Author to present lecture on "Einstein's Dreams"

Dr. Alan Lightman , an author and theoretical physicist, will present the Kirkland/Spizuoco Science Lecture at 7:30 p.m. April 8 in the H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University. His talk is titled “Einstein’s Dreams.” A book signing will follow his talk.

The annual lecture is held in memory of Dr. Gordon L. Kirkland Jr. and Dr. Joseph Spizuoco, who both died in 1999. The series was started to honor the two long-time faculty members for their dedication and commitment to Shippensburg students and to their academic fields of biology and physics, respectively.

Lightman’s work has successfully and elegantly bridged the gap between science and art. His novel’s include The Diagnosis and the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams. His much-anticipated new novel, Ghost, explores the delicate divide between the physical and spiritual worlds.

He earned his doctoral degree in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology after which he was a postdoctoral fellow in astrophysics at Cornell. He was later an assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard a research scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 2004 cofounded the Catalyst Collaborative at MIT, is a collaboration between MIT and the Underground Railway Theater of Boston.

As both a distinguished physicist and an accomplished novelist, Lightman is one of only a small number of people who straddle the sciences and the humanities. He was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities. He has lectured at more than 100 universities nationwide about the similarities and differences in the ways that scientists and artists view the world.

He has also received numerous awards for his writing and was twice a juror for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008, the government of Cambodia awarded Lightman the Gold Medal for humanitarian service to Cambodia.

For more information, call 477-1738.