Earth Week Presentation with Environmentalist David Suzuki

In a special Earth Week presentation, FOCIS welcomed David Suzuki, an award-winning scientist, broadcaster and sustainable ecology expert. Dr. Suzuki delivered a lecture on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. in the Community Arts Auditorium, where more than 600 guests watched.

Dr. Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an environmentalist who is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood format. An accomplished geneticist, Dr. Suzuki graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1958 with an honors BA in biology, followed by a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago. He held a research associateship in the Biology Division of Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Lab. He has been an assistant professor in genetics at the University of Alberta and a faculty member of the University of British Columbia. Dr. Suzuki is also a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia's Sustainable Development Research Institute.

In 1972, Dr. Suzuki was awarded the EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowship as an outstanding research scientist in Canada under the age of 35. He has won numerous academic awards and has written 43 books, including 17 for children. His 1976 textbook, An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (with A.J.F. Griffiths), remains the most widely used genetics text book in the US and has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French and German. Dr. Suzuki has consistently received high acclaim for his 30 years of award-winning work in broadcasting. In 1974, he developed and hosted the long-running popular science program, Quirks and Quarks, on CBC Radio.

Among the standing-room-only crowd were many Wayne State University students. Following Suzuki's talk, a group of WSU students met at WDET's studios with Ann Delisi to discuss what they heard and how they saw their roles in sustaining and improving our environment. WDET originally broadcast this student forum on Friday, April 24, 2009.