Scientist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki will give the James S. Plant Distinguished Scientist Lecture at Hamilton College on Monday, Jan. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. His lecture, titled "The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line," is free and open to the public.
The Plant Distinguished Scientist Lecture series was established in 1987 through a bequest from Dr. Plant, class of 1912 and an eminent child psychiatrist, to bring to the campus outstanding scientists as guest lecturers.
Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his 30 years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science in a compelling, easily understood way. He is well known to millions as the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's popular science television series, "The Nature of Things."
Suzuki's eight part series, A Planet for the Taking won an award from the United Nations. His PBS series The Secret of Life was praised internationally, as was his five-part series The Brain for the Discovery Channel. For CBC Radio he founded the long running radio series, Quirks and Quarks and has presented two influential documentary series on the environment, From Naked Ape to Superspecies and It's a Matter of Survival.
An internationally respected geneticist, Suzuki was a full professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He is professor emeritus with UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute. From 1969 to 1972 he was the recipient of the prestigious E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award for the "Outstanding Canadian Research Scientist Under the Age of 35."
He heads the David Suzuki Foundation, which, since 1990 has worked to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us. Focusing on four program areas – oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and the Nature Challenge - the Foundation uses science and education to promote solutions that conserve nature and help achieve sustainability within a generation.
Suzuki graduated from Amherst College in 1958 and went on to earn his Ph.D in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. The author of 43 books, he is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He lives with his wife, Dr. Tara Cullis, and two daughters in Vancouver.
