A. Watson Armour III Research Seminar Series

The A. Watson Armour III Research Seminar is The Field Museum's weekly academic seminar series. Talks are at noon on Wednesdays, and feature speakers from around the world presenting their research on topics related to the museum's four academic departments (Anthropology, Botany, Geology, and Zoology). Two seminars per year are set aside for speakers nominated by the museum's Environment, Culture, and Conservation group. Since 2005, over 200 speakers have presented talks in the series. Typically, the audience primarily consists of FMNH curators, collection managers, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students, although faculty and students from Chicago-area colleges and universities, museum docents, and other museum staff sometimes attend as well. For more information on the seminar series, to suggest a speaker, or if you are coming from outside of the museum and need access to the seminar room, contact John Terrell (Anthropology), Matt von Konrat (Botany), Ken Angielczyk (Geology), or Margaret Thayer (Zoology).

Be sure to check this page regularly for additions and updates to the schedule.

Winter/Spring 2012 Schedule

Jan. 4: No Seminar.

Jan 11: Dr. May Berenbaum. University of Illinois. Sex and the Single Parsnip: Coping with Florivores and Pollinators in Two Hemispheres. Lecture Hall II.

Jan 18: No Seminar.

Jan 25: Dr. Rebecca Rowe. University of New Hampshire. Ecological Responses to a Century of Change: Climate, Land Use, and the Small Mammals of the Great Basin. Lecture Hall II.

Feb 1: No Seminar.

Feb 8: No Seminar.

Feb. 15: Dr. Mark Golitko. Field Museum of Natural History. Applications of Social Network Analysis to Prehistoric Community Interaction on the Sepik Coast (Papua New Guinea). Lecture Hall II.

Feb. 22: Dr. John Palmer. The Forest Management Trust. Lightbulbs and Forest Management: Limits on Stakeholder Pressures for Improved Environmental Soft Law — A Focus on the Recent Revision of the Standard of the Forest Stewardship Council. Lecture Hall II.

Feb. 29: Dr. Naomi Pierce. Harvard University. Nabokov's Blues. Lecture Hall II.

March 7: Dr. Mitch Hendrickson. University of Illinois at Chicago. On the Edge of Empire: Generating New Perspectives on the Angkorian Khmer (9th to 15th c. CE) from the Regional Center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia. Lecture Hall II.

March 14: Dr. Douglas Boyer. Brooklyn College. New Methods for Studying Morphology: Examples from Teeth and Primate Evolution. Zoology Classroom.

March 21: No Seminar.

March 28: Dr. Carl Alwmark. Lund University. What is Inside a Meteorite? Visualization of Silicate Inclusions in Extraterrestrial Chromite Using Synchrotron Radiation X-ray Tomographic Microscopy. Lecture Hall II.

April 4: Dr. Douglas Bolender. Field Museum of Natural History. The Viking Age Settlement of Iceland and the Importance of Being First. Lecture Hall II.

April 11: Dr. Lisa J. Lucero. University of Illinois at Chicago. Water Management, Climate Change, and the Demise of Kings in Ancient Tropical Societies. Lecture Hall II.

April 18: Dr. George Wilson. Australian Museum. Fossils in the Phylogeny of Isopod Crustaceans. Zoology Classroom.

April 25: Dr. Paul Marek. University of Arizona. The Glow means NO: Evolution of Bioluminescence in Millipedes. Lecture Hall II.

May 2: Dr. Mathew Wedel. Western University of Health Sciences. What Pneumaticity Tells Us About Sauropod Dinosaurs, and Vice Versa . Lecture Hall II.

May 9: Dr. Sandra Carlson. University of California, Davis. Crowns and Stems: What Exactly is a Brachiopod? Lecture Hall II.

May 16: Dr. Audrey Bouvier. University of Minnesota. Chronology of Meteorites and the Formation of the Solar System. Lecture Hall II.

May 23: Dr. Daniel Ksepka. North Carolina State University. The 25 Million Year Gap: Fossil and Molecular Evidence for Major Divergences in Aves. Lecture Hall II.

May 30: Dr. Brian Fisher. California Academy of Sciences. How Many Ants Can an Island Hold? Exploring Ant Diversity in the Southwest Indian Ocean. Lecture Hall II.

June 6: Dr. Robert Sussman. Washington University Saint Louis. A History of Race and Racism. Zoology Classroom.

June 13: Dr. Valerie Clark. National Geographic Explorer. Exploring Amphibian Chemical Ecology. Lecture Hall II.

Other Recent Speakers

Fall 2011

V. V. Robin

Lance Grande

Nancy Emery

Laura Scheinfeldt

Jake Esselstyn

Ian Barber

Sterling Nesbitt

Michael Zanis

Susana Magallón

Juan Carlos Cisneros

Robert Martin

Nicola Sharatt

Arnie Miller

Winter/Spring 2011

Brian Arbogast

Christopher Bae

Richard Bambach

Mark Bouman

Sarah Boyer

Arietta Fleming-Davies

Terry Gates

Philip Gingerich

Matthew Helmus

Darren Irwin

James Lawrey

Amy Mertl

WIlliam Parkinson

David Tank

Anton van Helden

Andrew Wilson

Andrew Yang