Nobel Conference

Svante Pääbo at the 2014 Conference

Gustavus Adolphus College was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1862 and throughout its history, has continued to honor its Swedish heritage. As the College prepared to build a new science hall in the early 1960s, College officials asked the Nobel Foundation for permission to name the building the Alfred Nobel Hall of Science as a memorial to the great Swedish inventor and philanthropist. Permission was granted, and the facility's dedication ceremony in 1963[1] included 26 Nobel laureates and officials from the Nobel Foundation.[2]

Following the 1963 Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm, College representatives met with Nobel Foundation officials, asking them to endorse an annual science conference at the College and to allow use of the Nobel name to establish credibility and high standards. At the urging of several prominent Nobel laureates, the foundation granted the request and the first conference was held at the College in January 1965.[3]

Beginning with the help of an advisory committee composed of Nobel laureates such as Glenn Seaborg, Philip Showalter Hench, and Sir John Eccles, the conferences have been consistently successful in attracting the world's foremost authorities as speakers.

Past speakers have included David H. Hubel, Fritz Lipmann, Sir Harold Walter Kroto, and Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum.

Fifty-nine Nobel laureates have served as speakers, five of whom were awarded the Nobel prize after speaking at the Nobel conference at Gustavus.

The Nobel conference has a focus on scientific topics such as "Medicine: Prescription for Tomorrow" (2006), "The Legacy of Einstein" (2005), "The Science of Aging" (2004), "The Nature of Nurture" (2002), "Virus: The Human Connection" (1998), and "The New Shape of Matter: Materials Challenge Science" (1995). The social sciences are also well represented and many topics are interdisciplinary; focusing on economics, politics, the social sciences, and philosophy.

The Nobel conference is open to the general public.

2022 - Mental Health (In)Equity and Young People

Nobel Conference 58 is happening September 28 & 29, 2022 and will address mental health disparities and their effects on youth, with a particular emphasis on the significance of identity, trauma and technology.

Confirmed 2022 Speakers

• Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Northeastern University
• Manuela Barreto, Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter
• Daniel Eisenberg, Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA
• Joseph P. Gone, Professor of Anthropology and of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard
• Priscilla Lui, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Southern Methodist University
• G. Nic Rider, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Transgender Health Program, Institute for Sexual and Gender Health, and Associate Director for Research, National Center for Gender Spectrum Health, University of Minnesota Medical School
• Brendesha Tynes, Associate Professor of Education and Psychology, USC

2021 Big Data REvolution

The 2021 Nobel Conference was "Big Data REvolution" and took place October 5–6, 2021 in Saint Peter, Minnesota at Gustavus Adolphus College.[4]

Lecturers included:

• Talithia Williams, PhD: Professor of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College
• Francesca Dominici, PhD Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science; Co-Director, the Data Science Initiative, Harvard University
• Michael Osterholm, PhD A Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health; Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota
• Cynthia Rudin, PhD Professor of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Statistical Science; Director, Prediction Analysis Lab, Duke University
• Pilar Ossorio, JD, PhD Professor of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin
• Rhema Vaithianathan, PhD Professor of Health Economics; Director, Centre for Social Data Analytics, Auckland University of Technology
• Wendy Chun, PhD Canada 150 Research Chair; Leader, the Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University

2020- Cancer in the Age of Biotechnology[5] Lecturers included:

• Carl June
• Chanita Hughes-Halbert
• Jim Thomas
• Kathryn Schmitz
• Suzanne Chambers
• Charles Sawyers
• Bissan Al-Lazikani

2019- Climate Changed: Facing Our Future[6]

Lectures Included:

• Amitav Ghosh (Not Archived by request)
• Richard Alley
• Diana Liverman
• Sheila Watt-Cloutier
• Gabriele Hegerl
• David Keith
• Mike Hulme

2018- Living Soil: "A Universe Underfoot"

Lectures Included

• David Montgomery
• Claire Chenu
• Rattan Lal
• Frank Uekotter
• Ray Archuleta
• Jack Gilbert
• Suzanne Simard

The 2017 Nobel Conference is titled "Reproductive Technology: How Far Do We Go?" and took place October 3–4, 2017 in Saint Peter, Minnesota at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Lecturers include:

• Jad Abumrad, founder and co-host of Radiolab.
• Alison Murdoch, Professor of Reproductive Medicine at Newcastle University, past member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics; one of the first people in the world to have been granted approval to clone human embryos for the purpose of research.
• Ruha Benjamin, Sociologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.
• Diana Blithe, program director for the Male Contraceptive Development Program at the National Institutes of Health.
• Charis Thompson, Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science.

2016 - In Search of Economic Balance

Lecturers included:

• Dan Ariely, Ph.D, Behavioral Economist and chief behavioral economist for Qapital.
• Paul Collier, Ph.D, British Economist, director of the International Growth Centre, and former director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank
• Deirdre McCloskey, Ph.D, Economic Historian
• Orley Ashenfelter, Ph.D, Economist, former director of the Office of Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Labor and professor of economics at Princeton University
• Joerg Rieger, Ph.D, Theologian
• John A. List, Ph.D, Economist, Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago.
• Chris Farrell, Economic Journalist and economics editor for Marketplace Money on American Public Media.

2015 - Addiction: Exploring the Science and Experience of an Equal Opportunity Condition

Lecturers included:

• Owen Flanagan, Ph.D, James B. Duke Professor and Faculty Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University
• Eric R. Kandel, MD, Neuropsychiatrist and 2000 Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine
• Carl Hart, Ph.D, Neuroscientist
• Denise Kandel, Ph.D, Medical sociologist
• Marc David Lewis, Ph.D, Developmental neuroscientist
• John A. List, Ph.D, Economist
• Sheigla B. Murphy, Ph.D, Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Studies at the Institute for Scientific Analysis

2014 - Where does Science Go from Here?

Steven Chu at the 2014 Conference

Lecturers included:

• Steven Weinberg, Ph.D, Theoretical physicist and 1979 Nobel laureate in physics
• Sir Harold W. Kroto, Ph.D, 1996 Nobel laureate in chemistry
• Steven Chu, Ph.D, 12th United States Secretary of Energy and 1997 Nobel laureate in physics
• Antonio Damasio, MD, PhD, Neuroscientist and head of the Brain and Creativity Institute
• Harry B. Gray, PhD, Electron transfer (ET) chemist
• Freeman Dyson, FRS, Theoretical physicist and mathematician
• Patricia Smith Churchland, Neurophilosopher

2013 - The Universe at its Limits

Lecturers included:

• Frank A. Wilczek, Ph.D, American theoretical physicist, Mathematician, 2004 Nobel laureate in physics, discovered time crystal in 2012.
• Samuel C.C. Ting, Ph.D, American theoretical physicist and 1976 Nobel laureate in physics for discovering the subatomic J/ψ particle.
• George F. Smoot III, Ph.D, 2006 Nobel laureate in physics
• Alexei V. Filippenko, Ph.D, American astrophysicist on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths.
• S. James Gates Jr., Ph.D, theoretical physicist known for work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory.
• Lawrence M. Krauss, Ph.D, American-Canadian theoretical physicist and cosmologist
• Tara G. Shears, Ph.D, Physicist

Other past Nobel Conferences include:

• 2012 - Our Global Ocean
• 2011 - The Brain and Being Human
• 2010 - Making Food Good

• 2009 - H₂O Uncertain Resource
• 2008 - Who Were the First Humans?
• 2007 - Heating Up: The Energy Debate
• 2006 - Medicine: Prescription for Tomorrow
• 2005 - The Legacy of Einstein
• 2004 - The Science of Aging
• 2003 - The Story of Life
• 2002 - The Nature of Nurture
• 2001 - What is still to be discovered?

2000 - Globalization 2000: Economic Prospects and Challenges

Lecturers included:

• Robert A. Mundell, Ph.D, Economist and 1999 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
• Joseph Stiglitz, Ph.D, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001
• Jeffrey D. Sachs, PH.D, Economist, since 2017 serves as special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
• Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati, PH.D, Economist
• Amitai Etzioni, PH.D, former senior adviser to the White House.

• 1999 - Genetics in the New Millennium
• 1998 - Virus: The Human Connection
• 1997 - Unveiling the Solar System: 30 Years of Exploration
• 1996 - Apes at the End of an Age: Primate Language and Behavior in the '90s
• 1995 - The New Shape of Matter: Materials Challenge Science
• 1994 - Unlocking the Brain: Progress in Neuroscience
• 1993 - Nature Out of Balance: The New Ecology
• 1992 - Immunity: The Battle Within
• 1991 - The Evolving Cosmos
• 1990 - Chaos: The New Science
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Mitchell Feigenbaum – The Transition to Chaos
    • James Gleick – Chaos and Beyond
    • Benoit Mandelbrot – The Fractal Geometry of Nature and Chaos
    • Heinz-Otto Peitgen – The Beauty of Fractals
    • John Polkinghorne – Chaos and Cosmos: A Theological Approach
    • Ilya Prigogine (Chemistry '77) – Time, Dynamics, and Chaos: Integrating Poincaré’s “Non-Integrable Systems”
    • Stephen Smale – On the Role of Mathematics in Chaos

• 1989 - The End of Science?
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Sheldon Lee Glashow (Physics '79) – The Death of Science!?
    • Ian Hacking – Disunified Sciences
    • Sandra Harding – Why Physics Is a Bad Model for Physics: Feminist Issues
    • Mary Hesse – Need a Constructed Reality Be Non-Objective? Reflections on Science and Society
    • Gerald Holton – How to Think about the End of Science
    • Gunther S. Stent – Cognitive Limits and the End of Science
• 1988 - The Restless Earth
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Don L. Anderson – Earth’s Interior: The Last Frontier
    • W.G. Ernst – The Pacific Rim: Plate Tectonics, Continental Growth, and Geological Hazards and The Future of the Earth Sciences
    • David Ray Griffin – The Restless Universe: A Postmodern View
    • Jack Oliver – Plate Tectonics: The Discovery, the Lesson, the Opportunity
    • David M. Raup – Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth
    • J. Tuzo Wilson – Some Controls That Greatly Affect Surface Responses to Mantle Convection beneath Continents
• 1987 - Evolution of Sex
  • Lecturers Included:
    • William Donald Hamilton – Sex and Disease
    • Philip J. Hefner – Sex, for God’s Sake: Theological Perspectives
    • Sarah Blaffer Hrdy – The Primate Origins of Female Sexuality and Raising Darwin’s Consciousness: Was There a Male Bias?
    • Lynn Margulis – Sex in the Microcosm
    • Dorion Sagan – Sex in the Microcosm
    • Peter H. Raven – The Meaning of Flowers: Evolution of Sex in Plants
    • John Maynard Smith – Theories of the Evolution of Sex
• 1986 - The Legacy of Keynes
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Karl Brunner – The Sociopolitical Vision of Keynes
    • James M. Buchanan (Economics '86) – Keynesian Follies
    • Geoffrey C. Harcourt – The Legacy of Keynes: Theoretical Methods and Unfinished Business
    • Axel Leijonhufvud – Whatever Happened to Keynesian Economics?
    • Ronald Haydn Preston – The Ethical Legacy of John Maynard Keynes
    • Baron Stig Ramel – The Swedish Model: Keynesian Policies Put into Practice
    • Lester Thurow – Constructing a Microeconomics That Is Consistent with Keynesian Macroeconomics
    • James Tobin (Economics '81) – Keynesian Economics and Its Renaissance
• 1985 - The Impact of Science on Society
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Winston J. Brill – The Impact of Biotechnology and the Future of Agriculture
    • Daniel J. Kevles – Genetic Progress and Religious Authority: Historical Reflections
    • Salvador E. Luria (Medicine '69) – The Single Artificer
    • J. Robert Nelson – Mechanistic Mischief and Dualistic Dangers in a Scientific Society
    • Merritt Roe Smith – Technology, Industrialization, and the Idea of Progress in America
• 1984 - How We Know: The Inner Frontiers of Cognitive Science
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Daniel Dennett – Can Machines Think?
    • Gerald Edelman (Medicine '72) – Neural Darwinism: Population Thinking and Higher Brain Function
    • Brenda Milner – Memory and the Human Brain
    • Arthur Peacocke – A Christian “Materialism”?
    • Roger Schank – Modeling Memory and Learning
    • Herbert Simon (Economics '78) – Some Computer Simulation Models of Human Learning
• 1983 - Manipulating Life
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Christian Anfinsen (Chemistry '72) – Bio-Engineering: Short-Term Optimism and Long-Term Risk
    • Willard Gaylin – What’s So Special about Being Human?
    • June Goodfield – Without Laws, Oaths and Revolutions
    • Clifford Grobstein – Manipulating Life: The God-Satan Ratio
    • Karen Lebacqz – The Ghosts Are on the Wall: A Parable for Manipulating Life
    • Lewis Thomas – The Limitations of Medicine as a Science
• 1982 - Darwin's Legacy
  • Lecturers Included:
  • Stephen Jay Gould – Evolutionary Hopes and Realities
  • Richard E. Leakey – African Origins: A Review of the Record
  • Sir Peter Medawar (Medicine '60) – The Evidences of Evolution
  • Jaroslav Pelikan – Darwin’s Legacy: Emanation, Evolution, and Development
  • Edward O. Wilson – Sociobiology: From Darwin to the Present
    • Additional Presenters:
      • Irving Stone – The Human Mind after Darwin
• 1981 - The Place of Mind in Nature
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Ragnar Granit (Medicine '67) – Reflections on the Evolution of the Mind and Its Environment
    • Wolfhart Pannenberg – Spirit and Mind
    • Richard Rorty – Mind as Ineffable
    • John Archibald Wheeler – Bohr, Einstein, and the Strange Lesson of the Quantum
    • Eugene Wigner (Physics '63) – The Limitations of the Validity of Present-Day Physics
      • Additional Presenters:
        • Czesław Miłosz (Literature '80) – Reflections
• 1980 - The Aesthetic Dimension of Science
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Freeman J. Dyson – Manchester and Athens
    • Charles Hartshorne – Science as the Search for the Hidden Beauty of the World
    • William N. Lipscomb Jr. (Chemistry '76) – Some Aesthetic Aspects of Science
    • Gunther Schuller – Form and Aesthetics in Twentieth Century Music
    • Chen Ning Yang (Physics '57) – Beauty and Theoretical Physics
      • Additional Presenters:
        • Isaac Bashevis Singer - On Beauty

• 1979 - The Future of the Market Economy
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Robert Benne – Ought the Market Economy Have a Future?
    • Richard Lipsey – An Economist Looks at the Future of the Price System
    • Kenneth McLennan – Redefining Government’s Role in the Market System
    • Baron Stig Ramel – Sweden: How a Mixed Economy Gets Mixed Up
    • Mark Willes – Rational Expectations and the Future of the Market System
• 1978 - Global Resources: Perspectives and Alternatives
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Ian Barbour – Justice, Freedom, and Sustainability
    • Barry Commoner – A New Historic Passage: The Transition to Renewable Resources
    • Garrett Hardin – An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament
    • Tjalling C. Koopmans (Economics '75) – Projecting Economic Aspects of Alternative Futures
    • Letitia Obeng – Benevolent Yokes in Different Worlds
• 1977 - The Nature of Life
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Max Delbrück (Medicine '69) – Mind from Matter?
    • René Dubos – Biological Memory and the Living Earth
    • Sidney W. Fox – The Origin and Nature of Protolife
    • Bernard M. Loomer – The Web of Life
    • Peter R. Marler – In the Mind’s Eye: Perception and Innate Knowledge
• 1976 - The Nature of the Physical Universe
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Murray Gell-Mann (Physics '69) – What Are the Building Blocks of Matter?
    • Sir Fred Hoyle – An Astronomer’s View of the Evolution of Man
    • Stanley L. Jaki – The Chaos of Scientific Cosmology
    • Hilary W. Putnam – The Place of Facts in a World of Values
    • Steven Weinberg (Physics '79) – Is Nature Simple?
    • Victor F. Weisskopf – What Is an Elementary Particle?
• 1975 - The Future of Science
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Sir John C. Eccles (Medicine '63) – The Brian-Mind Problem as a Frontier of Science
    • Langdon Gilkey – The Future of Science
    • Polykarp Kusch (Physics '55) – A Personal View of Science and the Future
    • Glenn T. Seaborg (Chemistry '51) – New Signposts for Science
• 1974 - The Quest for Peace
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Rubem Alves – Diagnosis of a Sickness: The Will to War
    • Elisabeth Mann Borgese – The World Communities as a Peace System
    • Polykarp Kusch (Physics '55) – Is Enduring Peace a Realistic Hope?
    • Robert Jay Lifton – Survival and Transformation—From War to Peace
    • Baron Stig Ramel – Nationalism and International Peace
    • Paul A. Samuelson (Economics '70) – Economics and Peace
• 1973 - The Destiny of Women
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Mary Daly – Scapegoat Religion and the Sacrifice of Women
    • Martha W. Griffiths – Legal and Social Rights and Responsibilities of Women
    • Beatrix Hamburg – The Biology of Sex Differences
    • Eleanor Maccoby – The Development of Sex Differences in Intellect and Social Behavior
    • Johnnie Tillmon – The Changing Cultural Images of the Black Woman in America
• 1972 - The End of Life
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Alexander Comfort – Changing the Life Span
    • Ulf S. von Euler (Medicine '70) – Physiological Aspects of Aging and Death
    • Nathan A. Scott Jr. – The Modern Imagination of Death
    • Krister Stendahl – Immortality Is Too Much and Too Little
    • George Wald (Medicine '67) – The Origin of Death
    • Additional Presenters - Edgar M. Carlson - Moderator
• 1971 - Shaping the Future
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Norman E. Borlaug (Peace '70) – The World Food Problem—Present and Future
    • John McHale – Shaping the Future: Problems, Priorities, and Imperatives
    • Glenn T. Seaborg (Chemistry '51) – Shaping the Future—Through Science and Technology
    • Joseph Sittler – The Perils of Futurist Thinking: A Common Sense Reflection
    • Additional Speakers - Anthony J. Wiener - Faust's Progress: Methodology for Shaping the Future
• 1970 - Creativity
  • Lecturers Included:
    • William A. Arrowsmith - The Creative University
    • Jacob Bronowski - The Creative Process
    • Willard F. Libby (Chemistry '60) – Creativity in Science
    • Donald W. MacKinnon – Creativity: A Multi-faceted Phenomenon
    • Gordon Parks – Creativity to Me

• 1969 - Communication
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Leroy G. Augenstein - A Little Black Box Called the Mind
    • Noam Chomsky - Form and Meaning in Natural Language
    • Abraham Kaplan - The Life of Dialogue
    • Eric H. Lenneberg - A Word between Us
    • Peter R. Marler - Animals and Man: Communication and Its Development
    • Additional Presenters - Edgar M. Carlson - Moderator
• 1968 - The Uniqueness of Man
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Theodosius Dobzhansky - The Pattern of Human Evolution
    • Sir John C. Eccles (Medicine '63) - The Experiencing Self
    • Ernan McMullin - Man's Effort to Understand the Universe
    • W.H. Thorpe - Vitalism and Organicism
    • S.L. Washburn - The Evolution of Human Behavior
    • Daniel Day Williams - The Prophetic Dimension
• 1967 - The Human Mind
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Sir John C. Eccles (Medicine '63) - Evolution and the Conscious Self
    • James M. Gustafson - Christian Humanism and the Human Mind
    • Holger Hyden - Biochemical Aspects of Learning and Memory
    • Seymour S. Kety - Biochemical Aspects of Mental States
    • Francis O. Schmitt - Molecular Parameters in Brain Function
    • Huston Smith - Human versus Artificial Intelligence
    • Nils K. Stahle - The Nobel Foundation at Work
• 1966 - The Control of the Environment[7]
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Kenneth E. Boulding - The Prospects of Economic Abundance
    • René Dubos - Adaptations to the Environment and Man's Future
    • Roger Revelle - The Conquest of the Oceans
    • Carl T. Rowan - The Free Spirit in a Controlled Environment
    • Glenn T. Seaborg (Chemistry '51) - The Control of Energy
    • Additional Presenters - Orville L. Freeman - Convocation Speaker
• 1965 - Genetics and the Future of Man
  • Lecturers Included:
    • Kingsley Davis - Sociological Aspects of Genetic Control
    • H. Bentley Glass - The Effect of Changes in the Physical Environment on Genetic Changes
    • R. Paul Ramsey - Moral and Religious Implications of Genetic Control
    • Sheldon C. Reed - The Normal Process of Genetic Change in a Stable Physical Environment
    • William B. Shockley (Physics '56) - Population Control or Eugenics
    • Edward L. Tatum (Medicine '58) - The Possibility of Manipulating Genetic Change
    • Additional Presenters - Phillip S Hench (Medicine '50) - Honorary Chair, and Polykarp Kusch (Physics '55) - Symposium Chair

• Nobel Conference official website
• Archival finding aid for the collection Nobel Conference. Nobel Conference Collection, 1965-Ongoing. GACA Collection 92. Gustavus Adolphus College Archives, St. Peter, Minnesota.