Adam Savage, special effects designer for Hollywood films and former MythBusters co-host and producer, will deliver the fourth annual Mossman Lecture at 6:30 p.m. September 21 at Cox Auditorium in the Alumni Memorial Building.
Free parking will be available until 9:00 p.m. in the G10 Garage, adjacent to Neyland Stadium.
The son of a Sesame Street animator father and a psychotherapist mother, Savage has developed special effects for many blockbuster movies, including Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded.
A self-defined skeptic, Savage is also known as a former host of Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, a TV show that seeks to confirm or dismantle popular beliefs with the help of scientific evidence.
Currently, Savage is keeping himself busy running two projects. This fall, the Science Channel will launch the spin-off MythBusters Jr., co-hosted by Savage with a group of very smart kids.
“To be able to confront them [his junior co-hosts] with great questions and the resources to answer them is such a dream,” Savage said in an interview with CNET earlier this year.
He also writes and vlogs for Tested, a website dedicated to experimentation with scientific and tech products, some of them recommended by readers and viewers.
Throughout his career, Savage has been recognized several times. Among his most notable accolades are a 2009 Emmy Award nomination and the Harvard Secular Society’s 2010 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, a distinction granted for helping build “a model nonreligious community where humanist values inspire people to connect deeply and change the world.”
Savage’s lecture coincides with the dedication and official opening of the Ken and Blaire Mossman Building, a six-floor facility that will house classrooms and laboratories for the study of microbiology, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, psychology, and nutrition. A ribbon-cutting ceremony led by UT’s Interim Chancellor Wayne T. Davis will take place on September 21 at 3:30 p.m.
The lecture series is possible thanks to a gift made to UT by the late Ken and Blaire Mossman, who met in Knoxville in 1968 while pursuing their degrees at UT. Ken Mossman earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in health physics and radiation biology through the Institute of Radiation Biology, a joint program of UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in 1970 and 1973. Blaire Mossman earned a bachelor’s degree in French from UT in 1971.
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MOSSMAN DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
An Evening with Adam Savage
Friday, September 21, 6:30 p.m.
Alumni Memorial Building, Cox Auditorium
KEN AND BLAIRE MOSSMAN BUILDING DEDICATION
Words by Wayne T. Davis, UT’s Interim Chancellor
Friday, September 21 at 3:30 p.m.
1303 Cumberland Avenue
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CONTACT:
Andrea Schneibel (andrea.schneibel@utk.edu, 865-974-3993)