SU announces University Lectures series speakers

SU announces University Lectures speakers

NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg, LGBTQ and trans rights activist Lynn Conway and diplomat Martin Indyk tapped to visit campus.
Published: February 9, 2019
Lynn Conway, Nina Totenberg and Martin Indyk will speak at Syracuse University in March and April
Lynn Conway, Nina Totenberg and Martin Indyk will take part in this semester's University Lectures series.

Syracuse University announced the lineup for its University Lecture Series today, with NPR’s award-winning correspondent Nina Totenberg and University of Michigan professor Lynn Conway speaking in March, followed by diplomat Martin Indyk in April.

This spring, Totenberg will be speaking on Mar. 5 at Hendricks Chapel while Conway’s event will happen on Mar. 26 at the same venue. Indyk will also speak at Hendricks Chapel to end the spring lineup.

Totenberg has worked with NPR since 1975, covering stories such as convictions in the Watergate scandal and Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings. She was the first radio journalist to be honored by the National Press Foundation as “Broadcaster of the Year.”

Lynn Conway pioneered in computer engineering as a researcher at IBM, before she was fired for revealing that she would be transitioning genders. She was able to restart her career after the transition by assuming a new name and gender identity. Conway triggered a revolution in Silicon Valley with her work on silicon chips. She became a professor at the University of Michigan in 1985. Upon retiring in 1998, she began working to support LGBTQ rights and published her memoir in 2012.

Martin Indyk served under President Bill Clinton as the National Security Advisor on Arab-Israeli issues and under President Obama as a special envoy for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and Palestine. He also served two terms as the U.S. ambassador to Israel in the late 1990s. Indyk is a distinguished fellow at the Foreign at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit think tank headquartered in New York City.

The Lecture Series events are free to enter. The announcement comes after the 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration where keynote speaker Trevor Noah spoke to Syracuse University community members in the Carrier Dome.