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The University of Hawaiʻi invites the community to an series of talks featuring outstanding faculty. The President’s Series will take place at UH Maui College’s ʻIke Leʻa (Room 144) and at Hawaiʻi Community College–Pālamanui outdoor theatre.

Chip Fletcher

Chip Fletcher

Will your property be beachfront in the future?
A discussion of climate impacts in Hawaiʻi

  • UH Maui College: Monday, January 9
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.—Opening reception
    Tickets
  • Hawaiʻi CC–Pālamanui: Wednesday, January 11
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.—Opening reception
    RSVP by January 5

Earth’s climate is rapidly changing. Climate change is causing dangerous weather conditions such as heat waves and extreme precipitation, sea level rise, stronger storms and ocean warming and acidification. These and other effects create damaging conditions for ecosystems and human communities. Hawaiʻi is experiencing all these effects but climate is variable, making prediction difficult. It is especially important that Hawaiʻi communities increase their resilience in the face of these challenges.

Chip Fletcher is the associate dean for academic affairs and professor of geology and geophysics at UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. His research focuses on observing and modeling coastal system evolution under past, present and future sea level change. He was recognized in 2011 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Achievement Award in Climate Change Science.

Randall F. Holcombe

Randall Holcombe

Improving Cancer Care in Hawaiʻi
Solutions through healthcare delivery science

  • UH Maui College: Thursday, February 16
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    Tickets

The delivery of healthcare services is the most visible part of any healthcare system, both to users and the general public and can be studied and evaluated. This new field is surfacing innovations aimed at improving the quality, safety and value of healthcare. Some of these can improve healthcare delivery in Hawaiʻi.

Randall F. Holcombe is director of the National Cancer Institute—designated UH Caner Center. Holcombe’s research activities are focused on healthcare delivery science, including the development of patient-focused care paradigms for cancer, development of instruments to effectively measure care coordination and other patient-reported outcomes and research targeted at eliminating health disparities in cancer-related treatment outcomes.

Ruth Gates

Ruth Gates

Hope for Coral Reefs?
Harnessing Basic Science to Build Resilience

  • Hawaiʻi CC–Pālamanui: Wednesday, March 15
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    RSVP by March 9
  • UH Maui College: Thursday, March 16
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    Tickets

Coral reefs in Hawaiʻi and across the globe continue to decline in health due to intensifying climate change, resource extraction and pollution. Although the future looks bleak, certain corals and reefs are not only surviving, but also thriving in conditions that kill others. Gates’ lecture will unveil the complex biology that underpins this natural variation in response and how this knowledge can be harnessed to develop tools that build resilience on reefs, arresting declines and improving the prognosis for coral reefs.

Ruth Gates is the director of, and researcher at, UH Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology. She is globally recognized for her creative and cutting edge research and for advancing strategies to stabilize coral reefs in the face of climate change. Gates is the elected president of the International Society for Reef Studies and a passionate advocate for coral reefs.

Puakea Nogelmeier

Puakea Nogelmeier

The Legacy of Hawaiian Literacy – Today?
Illuminating Hawaiian Knowledge

  • Hawaiʻi CC–Pālamanui: Monday, February 6
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    RSVP by January 31
  • UH Maui College: Thursday, April 6
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    Tickets

The repository of Hawaiian writings, published and unpublished, are more extensive than we ever imagined but only a small percentage have been translated and studied. The training of translators and editors to develop historical resources for modern audiences can illuminate Hawaiian knowledge, historical literacy, agency and world views. Rearticulating historical knowledge in the present highlights and empowers continuity and can inform directions of change.

Puakea Nogelmeier is a professor of Hawaiian language at UH Mānoa, the founder and executive director of Awaiaulu, a nonprofit translation training entity and is also the director of UH’s Institute of Hawaiian Language Research and Translation. Nogelmeier mentors and trains translators and works extensively with the many Hawaiian-language archives, rearticulating historical Hawaiian knowledge into fields of study today.

Kim Binsted

Kim Binsted

What will it be like to live on Mars?
Planning for human exploration of space

  • Hawaiʻi CC–Pālamanui: Wednesday, April 5
    5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.—Presentation
    RSVP by March 30

Hawaiʻi Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) is an analog habitat for human spaceflight to Mars. HI-SEAS is located in an isolated position on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaiʻi Island, a location chosen for its Mars-like features and an elevation of approximately 8,200 feet above sea level. The fourth phase of this project began in August of 2015 and lasted for one year. Learn what was discovered about what humans will need to stay happy and healthy during an extended mission to Mars.

Kim Binsted is a professor in the information and computer sciences department at UH Mānoa. She is the principal investigator for the NASA-funded HI-SEAS program. Binsted’s other research interests include artificial intelligence and human-computer interfaces.

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