The Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture is part of the annual Provost’s Global Forum at the University of Iowa.
2025 Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture
Powering partnerships, amplifying real-world impact
Featuring Catherine Chong, director of the Office of Industry Engagement at the Singapore Management University
Date: Friday, February 7, 2025
Time: 2:30 - 3:30 p.m.
Location: S401 Pappajohn Business Building (PBB) | University of Iowa
In this keynote, Catherine will share on how the Singapore Management University has made industry engagement a priority for the university, the strategies it undertook and the successes and progress to date.
This lecture is part of the Provost's Global Forum: Private Sector and University Partnerships: Pursuing Pathways for Global Collaboration, Learning, Prosperity, and Democracy
Catherine Chong is currently the director of the Office of Industry Engagement at the Singapore Management University. She leads the engagement with industry, government and professional bodies to holistically support their interest to engage the university for its talent, expertise and technologies. She is responsible for developing the university’s industry engagement strategy and fostering meaningful partnerships that supports the university’s strategic ambitions in creating positive impact in the world. Chong comes with more than 18 years of experience in strategic business development, predominantly in the public sector, such as the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), driving key industry sector development and transformation. Chong holds a Bachelor of Science (biomedical science) with honors, from the National University of Singapore (NUS), with a minor in technopreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
About Joel Barkan
Joel Barkan was a serious scholar of the politics of Africa who, after his retirement from the university in 2005, went on to have a second career in Washington, D.C., as a consultant with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the World Bank, and the Agency for International Development. He also served for several years as senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Many of the university’s faculty, staff, and administrators knew him also as a creative program-builder who made lasting contributions to international studies at the university and to the regular discussion in Iowa City of changing political, economic, and social circumstances in the world. UI faculty members who were his colleagues and who teach international studies proposed that Joel Barkan be recognized in a named annual campus lecture. The first annual Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture was given in 2015.
Past Lectures
2024 - Daniel Arzola, senior graphic designer, University of Minnesota
Artivism by Daniel Arzola: Art, Communication, and Identity
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, LGBTQ Youth in Global Perspective - Resistance, Resilience, Reimagination
2022 - Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam
Let Me Be Myself: Teaching Anne Frank in the 21st century
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, Teaching Anne Frank
2019 - Dr. Supriya Baily, associate professor and associate director, Center for International Education, George Mason University
School's Out - What Happens When School's Not Enough?
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, Why School? International Perspectives on Education and Social Transformation
2018 - William S. Pretzer, senior curator for history for the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
“A Darker Presence”: Interpretive Goals and Collecting Strategies in the National Museum of African American History and Culture (video recording of lecture)
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice.
2017 - Gautam Yadama, dean and professor at the Boston College School of Social Work
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, Women’s Health & the Environment: Going Up in Smoke.
2016 - H.E. Dr. Valon Murtezaj, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Kosovo
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, The Nation, the State, and the Global Redefinition of Self-Determination.
2015 - Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
Featured in the Provost's Global Forum, The Arab Spring in a Global Context.