Dr. Moiya McTier, astrophysicist, folklorist, and science communicator, will give a talk as the 2023 Occidental College Phi Beta Kappa speaker.
After graduating from Harvard as the first person in the school’s history to study both astronomy and mythology, Dr. Moiya McTier earned her PhD in astrophysics at Columbia University where she was selected as a National Science Foundation research fellow. Moiya has consulted with companies like Disney and PBS on their fictional worlds, helped design exhibits for the New York Hall of Science, and given hundreds of talks about science around the globe (including features on MSNBC, NPR, and NowThis News).
For more information on Dr. Moiya McTier please visit https://www.moiyamctier.com
About the Phi Beta Kappa Speaker Series
The Phi Beta Kappa Speakers Series was created in 2006 with a gift from the late New York entrepreneur Robert M. Ruenitz ’60 and his wife Jeri Hamilton through the Ruenitz Trust to honor the memory of Ruenitz’s parents, Esther Merriman Ruenitz and Dr. Robert C. Ruenitz. Founded in 1926, the Occidental Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa is one of the first chapters of the country’s oldest academic honor society to be chartered at a liberal arts college in the western United States. This year's Phi Beta Kappa lecture is being held in honor of Ruenitz, who died in October 2022.
Founded in 1926, the Occidental Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa is one of the first chapters of the country’s oldest academic honor society to be chartered at a liberal arts college in the western United States.
Previous Ruenitz lecturers have included internationally renowned activist, environmentalist, and two-time vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke; Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the physician, scientist and activist who exposed the Flint water crisis; law professor, civil rights advocate and intersectional theorist Kimberle Crenshaw; John Holdren, climate and energy scientist and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for President Barack Obama; physicist and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram; former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, MD; Ahmed Zewail, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist; author and educational critic Jonathan Kozol; social critic Judith Butler; author and activist Ayaan Hirsi; Bill Nye the Science Guy; medical activist Paul Farmer; mental health legal expert Elyn R. Saks; and psychologist and human memory expert Robert A. Bjork.
