Summit Series on the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges

Arizona State University

April 8-9, 2010

Confirmed Speakers:

Leland Hartwell
Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine
President & Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA

Hartwell won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to the understanding of the cell cycle through years of studying yeast. He earned his bachelor's degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1961. In 1964, he received his PhD in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Hartwell has received many awards and honors including the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1995. He became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 1996, Hartwell joined the faculty of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and in 1997 became its president and director. In 1998 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. He is also a recipient of the Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction. Hartwell is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Canary Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing new technologies for the early detection of cancer.

James Duderstadt
President Emeritus & University Professor of Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

Duderstadt's teaching and research interests have spanned a wide range of subjects in science, mathematics, and engineering, including work in areas such as nuclear fission reactors, thermonuclear fusion, high powered lasers, computer simulation, information technology, and policy development in areas such as energy, education, and science. He is leading the Millennium Project, is a laboratory where new paradigms of learning institutions can be designed, constructed, and studied. During his career, Dr. Duderstadt has received numerous national awards for his research, teaching, and service activities, including the E. O. Lawrence Award for excellence in nuclear research, the Arthur Holly Compton Prize for outstanding teaching, the Reginald Wilson Award for national leadership in achieving diversity, and the National Medal of Technology for exemplary service to the nation. He has been elected to numerous honorific societies including the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Science, Phi Beta Kappa, and Tau Beta Pi. Duderstadt received his baccalaureate degree in electrical engineering with highest honors from Yale University in 1964 and his doctorate in engineering science and physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1967.

Pamela Matson
Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University

Matson is an interdisciplinary Earth scientist who works to reconcile the needs of people and the planet in the 21st century.  Her research addresses a range of environment and sustainability issues, including sustainability of agricultural systems; vulnerability of particular people and places to climate change; the consequences of tropical deforestation on atmosphere, climate and water systems; and the environmental consequences of global change in the nitrogen and carbon cycles. Matson is the author of numerous scientific publications and books, including the National Research Council volume titled “Our Common Journey:  A Transition toward Sustainability.” A Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, she is the founding co-chair of the National Academies Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability. She currently is a member of the National Academies’ Committee on America’s Climate Choices, and chairs the panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change.

Kristina M. Johnson
Under Secretary for Energy, Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.

Kristina M. Johnson, Ph.D. is currently the Under Secretary for Energy at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.  Prior to her appointment as Under Secretary, Dr. Johnson was Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at The Johns Hopkins University. She received her B.S., M.S. (with distinction) and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. After a NATO post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, she joined the University of Colorado-Boulder’s faculty in 1985 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to full Professor in 1994. From 1994 to 1999 Dr. Johnson directed the NSF/ERC for Optoelectronics Computing Systems Center at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, and then served as Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University from 1999 to 2007. Dr. Johnson was named an NSF Presidential Young Investigator in 1985 and awarded a Fulbright fellowship in 1991. Her awards include the Dennis Gabor Prize for creativity and innovation in modern optics (1993); State of Colorado and North Carolina Technology Transfer Awards (1997, 2001); induction into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame (2003); the Society of Women Engineers Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); and in May of 2008, the John Fritz Medal, widely considered the highest award in the engineering profession. Previous recipients of the Fritz Medal include Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Orville Wright.

For more information about the Summit event, please contact Deirdre Meldrum, Dean, Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University at 480-965-2147 or Deirdre.Meldrum@asu.edu.