CANCELED: Publics, Politics and the Future of Genome Editing

Name: CANCELED: Publics, Politics and the Future of Genome Editing
Start: 2019-01-30T12:05:00
End: 2019-01-30T12:05:00
Location: UW Hiram Smith Hall

Jan 30, 2019 12:05 PM

UW Hiram Smith Hall 1545 Observatory Dr. , Madison, Wisconsin 53706

January 28, 2019

11:54 AM

In response to the extreme cold, UW-Madison is canceling classes, events and campus activities beginning at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 29 through 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 31.

press release: The department of Life Sciences Communication will kick off its Science Communication colloquium series this Wednesday (1/30) with LSC professor Dietram A. Scheufele presenting on "Publics, Politics, and the Future of Genome Editing”. The talk will be on Wednesday from 12:05-1p in 135 Hiram Smith Hall, 1545 Observatory Drive. Free for all faculty, staff, students, and the public to attend.

Dietram A. Scheufele is the John E. Ross Professor in Science Communication and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in the Morgridge Institute for Research. Since 2013, he’s also held an Honorary Professorship at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany. Scheufele’s research deals with the public and political interfaces of emerging science. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, and a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS) Advisory Committee.

His talk titled "Publics, Politics, and the Future of Genome Editing”, will be about how modern science across disciplines is increasingly faced with often controversial public debates surrounding its societal applications. Genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology, and human genome editing are just a few recent examples. How do we all form opinions about emerging technologies we know little about? Why are we as a society sometimes so divided in our interpretations of scientific facts and phenomena? What role do media, especially in online environments, play in this process? And how can we better communicate and debate science in our polarized political environment?