Jason De Leon

Jason De Leon

The 2019 Holocaust Memorial Lecture featured a presentation by Jason De León, professor of anthropology at UCLA, entitled ‘Understanding the Current Politics of Migrant Life andDeath along the U.S.-Mexico Border.’ De León uses ethnographic analysis, forensic science and archaeological research to study the lives and deaths of migrants in the Sonoran Desert.

David McBride

David McBride

David McBride, director of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, spoke on the future of aerospace engineering, including the next generation of NASA X-planes, the Artemis program (returning astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2024) and the role of government in the age of private space and aircraft flight.

Michelle Oberman

Michelle Oberman

Michelle Oberman, the Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, presented on the battle over abortion law.

Ericka Hart

Ericka Hart

Ericka Hart, social justice advocate and sexuality educator, delivered the 2019 Masters and Johnson Annual Lecture. Hart’s practice is rooted in radical thought around human sexual expression as inextricable to health and its intersections with race, gender, chronic illness and disability.

Karine Jean-Pierre

Karine Jean-Pierre

The Nov. 10, 2019 finale of the Blacks in America: 400 Years Plus trilogy, featured Karine Jean-Pierre, NBC and MSNBC Political Analyst. This event, a University Libraries’ Mary Curtis Horowitz Lecture for Civic Engagement and Social Policy, was part of a three-part trilogy to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in the United States.

Kip S. Thorne

Kip S. Thorne

Nobel laureate Kip S. Thorne delivered the 2019 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture titled ‘Exploring the Warped Side of the Universe with Gravitational Waves: From the Big Bang to Black Holes’.

Eddie Glaude

Eddie Glaude

Eddie Glaude, theJames S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and frequent MSNBC contributor, offered reflections on difficult truths about race and the moral crisis at the heart of American democracy.

Col. Frank Sobchak

Col. Frank Sobchak

Retired Col. Frank Sobchak discussed lessons from the Iraq War. Col. Sobchak is co-author of the “U.S. Army in the Iraq War” report, the first U.S. government history of the war.

Brittany Packnett and Kayla Reed

Brittany Packnett and Kayla Reed

On October 24, 2019 WashU alumna, activist and educator Brittany Packnett joined organizer and strategist Kayla Reed for a conversation about the power to lead, confidence and inclusivity.

Kishore Mahbubani

Kishore Mahbubani

This lecture examined the many dimensions of the U.S.-China geopolitical contest and provided some suggestions on how both America and China can handle this contest better.

George J. Sanchez

George J. Sanchez

This lecture addressed a career of producing humanities Ph.D. students who are actively committed to public scholarship that explores questions of race, gender, and economic divides in Los Angeles through mentorship, training, and scholarly engagement.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

Acclaimed Chinese dissident artist and activist Ai Weiwei joined Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and Chief Curator of the Kemper Art Museum, for a conversation on Ai’s wide-ranging and critical practice.

Pepper Schwartz

Pepper Schwartz

The Me Too movement has brought a long-needed course correction to sexual harassment, sexual intimidation, and workplace sexual abuse. In this lecture, Dr. Pepper Schwartz discussed the chronology of events to understand why this has happened and examined policy dilemmas of competing values about due process, victim protection, offender punishments, and differing approaches within and outside of feminism.

Dan Tokaji

Dan Tokaji

Dan Tokaji, associate dean and the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, discussed‘Voting Rights, Gerrymandering, and the Uncertain Future of Democracy

Lisa Hu, Mark Pydynowski and Doug Villhard

Lisa Hu, Mark Pydynowski and Doug Villhard

In the event titled “The Other F Word: Learning from Failure,” a panel of Olin alumni and faculty shared personal stories of failure and explored how the experience shaped their values and helped them find a new path to success.

Lee Epstein, Adam Liptak and Greg Magarian

Lee Epstein, Adam Liptak and Greg Magarian

For nearly a decade, it has been an annual tradition to celebrate Constitution Day at Washington University School of Law with a U.S. Supreme Court review examining some of the major cases from the Court’s last term and providing commentary on the nature of what is happening on the Court today as well as what lies ahead.

Nicole Garnett

Nicole Garnett

Nicole Garnett, the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, delivered remarks on ‘The Value of Educational Pluralism.’

Nadine Strossen

Nadine Strossen

To mark the beginning of the 2019-2020 academic year, the Washington University in St. Louis community came together on Monday, August 26, 2019 for ‘Reflections, Unity, Social Justice, and Peace.’