Dalton Lecture Series

Julia Wattacheril, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine

Engineering Trustworthiness: How Understanding Brokenness Helps Us Move Towards Wholeness

Julia Wattacheril, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine

Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, Columbia University

Monday, March 10, 2025, 7:30 p.m.

Bauman Auditorium

The George Fox University Department of Biological and Molecular Sciences presents the 13th annual Dalton Lecture.

While physicians and scientists have been among the most trusted professions in global surveys, they too have experienced a significant breakdown in trust over the past few years. Systemic failures, perverse incentives and institutional betrayal have left them holding a reality that begs for more. In her talk, Dr. Wattacheril will walk us through one physician scientist’s approach to help make meaning out of suffering, expand towards a more whole view of what it means to care for humans and how to teach, inspire and implement the dimensions of science and healthcare that are of immense value – to humans, for humans, by humans.

The public is welcome and admission is freeA George Fox Student Research Symposium and cookie reception will follow.

Additional Lecture

Science Lecture on Cultivating Time and Space: Essential Elements for Scientific (and Spiritual) Formation in Team Science

Monday, March 10, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
Bauman Auditorium

Speaker Information

Dr. Wattacheril is a physician, scientist, and inventor with a dynamic and human-centered approach to research and integration with clinical care. She enjoys tackling difficult, field-limiting questions that emerge from caring for patients with liver disease using innovative approaches that are tested real time in multiple dimensions. The teams she leads are made of individuals with computational acumen and clinical expertise and include the relational and ethical capacities required in patient care across data science. Her current projects test hypotheses at scale across populations. She has a particular commitment to develop and translate science and medicine not just across disciplines but to those most affected and often least included in the conversation.


About the Dalton Lecture Series

The Dalton Lecture Series is sponsored by the George Fox University Department of Biology and Chemistry. These annual lectures feature eminent scientists who are Christian. The Dalton Lecture Series was born out of a desire to not only present world-renowned scientists to George Fox students and the local community, but to show how these scientists integrate their Christianity. Contrary to all-too-common thought, it is possible for a scientist to be intellectually engaged and be a Christian!

John Dalton (1766-1844) was a Quaker scientist best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory. He remained a faithful Quaker and educator his entire life.

The Dalton Lecture is open to the public and free of charge. The Dalton Lecture is followed by a reception and a George Fox University research student poster session.

Previous Lectures

2024

Speaker: Dr. Praveen Sethupathy, Chair, Department of Biomedical Sciences at Cornell University
Title: Stardust & Wonder

2023

Speaker: Dr. Deborah Haarsma, President of Biologos
Title: Should We Trust Science?

2020

Speaker: Ian H. Hutchinson, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: The True Story of Science and Faith

2019

Speaker: Dr. Richard L. Lindroth, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Ecology
Title: Climate Change and the Pursuit of Truth in a Post-truth World

2018

Speaker: Dr. Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology University of Cambridge
Title: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe?

2017

Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, Astrophysicist
Title: Universe of Wonder: Galaxies, Stars, Planets, and Life

2016

Speaker: Dr. James Tour T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University Smalley Institute of Nanoscience and Technology
Title: Jesus Christ and Nanotechnology: The impact of faith on the life of a scientist

2015

Speaker: Dr. William Phillips, 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics
Fellow and group leader of the Joint Quantum Institute of the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology
Title: Ordinary Faith, Ordinary Science

2014

Speaker: Dr. Bill Newsome, Harman Family Provostial Professor, Director of Bio-X NeuroVentures and Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University
Title: Brain, Mind and Free Will: Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?

2013

Speaker: Dr. Henry F. Schaefer III, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry Director, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at University of Georgia
Title: The Big Bang, Stephen Hawking and God 

2012

Speaker: Dr. Gerald Gabrielse, Leverett Professor of Physics, Harvard University
Title: God of Antimatter

2011

Speaker: Dr. Kent Thornburg, M. Lowell Edwards Chair, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, and Director of the Heart Research Center, Oregon Health & Sciences University
Title: New Science Wrestles An Old Problem: The Roots of Human Disease