WATERLOO - A top scientific adviser to the American government will discuss the global food crisis in a public talk next week at the University of Waterloo.

Nina Fedoroff, science and technology adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State and USAID Administrator, will deliver the third annual Arthur J. Carty Lectureship. Her talk is entitled Seeds of a Perfect Storm: The Global Food Security Crisis. It takes place Thursday, Jan. 22 at 3 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre, J. G. Hagey Hall of the Humanities. Free admission.

"We are honoured to have Dr. Fedoroff as a guest speaker," said Terry McMahon, dean of the faculty of science. "She is a leading geneticist and molecular biologist who has contributed to the development of modern techniques used to study and modify plants."
She has performed fundamental research in the molecular biology of plant genes, as well as on how plants adapt to stressful environments. She seeks to understand the genetic organization and molecular dynamics of plant stress and hormone responses.

Fedoroff is the Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor in the Biology Department and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University.

At Pennsylvania State, she served as the founding director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. A recipient of numerous awards, Fedoroff has written more than 130 papers and two books.
One of her books, Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Foods, explores the scientific and societal issues surrounding the introduction of genetically modified crops.

Fedoroff is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences. She has served on the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. Fedoroff is a 2006 National Medal of Science laureate.
The lectureship was named after Arthur Carty, a former chair of the University of Waterloo chemistry department who has returned as the executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. It presents an annual lecture in an area of science or science policy of broad general interest.