Darwin Festival Returns To Salem State For 44th Year

SALEM, MA — Salem State University will link the centuries-old theory of evolution to today's most pressing needs as part of its 44th annual Darwin Festival this month.

The festival, held to coincide with Darwin's birthday, will be on Feb. 13 through Feb. 17 both on campus and online. Among this year's topics will be the relationship between evolution and disease, the role of evolution and social justice, and the impacts of climate change.

There will also be talks about penguins past and present, the secrets of the undersea forest and the evolution of the Darwin Festival itself. There will be seven in-person talks, all of which will be available for live streaming, and three webinars.

The two talks a day — at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. — are open to the greater public. The festival is geared to be of interest to both scientists and non-scientists.

Presenters include:

Stephen Young, a professor of geography and sustainability at Salem State, who uses remote sensing (satellite imaging) to analyze climate change.

Joseph L. Graves, an evolutionary biologist and author whose research upends biological assumptions about race and human biodiversity.

Athena Aktipis, author of the book The Cheating Cell, which explores how evolution helps us to understand and treat cancer.

Les Kaufman, professor of biology at Boston University whose research focuses on the creation, maintenance, and destruction of biological diversity and humanity’s ability to adapt to global change.

Salem State biology professor emeritus Susan Case, who coordinated the festival for 20 years before retiring in 2018, will open the festival.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)