Penn World Scholars Global Expert Speaker Series
The Global Expert Speaker Series provides Penn World Scholars the opportunity to interact with experts in fields such as climate change, urbanization, engineering, space exploration, global affairs, and others.
In Spring 2021, the Penn World Scholars met virtually with three experts:
- Mauricio Rodas, former mayor of Quito, Ecuador; Perry World House Visiting Fellow
- Naoko Yamazaki, second female astronaut in Japan; Perry World House Visiting Fellow
- Trudy Rubin, foreign affairs journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer; Perry World House Visiting Fellow
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Mauricio Rodas served as the Mayor of Quito, Ecuador until 2019. He was the hosting mayor of the UN Habitat III Conference in 2016, and acted as world Co-President of the United Cities and Local Governments Organization (UCLG), and a member of the boards of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and the International Council for Local Environmental (ICLEI). Read MoreHe is a Young Global Leader and former member of the Future Global Council of Cities and Urbanization of the World Economic Forum. In 2019, he received the Urban Leadership Award from Penn, and was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people on climate change by Apolitical. He is a Senior Fellow of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and a Distinguished Fellow on Global Cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He holds a J.D. from Universidad Católica de Quito and Master’s degrees in government administration and political science from Penn. |
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Naoko Yamazaki is an astronaut and space policy expert. She earned a Master of Engineering degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1996, then started working for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In 1999, she was selected as an astronaut candidate, and went on to qualify as a Soyuz-TMA Flight Engineer in 2004 and NASA Mission Specialist in 2006. Read MoreOn April 5, 2010, Yamazaki was aboard Space Shuttle Discovery as part of the crew of STS-131, an assembly and resupply mission to the International Space Station. Yamazaki retired from JAXA in 2011 and has served as a member of the Japan Space Policy Committee since 2012, a Chairman of “Sorajo (Women in Aerospace)” under the Japan Rocket Society since 2015, and a representative director and co-founder of the Space Port Japan Association since 2018. |
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Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2019, Ms. Rubin received the Overseas Press Club of America’s Flora Lewis award for Best Commentary on International Affairs. In 2001 and 2017 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq. Read MorePrior to joining The Inquirer, she was Middle East correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and staff writer for The Economist. In recent years, she has written from China, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Britain, France, Italy and Germany. She is a graduate of Smith College, where she received her B.A., and the London School of Economics, where she earned her M.Sc. (Econ). |
View current Penn World Scholars' reflections on the Global Expert Speaker Series.
