Jan. 13, 2015 Speaker: Shaun Briley – La Jolla/ Riford Library Branch- Public service at La Jolla/Riford Library

Shaun Briley has seen the book business from all sides: published author, retailer, marketing hack for a publishing company and finally librarian. Briley started his career as a journalist working for a British conglomerate that sent him to the Persian Gulf to cover the war against Saddam Hussein. Later, he wrote a book called ‘How Not to Live Abroad’, about living in Spain, which was likened to ‘Under a Tuscan Sun’ or ‘Year in Provence’ – gone wrong. The experience ultimately drove him to the sunny climes of California where he has finally laid down roots. A resident of La Jolla, he took the post of branch manager on the retirement of former librarian, Catherine Greene.

A preference for service over sales drove the switch to library work. The La Jolla/Riford Library is a classic public service institution, open to all, that aims to create lifelong learning opportunities and foster community connections. Its offerings include literacy and other youth programs as well as career and personal development resources for all ages. The library in La Jolla attracts interesting presenters and is blessed with the biggest collection of books outside of the Central Library downtown. It has a large contribution to make in the cultural life of this community and is often a draw for people throughout San Diego, for instance for its musical concerts, art exhibits and author talks.

Under Briley, the library is very focused on increasing its collaboration with the school district and providing services to attract middle and high school age students. He will talk about how the library is doing and reveal some exciting new initiatives within the community.

 

Visit Shaun’s Website Here

Jan. 6, 2015 Speaker: Fredrick Clerie – San Diego Rock Church – Hopestart Inernational

 

I was born in Haiti, “the poorest country in the Western hemisphere”, and I lived there for 16 years. I came to the US to get a college education, intending to return to Haiti and work alongside my dad who was doing church planting work there. Negative political developments forced my dad to leave Haiti, and I decided I would never go back there. I went on to graduate school for a degree in Biochemistry and made a career with large pharmaceutical and biotech companies. After the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010, I heard God’s call to return to Haiti to do humanitarian and missionary work. Since then, with the help of friends at Impact195 and at the Rock Church, we have dug deep water wells, opened an orphanage, a center for abandoned babies and started a feeding program for over 500 malnourished children who go to tuition-free primary schools but are too hungry to learn what they are being taught. With the support of the Rock Church and other organizations, I plan to expand the orphanage, the abandoned baby center, and the feeding program, and to open schools to teach trades as well as leadership and business management skills.

 

Visit Fredrick’s Website Here

Dec. 16, 2014 Speaker: Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., Ebola Virus

Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D. is a Professor of Immunology and Microbial Science at The Scripps Research Institute. Her research explains how and why viruses are pathogenic and provides the roadmap for medical defense. Her team has explained how the viruses drive themselves into cells, how they suppress immune function, where human antibodies can defeat them, as well as the structure of the entire human antibody itself. A recent discovery expanded the central dogma of molecular biology by proving that certain viral proteins actually rearrange into different structures at different times for different functions.

Her work has been recognized with the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, an Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease and a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, by young investigator awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society of Microbiology, and by the Surhain Sidhu award for the most outstanding contribution to the field of diffraction by a person within five years of the Ph.D. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, serves on the Scientific Leadership Board of the Global Virus Network and is the Director of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium. This organization, the VIC, united the field into a single force to understand and provide antibody therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and other viruses.

Dec. 9, 2014: Dipak Gupta, SDSU, Understanding Terrorism & Social Conflict

Dipak K. Gupta is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at San Diego State University.  He served as the Founding Director of undergraduate program in International Security and Conflict Resolution (ISCOR). In 1997, he was awarded Albert W. Johnson Distinguished Lecturer, the highest research award for the university and was the “Professor of the Year” in 1994. His primary research interest involves the causes of terrorism, ethnic conflict, and the impact of political instability on national economic development.

Born in India, Gupta received Master’s degrees in Economics from Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, India, and University of Pittsburgh.  He earned his Ph.D. in the area of Economic and Social Development from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at University of Pittsburgh. He has been a visiting scholar at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, Leiden University in the Netherlands, Fudan University in Shanghai, China and the Terrorism Prevention Branch at the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) in Vienna, Austria.  He was also awarded a summer fellowship in the International Studies Program at the Hoover Institution for War, Peace, and Revolution, at Stanford University. He received a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Professor Gupta is the author of nine books and over 150 publications in scholarly journals, research monographs, chapters, in edited volumes and newspapers.

Oct. 28, 2014 Speaker: Carmen Chavez, Casa Cornelia – Central American Refugee Children

Beginning last year and specifically in the last few months, there has been an overall increase in the apprehension of Unaccompanied Children from Central America at the Southwest Border.  You may have seen it in the news. An experienced attorney, whose organization provides needed services to these children going through the legal process, will provide an informational overview and background on the issue of children traveling alone to the U.S. from Central America.  Come learn about this current issue regarding unaccompanied children at our border.

Biography

Carmen Chavez was born and raised in San Diego. She graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. degree in Political Science. While in college she became very involved in community service, especially in the area of human and civil rights.  She continued her dream to service the community through public interest law by attending Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, CA graduating in 1999.  While at Loyola she participated in Moot Court, Public Interest Law Foundation and La Raza Law Students Association.

After passing the California Bar Exam, she began working at Casa Cornelia Law Center fourteen years ago and currently serves as the Executive Director overseeing a staff of 17 and a volunteer base of over 300.  Casa Cornelia is a non-profit law firm in San Diego providing quality pro bono legal representation to victims of human and civil violations eligible for humanitarian protection under the law.

She started her service at Casa Cornelia as the recipient of the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, which allowed her to provide legal services to indigent victims of abuse and those seeking refuge from persecution and torture in their home countries.  As a Staff Attorney and then Associate Director, she handled VAWA, U Visa, T Visa, NACARA, Naturalization, and asylum cases affirmatively and defensively (Immigration Court and Board of Immigration Appeals), Special Immigration Juvenile Status (SIJS) for children and has argued successfully before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals several times.  During this time, Carmen has given numerous presentations and trainings to the legal community, social workers, law enforcement, students, community groups, faith community, parents and clients in San Diego County and elsewhere. She is a member of the American Bar Association, Lawyers Club and the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association.

Nov. 18, 2014 Speaker: Jodi Waterhouse, USD, University of the 3rd Age

Jodi Waterhouse began her career at USD 18 years ago when she joined the USD Professional and Continuing Education Department.  During her tenure at USD she has directed many types of programs simultaneously to include Business and Corporate Education (18 years), Family Business Forum (16 years), Event Director of the Kyoto Laureate Symposium (10 years), Business Development, and University of the Third Age (18 years).  Her passion for University of San Diego and bringing USD to the community and the community to USD is her greatest professional joy!

She’s married to her wonderful “British” husband Steve, has 2 amazing kids, Ian – 16  and Elyse 14, and a golden retriever, Simon.  Beyond promoting USD in the community, she loves watching her kids who are amazing athletes compete in their various sports.  She is truly a sideline mom!

Follow Jodi (@USDCorpEd) on Twitter

 

Nov. 4, 2014 Speaker: Casey B.K. Dominguez, USD – 2014 Midterm Election & Its Aftermath

Casey B. K. Dominguez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2005. Her research specialties are congressional elections, political parties, and the presidency. Dr. Dominguez has published articles on presidential elections, congressional elections, and political parties. Her ongoing research focuses on the development of presidential war powers.

Scholarly and Creative Work

Dominguez’ Ph.D. dissertation examined congressional primary elections, and found that the political party establishment attempts to stack the deck in favor of a particular primary candidate under predictable conditions. Her current research focuses on the institutional and financial relationships between political parties and interest groups. In 2009, she co-authored a paper, published in the journal American Political Research, identifying legislative and electoral interest group coalitions.

She has also published work on the presidential honeymoon period in Congress and the Presidencyand in The Forum, and is currently researching congressional responses to presidential assertions of expanded war powers.

Teaching Interests

Dominguez’ teaching interests include a wide range of topics in American politics. She teaches the introductory American Politics class, as well as upper division courses on the presidency, parties and interest groups, and campaigns and elections. She has also taught classes incorporating research methodology, including the Political Science/International Relations research Capstone, and an interdisciplinary honors course in Social Network Analysis.

Nov. 11, 2014 Speaker: Gregory R. Hillgren, Patriots Initiative – Embracing America’s Armed Forces Community

Are you ‘Answering the 21^st Century Call’ to support our nation’s armed forces community?  Are you giving time, treasure… or both?  Are you doing so wisely and effectively?  Are you making a difference?  Let’s find out.

Mr. Hillgren was a founder and serves as the Chairman of The Patriot Initiative (‘TPI’), the nonprofit outreach program of the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation located in the San Diego region, the home of America’s largest military service population.

Since 2008, The Patriots Initiative has driven philanthropic support to active military service members and their families, the wounded and fallen, and veterans by identifying, evaluating and underwriting the very finest nonprofit service providers serving that space.  Greg also founded the Endowment Leadership Initiative at the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation which supports the Navy SEALs Foundation through TPI.  He is the past-Chair of the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation (2005-2006) and served as a Director for nine years.

Mr. Hillgren’s professional career has focused on real estate investment and development, overseeing a range of successful commercial, residential and mixed-use projects throughout California, including several complex property repositionings.  His privately held firms also make strategic investments in emerging California companies and their technologies.

Greg earned his undergraduate and MBA degrees from the USC Marshall School of Business where he remains actively involved.  For the past decade he has served on its Board of Leaders and is the Co-Chair for Marshall’s $400 Million Capital Campaign.  Greg’s support for USC includes the endowed Hillgren Scholarships for Global Studies.  In 2013 Greg was the recipient of the USC President’s Award from the University’s Alumni Association.

Greg and his wife, Nancy, are active in their community of Rancho Santa Fe where they were the recipients of the RSF Community Service Award in 2002.    Greg’ recreational pursuits focus on golf, and he’s served multiple terms as President of the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club (2002-2004).

Oct. 21, 2014 Speaker: Brian Keating, UCSD – Beginnings of Time

Going to the ends of the earth to glimpse the beginnings of time, Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UCSD’s Department of Physics. He and his team of 17 students, and postdocs develop instrumentation to study the early universe at radio-, microwave- and infrared wavelengths.

He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds a U.S. Patent. Brian Keating received his B.S. from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2000. He did postdoctoral research at Stanford University and was an NSF Postdoctoral  Fellow at Caltech before coming to UCSD in 2004. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he developed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station.

Professor Keating c0-leads a collaboration operating the POLARBEAR telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile. He is also a private pilot with single and multi-engine instrument ratings.

Oct. 14, 2014 Speaker: Judy Keene, Next Step Service Dogs – How Dogs Help & Heal Veterans w PTSD

When long-time friend Sally Montrucchio launched Next Step Service Dogs in 2012, Judy was compelled to help such an amazing cause where a small group of people can make a huge positive impact in the lives of wounded warriors with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Judy’s background includes a BA and MA in English from the University of Delaware, college teaching, and over 30 years as a publications manager/technical writer for hi tech startups and companies such as HP. Now a full-time volunteer administrator for Next Step Service Dogs, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, Judy Keene is enthusiastic about their mission of training service dogs for veterans with PTSD, and hiring veterans to have careers as service dog trainers.

Her top goals include recruiting wonderful volunteers and with them, support service dog work to enhance and save veterans’ lives.