Presidential Lectures

The genetics and genomics of autism spectrum disorders have reached a tipping point. The recent focus on de novo mutations has led to systematic, highly productive gene discovery efforts. These have begun to clarify a tremendously heterogeneous allelic architecture as well as specific genes contributing to social disability syndromes. This lecture will review these recent discoveries and address the challenges facing the path forward from reliable gene discovery to an actionable understanding of the molecular pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorders.

The mighty water molecule is responsible for much of what we know about climate and climate change, and even more of what we don’t know. In this lecture, Bjorn B. Stevens discusses the molecule’s short sojourn to the atmosphere, during which it helps to create the world as we know it.

This lecture presented by Brian J. Soden outlines our understanding of the main feedback processes in the climate system and how they impact both the magnitude of future changes in Earth’s climate and the uncertainty in our predictions of these changes.

Andrei Okounkov presents a talk about the law of large numbers, in its various manifestations. This is a real cornerstone of probability, which states that a random system of a very large size is typically not random: its deterministic state is the one that has the largest probability to occur.

Some 90 tropical cyclones develop each year. In this lecture, Professor Kerry Emanuel will review the theory of tropical cyclones and how it informs observed variability. He will also discuss how these storms may have important feedbacks on such phenomena as El Niño-Southern Oscillation and global climate change.