Tom Siegfried, award-winning science writer and new editor-in-chief of Science News magazine, will give the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s annual Alfred and Julia Hill Lecture at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31, in the Shiloh Room of the University Center.
Siegfried will speak on “Odds Are, It’s Wrong — The Misuse of Math in Science, Medicine and the Media.” The program is free and open to the public.
Siegfried rose to national prominence as a science writer for the Dallas Morning News. From 1985 to 2004 he wrote more than 900 weekly columns and, as editor of the newspaper’s science section, he trained some of the nation’s top science and medical writers. After leaving the Morning News, he continued his popular column “The Why Files” on the Internet until the fall of 2007 when he was named editor-in-chief of Science News, the leading general science news magazine. Siegfried has published three books since 2000: “The Bit and the Pendulum,” “Strange Matters” and “A Beautiful Math.”
Siegfried’s science writing has been honored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the National Association of Science Writers and the American Chemical Society. He also has received awards from the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Headliners Club.
Siegfried holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University with majors in journalism, chemistry and history, and a master’s degree from the University of Texas in journalism with a minor in physics.
The Hill Lecture series brings distinguished science journalists to campus to share their thoughts on science, society and the mass media. The lectures are made possible by an endowment created by Tom Hill and Mary Frances Hill Holton in honor of their parents, Alfred and Julia Hill, founders of The Oak Ridger. The Hill family’s endowment of the lecture series was a gift to the UT Knoxville School of Journalism and Electronic Media in the College of Communication and Information.
The University Center is at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Phillip Fulmer Way. Parking is available for a fee in the garage on Phillip Fulmer Way next to the University Center. Refreshments will be served before and after the lecture.