Hosted by the university provost every semester, this lecture series features Stony
Brook's most distinguished faculty.
November 19: "9/11: From Event to Legacy"
3:30 to 5 p.m.
Wang Center Theatre
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, this Provost’s lecture will be a joint presentation
by physician Benjamin Luft, who pioneered the medical care of first responders, and
historian Nancy Tomes, who is helping Stony Brook undergraduates explore 9/11’s impact
on American history.
The conversation will feature Nancy Tomes, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor of
History, and Dr. Benjamin J. Luft, director of the World Trade Center Health Program
and the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine. It will be moderated by Andrew
Flescher, professor of public health and English.
Nancy Tomes is SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at Stony Brook University. She holds a BA from the University of Kentucky (1974) and a PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania (1978). Along with many articles and several edited collections, Tomes has authored four books.
Her books include A Generous Confidence: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the Art of Asylum Keeping (Cambridge, 1984; U Penn, 1994/2015); Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness Before 1914, with Lynn Gamwell (Cornell, 1995); The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Harvard, 1998), winner of the American Association for the History of Medicine’s Welch medal and the History of Science Society’s Davis prize, and Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers (UNC Press, 2016), winner of the 2017 Bancroft Prize. In 2011, Tomes received the American Public Health Association’s Arthur Viseltear Award for her “distinguished body of scholarship in the history of public health.” Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the National Institute for Mental Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Dr. Benjamin J. Luft
Dr. Benjamin J. Luft is the Director of the World Trade Center Health Program on Long Island and the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Trained as an infectious disease physician and physician-scientist, Dr. Luft had an established national and international research career in infectious diseases before 9/11.
His work included major contributions to the understanding and treatment of toxoplasmosis, particularly in patients with AIDS, as well as extensive research on Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. He led national collaborative research groups and multicenter studies addressing some of the major infectious disease challenges of the time, with a particular emphasis on translating advances in pathogenesis and microbiology into improved diagnosis and treatment.
Soon after September 11, 2001, Dr. Luft established a clinic to care for World Trade Center responders. That clinic has evolved into a comprehensive clinical and research program that follows more than 16,000 individuals who participated in the rescue and recovery effort. Under his leadership, the program has integrated medical, psychiatric, and social services with long-term epidemiologic and biomedical research, producing important insights into the physical and psychological consequences of disaster exposure, including post-traumatic stress disorder, cognitive impairment, accelerated aging, and chronic disease. This integrated approach has provided a unique window into how trauma and environmental exposures unfold across the life course and has helped shape new approaches to the care of this population.
Dr. Luft has also worked to preserve the experiences of responders through Remembering 9/11: An Oral History of World Trade Center Responders, a collection of nearly 500 firsthand accounts now archived at the Library of Congress. Over the last two decades, his work has sought to bring together science, clinical care, and the voices of responders to understand not only what happened on September 11, but how its consequences continue to unfold.
A panel discussion featuring faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences, Program
in Public Health, School of Communication and Journalism, and School of Social Welfare
In collaboration with the Center for Civic Justice and part of the Seawolves Vote: Midterms Matter Series
Four faculty from different fields will discuss the potential impacts of the US midterm
elections on their respective fields:
Musa al Gharbi, School of Communication and Journalism
Lisa Benz Scott, Program in Public Health
Kristen Brock-Petroshius, School of Social Welfare
Ryan Vander Wielen, College of Arts and Sciences
Spotlight Talks highlight outstanding Stony Brook faculty and eminent visitors for
their contributions to their field
Spotlight Talks Nomination Process
Members of the campus community are invited to nominate speakers for Spotlight Talks.
Nominations are evaluated by a committee.
