AAAS 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.
"…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; the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, Economic Research Service, Forest Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture; and Mars Incorporated.
Past Lectures
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 Lecture
A 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 Lecture
Why 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)