An authority on mosquito-borne diseases, a national expert on the U.S. immigration system and three specialists on campaigns and elections are among the upcoming speakers at the Cazenovia Forum, Central New York’s premier public affairs lecture series, which announced its 2016 lineup today.
Kicking off the 2016 season on May 6 is Dr. Mark Polhemus, the director of the Center for Global Health and Translational Science at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, who is working with a grant from the U.S. Army to build a new defense against dengue fever, a tropical disease carried by mosquitoes that annually affects more than 400 million people worldwide, 100 million of them with serious illness.
On June 3, the Forum speaker will be Stephen Yale-Loehr, one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on U.S. immigration and asylum law, who will discuss the country’s immigration system, how it works and the high-profile criticisms of it. He is frequently interviewed in print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fox News, CBS News and PBS. He has written four standard reference texts on immigration law and is a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School.
On Sept. 23, the forum will host Carrie Keating, a professor of psychology at Colgate University who studies charisma and particularly how people and groups use it to inspire a following. She will discuss how candidates in the 2016 political campaigns have used elements of charisma to pursue their aims. Her studies have been featured in the print media in the U.S. and abroad, and on radio talk shows and television, including PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers, Dateline NBC, Discovery Magazine, CNN Times/Newsweek Magazine, The McLaughlin Group, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Learning Channel and ABC’s Good Morning America.
On Oct. 14, with the presidential election less than a month away, the Forum speaker will be Allen Raymond, a former political consultant who spent three months in federal prison for his role in a U.S. Senate election scandal and is the author of the book, “How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative” (2008). Raymond will provide insights on dirty tricks employed by operatives working for candidates of both major political parties.
Finally, on Nov. 11, and for the third consecutive presidential election year, the Forum will host John Zogby, one of the nation’s preeminent pollsters — and a best-selling author — to provide his analysis of the election results. He is the author of the best-selling “The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream” and the recently published “We Are Many, We Are One.” He writes columns that appear on Forbes.com and is a founding contributor to The Huffington Post. His analytical expertise has also been published on the opinion pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.
Venues for each of these evening speaking events will be announced at a later date. They are free of charge to the public and no tickets or reservations are required. Each presentation is followed by questions from the audience and a reception at which audience members have an opportunity to further engage the speaker.
The Cazenovia Forum is a 501 (c)( 3), not-for-profit organization established in 2006 by community members focused on promoting the understanding and discussion of national and international issues. More information can be found at cazenoviaforum.com.
