This semester’s University Lectures series will kick off this week with this spring’s speakers including Amazon’s chief scientist, the president of the WNBA and a National Geographic’s first female photojournalist.

Esther Gray, the special assistant to the vice chancellor of Syracuse University, is in charge of organizing the University Lecture series. She said that the speakers are booked a year in advance, and that they usually host three or four speakers during the spring semester.

“University Lectures is a cross-disciplinary series so we are always looking for dynamic speakers who will appeal across a wider community,” Gray said in an email. Gray said that SU tries to appeal to a wide range of students when choosing the speakers.

Andreas Weigend, who works as Amazon’s chief scientist, will be the first University Lecturer of the semester in Hendricks Chapel at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Weigend is the founder of the Social Data Lab, a site that aims to connect students and faculty in new ways.

In addition, Laurel J. Richie, the president of the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Annie Griffiths, a photographer for National Geographic magazine, will speak later in the semester.

Richie previously worked as the senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Girl Scouts of the United States of America. In addition to National Geographic, Griffiths has also had her work featured in Life, Smithsonian and Fortune magazines, among other publications.

“Not everyone is interested in every speaker, but with our lineup, there is something for everyone,” Gray said. “Each year’s speakers bring something new and different — some new train of thought, new ideas.”

Weigend’s Tuesday lecture is titled “We Are Our Data: Harnessing the Power of Social Data” and will discuss the power of data and its impact. At Amazon, Weigend advised and consulted start-ups as well as established corporations on how to use social data to benefit their businesses.

Ranbir Dhillon, a sophomore aerospace engineering major, said that Weigend’s speech will be helpful for students.

“I think it is a really good topic just because I think, for the most part, people aren’t aware how much of their data or how much stuff that they search and everything is actually stored,” Dhillon said. “We think it’s all private, but it really isn’t.”

Weigend will also participate in a breakfast with select students in the School of Information Studies on Wednesday morning. Yang Wang, assistant professor in the iSchool, will serve as a facilitator and host of the breakfast.

Wang said that the iSchool encourages its students to attend the lecture, but the breakfast will allow students “to have a more individualized conversation with the speaker.”

“There’s a lot of interest about this idea of big data and what can you do with big data so I think it’s a timely topic for not only the iSchool, but for the whole university,” Wang said. “And this is definitely one of the things that our students are really excited about, not only from their personal interest, but also for their future careers.”

Published on March 2, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact: clmoran@syr.edu