Key Conversations with Phi Beta Kappa

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Ingrid Daubechies, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Duke University and a National Medal of Science recipient. Daubechies takes us from her childhood fascination with calculating multiples to her groundbreaking work on wavelets—mathematical building blocks that have revolutionized image and signal analysis. She talks about h...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Tammy L. Kernodle, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Music at Miami University, whose work explores African American music, gender, and race in American popular culture. Kernodle shares how her working-class upbringing in Danville, Virginia, and a home filled with music led her to Virginia State University, graduate studies at The Oh...

How do frogs communicate in a world full of hungry predators and noisy cities? In this episode, Professor Ximena Bernal joins us to discuss the sensory pollutants of urban life, the impact of the environment on communication among species, and the fascinating phenomenon of inter-species “eavesdropping.” From her Colombian childhood guiding her to the research of frogs to groundbreaking research on...

Geography is often thought of as the study of physical entities, but for Dr. Mark Palmer, it is defined by relationships. A member of the Kiowa Tribe and a professor at the University of Missouri, Dr. Palmer joins Key Conversations to discuss Indigenous Geographies and the power dynamics inherent in cartography. From the Eurocentric origins of UNESCO World Heritage nominations to the "intangible"...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence sits down with Professor Margo Schlanger, a leading civil rights expert and the founder of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Schlanger reflects on her journey from a "generalist" undergraduate at Yale to a powerhouse advocate for underrepresented communities. She shares the origin story of her first major legal victory—a student-led project that secured chil...

How much control do we truly have over our brain health? In this episode, Professor Kelly Lambert, a pioneer in the field of behaviorceuticals, discusses how environmental enrichment and positive anticipation physically reshape the brain.  Drawing on her celebrated research—including the world-famous "rat driving" studies—Professor Lambert discusses what we can learn about brain health from wild a...

The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States.  The 2025 winners are Charles King for his book Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah ; Stefanos Geroulanos for his book The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins ; and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Geraldo Cadava, Professor of History at Northwestern University and author of The Hispanic Republican . Cadava takes us from the childhood experiences that shaped his interest in complex identities—moving between the affluent suburbs of Irvine and the borderlands of Tucson—to his scholarly work on the contradictory nature of Latino identity. He shares the...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Ingrid Daubechies, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Duke University and a National Medal of Science recipient. Daubechies takes us from her childhood fascination with calculating multiples to her groundbreaking work on wavelets—mathematical building blocks that have revolutionized image and signal analysis. She talks about h...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Professor Daniel Hungerman, a professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. Hungerman discusses his unique academic journey, which led him to specialize in the economics of religious and charitable organizations. He explains his research on how tax policies have a measurable impact on charitable giving in the United States, also delving into the...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Tammy L. Kernodle, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Music at Miami University, whose work explores African American music, gender, and race in American popular culture. Kernodle shares how her working-class upbringing in Danville, Virginia, and a home filled with music led her to Virginia State University, graduate studies at The Oh...

In this episode, evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen joins Fred Lawrence in a conversation about his research on extreme animal weapons— from the horns of a rhinoceros beetle to elk antlers. He discusses his family's scientific legacy, his early reluctance to follow in their footsteps, and how his childhood experiences in Kenya influenced his path. In his award-winning book, Animal Weapons: The E...

For a lot of Americans, geography is just a middle school subject or a trivia night category at their neighborhood bar. But for Professor Kendra McSweeney, the “invisible field” of geography is a way to understand the relationship between people and their environment, from adaptation to climate change to how the drug trade impacts biodiverse forests in Colombia. In this episode, McSweeney highligh...

With an international background and love of languages, Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa decided to study intensive Arabic with the encouragement of a highly influential advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, which set him on a path to becoming a professor of Arabic literature, Comparative literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. In thi...

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Professor Martin Kern, a leading scholar in Chinese antiquity and a professor at Princeton University. Kern shares his unique academic journey, from growing up in post-war Germany to studying in Beijing during a period of political transformation. He discusses the complexities of interpreting ancient Chinese texts, the challenges of nationalism in histori...

This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Kate Manne, associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, and David Livingstone Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that is of current interest both to the field and to a...

In this episode, evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen joins Fred Lawrence in a conversation about his research on extreme animal weapons— from the horns of a rhinoceros beetle to elk antlers. He discusses his family's scientific legacy, his early reluctance to follow in their footsteps, and how his childhood experiences in Kenya influenced his path. In his award-winning book, Animal Weapons: The E...

In this episode, Professor Kristina Richardson, a distinguished historian and Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, joins Fred Lawrence for a compelling conversation about her groundbreaking research on marginalized communities in medieval Islamic societies. Professor Richardson sheds light on the lives of disabled individuals, Romani crafts people, and East African enslaved laborers—groups often overl...

The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States.  The 2024 winners are Gregg Hecimovich for his book The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative ; Jeremy Eichler for his book Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance; and Emily Monosson for her book Bl...

Growing up in a New York City suburb, Corey Robin was influenced by his public high school teachers who taught American history via the Socratic method. Today, Robin tries to replicate that magnetic energy in his own classroom as a political science professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center while authoring books and essays that have been read and translated across the world. In th...

For a lot of Americans, geography is just a middle school subject or a trivia night category at their neighborhood bar. But for Professor Kendra McSweeney, the “invisible field” of geography is a way to understand the relationship between people and their environment, from adaptation to climate change to how the drug trade impacts biodiverse forests in Colombia. In this episode, McSweeney highligh...

With an international background and love of languages, Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa decided to study intensive Arabic with the encouragement of a highly influential advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, which set him on a path to becoming a professor of Arabic literature, Comparative literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. In thi...

For Professor Julia Clarke, paleontology is more than just a passion for exploration and discovery — it’s a shared, global dialogue that has the ability to permeate cultural differences. In this episode, Dr. Clarke recounts how her early interest in the history and philosophy of science merged with her desire to have a practice deeply woven into narrative. As a professor and researcher, she priori...

Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China.  Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that her understanding of sustainable development neede...

Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and cultural thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Garland-Thomson grew up with a congenital disability, an experience that highlighted the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and hearing the narratives from Black authors for the first time, the disability pionee...