Conversations
Moderator for the evening:
Joe Palca
Correspondent, NPR Science Desk
Joe Palca is a science correspondent for National Public Radio. Since joining NPR in 1992, Palca has covered a wide range of topics—everything from biomedical research to astronomy. In addition to his science reporting, Palca occasionally fills in as guest host on Talk of the Nation Science Friday. Palca has won numerous awards, including the National Academies Communications Award and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Prize. He is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011).
UC Santa Cruz faculty speakers:
Sandra Faber
Professor
Chair of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz
Sandra Faber is a renowned astronomer and cosmologist whose work has had enormous influence on our understanding of the universe. A popular speaker, she has appeared in numerous documentaries and public television programs. Faber is an expert on the formation of galaxies and the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to the present. She has also been closely involved in the development of major telescopes and astronomical instruments. Faber currently leads an ambitious project using the Hubble Space Telescope to image more than 250,000 distant galaxies.
Richard E. (Ed) Green
Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering
Baskin School of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
Ed Green has helped pioneer the use of advanced sequencing technology to study ancient DNA extracted from fossil bones. He coordinated the Neanderthal Genome Project as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. A paper on the Neanderthal genome published in 2010 earned him the prize for outstanding paper published in the journal Science. A subsequent paper described a previously unknown group of human relatives, called "Denisovans," who lived in Asia. Green's research interests also include human evolutionary genetics.
David Haussler
Distinguished Professor of Biomolecular Engineering
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Director, Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering
Baskin School of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
David Haussler's research on the human genome and cancer genomics is paving the way for intelligently designed medical therapies and personalized medicine. A leader in the field of bioinformatics, he has brought the power of advanced computational techniques to complex problems in biology. His work has contributed to a deeper, more accurate understanding of human biology, evolution, development, and disease. Haussler's group is involved in major international collaborations aimed at developing our knowledge of the human genome as a foundation for biomedical advances.
