RCSA to Hold a Week-long Science Dialog
Press Releases
RCSA TO HOLD A WEEK-LONG SCIENCE DIALOG -
Posted: September 10th, 2010
Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), America's second-oldest foundation and the first devoted wholly to science, today announced Scialog Week - a week in which some of the leading scientists in the United States - some already legendary and others early in their careers - will be gathering for a science dialog ("Scialog") on the potential for transformative change in solar energy conversion. Most of Scialog Week, which will take place at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, AZ from October 12 to 15, will involve only invited scientists, selected graduate students, and related guests, but all but one of the keynote speeches will be publicly accessible through live streaming video, and two keynote speeches will take place in Tucson and be open to the public. The term "Scialog®" - coined by RCSA - refers at once to dialog across fields of science, dialog amongst scientific researchers, dialog with science students, and dialog with the general public. Making those various forms of interaction commonplace is essential to U.S. leadership in the sciences and technology - and, therefore, to 21st-century innovation and jobs. Scialog Week will have three primary components:- A scientific gathering, co-sponsored by RCSA and the National Science Foundation, will take place at Biosphere 2. It is designed to create dialog among the 13 cutting-edge, early career scientists who were recently awarded RCSA's first round of Scialog grants. Those grants, part of a multi-year initiative, are designed to accelerate 21st-century science by funding early career scientists to pursue transformative research, in dialog with their fellow grantees, on crucial issues of scientific inquiry. The research grants range from $100,000 for individual scientists to $250,000 to a scientific team. The initial Scialog round - focused on solar energy conversion - is designed to identify, jump-start, and accelerate innovative research in the hope that federal and private funding sources will then move forward the further development of that research and its applications.
- Keynote speeches at the gathering will be presented by world-renowned scientists, including the following:
- Roger Angel, 2010 Kavli Prize-winner in astrophysics and Regents' Professor at the University of Arizona;
- Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Innovation Hub, and chair of the panel of internationally recognized scientists who selected the initial Scialog grantees;
- Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University;
- Arun Majumdar, Director of ARPA-E, the U.S. government agency created to promote and fund research and development of advanced energy technologies;
- Thomas Moore, Professor of Chemistry at Arizona State University and Director of its Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis.
- The general public will be invited to attend two of those keynote speeches, both of which will take place in Tucson at the University of Arizona:
- Eric Mazur will speak at 5:30 pm on Thursday, October 14. Dr. Mazur is a world-renowned authority on ultrashort laser pulse interactions and novel nonlinear optical devices, and a widely recognized leader in science education. He will speak on "The Make-Believe World of Real-World Physics."
- Arun Majumdar will deliver the closing address at 7:00 pm on Friday, October 15. Dr. Majumdar previously served as Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His research specialties include the science and engineering of energy conversion, transport, and storage. He will address energy issues facing the U.S.
