Medicine and Sustainability Lecture at UAMS on May 16 to Focus on ‘Climate, Biodiversity and People’

By Ben Boulden

During the second annual lecture in the Richard and Ellen Sandor Lecture Series, Jackson will discuss “Climate, Biodiversity and People: Actionable Science in a Post-Normal World” at 4 p.m. in the Walton Auditorium on the 10th floor of the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.

There is no cost to attend, and no registration required. Parking will be available in Parking Deck 3 and near the Cancer Institute, both on the UAMS campus.

Jackson is scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). His last assignment at USGS was serving as senior science advisor on biodiversity to the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center, including organizing the trinational North American Assessment of Biodiversity and Climate Change. Until early 2022, he was director of the Department of the Interior Southwest and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers, partnerships between USGS and multiuniversity consortia respectively led by the University of Arizona and the University of Oklahoma.

Before joining USGS in 2012, he was at the University of Wyoming, where he was founding director of the Program in Ecology and Evolution and is now a professor emeritus of botany.

Throughout his career, Jackson’s scientific research has focused on using the past 25,000 years of Earth history as a source of natural experiments to explore ecological responses to environmental changes of various kinds, rates and magnitudes. In the past two decades his professional efforts have expanded to include natural-resource conservation and climate-change adaptation. His interests also include the history of science.

The lecture is made possible by a generous gift to UAMS from the Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Foundation.

Richard Sandor, Ph.D., is a businessperson, economist and entrepreneur who lectures in law and economics at the University of Chicago Law School and in 2002 was named “Hero of the Planet” by Time magazine for founding the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Ellen Sandor is an artist and founding director of (art)n, a Chicago-based collective of artists, scientists, mathematicians and computer experts, and has works in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, International Center of Photography and Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or www.uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.