2017 William D. Carey Lecture with Senator Christopher Coons

The 2017 William D. Carey Lecture will be presented by Christopher Coons, United States Senator for Delaware.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

About Senator Christopher Coons

Senator Chris Coons was elected to the United States Senate in 2010 following terms as New Castle County Council President and New Castle County Executive. In the Senate, he sits on the Appropriations, Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Ethics Committees. One of the few members of Congress of either party with training in hard sciences, Sen. Coons is the co-founder of both the Senate Chemistry Caucus and the Senate Competitiveness Caucus. He is also a member of the Senate National Labs Caucus.

Sen. Coons’ determination to find bipartisan partners for each legislative initiative has led to a number of his bills being signed into law. The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which was signed into law in January, included legislation Sen. Coons wrote to increase the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science within the federal government, improve the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, strengthen the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, and bolster the field of sustainable chemistry. Among his other successful legislative efforts to support science, technology, and innovation, Sen. Coons worked to expand the R&D tax credit for startups and small businesses. As a result of his efforts to find common ground, in November the independent congressional tracking website GovTrack ranked Sen. Coons in the top three most productive Senators of both parties.

Before entering government, Sen. Coons worked as an attorney for W.L. Gore & Associates, an advanced materials manufacturer in Delaware. Sen. Coons graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in chemistry and political science, and earned a law degree from Yale Law School and a Master’s in Ethics from Yale Divinity School. A longtime New Castle County resident, Sen. Coons lives in Wilmington with his wife, Annie, and their three children, Michael, Jack, and Maggie.