WMU hosts economic risk lecture Friday

By David Alexander
Western Herald

Risk expert and former president of the Royal Society of Canada, Professor William Leiss, will speak about the dangers of unsound economic practices during his lecture “Risky Business: Living with Catastrophe.”
The lecture will take place from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12 and will be in room 1260 of Western Michigan University’s Chemistry Building. It is free and open to the public.
Leiss’ lecture will focus on the idea that some crises, in particular financial crises, can permanently damage society. The discussion will touch on the current financial crisis as a template, what choices would minimize global financial risk, and how important making such choices are.
“It has become a hot topic because of risky undertakings of people in the financial world,” said Lewis Pyenson, dean of the graduate college.

According to Leiss’ Web site, risk management is the attempt to anticipate and prevent or mitigate harms that may be avoidable.

“[Leiss] is really one of the people who set up risk assessment,” Pyenson said. “He’s bringing all different types of risk assessment to the academic field.”
The Royal Society of Canada is Canada’s oldest association of scientists. The society aims to advance the sciences and humanities disciplines. Despite being born in America, in 2003, the society also named Leiss an officer after his three year stint as its president from 1999 to 2001.
Leiss is a scientist at the McLaughlin Center for Population Health Risk and Assessment at the University of Ottawa. He also held a research chair at the University of Calgary for five years where he studied risk communication and public policy.
Also the author of the science fiction series “Herasaga,” Leiss will give a workshop for upperclassman and graduate students with a focus on how to write science-based fiction while at WMU.
Both events are sponsored by the WMU Graduate College.

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Posted by kleonard on Mar 10 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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