Katherine Coles has spent two years preparing for three days.
From April 25 to 27, the U held its first symposium of science and literature.
With three keynote speakers and a broadcast of the NPR program “Science Friday,” the three-day symposium had one goal in mind: to bridge the gap between science and literature at the U and other major universities.
Coles, an associate professor of English and the director of the creative writing program, served as the director of the symposium.
The culmination of hard work and dedication became a reality on Thursday night, when novelist Richard Powers began speaking.
Powers, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said Coles first contacted him six months ago about participating in the symposium.
“My impression of her was that she was somebody who could combine the creative skills of a writer with the analytical skills of an administrator,” Powers said.
Powers said that the link between science, technology and literature is one that will continue to grow and co-exist in the future.
“My personal sense is that you cannot understand life in the early 21st century without understanding the tremendous infrastructure of technology that makes us who we are,” he said.
In addition to speakers, the symposium included panel discussions and technology demonstrations in the Merrill Engineering Building and Skaggs Auditorium.
Demonstrations ranged from a 3-D tour of the human brain to the dangers of using a cell phone while driving.
However, the highlights of the symposium were all held in Gould Auditorium, where the speakers presented their lectures.
Rodney Brooks, a professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is also the director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
“Years before I ever saw a computer, I was trying to build them,” he said.
Brooks, who spoke for nearly 90 minutes to a standing-room only crowd, said during his Friday night presentation that by the end of the next millennium, “humans will become their machines.”
Brooks said that technological advancements in the future may include retinal implants for blind people which would allow them to see and later, intra-cranial implants that would allow people to have wireless Internet connections in their heads.
“I think we’re going to get much more exquisite control over molecular infrastructures than we thought possible,” Brooks said.
Coles, who comes from a family of scientists, said that bridging literature and science is important, but that “a symposium like this revolves around the speakers, not the topic.”
The Friday afternoon NPR broadcast of “Science Friday” marked the first time a national NPR program was broadcast from the U campus.
KUER, an NPR affiliate at the U, called Karin Vergoth, the producer of “Science Friday,” and pitched the idea of broadcasting the program from the Gould Auditorium.
“I talked on the phone with Ira Flatow [host of “Science Friday”] and he liked the idea, so here we are,” Coles said.
Anne Foerst, a professor of theology and computer science at St. Bonaventure University in New York, rounded out the keynote speakers with a Saturday morning lecture on the relationship between religion and science.
She said that when humans build robots, they are trying to create social partners.
“We try to build robots as social as we are or as emotional as we are, so we’re trying to reproduce our own image in them,” she said.
Foerst, who worked with Brooks in the MIT artificial intelligence laboratory, was the theological adviser to the “Cog” and “Kismet” projects, two robots constructed in the lab.
Kismet was built by MIT engineers to imitate the social interactions between a mother and a child in its first 18 months, complete with breaking eye contact and facial expressions.
“I’ve often said we’ve achieved success in building a robot when our graduate students feel bad about turning off a robot,” Brooks said.
For Powers, the author, science is a major focus of his work.
“I became a vicarious molecular geneticist for three years when writing ‘The Goldbug Variations’,” Powers said.
He said at the University of Illinois, “humanities is strong, but it certainly operates in a different sphere,” than the sciences.
Among the guests at the symposium was U President Bernie Machen and Vice President for Research Raymond Gesteland.
“We hope to continue to bring people from across the campus and across the nation to discuss fundamental interdisciplinary topics,” Machen said.
Ray Gesteland, who introduced Foerst to the audience before her Saturday morning speech, said “the bar has been set very high for the next event in this series.”
With a five-year commitment from the vice president for research, the first annual Utah Symposium of Science & Literature has a bright future at the U.
For Coles, the excitement, preparation and nerves all paid off.
“Everybody’s here and they are just as brilliant as you thought they would be,” she said. “There comes a moment where you just think, ‘this boat is sailing no matter what’, so it doesn’t pay to be nervous.”
With preparations for next year’s symposium already underway, Sunday was a welcome break for Coles.
“Preparations for next year will hit full stride on Monday. I think I’m going to take Sunday off,” she said.