agricultural Innovation
CALS Speaker Series: Scott Hutchins
Educating Different Kinds of Minds
CALS Speaker Series: Temple Grandin
Food Evolution — Keynote
CALS Speaker Series: Alison Van Eenennaam
Food Evolution — Q&A session
CALS Speaker Series: Alison Van Eenennaam and Shelley McGuire
Innovations for 21st Century Food Systems
CALS Speaker Series: Sonny Ramaswamy
What’s For Dinner? A Guide to Understanding GMOs
CALS Speaker Series: Cara Santa Maria
Elevating the Discussion of Genetically Engineered Crops
CALS Speaker Series: Fred Gould
Past speakers
- Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and managing director, systems transformation, CGIAR
Topic: Global Food Security in CCC (Conflict, Climate, COVID) Times - Scott Hutchins, USDA deputy under secretary for research, education and economics
Topic: Igniting Agricultural Innovation - Tom Tomich, founding director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California, Davis
Topic: Global Food Security and Sustainability: Food system disruptors and opportunities - Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum
Topic: Out of Many, One: A Defining Moment for American Immigration - Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University and autism spokesperson
Topic: Educating Different Kinds of Minds - Cliff Ohmart, retired senior scientist with SureHarvest
- Alison Van Eenennaam, USDA NRSP-8 Cattle Genome Coordinator
Shelley McGuire, director, Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences
Topic: Food Evolution - Randy Olson, a scientist-turned-filmmaker
Topic: ABT Framework: The Communications Tool Science Has Been Needing - Cathy Kling, Charles F. Curtis Distinguished Professor of economics at Iowa State University
Topic: Improving Water Quality: Are Economics and the Environment Always at Odds? - Sonny Ramaswamy, director, National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Topic: Innovations for 21st Century Food Systems - Cara L. Santa Maria, M.S., science communicator and journalist
Fred Gould, Distinguished University Professor, North Carolina State University
Topic: What’s for Dinner? A Guide to Understanding GMOs