Event



2022 Telfer Lecture

William H. Telfer Lecture Series
Drs. George Langford, Gonzalo Castro de la Mata, & Ingrid Waldron
- | Tedori Auditorium

To create a more cohesive and inclusive narrative throughout the building, the Leidy portrait gallery project was initiated in 2019 and aimed to reevaluate all portraits located in the Leidy Laboratories. Between the Fall of 2019 and the Fall of 2020, nominees were solicited from departmental members, and the Artwork Committee actively did research on additional individuals. Thanks to our collective efforts, the Leidy portrait gallery project was completed recently.

The next Telfer lecture will aim to celebrate the accomplishment of the new portrait gallery in the Leidy stairwell in December 2021 that highlights a diverse group of individuals. It was proposed to invite living individuals who were recently added to the Leidy Gallery as our next Telfer Endowed Lectureship. This idea was nominated and approved by the Graduate Student Association co-presidents, Heather Schiller and Dajia Ye, the Graduate Group Chair, Brian Gregory, and the SAS Office of Advancement. This year, Dr. George Langford of Syracuse University, Dr. Gonzalo Castro de la Mata of the Global Center for Sustainability at the Qatar Foundation, and Dr. Ingrid Waldron, an emeritus professor of our own department, will present their “passion projects” either about their active research or outreach around science.

 

Click here to join the seminar on zoom

 

Speakers:

George Langford (Former Postdoctoral Fellow of Penn Biology)

 

George Langford was a NIH postdoctoral fellow at Penn under the mentorship of Dr. Shinya Inoué from 1971 to 1973. Since leaving Penn, Dr. Langford has held many prestigious titles, including the EE Just Professor of Natural Sciences at Dartmouth, the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University.

Gonzalo Castro de la Mata (Former Graduate Student of Penn Biology)

 

Gonzalo Castro de la Mata completed his graduate work in the Department of Biology at Penn in 1988, and then committed his career to promoting biodiversity, conservation, and sustainability. He is the founder of Ecosystem Services LLC and has held several high-level positions such as Chairman of the World Bank's Inspection Panel, Managing Director of Sustainable Forestry Management for the Americas, Head of Biodiversity at the Global Environmental Facility, founder and CEO of Wetlands for the Americas, and Director and Vice-President of WWF's Latin American and Caribbean Program in Washington.

Ingrid Waldron (Professor Emeritus of Biology)

 

Dr. Ingrid Waldron received her Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of California, Berkley and completed her postdoctoral training at Cambridge University before joining the Department of Biology at Penn in 1968 as an assistant professor. She was the first female member of the standing faculty and the first female professor to receive tenure in the department. Since becoming an emeritus professor, she has devoted her time to training, and engaging with, science teachers to create more equitable and meaningful STEM education experiences for high school students.