Honors College
University Forum Speaker Schedule
Page Content
In 2025, University Forum will continue the half-century long tradition of bringing incredible speakers to the University and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Honors College with Southern Miss alumnus Russell Moore as its first speaker.
Registration is not required and all Forum events are free and open to the public. We are happy, however, to send you a reminder email (that will include an easy-to-use link to attend virtually).
All Spring 2026 Forum events will be held in person on the Hattiesburg Campus. Most Forum events are also available through a livestream broadcast. Links to live events will be posted below the speaker’s bio on the day of the event. (Live streams of Forum events are offered as a courtesy; unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the quality of the live stream and cannot take questions from the online audience. If you are a student and your instructor requires proof of attendance, you must attend the in-person event to have your attendance recorded.)
If you require a sign language translator or any other accessibility accommodations, please contact University Forum at forumFREEMississippi at least one week prior to the event.
Live Facebook Feed
Spring 2026 Speaker Schedule
Carl Zimmer
New York Times science columnist and author
February 10, 2026
6:30 p.m.
Carl Zimmer is an award-winning New York Times columnist, bestselling author, and one of the most respected science journalists today. During the Covid-19 pandemic, his reporting was part of the team coverage that won The New York Times a Pulitzer Prize in 2021. Renowned for his engaging storytelling, he has written fifteen acclaimed books, including and . In his latest book, , Zimmer uncovers the hidden world of the air we breathe, teeming with invisible life and unseen dangers. He takes readers through the history of aerobiology, from Louis Pasteur’s discovery of airborne germs to the overlooked pioneers who warned about airborne infections long before the Covid-19 pandemic. Zimmer is an adjunct professor in Yale University’s Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, where he teaches writing and biology.
Jill Sonke
US Cultural Policy Fellow with Stanford University, leading researcher of the arts in medicine
March 24, 2026
6:30 p.m.
Jill Sonke, PhD, is a US Cultural Policy Fellow with Stanford University, Co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab in partnership with University College London, and Director of Research Initiatives and a Research Professor in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida (UF). She is an artist, cultural strategist and mixed-methods researcher, and is the recipient of over 350 grants and awards for her programs and research at the intersection of the arts and health.
Steven Strogatz
Applied mathematician at Cornell University and author
April 14, 2026
6:30 p.m.
Dr. Steven Strogatz is an applied mathematician who works in the areas of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, often on topics inspired by the curiosities of everyday life such as synchronously flashing fireflies and coordinated applause. A professor at Cornell University, he is author of , , , , and , and is co-host of Quanta Magazine’s podcast. His work on collective dynamics has been considered foundational to interdisciplinary applications of complex networks in epidemiology, business, physics, and sociology.
Fall 2025 Speaker Schedule
Russell Moore
Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, USM alumnus
September 9, 2025
6:30 p.m.
Thad Cochran Center Grand Ballroom
Russell Moore is Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America. An alumnus of USM and an ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and as the provost and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he taught theology and ethics.
Nina Tandon
Human tissue repair / Entrepreneur / Biomedical engineer
October 21, 2025
6:30 p.m.
Thad Cochran Center Grand Ballroom
Nina Tandon is the CEO and co-founder of Epibone, a business for growing artificial tissues, like hearts and bones, that can be safely put into the body. Nina Tandon is leading the charge of biology’s industrial revolution by overseeing the world’s first company growing living human bone for skeletal reconstruction. She is a senior fellow at the Lab for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia and currently serves as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at Cooper Union.
Dava Sobel
Author of Longitude
November 4, 2025
6:30 p.m.
Thad Cochran Center Grand Ballroom
Dava Sobel is the author of the international bestseller , the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist , , , , and , and co-author of . She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former New York Times science reporter, and currently editor of the “Meter” poetry column in Scientific American, she lives on Long Island.