Aloha, and welcome to the Spring 2025 semester! The BTSS Team hopes you had an enjoyable winter break, spent time with loved ones, and are starting this new year off on a refreshed and energized note. My name is Carlos, a new addition to the BTSS team and I’m excited to hit the ground running with this amazing program. We have been hard at work putting together our roster of speakers for the semester and are excited to share with you our 2025 Spring Semester keynote speakers!
January 16, 2025: Rosanna Xia, an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her book California Against the Sea won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and a California Book Awards gold medal. Her work will be featured in an upcoming documentary, Out of Plain Sight. A 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist, her coverage of a deep-ocean toxic dumpsite was included in the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology.
February 12, 2025: Distinguished jurist Rosalie Silberman Abella served on Canada’s Supreme Court from 2004-2021. Her landmark decisions advanced racial and gender justice, employment equity, disability rights, national security, and First Nations issues. A Holocaust refugee, she became Canada’s youngest judge and first Jewish woman on its highest court. Recipient of 42 honorary degrees, her life is chronicled in the PBS documentary, Without Precedent.
February 27, 2025: Kapwani Kiwanga, a Canadian and French artist who studied anthropology and comparative religion at McGill and art at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Kiwanga has held solo exhibitions globally from Munich to Shanghai. Her achievements include the Zurich Art Prize, Marcel Duchamp Prize, Frieze Artist Award, and Sobey Art Award. She represented Canada at the 2024 Venice Art Biennale and serves as a featured artist at the Hawai’i Triennial. At UH, she will be serving as the Dan and Maggie Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals.
March 7, 2025: Pediatrician Nadine Burke-Harris, California’s first surgeon general, who was trained at UC Davis, Harvard, and Stanford. She specializes in childhood trauma screening and developing treatments for toxic stress. Her acclaimed book The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity was described by Paul Tough as “a heartbreaking, world-shaking, revolutionary book.” She will be in conversation on stage with Governor Josh Green.
March 7, 2025: Glen S. Fukushima serves as Vice Chair of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Formerly President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan and Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan and China, he specializes in international trade and U.S. national security interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
April 16, 2025: Attorney Colette Pichon Battle founded Taproot Earth to promote just recoveries from climate disasters. Originally from Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, she shifted from class-action litigation to community organizing after Hurricane Katrina. Her accolades include being named an Obama fellow and receiving the Heinz Award for the environment, the Catalyst Award from Rachel’s Network, and the William O. Douglas Award.
Each of our Spring 2025 Speakers bring a plethora of knowledge, lifetimes of experience, and offer invaluable insights into their respective fields of work. I am looking forward to doing my part to put these events together for our community. We hope that you will join us to hear from them and engage in community-based discussions.
Mahalo,
Carlos Osuna
On behalf of Your BTSS Team