Speakers
Friday, November 13, 2026
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Friday Forum & Conversation Café: Feeding our Neighbors: A Panel of Faith-Driven Organizations Fighting Food Insecurity in our Community November 13 | 12pm - 1pm | University YMCA, 1001 S Wright St, Champaign
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About Laia: Laia Balcells is the Christopher F. Gallagher Family Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Her research sits at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations and examines civil war, political violence, nationalism, displacement, transitional justice, and the legacies of conflict.
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This presentation provides an overview of how AI is influencing work, employment, HRM, and labor relations. It considers emerging opportunities and challenges for workers and organizations, with attention to changing job tasks, employment practices, workplace governance, and the evolving relationship between technology and work.
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Structure-Preserving Learning for Autonomy in Complex Physical Environments by M. Ani Hsieh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania
Sunday, November 15, 2026
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Professor Olha Khometa and MFA Candidate Malina Infante will be leading a joint lecture on Ukrainian Modernists Pavlo Tychyna, Lesya Ukraïnka, and Olha Kobylianska. Malina will finish the lecture with a reading of her poetry inspired by the Ukrainian modernist movement. A reception will follow after the event.
Monday, November 16, 2026
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On Monday, Nov. 16 at 3pm in Coble Hall 306, Professor Emerita Angharad Valdivia will present "Emilia Pérez: A Perfect Case Study of the overlap of Latin American and Latinx Studies."
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"Elizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist. She isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context.
Tuesday, November 17, 2026
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Drawing on more than a decade of Truth Hounds' Work in Ukraine, Dr. Dmytro Koval of Kyiv Mohyla Academy will examine how documentation can be transformed into investigations, legal analysis, case-building, and engagement with national and international justice mechanisms.
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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by Thomas Davis (English, Ohio State) on Environmental Humanities.
Thursday, November 19, 2026
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This Faculty-Graduate seminar, hosted by Prof. Melamed, will explore the idea that to truly and effectively call capital into question, we need approaches outside the liberal epistemologies that dominate Western and scholarly modes of understanding and analysis. Register now (required) to gain access to the texts.
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The 2026 Stewart Young Humanitarian Speaker Series features esteemed guest is Luis Jaimes-Illanes, co-founder of Conecta Mentora, a program that brings together youth from urban, rural, and Indigenous communities with world-class mentors and institutions, and a Senior Network Engineer at Altaeros. In his fireside chat, he will share how his involvement on campus helped pre
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This presentation leverages the life history of an individual whose multiple displacements and emplacements in, out of, and beyond Europe in the last decade of the 20th century offer opportunities to explore the lived and experiential of dimensions of seeking and finding refuge in modern times.
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Please join us for a talk by Prof. Melamed. The talk will argue that the repressive strategies used by Marc Rowan and others against Palestine on the UPenn campus serve to institute pro-power pedagogies at U.S. universities and beyond.
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Join the Department of Philosophy for a lecture in the Illinois Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age Speaker Series with Agnes Callard. Her talk, titled "Welcome to the Unicontext" explores how we increasingly expect one set of norms to govern all situations and all people.
Wednesday, December 2, 2026
Thursday, December 3, 2026
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In this presentation prof. Agate will share how the assignments in RST 460 are structured and the reasoning behind the design, and will also share some preliminary data about students’ experience with the AI integration into the event planning process: what they are finding useful, confusing, or surprising.
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Please join us for talks by recent CAS Associates. At 11am Kimberly Mack (English) draws from her critical memoir Brown Sugar Blues to consider the reasons and costs of Black women's erasure from rock, and at noon, Laura Hetrick (Art + Design) asks: What happens when neurodivergent people become the authors of their own stories?
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Join us for our December Town Hall with special Guest Speaker Shad Bradbury, Animator with Pixar Animations Studios. Shad Bradbury has worked in animation for over 20 years at studios like Pixar, Sony, Tippet, and Rhythm and Hues. His credits include, "Elio", "Coco", "Finding Dory", "Inside Out", "Hotel Transylvania", and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2".
Tuesday, December 8, 2026
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For the final Food For Thought presentation of the semester, we're pleased to offer an English double-header! At 11am, Tess McNulty considers the cultural history of viral content from an aesthetic perspective, and at noon, Alex Shakar reads from and discusses his forthcoming novel, Play the Void.
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Our December lecture will be on Tuesday, December 8 from 12pm-1pm with Dr. Carolyn Primus. Dr. Primus, B.S. Ceramic Engineering, will discuss her career in Materials Science and Engineering, including her latest endeavors with dentistry and other medical devices.
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Illinois Alumnus Batamaka Somé, PhD in Anthropology with a CSGGE Minor will give a talk titled "Pillars of Resilience: Rural Women’s Leadership and Farmer-Centered Research for Food System Transformation in the West African Sahel" on December 8, 2026, at 4:00pm in 210 Levis Faculty Center and via Zoom
Wednesday, December 9, 2026
Monday, January 25, 2027
Thursday, January 28, 2027
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Karen Kramer, Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Studies at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk, "Gender Inequality and Leave Policies: A Cross-National Comparison" will be in-person and also offered virtually through Zoom. Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees. This talk is co-sponsored by the LAS Office of Inclusive Excellence.
Thursday, February 4, 2027
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On Thursday, February 4th we will hear from Nini Zhou, Ph.D. Student in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk, "Becoming Neoliberal Subjects: Algorithmic Governance of Feminist Activism in China" will be in-person and also offered virtually through Zoom. Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.
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In this CAS/MillerComm event, documentary photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu discusses distinct representations of the Arctic in literature and the visual arts, exploring this often-misunderstood region as both imagined otherworld and real-life landscape.
Tuesday, February 9, 2027
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Join us for talks by Sameh Tawfick (Mechanical Science & Engineering) and Pollyanna Rhee (Landscape Architecture.)
Thursday, February 11, 2027
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On Thursday, February 11th we will hear from Felisa Reynolds, Associate Professor in Department of French and Italian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk, "Maryse Condé: Gender, and the Racial Logic of Francophone Classification " will be in-person and also offered virtually through Zoom. Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.
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Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law, and the European Court of Human Rights
Friday, February 12, 2027
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Haohan Wang, assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will give the next Mind in Vitro seminar February 12 at 4:00pm in 612 Conference Center, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology on "Agentic AI for Genomic Science: Searching for Shared Mechanisms Across Diseases, Patients and Tissues."
Tuesday, February 16, 2027
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At the February Town Hall we will speak with VFX Artist Lisa Starc, Principal VFX Artist, at Monumental. Lisa Starc is a highly technical real time VFX artist with 20+ years of experience in the video game industry. She has worked as a VFX artist at Netflix Games, Boss Fight Entertainment, Amazon Games, and High Voltage Software.
Thursday, February 25, 2027
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Thank you for your interest in the lunch series on "Gender Equity in an Inequitable Era". On Thursday, February 25th we will hear from Thais Duarte Zappelini, Post Doc with the Brasillinois Initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk, will be offered both online and in person.
Wednesday, March 3, 2027
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More information is coming.
Thursday, March 4, 2027
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Patricia Owens Book Talk: Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men. This event will take place over Zoom on March 4 at 12:00pm.
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Patricia Owens Book Talk: Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men.
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Jonna Perrillo, education historian and professor of English education at the University of Texas at El Paso, will deliver the 2027 Gryphon Lecture hosted by the Center for Children's Books in the School of Information Sciences. She will present "School Book Lists and the Civic Education of U.S. Teens: from 1950 to Texas."
Tuesday, March 9, 2027
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Join us for talks by Shelley Weinberg and Josue David Cisneros.
Wednesday, March 10, 2027
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Please join us for a presentation and discussion with Mitch Cronin, Senior Tech Producer, Santa Monica Studio. Mitch Cronin is a Senior Producer and Release Manager with nearly 19 years of game development experience. He's worked on the development side as well as publishing. Over his long career he has worked on many AAA titles as well as indie titles.
Thursday, March 25, 2027
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Join us for talks by Liviu Mirica and Cristian Proistosescu.
Monday, March 29, 2027
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Brown Bag Lunch and Learn Session with Jacob Thomas as he talks about his book, "Denial, Deterrence, and Disenchantment: Why Many Never Immigrate."
Thursday, April 1, 2027
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Thank you for your interest in the lunch series on "Gender Equity in an Inequitable Era". On Thursday, April 1st we will hear from Maria Alejandra Garcia, Assistant Professor in Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk will be in-person and online.
Thursday, April 15, 2027
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More info is coming.
Monday, April 26, 2027
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“Once Upon a Time in the Jazira: Archaeology and the Mass Graves of the Armenian Genocide”. Professor Lori Khatchadourian, Departments of Near Eastern Studies & Anthropology, Cornell University. Director, Cornell Institute of Archaeology & Material Studies.