2026 Presentations & Instructor Bios

Doing Science, Doing Good: 70 Years of Research at the Life Span Institute
Instructor: John Colombo

During this talk, I’ll trace the history of the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at KU, and cover a number of the accomplishments that have been achieved during that time.  In addition, I’ll highlight several of the LSI’s current research programs and principal investigators to show the breadth and scope of ongoing work.  

John Colombo is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.  For the past 35 years, he has conducted research on individual and developmental differences in attention and their consequences for long-term developmental outcome in typically-developing and at-risk populations of infants, toddlers, and children. In recent years he has collaborated on clinical trials evaluating the effects of nutrients and micronutrients on the development of cognitive function in infants and children. He has published over 140 peer-refereed articles and six books/monographs, and has presented his work on five continents.

News Desert U
Instructor: Teri Finneman

For the past seven years, KU faculty and students have provided local news to Eudora. Learn more in this session about the state of journalism today and steps being taken to help save community news.

Teri Finneman, Ph.D., is a journalism professor at KU and publisher of The Eudora Times, which she operates with KU students. She is an expert on rural local news and founder of the Journalism History podcast. She is co-author of Reviving Rural News and the upcoming book News Desert U

The Musical Hamilton
Instructor: Paul Laird

"The Musical Hamilton" will be a look at this popular, ground-breaking show, which opened on Broadway in 2015 and has played there, and many other places, ever since.  Emphases will be placed on the show's creation by Lin-Manuel Miranda and others, its reception, the score's extensive use of rap and other musical styles, and the plot's relationship with American history.

Paul Laird taught music history at the University of Kansas for thirty years. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of over twenty books, most of them related to some aspect of the life and music of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Schwartz, and aspects of the American musical theater. One of his books is Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton, co-edited with Mary Jo Lodge. Laird frequently presents classes for the Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning and the KU Mini-College. In 2021, Laird won the KU Chancellor's Club Career Teaching Award.

KU-phoria
Instructor: Curtis Marsh

One school is better than another because of a variety of measures: their academics, athletics, alumni and students, environment, traditions. The University of Kansas has it all. This presentation examines the stories that make KU better than the rest. 

Curtis Marsh has spent his 30-year career on campus, half of which was spent with KU Info, a program that answered any KU question imaginable. He is the co-founder of the KU Osher Institute and the past director of the DeBruce Center. Known on campus as "Mr. KU," his book, entitled "KU-phoria," is a collection of 60 stories that prove KU is the best.

The Smorgasbord of English
Instructor: Lisa McClendon

English is a constantly evolving language that has expanded over the centuries by borrowing words from all over. We’ll look at how words borrowed into English change – or don’t – illustrated by words for some of our favorite foods!

Lisa McLendon is associate dean for student success at the KU School of Journalism and Mass Communications, after running the Bremner Editing Center for 13 years. She mostly teaches editing classes, having worked as a newspaper copy editor for 12 years before coming to KU. Despite not making full use of her doctorate in Slavic languages and linguistics, she still loves grammar and learning about languages

Robert C. Rowland (PhD), is a Professor at the University of Kansas, where he teaches rhetoric and argumentation. He has won four university-wide awards for teaching, three college or university-wide awards for advising, and a national award for teaching from the National Communication Association.  His more than 100 published essays have appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Communication Theory, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Communication Monographs¸ other journals, and a number of edited books.  He has won several national awards for his articles, as well as for his overall research program in argumentation and political rhetoric. He has published four university press books, one of which (Shared Land/Conflicting Identity, with David Frank), won the Kohrs-Campbell Prize in rhetorical criticism, and is a former editor of the  Western Journal of Communication. Rowland presented the keynote on rhetoric at the Reagan Centennial, a keynote on the status of rhetorical criticism at the National Communication Association Conference on Rhetorical Criticism, and a keynote on argumentation at the International Society for the Study of Argumentation conference in the Netherlands in July 2023.  His most recent book, The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy, was published by the University Press of Kansas in the spring of 2021.  He received a distinguished scholar award from the rhetorical and communication theory division of the National Communication in November 2021 and a Distinguished Research Award from the International Society for the Study of Argumentation that was presented in July 2023.  He is the co-chair of a working group of scholars reassessing the rhetoric of President Reagan. 

How Galaxies Are Formed
Instructor: Greg Rudnick

Natural History Museum's Panorama Renovation
Instructors: Lori Schlenker

Bona fide Fakes in the Collection of the Wilcox Classical Museum
Instructor: Phil Stinson

The Wilcox Classical Museum is KU’s oldest museum collection. Known as the University’s “classical museum,” it was inaugurated by Professor Alexander Wilcox at the June Commencement in 1888 and originally occupied part of the second floor of Old Fraser Hall. The founders of the museum had the goal in mind of exposing students and Kansans alike to the ancient Greek and Roman arts in a time when travel to the great museums of Europe was not possible for most. It was the first of its kind in the region. The Nelson Gallery of Kansas City did not open until 1933. The museum and its collection were renamed for Professor Wilcox after his death in 1915. The collection was moved to storage in 1965, in the context of the closure and subsequent demolition of Old Fraser Hall.

After 20 years of controversial uncertainty, the museum’s collection was reconstituted, conserved, and restored under the steadfast direction of Professor Elizabeth “Betty” Banks. In 1988, on the centennial of the museum’s founding, the Wilcox Classical Museum was rededicated in the west wing of historic Lippincott Hall. Then, as today, the museum consists of the Mary Grant Gallery, which displays the cast collection, and an adjacent reading room, which doubles as a gallery for a study collection of ancient artifacts, coins, and inscriptions. 

The holdings today include approximately 500 ancient artifacts from around the ancient Mediterranean, 800 Greek and Roman coins, and 75 sculptural casts and reproductions. This presentation concerns the small (but growing) percentage of artifacts in the collection that are, to varying degrees, “inauthentic,” or “fake.” What constitutes a fake? What modern preconceived notions about authenticity, or the aura of the original, are at stake in venturing further into these questions with respect to the Wilcox Collection?

Phil Stinson is a member of the Classics Faculty at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He is a trained architect, art and architectural historian, archaeologist, and museum administrator. In his early career, he served as the senior architect for the Harvard-Cornell excavations at Sardis in western Türkiye. He has also participated for over two decades as an architect and archaeologist with the NYU-Oxford excavations at Aphrodisias. His reconstruction drawings and illustrations of ancient Greek and Roman architecture and contexts for wall-painting have been widely published and exhibited. His first book on the Roman Basilica of Aphrodisias was published in 2016 by Reichert. A second book is currently in progress and aims to publish the architecture and archaeology of the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion at Aphrodisias. Since 2017, Phil has served as the curator and director of the Wilcox Classical Museum. He has organized two significant exhibits showcasing student work on the Wilcox’s past and future, and he is currently spearheading a proposal to relocate the museum from Lippincott Hall to Wescoe Hall. 

Grad Student Panel
Panel: Kelly Beam, Reb Bryant, Nikki Dean and Aseem Ayomide Talabi

Kelly Beym (Diné), Ph.D. candidate
Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellow & Sloan Indigenous Graduate Program Fellow
Department of Geography & Atmospheric Science
"Rematriating Foodways: Mitigating Food Insecurity and Enhancing Tribal Economies Through Traditional Food Systems"

Kelly is continuing her education to explore tribal self-determination of food and nutrition programs, and how they may contribute to rural economic prosperity and enhance food security. Kelly is interested in the intersection of tribal geopolitics with the geographies of foods in Indian Country. Outside of school, Kelly is passionate about being present for her two children, youth mentorship and networking at AISES, SACNAS and AAG. Kelly’s goal after graduate school is to continue working with tribal partners in Indian Country to continue advocating for equitable policies impacting traditional cultural foodways, particularly those within the Farm Bill. 

Reb Bryant, Ph.D. candidate

Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellow

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Fostering Connections in Tallgrass Prairie Restoration: Fungi, Plants and People

Tallgrass prairies are one of the most diverse and endangered ecosystems in North America. In this talk, I explore how restoring the relationships that support prairies such as the one between plants and native mycorrhizal fungi may be key to more successful prairie restorations.

Reb Bryant is a Ph.D candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology at the Kansas Biological Survey and Center for Ecological Research. They study how native soil microbes like mycorrhizal fungi can promote diverse, resilient prairie restorations. They are also passionate about the power of communities, and explore relationships between people and ecological restoration in their work.

Nikki Dean, Ph.D. candidate

Department of History

“Peace and Plunder: Art Transfers and the First World War Treaties of Peace”

The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the resulting treaties against the defeated Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) had lasting impacts on modern art provenance and curation during armed conflict. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, known as the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II and IV, respectively), agreed to restrict war spoliation and established legal guidance to diplomats protecting historic sites, museums, archives, religious sites and academic institutions from post-war plunder. So, how and why did the post-WWI treaties of peace include specific articles mandating the transfer of art objects and collections from legitimate owning nations to despite legal statutes against this practice?

Nikki Dean is a History Ph.D. student and a former U.S. Army officer and aviator. She holds a B.A. in journalism and French from Canisius College, additional M.A.s in national security studies and in military arts and sciences and recently completed an M.A. in museum studies with the University of Kansas in 2023. While all of her graduate studies are Midwestern, she is a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan. She researches provenance curation and is particularly focused on art and antiquities looting in armed conflict during the First and Second World Wars. She currently serves as a military history educator and interpreter for the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City.

Azeem Ayomide Talabi, Ph.D. aspirant

Department of Molecular Biosciences

“When the Cell’s Brakes Fail: Why Some Cancers Stop Responding to Chemotherapy”

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common and deadly cancer, affecting nearly 1.9 million people and causing about 900,000 deaths globally each year. In the United States, more than 50,000 people die from CRC annually. A major reason CRC develops is a mutation in a gene called Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC), which is altered in about 80% of CRC cases. This makes APC one of the most important genes to suppress colon cancer. Even with advancements in modern treatments, one of the biggest challenges in cancer care is drug resistance. Many cancer drugs target proteins called topoisomerases, which untangle DNA in our cells. These drugs are designed to overwhelm cancer cells by creating DNA damage that they cannot survive. However, when APC is missing or defective, cancer cells become resistant to these drugs. Treating these cancers is like trying to open a lock with the wrong key – less effective, more expensive, and more difficult for patients.

My research investigates why the loss of APC causes this resistance and, importantly, how it can be reversed. Our findings indicate that the loss of APC alters the response to DNA damage, which explains why these cancers become resistant to therapy. Importantly, we also discovered that this resistance can be reversed by combining topoisomerase drugs with certain FDA-approved medications. Current efforts are focused on investigating how this drug combination restores sensitivity at the molecular level and testing it in mouse models to confirm its effectiveness. By understanding how cancer cells evade treatment when their internal brakes fail, we can design strategies that restore efficacy, develop more effective cancer therapies, and improve treatment outcomes for patients.l.