Beckman-Brown Lecture on Interdisciplinary Science
Sharing interdisciplinary science
The Annual Beckman-Brown Lecture on Interdisciplinary Science honors Arnold O. Beckman, the founder of the institute, and Theodore "Ted" Brown, the founding director. The series is funded by a gift from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
September 2025 lecture: Catherine Dulac
Catherine Dulac will give this year's lecture at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the Beckman Auditorium. A reception will follow.
Recordings of Beckman-Brown lectures
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"The challenges in getting to net-zero GHG emissions - Steven Chu (Beckman-Brown)
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"General Anesthesia, Neuromodulation & Altered States of Arousal" - Dr. Emery Brown (Beckman-Brown)
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"From Seeing to Doing: Understanding & Interacting with the Real World" - Fei-Fei Li (Beckman-Brown)
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"Blueprint: Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society" by Nicholas Christakis (Beckman-Brown Lecture)
Previous Beckman-Brown Lectures
2024
"The Challenges in Getting to Net-Zero GHG Emissions," Steven Chu. Chu is a Nobel Laureate in Physics as well as the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics, of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and of Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University. From January 2009 to April 2013, Dr. Chu served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama.
2023
"General Anesthesia, Neuromodulation and Altered States of Arousal," Dr. Emery N. Brown. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT; the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School; and an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
2022
"From Seeing to Doing: Understanding and Interacting with the Real World," Fei-Fei Li, the Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Denning Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (Oct. 6, 2022).
2021
"Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society," Nicholas A. Christakis, the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University (Oct. 6, 2021).
2020
Unfortunately, the 2020 lecture was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2019
"Cognitive Reserve: An Evolving Concept," Yaakov Stern, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University (Oct. 3, 2019)
2018
"Predictions: Understanding Global Warming," Dr. Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (Oct. 15, 2018)
2017
"Surface Glycans as Cellular IDs," Dr. Laura Kiessling, Department of Chemistry, MIT (Nov. 3, 2017)
2016
"Enzymes by Evolution: Expanding the Scope of Biocatalysis," Dr. Frances Arnold, Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry and director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at California Institute of Technology (Sept. 19, 2016)