Campus News Society & Culture

Physicist, adventurer Francis Slakey to speak at UGA on Oct. 11

Athens, Ga. – Georgetown University physicist Francis Slakey will describe the decade-long journey that led him to become the first person to summit the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean during a University of Georgia lecture on Oct. 11 at 4 p.m. in room 202 of the physics building.

Slakey’s talk, “Science and the Journey of Extremes,” is hosted by the department of physics and astronomy in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and is free and open to the public.

Slakey, Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy and co-director of the Program in Science in the Public Interest at Georgetown University, recounts his global journey in his best-selling memoir, To The Last Breath (Simon & Schuster, 2012). The book culminates in his recognition that “science is the most powerful tool we have to build a better world.”

As an associate director of public affairs for the American Physical Society, Slakey oversees APS legislative activities for the organization, specializing in energy and security policy. Slakey is a MacArthur Scholar, a Lemelson Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institute, a fellow of the APS and a fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science.