Richard K. Gehrenbeck Lecture

This year, the Richard K. Gehrenbeck Lecture will celebrate the legendary physicist’s contributions to the scientific community with a presentation by Christopher Reddy, Senior Scientist at the Department of Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Reddy graduated from Rhode Island College in 1992 with a BS in Chemistry and a minor in Mathematics.  He has been an avid support of the Sciences at RIC and received alumni awards in in '98 and '03.

The lecture entitled “When Science Advances but the Public Remains Behind: Rethinking The Longevity of Plastics” will focus on the public’s misunderstandings of plastic persistence. Reddy will trace the origins of the idea that plastics last forever in the environment, and recount a project that analyzed 57 informational posters from 13 countries which described the lifetime of plastics. 

The lecture is presented in memory of Richard Gehrenbeck, who taught physics and astronomy at Rhode Island College for 22 years, until his death in 1993. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Minnesota in the history of science. His course, The Rise of Modern Science, was an innovative lab-based introduction to that field. 

The lecture is sponsored by the Gehrenbeck Memorial Lectureship Fund at RIC Alumni & Foundation, the Rhode Island College Lectures Fund and the Department of Physical Sciences.