–Madeleine Albright to speak at UCSD on Feb. 13
Madeleine K. Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration, will visit UCSD for a foreign policy discussion at the Institute of the Americas Auditorium on Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Susan Shirk, professor of political science at the Graduate School of International Relations/Pacific Studies, and Jeffrey Davidow, president of the Institute of the Americas, will participate in the discussion with Albright.
Albright, who served for four years of the second Clinton administration from 1996-2000, was the first female secretary of state and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government.
Prior to her appointment, Albright served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and other high-ranking positions in foreign relations on Capitol Hill and in the Carter administration.
She published “”Madame Secretary”” in 2003 and is currently president of the global strategy firm, Albright Group.
Shirk and Davidow both previously served in the State Department, partly under Albright’s tenure. Shirk served as deputy assistant secretary for China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, while Davidow served as ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002.
The conversation with Albright is co-sponsored by the IR/PS and the Institute of the Americas.
–Nobel Prize winner to join chemistry department
Nobel Prize-winning chemist and professor Mario J. Molina will join UCSD’s chemistry department and Scripps Institution of Oceanography on July 1.
Molina is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1995, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in elucidating the threat of chlorofluorocarbon gases to the Earth’s ozone layer.
Molina will be UCSD’s 16th faculty member to win the Nobel Prize. He will join a group of leading atmospheric chemists at UCSD, including Paul Crutzen, with whom Molina shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Molina has recently focused his research on the chemistry of air pollution in the lower atmosphere, collaborating with colleagues in other countries, notably in Mexico City.
Molina was born in Mexico City and received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Universidad AutÛnoma de MÈxico in 1965, a postgraduate degree in physical chemistry from the University of Freiburg in West Germany in 1967, and a doctorate in physical chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1972.
As a researcher at UC Irvine in 1974, he co-authored (with Nobel Prize winner F. Sherwood Rowland, who shared the Nobel Prize with Molina and Crutzen) a paper in the journal Nature detailing their research on the threat of CFCs, which were at the time widely used as propellants in spray cans and as refrigerants in refrigerators.
Molina taught at UC Irvine, the Universidad Nacional AutÛnoma de MÈxico and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology before arriving at MIT in 1989.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He has also served on the U.S. President’s Committee of Advisors in Science and Technology, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, National Research Council Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and on the board of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation of Science.
–‘Intuition and Understanding’ to explore music and arts
A six-part lecture series will explore the role of music and the arts in a research university beginning on Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. and continuing on the successive Wednesday evenings into mid-March.
The free series, titled “”Intuition and Understanding: Creativity, Research and the Arts at UCSD”” and sponsored by the UCSD Center for the Humanities, will feature UCSD artists and professors.
The new series is designed to showcase UCSD’s accomplishments in music and art.
The first three installments will take place at the Institute of the Americas Copley Auditorium.
The first installment, on Feb. 11, is titled “”Beyond Illusion ó Alternative Theatre in the USA,”” and will feature Theodore Shank, a professor emeritus of theatre and dance.
The second, on Feb. 18, is titled “”Uneasy Dreams ó A Percussionist and His Changing Body,”” and will feature Steven Schick, a percussionist and professor of music.
The third, on Feb. 25, is titled “”Resident Alien in Secondary Inspection,”” and will feature Ruben Ortiz Torres, an associate professor of visual arts.
For a complete schedule, visit http://humctr.ucsd.edu.