Truth, Trust, Relationships, Progress: The Work of Unfracturing

Alex McKiernan will give the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ 2019 Lattman Visiting Scholar of Science and Society Lecture. His talk, titled “Truth, Trust, Relationships, Progress: The Work of Unfracturing." McKiernan is a lifelong rock climber who is recovering from a permanent, debilitating spinal cord injury he sustained during a car accident in 2014. He studied geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming and Penn State, and has had a varied career as a biofuels expert, mechanic, arborist, farmer, firefighter and EMT. He lives in Nebraska, where he owns and operates Robinette Farms with his wife, Chloe Diegel. His volunteer and speaking work looks at ways of improving how we tackle divisive issues. He recently founded the Lydia Foundation for Social Engagement, which seeks to promote productive conversation through projects like the podcast series "Science For the Rest of Us,” and “Good Talks for the Good Life,” which is a public, moderated discussion series about controversial topics. About the Lattman Lecture The Lattman Visiting Scholar of Science and Society lecture series was created to engage undergraduate students in a broad range of scholarly issues. It was endowed by friends and associates of Laurence Lattman, a geosciences educator who taught at Penn State from 1957 to 1970. During that time, he developed a geology course for non-geology majors, Geological Sciences 20: Planet Earth, which he taught to more than 24,000 students.