Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist, will be in conversation with Raoul Adamchak, author, organic farmer and manager at the University of California at Davis student farm. This conversation will be moderate by science writer and environmentalist, Emma Marris. Through the lens of climate mitigation, this talk will explore the science behind genetic modification of plants, new techniques in organic farming, and how these new technologies will have to be applied in the coming decades.
Cooper Union x Climate Week 2020 is a series of lectures and events addressing our shared future through the lens of global Green New Deals, environmental racism, and community action. We aim to promote curiosity, interdisciplinary dialogue, and sustained engagement with the climate crisis.
The Cooper Climate Coalition is pleased to present a virtual series of lectures and events. *These lectures will be online only. RSVP HERE.
Pamela Ronald is a Professor in the Dept of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center, UC Davis. She completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley (1990), earned a B.S. from the Reed College (1982), an M.S. from Stanford University and an M.S. from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Ronald uses genetic techniques to understand the plant response to infection and tolerance to environmental stress. With her collaborators, she received the 2008 USDA National Research Initiative Discovery Award and the 2012 Tech Award for the innovative use of technology to benefit humanity. Ronald’s book, "Tomorrow’s Table" was selected as an influential book with the power to inspire college readers to change the world. Her 2015 TED talk has been viewed by more than 1.8 million people. In 2019, she received the ASPB Leadership Award, an honorary doctorate from the Swedish Agricultural University and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Raoul Adamchak has been farming organically for thirty years. He has served as the president of the board of California Certified Organic Farmers and worked as a farm inspector for them as well. Raoul was one of founding partners of Full Belly Farm, a large, certified organic farm in Yolo County. Until recently he was the Farm Manager at the UC Davis Student Farm where he taught students the organic vegetable production skills needed to grow and sell 9 acres of mixed fruits and vegetables. He is the co-author,with his wife Pam Ronald, of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. Raoul has a MS in International Agricultural Development from UC Davis.
Emma Marris is an environmental writer and an Institute Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She has written for many magazines and newspapers, including National Geographic, Wired, the New York Times, Nature and Outside. She has a Master’s in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. In 2011, she published her first book, Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. In 2016, she gave at TED talk about seeing the hidden nature that surrounds us, which has been watched over a million times. Her forthcoming book, on changing relationships between humans and animals, Wild Souls, comes out in July 2021. She grew up in Seattle, Washington, and lives with her husband and two children in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
The Cooper Climate Coalition, an open body of students, faculty, and staff at The Cooper Union, facilitates conversations, events, and student projects within the institution that center the Climate Crisis and its intersections with races, classes, genders, sexualities, histories, economies, political structures and more.
Along with organizing Cooper Union’s Climate Week programs and events in the fall, the Climate Coalition takes responsibility for fostering interdisciplinarity throughout The Cooper Union in support of environmental action.
