Dean's Seminar Series

Shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 President John F. Kennedy asked the CIA if America had its very own James Bond. Decades later, Tom Cruise continues to defy the laws of gravity (and Parisian traffic) in the Mission: Impossible series to a degree that is absurdly entertaining, yet the film franchise combines real technological innovations with imagined extremes of disguises that real-world spies can only dream about. As these two examples suggest, we think we know what the life of a spy is because we have read or seen countless examples of them prowling around on the page or up on the movie screen. But what I find most curious isn't the effect these fictions have had upon a general public that apparently can't get enough of the deep covers, black operations, honey traps, and sleeper cells. No, instead, I'm thinking about how real intelligence officers became prisoners of these and other fictions.

This talk considers three CIA officers whose lives become inextricably linked to, and were influenced by, fiction. The first is Allen Dulles, the celebrated director of the CIA in the 1950s and early 1960s. Next, James Jesus Angleton, the infamous and quite possibly deranged director of counter-intelligence operations in the CIA. Finally, Cord Meyer, a high-ranking CIA officer whose life has come to be seen as a case study in tragedy. They all used fiction as a way to understand their personal and professional lives. And artists returned the favor by using these CIA officers as subjects in their novels, movies, and photographs. Just as science fiction has influenced our visions of the future, the arts have created worlds of spy craft that real-life spies strive to emulate. This, then, is the bonding of the CIA.

Lipids comprise a class of biomolecules that serve diverse biological roles encompassing including energy storage, cell compartmentalization, and cell signaling. A central feature of many lipids is that they are amphiphilic, meaning that they have parts that are water soluble and parts that are fat soluble. In standard biochemical mechanisms, specific lipids are recognized by other biomolecules (often proteins) that are capable of interacting with structural features on one or both portions of the lipid. In this talk, I will discuss synthetic receptors, which are smaller structures that can mimic the interaction that larger proteins have with lipids, and some of the unique applications in lipid recognition and sensing that these synthetic receptors afford. I will also discuss ongoing research from my group on a sensor for a signaling lipid and new work on a synthetic receptor for the allergenic components in poison ivy and poison oak plants.

Pauli Murray was an epic but forgotten figure at the nexus of three social movements: civil rights, women's rights, and labor equity. Murray's accomplishments far exceeded all expectations considering their gender and race in that historical moment. Murray's life tells us what can be accomplished when you refuse to stay in the lane society chooses for you. All of this, however, was at a terrible personal cost. Murray's incredible life is also a cautionary tale about the very real dangers of burnout. We will interrogate the principles of trauma informed practices and sacred activism to ask if they are sufficient to heal the healers and sustain the warriors.

Globally, health systems face challenges that originate beyond the system itself. These challenges can be in the form of epidemics, disasters, environmental events, threats, conflicts, and terrorism. Any of these events are likely to disrupt a health systems ability to function efficiently and effectively. Therefore, it is imperative for any health system to engage in preparedness to become more resilient. This presentation examines the staggering number of events in the last decade, the locales that have been affected, and the impact to the health systems. Profiled countries include Botswana, Brazil, Canada, China, Haiti India, Japan and the United States. In addition, the Ebola outbreak in the West Africa region and hurricanes in the Caribbean which both severely challenged the health systems of those areas. ​

Academia and the public media have emphasized the link between STEM majors and innovation as well as the need for STEM graduates in the U.S. economy. Given the proclivity of international students to major in STEM fields, immigration policy may be used to attract and retain high-skilled STEM workers in the United States. We examine the impacts of a 2008 policy extending the Optional Practical Training (OPT) period for STEM graduates. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates, we find that, relative to other foreign-born U.S. college graduates, the foreign-born who first came on student visas were 18 percent more likely to have their degrees in STEM fields if they enrolled in their major after the OPT policy change. While part of this increase is likely due to the rather mechanical drop in return migration among STEM graduates following the OPT change, the policy also appears to have induced some international students, who may have otherwise chosen a different field, to major in STEM.

The central goal of cancer biology is to understand how the acquired genetic changes become responsible for deregulated cell growth and differentiation at molecular level. Cancer is not one disease but a family of diseases that makes early detection extremely difficult. Rapid development in high-throughput molecular techniques has resulted in the accumulation of vast amounts of cancer transcriptome data. By applying computational methods to these data sets, it is possible to paint a molecular picture of a particular cancer subtype. In this talk, I will give an overview of my research in understanding cancer heterogeneity.

• Shembarger, R. R., Romito, L. M., and Nair, T. M., Are there gastric cancer biomarkers in salivary transcriptome? Submitted (2019)
• Nair, T. M. Kilbride, E., and Dang, J., Delineating features associated with non-small cell lung cancer. ISMB Conference, Basel, Switzerland (2019).
• Nair, T. M., Understanding heterogeneity in pregnancy-associated breast cancer Bioinformatics and Biomedicine IEEE International Conference, Washington, DC,USA, 1192-1196 (2015)
• Nair, T. M., Analysis of isoform expression from splicing array using multiple comparisons Methods Mol Biol 802, 113-121(2012)