The College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences is proud to present the annual Science Lecture Series. Since its inception, CNAS scientists have shared their knowledge and research with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members. Each Science Lecture Series topic tackles some of the most pressing issues we face as a local, national, and global community.

The Science Lecture Series is free and open to the public, but registration for each lecture is required. Light refreshments will be served, while supplies last.

Details about upcoming lectures will be posted here in the days ahead. Stay tuned for more information!

Animals, Sediments, Slime, Muck and Goo: The Record of Earth’s Early Animals and their Environments with Implications for Discovering Life Elsewhere

Mary L. Droser
Distinguished Professor of Geology
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
University of California, Riverside
Website: The Droser Lab

About Dr. Droser’s Lecture
Planet Earth has an exceptional record of the unfolding of complex life on our planet. The oldest record of animals is full of diverse but sometimes strange looking soft-bodied forms that included organisms that grazed microbial mats, were attached to seafloor but reached up to over a meter in height and even floated in the water column. Earth’s earliest ecosystems were surprisingly complex. In her talk, Dr. Droser will talk about what we do and do not know about the rise of animals on Earth and why we should care!

About Dr. Droser
Dr. Droser has an undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Dr. Droser is a paleobiologist and paleoecologist who specializes in the advent of complex life on earth. Dr. Droser has worked on 4 continents studying the fossil record of early animals and has received funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and National Geographic to do this research. Much of Dr. Droser’s field work is in South Australia which holds the best record for the advent of animals. There, Dr. Droser has worked to establish a new National Park based on the these fossils and is working with the South Australian government on a World Heritage Bid. Dr. Droser received the 2022 National Academy Walcott Medal, the 2022 SEPM Moore Medal and the 2024 Paleontological Society Medal.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Reception: 5-6 p.m.
Lecture: 6-7 p.m.

UCR Palm Desert Center
75080 Frank Sinatra Drive
Palm Desert, CA 92211

   Register for the Dr. Mary Droser Lecture

Miguel Arratia
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of California, Riverside
Website: Attatia Research Group

Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Reception: 5-6 p.m.
Lecture: 6-7 p.m.

UCR Palm Desert Center
75080 Frank Sinatra Drive
Palm Desert, CA 92211

Please check back for updated information and to register

What is an organism, anyway?

Lucy E. Delaney
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology
University of California, Riverside
Website: ledelaney.org

About Dr. Delaney's Lecture
Biology cannot be understood by reducing life to its parts and memorizing them. And yet, all of us who have studied biology know we are often asked to do exactly that. We memorize the difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, we memorize the steps of mitosis, we memorize the base pairs of DNA. We forget it and memorize it again. We all say, The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!... but what does any of it truly mean for us? In other words, why should we care?

Consider the following: are you an organism? Keep in mind that there are more prokaryotic bacterial cells living inside your body than your own eukaryotic ones. To these organisms, you are an ecosystem. In fact, the descendents of ancient bacterial organisms live inside your cells (hi, mitochondria) – right now providing you energy to evaluate if this lecture is worth your time. And what of insect colonies where only the queen can reproduce, microbial mats teeming with unicellular life that cooperatively share energy and resources, and let's not even start on viruses. The point is this: despite the constant emphasis on factual recall in the classroom, the business of living is messy and there are no definitive answers.

In this talk, Lucy will discuss the complexities of sense-making in the biology classroom, and demonstrate what the subject of biology can offer in the quest to discover ourselves and create meaning of our lives.

About Dr. Delaney
Dr. Lucy Delaney is an award-winning educator that was once, a long time ago, a very bad student. While she muddled through bachelor's and master's degrees from the City University of New York in Molecular Biology, she skipped class, crammed the night before, and never went to office hours. But something changed in the final semester of her master's program – Lucy finally experienced the transformative power of wholehearted teaching. Suddenly she was a very good student. In short, Lucy discovered why she cared. After completing a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, she arrived at UCR in 2022 with the dream of figuring out this "wholehearted teaching" thing for herself and helping others discover why they care. Her research focuses on the retention and success of students in the introductory biology sequence using a mixed-methods approach. Currently, she is funded through the Hellman Fellowship Program to produce That's Life, an educational television program designed to engage learners in novel ways and revive excitement in STEM.

Saturday, April 12, 2025

UC Riverside Campus
900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92521

Please check back for updated information and to register

Adler R. Dillman
Professor of Parasitology & Nematologist
Department of Nematology
University of California, Riverside
Website: Dillman Lab

Saturday, May 3, 2025

UC Riverside Campus
900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92521

Please check back for updated information and to register