Thomas Maier and Michelle Ashford

Thomas Maier and Michelle Ashford

A half-century ago, American societal beliefs about sex, and the medical establishment’s understanding of the term and all it implies, were changed forever with the publication of “Human Sexual Response.”

The findings, based on the unique methodology of two Washington University researchers — William Masters and Virginia Johnson — sent shock waves through the nation and provided impetus for the cultural upheaval begun in the 1960s and which continues today.

Gregory Radick

Gregory Radick

Nearly everyone is familiar with Darwin’s famous theory of natural selection detailed in his 1859 masterpiece, “On the Origin of Species.” Perhaps not so commonly known is his theory on the universality of race, presented in the 1872 publication of “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.”

William McKinnon

William McKinnon

McKinnon’s long career as a planetary scientist has been marked by a series of exciting discoveries and new explorations. But perhaps the most thrilling feat he has witnessed to date occurred July 14, 2015 when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew through the Pluto system, capturing extraordinary images and other data that illuminated the complex geological world of the farthest planet in the classical solar system.

Christopher Newfield

Christopher Newfield

Christopher Newfield says America is undergoing an educational crisis. He claims that for the first time in our history, we are graduating a generation that is less well educated than the one that preceded it.

Arsalan Iftikhar

Arsalan Iftikhar

Whenever some violent lunatic snaps and claims some kind of warped justification for his murderous acts as a so-called Muslim warrior, it’s not his damaged childhood or the flood of assault weapons in America or the climate of unrelenting violence in our country that gets blamed – it’s Islam, an ancient, Abrahamic religion.” — Arsalan Iftikhar

Garth Risk Hallberg

Garth Risk Hallberg

“Fortune,” said Mark Twain, “knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her. Fortunately for Garth Risk Hallberg, when fortune came knocking, he was at home with the manuscript for “City on Fire,” a 900-page novel set in 1970s punk-era New York.

Dean Strang

Dean Strang

Strang is co-founder of StrangBradley, LLC, and is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, the University of Wisconsin Law School, and University of Wisconsin’s Division of Continuing Studies. The author of “Worse than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror” will publish his second book in 2018.

Doris Bergen

Doris Bergen

For Washington University’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture, Bergen will deliver an address on “Holocaust or Genocide: Uniqueness and Universality” at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2 in Umrath Lounge.

Van Jones

Van Jones

Former White House environmental adviser, CNN political commentator and social entrepreneur Van Jones opened the fall 2016 Assembly Series at Washington University.

Brittany Packnett

Brittany Packnett

In 2015 Packnett was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s “12 New Faces of Black Leadership,” an honor that helped introduce her to the national news media. That same year, Packnett helped launch two social justice organizations: We the Protesters, and Campaign Zero.