The Academy of Lifelong Learning (ALL) at LLCC hosted the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read in Sangamon County during March and April 2021. This community reading program focused on “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren. Fifty local organizations partnered with ALL to develop and offer free, fun and educational community-wide book discussions, speakers, interactive programs and arts presentations inspired by the book’s themes. One of the virtual keynote speakers was the author herself, Hope Jahren, who spoke on April 17 from Oslo, Norway. A recording of Hope Jahren’s NEA Big Read keynote address is now available.

Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist who has been pursuing independent research in paleobiology since 1996, when she completed her Ph.D. at University of California Berkeley and began teaching and researching first at the Georgia Institute of Technology and then at Johns Hopkins University. She is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards and is one of four scientists, and the only woman, to have been awarded both of the Young Investigator Medals given within the Earth Sciences. She was a tenured professor at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu from 2008 to 2016 where she built the Isotope Geobiology Laboratories, with support from National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. She currently holds the J. Tuzo Wilson professorship at the University of Oslo, Norway.