Skip to main content

AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

The AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture is an important opportunity to explore the environmental and societal challenges facing our planet through the lens of agricultural innovation and its applications in a global context.

2022 Lecture: Designing Pest Suppressive Agricultural Landscapes for a Changing World 

In 2022, we present the 12th Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture. This annual event welcomes distinguished speakers to explore the environmental and societal challenges facing our planet through the lens of agricultural innovation and its applications in a global context. The annual lecture is a collaboration between AAAS, RMF, and the World Food Prize Foundation. This year’s hybrid lecture will focus on emerging opportunities and challenges in agricultural pest management and technological innovations to support agricultural productivity and food security in the face of changing environmental conditions and feature addresses by Dr. Douglas Landis, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University.  

Designing Pest Suppressive Agricultural Landscapes for a Changing World

Dr. Landis’s remarks will be followed by a Q&A session and a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Fred Gould, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Agriculture at North Carolina State University. A reception will follow for the in-person attendees.

Please contact the AAAS Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues at epicenter@aaas.org with any questions about this year’s lecture.

 

The Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture Series

In 2008, the Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation (RMF) endowed the Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture at AAAS in honor of Professor Riley’s legacy as a “whole picture” person with a vision for enhancing agriculture through scientific knowledge.

The Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture is a collaboration between AAAS, RMF, and the World Food Prize Foundation (WFPF), an organization whose fundamental goal is to support efforts toward an adequate supply and availability of nutritious food for the burgeoning world population in the 21st century. The annual lecture welcomes distinguished speakers to explore the environmental and societal challenges facing our planet through the lens of agricultural innovation and its applications in a global context. Past lecturers include:

To learn more about Charles Riley, visit the Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation or the Charles Valentine Riley Collection in the USDA National Agricultural Library. 

Charles Valentine

           

             "…to promote a broader and more complete
             understanding of agriculture as the most
             basic human endeavor and... to enhance
             agriculture through increased scientific
             knowledge."

            - Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation

(Charles Valentine Riley Examining an Insect. Undated | Charles Valentine Riley Collection.  Special Collections, National Agricultural Library,  Beltsville, Maryland.)

Sponsors

The Lecture is sponsored by the Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation.

Past Lectures

2022 Lecture: Designing Pest Suppressive Agricultural Landscapes for a Changing World

Presented by Dr. Douglas Landis, Michigan State University, followed by a panel comprising Dr. Fred Gould, North Carolina State University; Dr. Steven Bradbury, Iowa State University; Dr. Megan Fritz, University of Maryland; and Dr. Linda Kinkel, University of Minnesota. 

2021 Lecture: Zoonotic Diseases and the Role of Agricultural Research in Preventing Future Pandemics

Presented by Dr. Andrew Peter Dobson, Princeton University; Dr. Xiang-Jin Meng, Virginia Tech; and, Dr. James A. Roth, Iowa State University. 

2020 Lecture: Rethinking American Agriculture: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Production

Presented by Dr. Evan H. DeLucia, G. William Arends Professor of Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2019 Lecture: Science and policy: their Yin and Yang dynamic and global food security

Presented by Robert S. Zeigler, Director General Emeritus, International Rice Research Institute, Philippines.

2018 Lecture: Does Agriculture have a Parallel Science Problem?

Presented by Alison Van Eenennaam, Cooperative Extension Specialist in the field of Animal Genomics and Biotechnology, University of California, Davis.

2017 Lecture: Joining Forces to Protect the Future of Agriculture and the Planet

Presented by Robert Fraley, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Monsanto Company

2016 Lecture: The Role of U.S. Research Universities in Meeting the Global Food Security Challenge

Presented by Randy Woodson, Chancellor of North Carolina State University

2015 LectureA University President’s Perspective on the Economic Importance of Pursuing a Unifying Message to Make Agriculture a National Priority

Presented by Steven Leath, President, Iowa State University

2014 Lecture: A Food and Agricultural Research Agenda to Deal with the Asteroids of the Future

Presented by The Honorable Daniel Glickman, Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

2013 Lecture: Food, Feed and Fuel from Crops under Global Atmospheric Change: Could we have it all in 2030?

Presented by Stephen P. Long, Gutgesell Endowed University Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences University of Illinois

2012 LectureWhy Innovation in Agriculture Matters

Presented by Rob Horsch, Deputy Director for Research & Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

2011 Lecture: Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food

Presented by Pamela C. Ronald, Professor, Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis and Co-author of Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food

2010 Lecture: Agricultural Research: Changing of the Guard, Guarding the Change

Presented by Roger Beachy, then Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues | Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2021 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2020 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Evan H. DeLucia

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2019 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Robert S. Zeigler

AAAS Colloquium Series | Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2018 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2016 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Randy Woodson

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2015 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Steven Leath

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2014 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Hon. Dan Glickman

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2012 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Rob Horsch

Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture

2011 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture: Dr. Randy Woodson