Provost's Lecturer Program

The Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program brings eminent authorities to Ohio State to address topics related to the Discovery Themes and to engage students, faculty and members of the community in thoughtful examination of major issues of public concern.

Discovery Themes Lecturers are experts in one or more of the Discovery Themes areas. Their eminence may derive from their research, creative or scholarly work, innovation, or impact on public policy. They are world-class thought leaders with broad vision; they are dynamic public speakers with the ability to engage with faculty, staff, and students across the university and the wider community.

With a distinguished list of prior speakers, including former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher and former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Provost's Discover Themes Lecturer Program has established itself as a venue to convene interdisciplinary conversations around the world's most pressing problems.

Lecture Program Call For Nominations

Final decision on lecturers will be made by the Provost based on recommendations from a Discovery Themes Lecturer Program Advisory Committee.

Nominate a Lecturer

Past Lectures

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Tressie McMillan Cottom

The Discovery Themes Provost's Lecturer Program presents Tressie McMillan Cottom on January 27, 2021 at 3 p.m. via Zoom. Tressie McMillan Cottom is an award-winning author, researcher, educator, and cultural critic whose work has been recognized nationally and internationally for the urgency and depth of her incisive critical analysis of technology, higher education, class, race, and gender. The foundation for McMillan Cottom's first book, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, was formed by dissertation research for her doctorate from Emory University's Laney Graduate School. In Lower Ed, she questions the fundamental narrative of American education policy. In 2019, McMillan Cottom released Thick: and Other Essays. The collection has been described as “essential,” and the Chicago Tribune calls her, “the author you need to read now.”Thick was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize and was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Nancy Zimpher

Event: January 28, 2020. In the deep land-grant tradition, service to community is at the core of that amazing legacy. But the shift from largely rural populations to pervasive city demographics presents a transformative opportunity for those large public universities who live and serve there. We have learned much from early adopters of the anchor institution concept of urban-serving universities. But not enough that we can’t adopt a larger commitment to urbanity, not as ancillary to our mission but rather, fundamental to our future. Such opportunities require shared leadership and place-based investments, often referred to as “collective” theories of leadership, shared goals, actions and individual responsibility in order to actually make significant and long-lasting change for the better.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Eli Pariser

Event: October 15, 2019. Seven years ago, Eli Pariser published The Filter Bubble and introduced a new phrase into the lexicon. Today, we're all living in a filter bubble world – and it's becoming clear that some of Pariser's more dire predictions about the algorithmic fragmenting of truth have come to pass. In this talk, Pariser will re-introduce his original thesis, discuss what's changed since he first wrote the book, and most importantly describe the growing toolset of ideas and interventions that are working to bring people back into contact with each other and with reality.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Mary Robinson

The Discovery Themes Provost's Lecturer Program presents Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first woman President and leader of The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, on Thursday, January 24, 2019.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: DJ Patil

The Discovery Themes Provost's Lecturer Program presents DJ Patil, former Chief Data Scientist of the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy, on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Donna Shalala

The Discovery Themes Provost's Lecturer Program presents Donna Shalala, former Secretary of Health and Human Services, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: J.D. Vance

J.D. Vance will propose a hands-on approach to problems facing his native state of Ohio: opioid addiction, under-preparedness of the workforce, and domestic instability. Through his non-profit organization, Our Ohio Renewal, Vance, a 2009 alumnus of Ohio State, will tackle these issues that shaped his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, subject of Hillbilly Elegy, Vance’s #1 New York Times best-seller.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Richard Florida

Richard Florida is author of the best-selling The Rise of the Creative Class and a former Ohio State faculty member. In his upcoming book, The New Urban Crisis, Florida argues that as the middle class continues to shrink, our cities are becoming small areas of privilege surrounded by vast swaths of disadvantage.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: David Satcher

David Satcher, MD, PhD, is the second person in history to simultaneously hold the positions of US Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: David Quammen

Go along with Quammen on an astonishing quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and face the terrifying question: What might the next big one be?

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Gro Harlem Brundtland

A medical doctor and Master of Public Health (MPH), Gro Harlem Brundtland spent 10 years as a physician and scientist in the Norwegian public health system.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Jared Diamond

In "The World Until Yesterday", Diamond compares life in modern, industrialized societies with traditional ways of life and argues that traditional societies have much to teach us about conflict resolution, care of elders and children, risk management, multilingualism, and nutrition.

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Sherry Turkle

What are the costs of a “flight from conversation” in personal life, among one's family and friends? What are the cots in the work world? And most important, what can we do about it?

Events

Provost's Discovery Themes Lecturer Program: Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.