Happenings

Concerts

Pitt’s Symphony Orchestra and Geri Allen, world-renowned jazz pianist and Pitt jazz studies program director, play “Zodiac Suite,” by American Jazz composer Mary Lou Williams, 8 p.m. March 2, Bellefield Hall Auditorium, Pitt Department of Music, www.music.pitt.edu 

Exhibitions

University Art Gallery, Stories Untold: Where Mental Health Meets Creative Expression, displays more than 50 works from students at Pitt and from the Pittsburgh area, promoting understanding of students’ experience with stress and mental illness, through March 4, Frick Fine Arts Building, www.haa.pitt.edu

Phipps Conservatory, Spring Flower Show: Masterpieces in Bloom, showcases the works of Van Gogh, Monet, and other famous artists through breathtaking botanical renderings, March 12 through April 10, 1 Schenley Park, Oakland, www.phipps.conservatory.org 

Carnegie Museum of Art, The Propeller Group: The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music, the funerary traditions of South Vietnam through a visual, musical reenactment, through March 21; Jane Haskell’s Modernism: A Pittsburgh Legacy, showcasing the artist and former museum board member’s own artworks and pieces from her private collection, through May 16, Teenie Harris Photographs: Great Performances Offstage, celebrates performances of all kinds as produced or experienced by Pittsburgh’s African American community and captured by Pittsburgh’s beloved photographer, through July 17, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland, www.cmoa.org

Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs, featuring the largest exhibit of flying reptiles ever mounted in the United States, through May 22, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland, www.carnegiemnh.org 

Lectures/Seminars/Readings

“Big Data, Open Data, and Scholarship,” Christine L. Borgman, Distinguished Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies, director of the Center for Knowledge Infrastructures, University of California Los Angeles, explores the implications of “big” research data on open access scholarship and public policy, 3 p.m. Feb. 29, University Club, Ballroom A, Sara Fine Institute for Interpersonal Behavior and Technology, Pitt School of Information Sciences, sarafineinstitute.org

“The Circulation of Children Through Transnational and Transracial Adoption: Filters, Fantasies, and Fragments,” Linda Seligmann, professor of anthropology, George Mason University, compares the meanings that adoptive parents in the United States attribute to race and nation and considers how their children respond, 4 p.m. March 2, 4130 Posvar Hall, Pitt Global Studies Center, Year of the Humanities in the University, www.ucis.pitt.edu

“Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters,” Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, advocates for a ‘pragmatic liberal education’ and discusses the continued significance higher education plays in American society, 7 p.m. March 2, University Club, Ballroom B, College of General Studies, Year of the Humanities in the University, www.cgs.pitt.edu

“The Politics of Shale Gas and Anti-Fracking Movements in France and the United Kingdom,” John Keeler, dean of Pitt Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, presents his research on shale gas and the issue of fracking in France and Britain, noon March 3, 4130 Posvar Hall, Pitt European Studies Center, Jean Monnet European Union Center of Excellence, www.ucis.pitt.edu

“Designing Safe and Effective T Cell Therapy for Cancer,” Stanley R. Riddell, professor of medicine, University of Washington, and associate head of the Program in Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, noon March 3, Scaife Hall, Lecture Room 6, Eberly Distinguished Lectureship in Immunology, Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, www.stiresearch.health.pitt.edu

“Something Old, Something New—Structural Insights into GPCR Pharmacology,” Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of pharmacology and chemical biology, Pitt School of Medicine, noon March 12, Scaife Hall, Lecture Room 6, Senior Vice Chancellor’s Research Seminar Series, Pitt School of Health Sciences, www.svc-seminar.pitt.edu 

PhD Dissertations

Hernan Medina, Dietrich School’s Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, “Repensar la Autoreferencialidad y la Teoria del Juego: A Proposito de Bellatin, Bolano y Cortazar,” 11 a.m. Feb. 29, 137 Cathedral of Learning

Tao Li, Dietrich School’s Department of Anthropology, “Economic Differentiation in Hongshan Core Zone Communities (Northeastern China): A Geochemical Perspective,” 3 p.m. Feb. 29, 3307 Posvar Hall

Lora McClain, Graduate School of Public Health’s Department of Human Genetics, “HSV-1 Infection in Human IPSC-Derived Neurons: Cellular Models for Quiescence and Drug Discovery,” 9 a.m. March 2, 109 Parran Hall

DaShanne Stokes, Dietrich School’s Department of Sociology, “How an Entity Becomes a State: Tibet, Taiwan, Palestine, and the Quest for Recognition,” 3 p.m. March 2, 2432 Posvar Hall

Peter Wood, Dietrich School’s Department of Theatre Arts, “Overturning Mammon: The Living Theatre and Symbolic Capital,” 2 p.m. March 3, 1627 Cathedral of Learning 

Kenneth W. Drombosky, Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Pharmacology, “Huntington’s Disease Studies at the Interface of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology,” noon March 14, 1395 Biomedical Science Tower