Saturday – October 21, 9:30-11:00am
Please RSVP to jrcafe@tacny.org
Milton J Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology – Syracuse, NY
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Speaker: Emily J. Judd, PhD Candidate, Department of Earth Sciences, Syracuse University
Overview: The Earth is very old – 4.56 billion years old, to be exact. Yet it took about a billion years for life to first appear, and another 3 billion years or so to evolve to the complex forms we see today. Together we will journey through geologic time, from the very beginning of life through to the appearance of humans. We will explore the interactions between organisms and the Earth around them -not only how they’ve adapted to changing environments, but also how they’ve caused changes to the environment, from altering the landscape to oxygenating the atmosphere. Through the lens of the fossil record, we will look at the explosion of complex, multicellular life more than 500 million years ago, the transition from life in the oceans to life on land, the rise (and fall) of dinosaurs, the diversification of mammals, and eventually, the evolution of humans.
Biography: Emily Judd is a PhD candidate in the Department of Earth Sciences at Syracuse University. Before coming to Syracuse, she earned her BS in Geology, with a minor in Philosophy from the Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Emily’s primary field of research is paleoclimate, or the reconstruction of ancient climates. Her research focuses on greenhouse climate intervals – times in Earth’s history when there was no ice near the poles, but instead there were palm trees and crocodiles. She looks at chemical signatures in fossils from these warm intervals to investigate how different environments respond to large-scale changes in climate, so that we may be able to better predict those changes in the future. These days, much of Emily’s work involves looking at 50-million year-old clams from Antarctica to assess seasonal changes in temperature and precipitation. When not in the lab, Emily enjoys exploring the great outdoors, be it hiking, mountain biking, or rock climbing, as well as reading, traveling, and spending time with her giant 12-year-old dog.
TACNY Junior Cafe Scientifique
TACNY Junior Cafe Scientifique, a program for middle-school students founded in 2005, features discussions about topics in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in an informal atmosphere and seeks to encourage students to consider careers in these areas. Students must be accompanied by an adult and can explore the MOST at no cost after the event.
Technology Alliance of Central New York
Founded in 1903 as the Technology Club of Syracuse, the nonprofit Technology Alliance of Central New York’s mission is to facilitate community awareness, appreciation, and education of technology; and to collaborate with like-minded organizations across Central New York.
For more information about TACNY, visit www.tacny.org.
