Contact: Beth Slater
Manager, Aspen Community Programs
The Aspen Institute
beth.slater@aspeninstitute.org
Tel. 970-544-7914
Aspen, CO, January 28, 2013 –– The Aspen Institute continues to offer its popular Fireside Chat Lecture Series, which is open to the public. The next event will take place on from 5:30-6:30pm on February 6, 2013, with Aspen Institute Vice President Mickey Edwards speaking on “The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.” Over President’s Day weekend, the Institute will host Nobel Prize winner Dr. Stanley Prusiner on “Brain Health through the Ages and Stages: A Medical Update.” Dr. Prusiner will be featured in conversation with Ken Adelman from 5:30-6:30pm on February 16. Both events will take place in the Doerr-Hosier Center on the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Meadows Campus.
“We host events for the community year round and our Fireside Chats in the wintertime have become a popular activity for locals and visitors alike,” noted Director of the Aspen Community Programs, Cristal Logan. “It’s an affordable way to hear from experts on a variety of topics, and it’s fun to see friends, and meet new people.”
Mr. Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years and later taught at Harvard and Princeton before joining the Aspen Institute where he directs the Institute’s Rodel Fellowships for elected public officials. Mr. Edwards has been a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe, and currently writes for The Atlantic. For several years he also broadcast a weekly political commentary on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”. He has chaired task forces for the Brookings Institution and The Council on Foreign Relations and has served as an advisor to the State Department. His latest book is The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans, published by Yale University Press (2012).
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, Nobel Prize-winning neurologist and biochemist, is currently the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Prusiner discovered prions, a class of infectious self-reproducing pathogens primarily or solely composed of protein. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for his prion research. Dr. Prusiner will discuss new research on concussion, traumatic brain injuries in the military, and Alzheimer’s Disease, and give useful information that we can all use for our own brain health.
Tickets to both events can be purchased in person at the Wheeler Opera House, online at www.aspenshowtix.com, or by calling 970-920-5770. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 on the day of the event. If available, tickets will be sold at the door. For more information on the Aspen Institute Fireside Chat Lecture Series and other events open to the public, please contact Beth Slater at 970-544-7914 or beth.slater@aspeninstitute.org, or visit the Institute’s website at www.aspeninstitute.org/aspenevents.