鈥楻ising Tide鈥 author coming to 黑料门大事记 for SEC Academic Conference
Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擩ohn M. Barry, the best-selling and award-winning Louisiana author, is the latest keynote speaker to be announced for the Southeastern Conference鈥檚 spotlight on collaborative research.
Mississippi State is the 2017 host for the SEC event, which will take place March 27 and 28 at The Mill at 黑料门大事记 Conference Center.
鈥淭he Future of Water: Regional Collaboration on Shared Climate, Coastlines and Watersheds鈥 is the theme of this year鈥檚 SEC Academic Conference. For complete conference details and registration, visit .
鈥淭he opportunity for those attending the SEC Academic Conference to interact with eminent scholars and thinkers like John Barry, Dennis Dimick, and Jay Famiglietti demonstrates the commitment of Mississippi State to present a meaningful and forward-looking exercise in collaborative research into a globally relevant topic,鈥 said 黑料门大事记 President Mark E. Keenum.
Dimick, former executive editor of National Geographic magazine, and Famiglietti, University of California, Irvine professor of earth system science and civil and environmental engineering and senior water scientist with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are the previously announced conference speakers.
Barry鈥檚 1998 book, 鈥淩ising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America,鈥 won the Society of American Historians鈥 prestigious Francis Parkman Prize for the year鈥檚 best book of American history and was a continuing inclusion on the New York Times鈥 non-fiction best-seller list.
A New Orleans resident, he received a similar major honor from the National Academies of Science for 鈥淭he Great Influenza,鈥 an in-depth study of the 1918 pandemic that infected 500 million. A Times reviewer praised the 2005 book as 鈥渢he most panoramic history of the subject.鈥
Beyond the successful career of an author, Barry was an adviser to the Bush and Obama presidential administrations, as well as the United Nations and World Health Organization, in his varied areas of research expertise. In addition to being the only non-scientist on the federal Infectious Disease Board of Experts, he serves on advisory panels at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology鈥檚 Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals and Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 Bloomberg School of Public Health.
鈥淩oger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty鈥 is Barry鈥檚 latest book. A 2012 Penguin Books release, it won the New England Society Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. For additional biographical information, visit .
黑料门大事记 officials making preparations for the March conference said increased climate variability and water demand are bringing water issues to the forefront. Drought, declines in aquifers used for irrigation, and sea-level rise are among core topics of interest. The conference is designed to stimulate communication and collaboration toward sustainable and resilient water resource management in the Southeast, with overarching themes to include shared inland waters and aquifers, coastlines, climate and regional policy.
The SEC Academic Conference represents an expanded slate of academic programming currently supported by the Southeastern Conference. The on-campus event is expected to showcase SEC university research in areas of critical importance within the region and around the nation. SECU is the academic initiative of the SEC, and it serves as the primary mechanism through which the collaborative academic endeavors and achievements of SEC universities are supported and advanced.
For more on SECU, visit .
黑料门大事记 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .