“Science, Philosophy, and Religion” Lecture to Explore “What is Wisdom?”

What makes a person wise? Is wisdom different than intelligence? Is God the only one that can be called “wise”?

Stephen Grimm, Ph.D., as associate professor of philosophy, will take up the topic of wisdom for the next installment of Fordham University’s John C. and Jeanette D. Walton Lecture in Science, Philosophy, and Religion.

“What is Wisdom?”

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014

6:30 p.m.

12th-floor Lounge / Corrigan Conference Center

Lincoln Center Campus

113 W. 60th St., New York City

Grimm, a philosopher who specializes in epistemology, is the recipient of a $4.2 million John Templeton Foundation grant — the largest award Fordham has ever received in the humanities. The grant funds Grimm’s interdisciplinary project, “Varieties of Understanding: New Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Theology,” a three-year initiative that sponsors research into the many ways in which human beings understand the world.

“As human beings, we have a natural desire to understand the world and our place within it… But what exactly is understanding?” said Grimm.

We know generally what understanding is, he said; namely, it is a higher-order cognitive capacity that falls within the broader category of knowledge. To put this in practical terms, the person who has knowledge of a thing might possess a collection of facts about that thing, but the person who understands it is able to also see how these facts relate to one another and to the larger picture.

Wisdom, though, is another category altogether. In the Walton lecture, Grimm will explore questions surrounding this topic, which was favored by ancient and medieval philosophers, yet has been given relatively little attention by contemporary thinkers.

The Walton lectures and workshops features scholars of the highest caliber on topics at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology. Upcoming events will cover current research on how consciousness and free will relate to the brain, the role of science in contemporary society, and more.

For more information, contact the Office of Special Events by email or at (212) 636-6575.

— Joanna K. Mercuri

Fordham Grad Student Wins Science Scholarship

Claire McKay Flynn, right, accepts her award from Anna Goldberg,
   Medical Isotope Research & Production, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Contributed photo

Claire McKay Flynn, a biological sciences student in Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS), has been awarded the Renate W. Chasman Scholarship for Women.

The $2,000 scholarship is awarded by Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS), a not-for-profit organization at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, to encourage women to pursue careers in science, engineering, or mathematics.

McKay Flynn came to Fordham from Adelphi University, where she majored in French and biology. She participated in summer research in synthetic biology at North Carolina State University, and after a year teaching high school English in France through the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program, she decided to work toward becoming a university professor. 

Flynn is keenly aware of the sometimes mistaken perception of scientific research by the public and would like to change that, especially in the area of nature conservation. She hopes to spread the word about the importance of scientific research to the general public through educational programs.

“As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to be granted many opportunities that enhanced my education,” she said. 

“I am grateful to Brookhaven National Laboratory and BWIS for the opportunity to pursue my goals in graduate work.”

Flynn was one of two scholarship recipients for the year 2013, along with Kaitlyn Anne Suarez, an undergraduate student at Union College in Schenectady.

The scholarship is named after the late Renate W. Chasman, a noted physicist at Brookhaven Lab. Chasman’s legacy includes contributions to the development of particle accelerators, as well as the design of the electron storage rings at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven and elsewhere around the world. 

—Patrick Verel

Physics Professor Wins Award for “Contributions to Science”

Fordham University professor Quamrul Haider, Ph.D., has been selected for the 2012 Independence Award in the category of “Contributions to Science by an Expatriate.”

This is the highest civilian award given by the Bangladeshi government to ten citizens/expatriates every year on the eve of the Bangladeshi Independence Day (March 26) for contributions to different areas and disciplines.

Most of them are given posthumously.

The award is being presented to Haider for confirming the existence of new nuclear matter, which he collaborated on with Dr. Lon-chang Liu, staff physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The eta-mesic nucleus, an eta meson trapped inside a nucleus, is 100,000 times smaller than previously discovered mesic atoms. Haider and Liu had first predicted this in 1986.

The paper predicting the eta-mesic nucleus prompted a new subfield in nuclear physics called "mesic nuclear physics" and spurred other research on nuclear structure theory.

Haider, professor and chair of the Department of Physics, said he could not believe it.

“I have been living in the United States since 1975. It seems like there must have been a magical hand behind my nomination,” he said.

The ceremony will take place Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka on March 25. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will give the awards.

– Jenny Hirsch

Alan Alda Searches for the Human Spark

Few people are as passionate about science education as Alan Alda, FCRH ’56. This month, the Emmy Award-winning actor, writer and director returns to PBS to host a three-part documentary called The Human Spark.

The project grew out of Alda’s longtime involvement with the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers, which he hosted with ample curiosity, wit and good humor from 1993 until the show was canceled—much to the disappointment of its loyal viewers—in 2005.

In the new documentary, Alda travels to three continents to interview leading archeologists, primatologists and neuroscientists in an attempt to discover what makes humans unique among species, how a tiny difference in our genes, for example, makes a huge difference in who we are and what we can do.

“I don’t try to explain their work to anyone,” Alda recently told The New York Times, “I just try to understand it.”

He also participates in the research; in one episode, for example, he submits to a highly detailed scan of his brain, which, we’re pleased to know, “is in remarkably good shape for a man in his early 70s.”

The series airs at 8 p.m. on three consecutive Wednesdays: Jan. 6, 13 and 20.

“We can’t promise we’ll find the human spark,” Alda says in a video introduction posted on the project’s website. “But we can promise that looking for it will be fascinating. And it may change the way you think about who you are.”

—Ryan Stellabotte, Editor
FORDHAM Magazine

Student Research Fair

Undergraduate researchers from across the University will discuss their work and have it judged by faculty experts at the annual Research Fair at Lincoln Center on Thursday
November 13, 2008.

The fair, sponsored by the Office of the Dean at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and the Department of Natural Sciences, will highlight the work of 18 students at a poster session, and five students presenting abstracts, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Lowenstein Plaza, followed by an award ceremony from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Cafeteria Atrium.

The event is free and open to the public.