Jad Abumrad (Creator of Radiolab and MacArthur Fellow) and Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ (Director of the Vatican Observatory and winner of the Carl Sagan award) engaged in a dialogue about Communicating Science in Changing Times.
Beyond the conference event, Dr. Paula Gudmundson (Music) and Dr. Jennifer Moore (Communication) organized opportunities for Abumrad to meet with CAHSS students, and Consolmagno virtually presented in the Alworth Planetarium on campus from the Bell Museum Planetarium in St. Paul to talk about his “Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer,” from the meteorite fields of East Antarctica to the United Nations on April 14th.
Serendipitously, the English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, organized a star / cosmos-themed ekphrastic poetry exhibit in the Tweed timed to display during Consolmagno’s talk. Ekphrastic poetry vividly describes a work of art. Prior to the display’s opening, Sigma Tau Delta member Ty Pearson reported, “We have been working to organize the ekphrastic exhibit since the fall of 2022. It has been an immense joy to browse Tweed’s catalog of amazing art, select a theme, and promote the project among our peers. We hope to receive many poems and look forward to displaying them this April.”