Discovery Park will hold its third annual Conference on Convergence and the Future of Research on Jan. 24. 

The event, which is free and open to the public, will run 11:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. It will include a Lunch and Learn with Discovery Park Undergraduate Research Internship students and a series of Voss Talks (TED-style talks) presented by the winners of Discovery Park’s Big Idea Challenge, followed by a panel discussion. A reception for speakers and attendees will take place after the discussion.

“The Discovery Park Big Idea Challenge was launched in May 2017 with the purpose of bringing together interdisciplinary teams that would develop convergent approaches to solving grand challenge problems,” says Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, vice president of Discovery Park. “Enormous progress has been made in the ensuing 18 months, and these presentations will highlight how these teams are creating new areas of research strength at Purdue and impacting their fields in unprecedented ways.”

The Voss Talks topics and speakers are:

• "Managing the Global Commons: Sustainable Agriculture and Use of World’s Land and Water Resources" -- Thomas Hertel, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture.
• "Harnessing Technology and Information Fusion to Enable Resilient and Sustainable Food-Water Balance under Evolving Environmental Conditions" -- David S. Ebert, the Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering; director, VACCINE (Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments); interim director, CERIAS (Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security).
• "Affordable Net Zero Housing and Transportation Solutions" -- Leigh Raymond, professor of political science, College of Liberal Arts.
• "Photonics Science and Technologies for Security, Energy and Healthcare Applications" -- Yong P. Chen, associate director of research, Birck Nanotechnology Center; director, Purdue Quantum Center; professor of physics and astronomy, College of Science; professor of electrical and computer engineering, College of Engineering.
• "Towards Cyber-Physical Vetting of Critical Infrastructures" -- Dongyan Xu, professor of computer science, College of Science.
• "Realizing Next-Generation Smart Manufacturing" -- Nathan Hartman, the Dauch Endowed Professor and associate head, Department of Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue Polytechnic Institute; director, Product Lifecycle Management Center.
• "Revolutionizing Control of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases" -- Catherine Hill, professor of entomology and vector biology, College of Agriculture.

The Voss Talks are named in memory of Purdue alumna Janice Voss, a pioneer in space travel for women. Logging five flights, she spent a total of 49 days in space and traveled 18.8 million miles in 779 Earth orbits.

Registration is available here.