Sponsored Lunch and Presentation

Wednesday, 21 October 2015, 12:45-1:45 PM

Incyte, an Innovating Exhibitor for the conference, will be hosting a complimentary lunch on Wednesday, 21 October 2015. The lunch will feature a presentation from Emily Knight of Incyte on the following topic:

Jakafi (ruxolitinib) – A First-in-Class Drug to Treat Patients with:

• Intermediate or High-risk Myelofibrosis
• Polycythemia Vera who have had an Inadequate Response to or are intolerant of Hydroxyurea

Advance registration is required for this complimentary lunch event. Simply add it to your online conference registration or, if you have already registered, you may either edit your registration online or contact ICEC to have us add it for you. The conference is not providing lunch on Wednesday, so attendees who are at the hotel during lunch time will either need to register to attend Incyte’s lunch presentation or make their own lunch plans independently. Thank you to Incyte for this excellent addition to our program!

Note: No continuing education units will be provided for attendance at this lunch presentation.

Special Joint Reception

Wednesday, 21 October 2015, 7:15-8:15 PM

All conference attendees are invited to gather in Bill’s Grill at the Loews Ventana Canyon for our kick-off social gathering of the conference. Hors d’ouevres will be provided and a cash bar will be available. Meet other conference attendees and see old friends!

Star Party: A Guided Stargazing Experience

Wednesday, 21 October 2015, 8:30-10:00 PM

Join us after the Special Joint Reception for some unparalleled stargazing with two expert astronomers! First we will hear some overall information about the night sky from astronomer Thomas A. Fleming PhD of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory and astronomy educator and author Ken Graun. Then participants will take turns looking through one of two telescopes facilitated by Dr. Fleming and Mr. Graun.

Advance registration is required for this complimentary event. Simply add it to your online conference registration or, if you have already registered, you may either edit your registration online or contact ICEC to have us add it for you. Offered free of charge, but limited to the first 50 registrants!

Speaker Biosketches:
Dr. Thomas A. Fleming received his A.B. in Physics from Cornell University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1988.  After spending four years on the science team for the ROSAT X-ray telescope at Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching (near Munich), Germany, he returned to the University of Arizona in 1993, where he is now an Astronomer and Senior Lecturer. Dr. Fleming has served on several peer review and users committees for NASA, mostly in the field of X-ray astronomy.

His areas of research include X-ray emission from stars, the nearby stars, very low-mass stars, and white dwarfs. Since 1999, he has been responsible for public outreach and coordination of the astronomy general education program at Steward Observatory.  In particular, he serves as organizer and host of the Steward Observatory Public Evening Lecture Series, the observatory’s major vehicle for disseminating information on astronomy and space science to the general public since 1922.* In 2000, Dr. Fleming received the University of Arizona Provost’s General Education Teaching Award for his innovative techniques in teaching science and astronomy to students not majoring in science. In 2013, he received an Excellence in Academic Advising award from the University as the Outstanding Faculty Advisor.

Dr. Fleming wrote an extensive 28-chapter set of PowerPoint lecture slides to accompany the textbook, “The Cosmic Perspective,” which was published by Addison-Wesley, Inc.  He also edited the textbook “Stars,” published by Cognella, Inc., in 2011. In 2005, he appeared in the “Naked Science” TV series episode “The Birth of the Earth” on the National Geographic Channel and in the PBS documentary “Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk.”

*Podcasts of the Steward Observatory Public Evening Lecture Series are available on the University of Arizona site on iTunes U starting with the Fall 2009 semester.

Ken Graun is an educator and author of several star charts and beginning books on astronomy. He teaches math and the sciences at the community college level and coordinates beginning talks on amateur astronomy at the annual Riverside Telescope Making Conference and Astronomy Expo held atop the San Bernardino Mountains in California. Ken has won awards for several telescopes that he has made, including replicas of Galileo’s. He spends his time teaching, writing, observing and working in his woodshop. Originally from Milwaukee, he served in the US Navy after college and found his way to Tucson to complete requirement for his graduate work. Tucson has been his home for 25 years.

Special Dinner Event at the Tucson Botanical Gardens

Thursday, 22 October 2015, 5:30-9:30 PM

Please join us for a lovely evening at the Tucson Botanical Gardens!* The event will begin with a social hour in the Butterfly Magic Exhibit, followed by a nice dinner in the historic Porter Hall and Reception Garden. During dinner, we will be treated to a talk from botanist Mark A. Dimmitt PhD on the Arizona Sonoran Desert Ecosystem and Plant Life, with a focus on desert seasons, beauty, special features, animal interactions and adaptations, and desert foods, along with an introduction to the Cactus Rescue Program. Tickets are limited, so please purchase tickets for you and your guests when you register for the conference!

*The dinner event does not include admission to the entirety of the Tucson Botanical Gardens. We will be restricted to the butterfly area, the Porter Hall, and the accompanying Reception Garden.

Speaker Biosketch:
Mark A. Dimmitt has a Ph.D. in biology (herpetology) from the University of California at Riverside after earning an M.S. from UCLA and a B.S. from Pomona College. He worked at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum from 1979 to 2011, first as Curator of Botany, and eventually as Director of Natural History (field ecologist). His areas of research included botany and vertebrate biology, and he is the author of more than 50 scientific and popular publications about ecology and horticulture. He is a Fellow of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. His major publication is the plant and ecology chapters of A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert (2000), and is the senior editor of the revised edition (2015).

Mark’s other and ongoing career is as a plant breeder. He spent a couple of decades hybridizing Trichocereus (=Echinopsis, cacti), then Tillandsia (bromeliads); he has introduced about 50 cultivars. Since the late 1970s his main focus has been on hybridizing the genus Adenium; ‘Crimson Star’, ‘Evelyn Marie’, and ‘Bouquet’ are among his creations. He is coauthor of the book Adenium: Sculptural Elegance, Floral Extravagance (2008). Mark also collects and grows a number of other weird plants, mostly succulents and epiphytes.

Wellness Sessions

ICEC is pleased to bring back our Wellness Sessions to start the conference days in a relaxing and healthy way. The following Wellness Sessions will be available at no charge to all attendees:

• Laughter Yoga: Thursday, 22 October 2015, 6:15-6:45 AM
• Gentle Yoga: Friday, 23 October 2015, 6:15-6:45 AM

Advance registration is appreciated so that we know how many attendees to expect. Simply add one or both Wellness Session options to your conference registration.