Lifelong Scholar Society
Florida Tech’s Lifelong Scholar Society is a community of curious minds who are passionate about sharing knowledge. Throughout the year, the society hosts a series of lectures. Topics range from historical writers and contemporary art to the Florida habitat, space exploration, and more. Join us and become part of a world of exciting people!
Upcoming Lectures:
Thursday, January 23, 2025 - 5:30 PM EST
Center for Aeronautics & Innovation, 1050 W. NASA Boulevard, Melbourne, FL 32901
Resilience - Solutions for Protecting our Biospheric Universe
by Clifford Bragdon, Ph.D., ASA Fellow, Former Professor, Dean, Vice-Pres., Florida Tech
Program Description: The resilience of plants, animals, and humans inhabiting our biosphere is essential for their protection and preservation, based on four interrelated needs: health, safety, security, and sustainability. Population growth on earth is currently 8.3 billion, and it is growing to nearly 10.0 billion by 2050. There are four primary threats that will require our collective attention including: natural disasters, human disasters (accidental and intentional), climate change, and transportation gridlock. Solutions to these threats are possible, but our society will need a new vocabulary and a solution-based strategy for creating a more viable habitat. Dr. Bragdon will enlighten us on 12 new concepts in his presentation, e.g., space use employs 3-dimensions while land use is just 2-dimensional, and all five human senses should be utilized (Kansai) rather than being dominated by the sense of vision, limiting problem solving. We need multi-sensory architects, engineers, and planners.
The cost of solutions to control threats is also escalating, requiring a larger percentage of the world's Gross Domestic Product. By 2025 it is estimated that solutions to these four combined problem areas will be equivalent to 30% of the total GDP. Dr. Bragdon presents new thresholds where there are more creative solutions such as integrated transport and intermodalism combined with logistics, and spatial management utilizing aerial, surface, and subsurface methods collectively, real-time sensory integrated three-dimensional, simulation, and patented material attributes for construction (e.g., Neuskyn). With a properly applied neoteric vocabulary using futuristic objectives that are based on resiliency, the future is very promising.
Utilize "historic-futurism" in your life and remember the words in the Holy Bible, Proverbs 29: 18 Where there is no vision, people perish. Sir Winston Churchill was one of the disciples of progressive historic-futurism. "The creative future requires us to understand the past."
About the Speaker: Dr. Bragdon is a recognized academician, researcher and consultant specializing in urban planning, intermodal transport, cybersecurity, resilience, simulation, environmental health, and sustainability. He has held notable academic positions at Georgia Tech, Emory University, Florida Tech, Florida Atlantic University, Dowling College-NAT Center over 50 years. This included Distinguished Professor, Clinical Professor, Dean, Provost, Vice President, and Special Assistant to the President.
Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 5:30 PM EST
Folliard Alumni Center, 2600 S. Country Club Road, Melbourne, FL 32901
The Future Settlement of Outer Space
by Captain Winston Scott, NASA Astronaut, Former Vice President Florida Tech
Program Description: The Earth's Sun is in the mid-stages of its lifespan. In approximately 5 billion years it will have consumed its fuel and destruct.
It is estimated that within 1 billion years, human life on Earth will no longer be possible!
If the human species are to continue, human beings must find, and inhabit, another planetary home, well beyond those within our current solar system. The search for such a planet, and the development of the technology necessary to get there, must begin now.
Captain Winston Scott will discuss potential scenarios for traveling to, and habitation of Earth-like planets. He will explore the necessity for humans to "Boldly go Where No One Has gone Before"!
About the Speaker: Capt. Winston E. Scott is a retired U.S. Navy captain, astronaut, and educator, known for his exemplary contributions to aviation, space exploration, and STEM education. Born on August 6, 1950, in Miami, Florida, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Florida State University and a Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Capt. Scott served as a naval aviator and test pilot, logging over 5,000 flight hours across more than 20 aircraft. In 1992, he was selected as a NASA astronaut and flew on two Space Shuttle missions, STS-72 and STS-87, during which he conducted three spacewalks and participated in critical satellite and research operations.
Following his NASA career, Capt. Scott dedicated himself to higher education and public service, holding leadership roles at the Florida Space Authority, Florida State University, and Florida Tech. An accomplished musician, pilot, and speaker, he continues to inspire through his advocacy for science, exploration, and the arts.
Registration Opening Soon!
Thursday, March 13, 2025 - 5:30 PM EST
Center for Aeronautics & Innovation, 1050 W. NASA Boulevard, Melbourne, FL 32901
The Necessity for Marine and Coastal Preservation
by Robert Sluka, Ph.D., Lead Scientist, Marine Conservation Program, A Rocha
Program Description: Consider the oddly beautiful seahorse once abundant in the northern Indian River Lagoon. Millenia of natural selection adapted this creature for specialized habitats and gave them unique biology overturning long-held assumptions as males protect and give birth to new generations. Prized for their perceived traditional medicinal value, they are overharvested. Their habitats sensitive to the amount of nutrients in the water and destroyed by destructive forms of fishing are no longer places of refuge. This is just one of millions of species living in the ocean threatened by our actions and at a greater potential to become a casualty of the sixth mass extinction event.
Yet there is hope - science-based and community-led conservation works! Using case studies at the global, national, and local level I will examine several species and habitats through the lens of hopeful conservation - including Homo sapiens. Science helps us to identify how, when, where, and why species and habitats flourish. Join me on this hopeful expedition to the potential underwater world in the year 2050 as we explore conservation action and discover how you can be a part of protecting the 71 % of our planet covered by seawater - including the seahorses of the northern Indian River Lagoon.
About the Speaker: Dr. Robert D. Sluka leads A Rocha's Marine Conservation work in Florida, the USA and abroad. A Rocha is a global faith-based conservation organization founded in 1983 in Portugal and now working in over 20 countries worldwide (www.arocha.org). Motivated and guided by faith and science, A Rocha focuses on place-based conservation, restoring and protecting species and habitats and serving the human communities connected to them.
He is a curious explorer, applying hopeful, optimistic and holistic solutions to all that is ailing our oceans and the communities that rely on them. Dabbling in theology, he writes on the interface between Christian faith and marine conservation. He has worked cross-culturally, living for extended periods in Australia, India, Great Britain, and his native USA. Robert's research focuses on marine biodiversity conservation, plastic pollution, and fisheries, particularly marine protected areas. The ultimate goal is to glorify God through oceans and communities being transformed through holistic marine conservation.