Dr. Daniel P. Schrag of Harvard University presented the keynote speech of the President’s Science Symposium on Oct. 18.
In a Common Hour speech that kicked off the annual President’s Symposium on Oct. 18, climate scientist Daniel Schrag of Harvard University spoke of the importance of flexibility in the face of rising CO2, and highlighted the vital role of young scientists in today’s society – an apt message for the nearly 100 Bowdoin student researchers who presented posters of their work throughout the afternoon.
Schrag, who serves on President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, urged audience members to embrace affordable energy alternatives, which he said will ultimately surpass small-scale reductions in emissions in effectiveness. “This is a point that goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom and climate policy right now,” Schrag said, largely because the actions he recommends will only begin to show results decades from now. “We’re asking people to pay money today for their grandchildren and beyond,” he said. “You can understand why politically it’s a tough sell.”
The very uncertainty of our planet’s future, he continued, underscores the vital role of scientific research in today’s world. “As a young scientist, it means there are a lot of important, really good problems to work on,” Schrag said.
Following Schrag’s speech, Bowdoin students showed that they’re already on it. Four student researchers were featured as lecturers (Justin Duri-Agri ’15, Beatriz Malbiran ’14, Nicholas Wetzel ’14, and Adam Zhang ’14) and dozens of other students filled Smith Union with posters on their research – related not only to climate but to a host of scientific problems in biology, chemistry, earth and oceanographic science, mathematics, and more.
Photos by Rebecca Goldfine
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- Adam Zhang ’14 presents on his neuroscience research, “Quantifying Changes in Semaphorin Expression after Deafferentation in Gryllus bimaculatus”
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- Justin Dury-Agri ’15 presents his math research, “Metrizable and Translationally Invariant Topologies on the Integers”
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- Beatriz Malibiran ’14 presents on her biology research answering the question, “How Does Tissue Identity Affect the Occurrence of Transvection?”
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- Nick Wetzel ’14 presents his computer science research on “xRay: A Linux Kernel Extension Monitoring System”
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- Zoe Karp ’14, “Computational Modeling of the Feedback in the Homarus americanus Cardiac Ganglion”
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- Jepte Vergara-Benitez ’16, “Marking Synaptic Sites in Auditory Organ of Gryllus bimaculatus after Deafferentation”
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- Megan Massa ’14, “Rapid Androgenic Effects on Olfactory Resons to Prostaglandin F2a (PGF/2a), a Conspecific Ovulatory Pheromone in Carassius auratus”
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- Tobias Nicholson ’14, “Rapid Effects of Estradiol on Male Carassius auratus Retinal Visual Processing”
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- Aubrey Zott ’14, “Investigating Dependence of Protein Localization on mRNA Transport in Pathogenic Yeast C. albicans”
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- Dustin Biron ’15, “The Synthesis and Coordination of Isocyanide Ligands to a Cobalt Catalyst to Improve the Dimerization of Linear a-olefins”
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- Takahiro Nakamura ’14, “Design and Synthesis of Enantioselective Peptoid Catalysts for Trifluoromethylation”
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- Linc Rhodes ’14, “The Degradation of Omeprazole in an Aquatic Environment”
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- Imelda Ko ’14, “Design and Synthesis of Enantioselective Peptoid Catalysts for Trifluoromethylation”
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- Ian Kline ’15, “Synthesis of a Cyclooctyne-based Photodynamic Antiobiotic for Helicobacter pylori”
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- Sunni Kuna ’14, “Structural Identification of Helicobacter pylori’s Glycoproteins”
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- John Butterworth ’14, “The Effect of N-Terminal Interactions on the Fragmentation of Peptides in Mass Spectrometry”
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- Waracharee Srifa ’14, “Analysis of Genome Plasticity in Candida albicans due to Host-pathogen Interactions”
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- Gabriela Serrato Marks ’15, “Growth Bands and Trace Elements in Bamboo Corals from the Gulf of Alaska”
