44th Pullias Lecture, with AAAS’s Dr. Shirley Malcom, Set for March 21

The Pullias Lecture, an annual event hosted by the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the Rossier School of Education, will be held on Tuesday, March 21at 11:00am in USC’s Town & Gown Ballroom. This year’s speaker will be Dr. Shirley Malcom, Senior Advisor and Director of SEA Change at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The event, which includes lunch, is open to all, with prior registration required.

Dr. Malcom’s speech is titled “No Equity Without Systemic Change: My Personal Journey,” and will focus on her career as a change-leader for women and people of color in higher education and the sciences, with an emphasis on achieving equity for all.  Furthermore, she will highlight the necessity of a systemic approach in order to make progress on change and her own journey to realize systemic change and advice for others working toward the same goal.  

Dr. Shirley M. Malcom is Senior Advisor and Director of SEA Change at AAAS, the world’s largest general science organization. Malcom received her bachelors of science at the University of Washington and MA at the University of California, Los Angeles, both for zoology. In 1974, she would go on to receive her PhD from Pennsylvania State University in ecology. Some previous positions include high school teacher, assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and program officer in science education at the National Science Foundation, before she joined AAAS.

Throughout her career, Dr. Malcom’s work has focused on the increasing access and advancement of women, especially women of color, in science. She is a leader in efforts to improve accessibility of education and careers in science and engineering for girls and women as well as Black, Indigenous and Hispanic communities. Her inspiring work has led to numerous honors such as Sigma Xi Gold Key Award, University of Washington’s Alumna Summa Laude Dignata Award, the UCLA Medal and the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

The Pullias Lecture, established in 1978 and dedicated to the memory of Earl V. Pullias, brings a nationally-recognized scholar to the USC campus to participate in an ongoing academic dialogue on significant topics in higher and postsecondary education. Previous Pullias Lecture speakers include Janet Napolitano, Sarita Brown and Freeman Hrabowski.

Learn more about the Pullias Lecture at https://pulliasarchive.equitygraded.org/pullias-lectures/

The world’s leading research center on student access and success in higher education, the Pullias Center for Higher Education promotes equity while advancing innovative, scalable solutions to improve college outcomes for underserved students and enhancing the performance of postsecondary institutions. The Pullias Center is located within the USC Rossier School of Education, one of the world’s premier centers for graduate study in urban education.