Two nationally known, dynamic keynote speakers highlight the virtual 2021 Black History Month Conference on Feb. 19-20 that is hosted by the UIUC chapter of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers.
Professor Tyrone B. Hayes is an integrative biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, whose research focuses on the role of the steroid hormones in amphibian development. And Dr. Sibrina N. Collins, an inorganic chemist and STEM administrator, is the founding executive director of the Marburger STEM Center at Lawrence Technological University. The Center is the intellectual home of campus-wide STEM initiatives.
The chapter organized the two-day event in honor of Black History Month and in celebration of Black chemists and chemical engineers who have laid foundation and are conducting groundbreaking research. Access registration information for this event that is free and open to the public. Find registration information on the Department of Chemistry calendar page.
- Feb. 19 keynote address: The St. Elmo Brady Lecture will feature Hayes, a Harvard University graduate in biology, who earned his PhD in integrative biology from UC Berkeley, where he has been a professor since 1992. “A Valuable Reputation” in the New Yorker chronicles how Hayes devoted more than a decade studying atrazine, a herbicide made by Syngenta, and how his reputation was impacted after he said that the chemical was harmful. He was also recently highlighted in a Mercury News article.
- Feb. 20 keynote address: The Black History Month Lecture will feature Collins. Her address will be “The Importance of Storytelling in Chemical Education,” which is based on her recent paper in Nature Chemistry. She said she will mention an LTU student film, “Women Untold,” a profile of chemist Alice Augusta Ball. Collins was recently featured in C&E News Career Ladder.