The Presidential Lecture series provides an opportunity for distinguished members of the faculty to present significant aspects of their work to members of the University community and to the general public. The University has established this annual series to encourage intellectual communication among the many disciplines that constitute the University of Iowa, and to provide a public forum for University scholarship, research, and creative achievement. The series is made possible through the generosity of donors of unrestricted gifts to the University of Iowa Foundation.
2017
Gregory Carmichael
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
“What Goes Around, Comes Around: The Global Reach of Air Pollution”
2016
Richard Fumerton
F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy
"No Harm, No Foul: In Search of a Principled Defense of Freedom"
2015
Linda Snetselaar
Professor of Epidemiology
"Food, Culture and Community"
2014
Alan MacVey
Director of the Division of Performing Arts and Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts
"What Made It So Exciting?"
2013
Sara Rynes
Professor of Management Sciences in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business
"Leading in the New Wave of Change"
2012
Garrett Stewart
James O. Freedman Professor of Letters in the Department of English in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Paper, Scissors, Ash: Defaced Books and the House of Fiction
2011
Beverly Davidson
Internal Medicine
Genes as Medicine: Molecular Therapy Comes of Age with Dr. Beverly Davidson
2010
Marilynne Robinson
Iowa Writers' Workshop
Being Here
2009
Donald A. Gurnett
Physics
“From the Dawn of Space to the Edge of the Solar System”
2008
Randall P. Bezanson
Law
“Art and the Constitution”
2007
Kevin P. Campbell
Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
Molecular Basis of Muscular Dystrophy and Approaches to Therapy
2006
Gerhard Loewenberg
Political Science
Paradoxes of Legislatures
2005
Kenneth Cmiel
History; UI Center for Human Rights
Seeing War at a Distance: Photography from Antietam to Abu Ghraib
2004
Phil Kutzko
Mathematics
The Epsilon-Delta Blues: Math at the Crossroads
2003
Kate Gfeller
School of Music; Speech Pathology and Audiology
Beauty and Meaning in Music...Lend Me Your (Bionic) Ears
2002
Kathleen Buckwalter
Nursing
Who Will Care? Research and Service on Behalf of Iowa’s Impaired Elders
2001
Ingo Titze
Speech Pathology and Audiology
Fascinations With the Human Voice
1999
Louis A. Frank
Physics and Astronomy
Small Comets and Our Origins: The Ecstasy and Agony of the Scientific Debate
1998
Ed Folsom
English
What Do We Represent? Walt Whitman, Representative Democracy, and Democratic Representation
1997
Dudley Andrew
Communication Studies
Fade In, Fade Out: Aspirations of National Cinema
1996
Jerald L. Schnoor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Eco-Logic: An Environmental Perspective for the 21st Century
1995
Herbert Hovenkamp
Law
The Mind and Heart of Progressive Legal Thought
1994
Michael J. Welsh
Internal Medicine
The Pathway of Discovery in Pursuit of a Genetic Disease
1993
Nancy C. Andreasen
Psychiatry
O Brave New World! Exploring the Mind and Brain in Health and Disease
1992
James A. Van Allen
Physics and Astronomy
The Modern Saga of Planetary Exploration
1991
Jorie Graham
Writers’ Workshop
A Poetry Reading
1990
John E. Donelson
Biochemistry
Molecular Biology of Parasites Causing Tropical Diseases
1989
George W. Forell
Religion
The Sacred and the Secular: Religion in the State University
1988
Beaumont Glass
Music
Genius on the Opera Stage: The Life and Art of Lotte Lehman
1987
Linda K. Kerber
History
History Will Do It No Justice: Women’s Lives in Revolutionary America
1986
June Helm
Anthropology
Horde, Band and Tribe: Northern Approaches
1985
Antonio R. Damasio
Neurology
What’s in a Brain That Ink May Character?
1984
Sherman Paul
English
The Onward Way