SPE History: A Glance Back Through the Years (1993-2022)
Past Topics and Speakers
Click on a year to learn more. All professors are physics, unless otherwise noted.
Director: Irene Lira-Andsager
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | Traffic of Molecular Motors on the Genome | Sangjin Kim |
| 2 | Portrait of a Black Hole | Charles Gammie |
| 3 | Physics and Baseball: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too | Alan Nathan |
| 4 | The Future Prospects of Science | Martin Gruebele |
| 5 | How to Build a Quantum Computer Using Aluminum | Angela Kou |
Director: Patrick Snyder
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | How to Stop Covid-19 Using Mathematics | Nigel Goldenfeld |
| 2 | When Stars Attack! Near-Earth Supernova Explosions and their Radioactive Fingerprints | Brian Fields |
| 3 | Cosmic Journeys, Quantum Voyages: Exploring Physics through the Arts | Smitha Vishveshwara |
| 4 | Reverse alchemy: turning gold into the most perfect liquid | Jaki Noronha-Hostler |
| 5 | Arts, Science, and the Elegant Universe | Lindsay Olson & Dr. Kirsty Duffy |
Director: Patrick Snyder
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | Creating Photoreal Digital Human Characters for Movies, Games, and Virtual Reality | Paul Debevec |
| 2 | Touching All The Bases: A Peek Inside the World of a Baseball Physicist | Alan Nathan |
| 3 | Artificial Topological Materials: Designing for the 22nd Century | Bryce Gadway |
| 4 | The Mysterious Muon | Aida El-Khadra |
| 5 | Electromagnetic Radiation from Free Electrons: From AM Radio to Free Electron Lasers | James Eckstein |
| 6 | What is a Physicist Doing Studying Biology? | Paul Selvin |
Directors: Brian DeMarco & Liang Yang
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | A Look Inside the Hottest Matter in the Universe | Anne Sickles |
| 2 | Sustainable Energy | Scott Willenbrock |
| 3 | Inflation and the Hot Big Bang: The Quantum Origin of Structure in the Universe | Peter Adshead |
| 4 | Towards a Quantum Internet | Virginia Lorenz |
| 5 | Ubiquitous Crackling: from Nanocrystal, to Neurons, to Earthquakes, to Stars | Karin Dahmen |
| 6 | Even Evolution Can't Have it All | Seppe Kuehn |
Directors: Brian DeMarco & Liang Yang
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | When Stars Attack! Radioactive evidence for a near-Earth supernova explosion | Brian Fields |
| 2 | Visualization in Science, Technology and the Arts | Donna Cox |
| 3 | Radiation, friend or foe? | Kevin Pitts |
| 4 | Nuclear Proliferation: Can terrorists buy, steal or build a nuclear bomb? | Matthias Grosse Perdekamp |
| 5 | How Small Can We Go? The physics behind nanoscale electronics | Nadya Mason |
| 6 | Understanding Nature's Micro Swimmers | Yann Chemla |
Directors: Peter Adshead & Inga Karliner
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | Exoplanets | Jon Thaler |
| 2 | Visualizing the Amazing Quantum World | Vidya Madhavan |
| 3 | What can theoretical physics tell us about the evolution of early life? | Nigel Goldenfeld |
| 4 | Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and LIGO | Edward Seidel |
| 5 | The Hidden Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy | Jeffrey Filippini |
| 6 | Visit to the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) where the Higgs Boson was Found | Verena Martinez Outshoorn |
Directors: Peter Adshead & Inga Karliner
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | The First Galaxies in the Universe and the ALMA Telescope | Joaquin Vieira |
| 2 | Building Emergent Biological Machines | Rashid Bashir |
| 3 | Hunting for the Elusive Neutrino | Liang Yang |
| 4 | How Laws, Sausages, and Science are Made: an Inside View of How Science Really Works | Peter Abbamonte |
| 5 | I'm Beginning to See the Light: Properties and Applications of our Friendly Photons | Paul G. Kwiat |
| 6 | How to Train your Photon | Virginia Lorenz |
Directors: Liang Yang & Inga Karliner
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | Decisions, Decisions: How Cells Sense Their Environment and Make Decisions to Adapt and Respond | Thomas E. Kuhlman |
| 2 | This Old Zero-Net-Energy House | Scott S. Willenbrock |
| 3 | Everyone Loves Science | Mats A. Selen |
| 4 | When Stars Attack! In Search of Killer Supernova Explosions | Brian D. Fields |
| 5 | Building Mountains: How Forces in the Earth Raise Rock Miles into the Sky | Stephen Marshak |
| 6 | Magnets and Big Machines: The Use of Neutrons to Explore Magnetism in New Materials | Gregory MacDougal |
Directors: Liang Yang & Inga Karliner
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | Nature's Biological Nanomachines | Yann Chemla |
| 2 | Creating Quantum Matter at the Coldest Temperatures in the Universe | Brian Demarco |
| 3 | Baby Stars: Take A Solar Mass of Gas and Dust and Just Add Gravity | Leslie Looney |
| 4 | The Ultimate MRI: Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy | Raffi Budakian |
| 5 | Why is There Mass? | Tony M. Liss |
| 6 | What Is Inside Jupiter and Saturn and How Do We Know? | David M. Ceperley |
Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner, & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 | The Quantum Information Revolution | Paul Kwiat |
| 2 | A Billionth of a Billionth of a Meter: Building a Microscope for the Observation of Quarks and Anti-Quarks Inside the Proton | Matthias Grosse Perdekamp |
| 3 | How We Think and Move at the Smallest Scale | Paul Selvin |
| 4 | Extrasolar Planets | Jon Thaler |
| 5 | Our Weird Quantum World |
Michael Weissman |
| 6 | Understanding the Energy Challenge: It Takes More Than Science | Paul Debevec |
Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner, & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars and Black Holes |
Frederick Lamb |
| 2 |
The Physics of Climate Change |
Scott Willenbrock |
| 3 | The Mysterious Neutrino | Jen-Chieh Peng |
| 4 | Corked Bats, Humidors and Steroids: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball | Alan Nathan |
| 5 | Transforming Science, Policy and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductivity |
Laura Greene |
| 6 | Inside Out: How Physics Has Revolutionized Medical Imaging | P. Scott Carney, Electrical and Computer Engineering |
Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner, & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Black Holes and Other Strange Objects in the Sky |
Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy |
| 2 | Quarks and Cold Atoms: From the Hottest to the Coldest Places in the Universe |
Gordon Baym |
| 3 | A Curvy, Stretchy Future for Electronics | John Rogers, Materials Science & Engineering |
| 4 |
Physics of Genes and Why It Matters to You |
Aleksei Aksimentiev |
| 5 |
A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature |
Lance Cooper |
| 6 |
Unlocking the Dark Secrets of our Universe: How Studying the Smallest Things with the Biggest Science Project Ever Gets to the Heart of the Matter |
Tony Liss |
Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner, & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Exotic Superconductors: New Mysteries, Exciting Applications |
Dale Van Harlingen |
| 2 | Decision Making in Living Cells |
Ido Golding |
| 3 | The Dark Side of the Universe | Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy |
| 4 |
Understanding Complex Systems |
Alfred Hubler |
| 5 |
The Atom Chip |
Benjamin Lev |
| 6 |
From Blindness to Sight: The Physics of Vision Restoration |
Dr. Samir Sayegh, MD, PhD |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology |
Bob Clegg |
| 2 | The Pervasive Nature of Feedback in Natural and Engineered Systems |
Andrew Alleyne, Mechanical Science and Engineering |
| 3 | Transforming Science Policy, and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductors | Laura Greene |
| 4 |
The Physics of UFOs |
Kevin Pitts |
| 5 |
Law and Science |
Amy Gajda, Law School, Journalism |
| 6 |
Special lecture May 2009 |
Kevin Pitts and Mark Neubauer |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
The Great Scientific Instruments: Why We Build Them |
David Hertzog |
| 2 | The Liquid Crystalline State of Matter: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall |
Paul Goldbart |
| 3 | Fire or Ice? The Fate of the Universe | Jon Thaler |
| 4 |
Over the Moon with Carbon Nanotubes |
Nadya Mason |
| 5 |
Mysteries of the Cold Universe |
Smitha Vishveshwara |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Corked Bats and Rising Fastballs: Using Physics to Debunk Some Myths of Baseball |
Alan Nathan |
| 2 | Why Can't Time Run Backwards |
Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS; |
| 3 | Physics of the Body | Klaus Schulten |
| 4 |
Looking for 10^-16 m Objects with a 10 ^4m Microscope |
Tim Stelzer |
| 5 |
Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids |
James Wolfe |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Einstein's Miracle Year |
Paul Kwiat |
| 2 | From Transistor to Light-Emitting Transistor |
Milton Feng, Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| 3 |
Looking into Brain with Lasers |
Enrico Gratton |
| 4 |
The Latest from Broadway to Loomis: The First 10 Microseconds of the Universe |
Matthias Grosse-Perdekamp |
| 5 |
Quantum Mechanics: Stranger Than We Can Imagine |
Michael Weissman |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Steaming Geysers and Puffing Volcanoes |
Susan Kieffer, Physics and Geology |
| 2 |
What is Absolute Zero? Ultra-cold Quantum Weirdness |
Brian DeMarco |
| 3 |
Could a Defense Against Intercontinental Missiles Work? |
Frederick Lamb |
| 4 |
From the Infinite to the Infinitely Small. Probing the Cosmos at an Accelerator |
Tony Liss |
| 5 |
Little Engine that Could: How Tiny Motor Proteins Move on a Molecular Highway |
Taekjip Ha |
| 6 |
The Crystals that Nature Cannot Make |
Jim Eckstein |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Human Induced Climate Change: An Introduction and Overview |
Michael Schlesinger, Atmospheric Sciences |
| 2 |
Light From Black Holes |
Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy |
| 3 |
How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology |
Robert Clegg |
| 4 |
Complex Systems: Where Physics Meets Life |
Alfred Hubler |
| 5 |
It's So Weird, It's So Simple, and You'll Derive It for Yourself Entirely From Scratch, Right There In Your Seat: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. |
George Gollin |
| 6 |
The Elusive Neutrino: Why Something That Does So Little Matters So Much. |
Mats Selen |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Something Quantum This Way Comes |
Paul Kwiat |
| 2 |
Physics in the Early Universe: Ingredients of the Primordial Soup |
Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy |
| 3 |
The Physics of Music |
Steven Errede |
| 4 |
A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature |
Lance Cooper |
| 5 |
All About Energy |
David Ruzic, Nuclear Engineering |
Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids |
James Wolfe |
| 2 |
Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Journey to the Coldest Places in the Universe |
Gordon Baym (NAS) |
| 3 |
Liquid Crystals: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall |
Paul Goldbart |
| 4 |
Peering inside the Proton |
Naomi Makins |
| 5 |
The Physics of Dance |
George Gollin |
| 6 |
Science: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly |
Jon Thaler |
Directors: Mats Selen & Kevin Pitts
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
The Education of John Bardeen, Double Nobel Prize Physicist |
Lillian Hoddeson, Physics and History |
| 2 |
The Universe: From Big Bang Till Today |
Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy |
| 3 |
Biophysics, How Nerves Fire and Muscles Contract |
Paul Selvin |
| 4 |
Chaos: The Science of Non-Elephants |
David Campbell, was Physics Department Head; became Dean of Engineering, Boston University |
| 5 |
The Mystery of Mass |
Scott Willenbrock |
Directors: Mats Selen & Inga Karliner
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Finessing Photons: Interesting Ways in Which Light is Manipulated in Science and Nature |
Lance Cooper |
| 2 |
The Art and Science of Pin Hole Camera |
Peter R. McCullogh, Astronomy |
| 3 |
Computational Science: The Real World of Ideas |
Roscoe Giles, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Boston University |
| 4 |
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: An Ingenious Experiment With Surprising Results |
Charles Slichter (NAS) |
| 5 |
The World of Quantum Mechanics: How is it Different from Our Everyday World? |
Aida El-Khadra |
| 6 |
Atom Smashes: Particle Accelerators and Detectors |
Mats Selen |
Director: Scott Willenbrock
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes |
Frederick Lamb |
| 2 |
Baseball: It's Not Nuclear Physics (or is it?) |
Alan Nathan |
| 3 |
High Temperature Superconductors: From Broken Symmetries to Cell Phones |
Laura Greene |
| 4 |
What's a Physicist Doing Studying Biology? |
Paul Selvin |
| 5 |
How Do Airplanes Work? Taking the Fear out of Flying a Piper Archer II |
Deborah Errede |
| 6 |
Is Music Composition More Elusive for Computers? |
Douglas Hofstadter, Cognitive Science, Indiana University |
Director: Scott Willenbrock
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Black Holes: A Video Voyage Through Einstein's Spacetime |
Stuart Shapiro |
| 2 |
Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow |
Paul Goldbart |
| 3 |
Using Chaos to Mix Fluids Well |
Hassan Aref, Physics, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics |
| 4 |
The Physical and Chemical Effects of Ultrasound |
Kenneth Suslick, Chemistry |
| 5 |
Radio Observations of Large Interstellar Molecules of Possible Biological Interest |
Lewis Snyder, Astronomy |
| 6 |
The Physics of Music |
David Hertzog |
| 7 |
The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars. |
Tony Liss |
Director: Paul Goldbart
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
The Birth, Life and Death of Stars |
James Kaler, Astronomy |
| 2 |
Surfing Waves in the Microcosmos: Using Light Waves to View the Body |
Eric Wiener |
| 3 |
So You Thought Computers Could Do Anything? Some Probably Unsolvable and Infeasible Computational Problems |
Michael Loui, Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| 4 |
The Strange Fate of Cats (and Other Things) According to Quantum Mechanics |
Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS; Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; Fellow of the Royal Society) |
| 5 |
Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes |
Frederick Lamb |
| 6 |
When Ash Meets Cowhide: The Physics of Baseball |
Alan Nathan |
| 7 |
My Time is NOT Your Time: Einstein's Relativity in Theory and Practice |
Gary Gladding |
| 8 |
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, and Other Ways to Really See Atoms |
Munir Nayfeh |
Director: Paul Goldbart
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Watching the Social Activities of Atoms |
Murray Gibson |
| 2 |
Chaos: the Science of Non-Elephants |
David Campbell |
| 3 |
No Escape from Black Holes |
Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy |
| 4 |
Cosmic Collisions: Comet Shoemaker-Levy's Impact on Jupiter |
Margaret Meixner, Astronomy |
| 5 |
Never Be Lost Again |
Jeremiah Sullivan |
| 6 |
Active Mountain Building and Earthquakes |
Wang-Ping Chen, Geology |
| 7 |
Severe and Unusual Weather: the Roles of Science and Technology |
John Walsh, Atmospheric Sciences |
Director: David Hertzog
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
What is Everything Made of? |
Gordon Baym (NAS) |
| 2 |
Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow |
Paul Goldbart |
| 3 |
Superfluid Superstars: An Inside View of a Pulsar |
David Pines (NAS) |
| 4 |
No Escape from Black Holes |
Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy |
| 5 |
Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine |
Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study |
| 6 | What is Mass? |
Scott Willenbrock |
| 7 |
The Collision of Quantum Mechanics with Supercomputers |
Philip Phillips |
Director: David Hertzog
| Position | Lecture Title | Speaker |
| 1 |
Looking into the Brain with a Laser |
Enrico Gratton |
| 2 |
Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow |
Paul Goldbart |
| 3 |
What is Everything Made of? |
Gordon Baym (member of the National Academy of Sciences, NAS) |
| 4 |
The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars |
Tony Liss |
| 5 |
Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine |
Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study |