Renowned scientist and author Stephen Jay Gould will be the featured speaker at The City University of New York Graduate Center’s "Annual Celebration of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics." The afternoon and evening conference will be held at The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, on Friday, March 30. The schedule includes a poster session beginning at 1 p.m., talks on science topics from 3 to 5 p.m., and Gould’s evening lecture, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.

The poster session will highlight ongoing research projects by Graduate Center students and faculty from all of CUNY’s doctoral programs in science, engineering, and mathematics who are preparing work for presentation at major scientific conferences around the world. Featured afternoon speakers include Gerald Friedman, Distinguished Professor of Geology at The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College; and Peter Winkler, Director of Fundamental Mathematics Research at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs. Professor Friedman will speak on "Global Cooling: A Prehistoric Event." Specifically, his talk will focus on studies of sedimentary formations known as "beachrocks," which may provide a clue to pre-anthropologic climatic history and allow the reconstruction of climate changes over several thousand years. Dr. Winkler’s lecture, "Games People Don’t Play," will examine the use of games as research exercises for computer scientists, particularly those focusing on the field of algorithms. "These games are not to play but to think about," says Dr. Winkler, "Who wins? What’s the best strategy?"

Professor Gould is well-known for his popular and influential books and articles on a number of scientific subjects, particularly evolution theory. He is perhaps most famous for his critique of traditional Darwinian theories of evolution. In his work, Gould contends that the history of evolution is concentrated in relatively rapid events of speciation rather than taking place gradually as slow, continuous transformations of established lineages. In Gould’s view, the dominant "gradualist" view of evolution incorporates the cultural and political biases of the nineteenth century scientific thinkers who first developed modern models of evolutionary theory. His writing has garnered praise from specialized and general readers alike and is peppered with references to an assortment of topics not usually considered within the purview of traditional scientific discourse, such as literature, the Bible, history, sports, and popular culture.

Gould was one of the first winners of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellowships in 1981. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest scientific organization. His twenty or so books and articles have won numerous prizes, and his column for the American Museum of Natural History’s Natural History magazine, "This View of Life," has run unabated since 1974. He is currently Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University and also serves on the faculty of New York University.

The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City.

Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of nearly 4,000 students in 32 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 28 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program.

According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast.

Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu.

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