Meet the Visionaries: Keynote Speakers Shaping the Future at Building Bridges 2024
We are thrilled to announce the keynote speakers for the upcoming Building Bridges 2024 conference, set to be an inspiring event dedicated to fostering connections and driving innovation in various domains.
This year, we are honoured to host a diverse group of thought leaders who will share their insights and expertise, setting the stage for a conference filled with transformative discussions and groundbreaking ideas. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to learn from the best. Availability is limited, and this is a unique opportunity you will not want to miss. Dive deeper into the profiles of our keynote speakers and discover the wealth of knowledge and inspiration they will bring to the event.
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On November 27th, we will hear Nobel laureate Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, who was awarded in 2020 the Chemistry Nobel for her discovery and development of gene editing technologies. Her lecture, “CRISPR-Cas9: Microbiology as a Motor for Innovations in Medicine and Agronomy,” will provide insights into her role as the inventor and co-owner of the core intellectual property of CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Professor Charpentier is also a co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics. Her contributions have earned her numerous prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Japan Prize, the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, the Wolf Prize, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
The day will also feature insights from Class B – Exact Sciences Keynote Speakers. Our outstanding guests will be:
Professor Heino Falcke, a distinguished theoretical astrophysicist and radio astronomer, who has significantly advanced our understanding of black holes and cosmic particles. His pioneering work includes developing a unified model for black hole emissions and jet-disk coupling, as well as discovering the “fundamental plane relation” that connects supermassive and stellar mass black holes. Professor Falcke will deliver a lecture titled “Towards the Ends of Space and Time – The First Image of a Black Hole,” where he will share insights from his groundbreaking research and the historic achievement of capturing the first image of a black hole.
Professor Ambrogio Fasoli , one of Europe’s premiere fusion researchers, chair of the EUROfusion General Assembly and director of the Swiss Plasma Center. With his extensive background and experience in the field of fusion energy research, Professor Fasoli brings a wealth of knowledge and his unique perspective to the position to the fusion energy research, which is set to provide a significant contribution to the production of base-load electricity and it can be our future possibility for humanity. “Fusion energy and the European path to power plants” is a title of the lecture given during the Conference.
The last Speaker from the Exact Science Session will be Professor Verena Winiwarter, Austria’s first full professor of environmental history, who has been captivating interdisciplinary audiences for over 25 years with her profound insights. Her forthcoming analysis of energy transition promises to offer a fresh and compelling perspective. In her lecture, titled “Energy Transitions of the Past: Is There Something to Learn from History?”, Professor Winiwarter will provide a sweeping “bird’s-eye view” over millennia and across the globe, identifying potential learnings from historical energy transitions.
In the afternoon of the same day we will also host the Class C – Life Sciences sessions. The keynote speakers of this part include:
Professor Yvonne Buckley, ecologist and the Professor of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin. Her lecture “Biodiversity in a warming world: how climate, climate action and land use shape biodiversity patterns” will analyze how we can better predict biodiversity impacts of climate change and related land use changes, showing why it is crucial to integrate knowledge of how climate and land use jointly determine plant diversity and ecosystem functioning.
Professor Botond Roska is the founding Director and Senior Group Leader at the Institute for Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), as well as a Professor at both the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science at the University of Basel, Switzerland. His groundbreaking research has significantly advanced our understanding of neuronal networks in the retina, thalamus, and cortex, which he will discuss in his upcoming lecture, “Restoring Vision.”
Professor Philippe Sansonetti is an MD, Professor at the Collège de France where he holds the Chair of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and Professor at Institut Pasteur where he is Head of the Unit of Microbial Molecular Pathogenesis. His amazing lecture, “Tensions at the Human-Microbes Interface at the Time of Anthropocene,” will give us insight into the complex interactions between humans and microbes in the context of modern environmental changes.
Professor Eske Willerslev has broad research interests in ecology and evolution, starting as an environmental microbiologist and advancing through invertebrate systematics, mammalian population genetics, and community ecology. Over the past seven years, he has focused on the processes shaping contemporary human genetic diversity, distribution, and disease load, pioneering fields such as Ice Core Genetics, Environmental DNA, and Ancient Human Genomics. He will discuss these topics further in his lecture, “Early Peopling of the Americas.”
On November 27th, we are honored to host Dr. Jacek Kolanowski, PhD, the recipient of the André Mischke Prize. Dr. Kolanowski is an early-career group leader in chemical biology and the head of advanced drug discovery research at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. His lecture, “Opportunities and Challenges for Early- and Mid-Career Researchers in Trans-Sectoral and Community Engagement: A Chemical Biologist’s Methodological Perspective,” will explore the unique opportunities and obstacles for researchers engaging across various sectors and communities. Dr. Kolanowski will highlight real-world issues and interdisciplinary collaboration strategies from a chemical biology perspective.
The plenary session will be enriched by a lecture on Art & Science by Professor Monica Bello, the curator and head of arts at CERN at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Professor Bello curates research-led artistic residencies and new art commissions, fostering dialogues between artists, particle physicists, engineers, and other staff at the laboratory. Her lecture will explore the dynamic interplay between art and science, highlighting how these collaborations inspire innovative perspectives and creative approaches in both fields.
The conference continues on November 28th with Class A1 – Humanities sessions, featuring distinguished speakers such as:
Professor Samuel Lieu, honorary president of the International Union of Academies and Bye Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, renowned for his extensive research and publications on Manichaeism, Christian texts from the Silk Road, and Byzantine studies. He will give a lecture: “Between Rome and China – Christianity and Manichaeism on the Silk Road”.
We will hear Professor Shalom Lappin, whose current work focuses on the application of probabilistic methods and machine learning to problems in syntax, semantics, and language acquisition.
Professor Helen Kennedy, renown for her interested in how AI, automation and datafication are experienced by non-expert folk as part of their everyday lives, and strategies for living with data. In her lecture “What does a good digital society look like?”, she will explore the vision and pathways toward achieving a better digital society.
Professor Rubina Raja, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Aarhus University and director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolution, will discuss the historiography of urban archaeology in the MENA region. In her lecture, “Making and Breaking Cities,” she will highlight the historical lack of holistic approaches to ancient cities during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, critique past studies that focused on individual monuments and elite material culture, and advocate for a reassessment of urban archaeology practices from 1869 to 1946, a pivotal period that has significantly influenced current methodologies and paradigms in the field.
In the afternoon the conference will host Class A2 sessions: Social and Related Sciences:
Professor Piotr Sztompka, honorary professor of theoretical sociology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, has held esteemed memberships in the Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Europaea, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His lecture “Moral turn in contemporary theory of society” explores the shift in contemporary sociological theory towards its classical origins, critiquing the influence of various “post-theories.” He will discuss how the pursuit of a moral vision for a good society should be based on uncovering the underlying social mechanisms through empirical research rather than imposing philosophical concepts.
Professor Edyta Roszko, a Research Professor and social anthropologist at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen. Her newly awarded ERC Consolidator Grant project Global Hydroconnectivities beyond Ocean, Seas and Rivers combines anthropology, archaeology and geohydrology and contributes to the wider relevance in the era of climate changes. In her lecture: “The Importance of Global Indigenous History in the Era of Climate Change”, she will examine how freshwater access facilitates human connections and integrate terrestrial and aquatic realms through comparative historical ethnography of Austronesian speakers’ Indigenous knowledge, spanning generations and cultures. This approach challenges the social sciences’ and historiography’s tendency to prioritize oceans or navigable rivers as primary conduits of global connections and historical processes, offering a synthesis that promotes global, cross-cultural understanding.
Professor Jürgen Kocka is a historian of modern Germany and Europe. In his upcoming speech, Jürgen Kocka is going to delve into the intricacies of modern German and European history, drawing on his extensive expertise in social history and comparative approaches. Given his background, he will explore the interplay between industrial culture, labor, and bourgeois society, highlighting the evolution of social structures and class formation from the 19th to the 20th century.
Professor Michèle Lamont is Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard University. Michèle Lamont studies group boundaries to understand how we can create a more inclusive world. During her lecture, Michèle Lamont is going to address the critical issues of inclusion and inequality, drawing on her extensive research into group boundaries and social worth. As a cultural and comparative sociologist, Lamont will explore how cultural processes and symbolic boundaries contribute to social disparities. Her insights on dignity, stigma, racism, and class cultures promise to offer a profound understanding of how societies can foster collective well-being and resilience, while proposing strategies for social change and healing a divided world.
We are excited to hear from these distinguished speakers and look forward to the invaluable insights they will bring to the Building Bridges 2024 Conference. Their contributions will undoubtedly inspire us all to build stronger connections and work collaboratively towards a brighter future.
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