John Holdren, assistant to President Obama for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, gives the Ninth Annual Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability on March 22.

Holdren’s lecture is titled “Science and Technology Policy Priorities and Opportunities in the Obama Administration.” The free public lecture begins at 5 p.m. in the Rackham Auditorium.

Holdren also co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Prior to joining the Obama administration, he was the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and director of the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973-96, he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.

Event co-sponsors are the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS), the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), the Office of the Vice President for Research and the College of Engineering.

Established in 2001 the lecture series is named to honor Peter M. Wege, the retired vice-chairman of the board of Steelcase Inc. in Grand Rapids. As founding chair of the CSS External Advisory Board, Wege guided CSS through its transition from the National Pollution Prevention Center for Higher Education, which was established at SNRE in October 1991.

The Wege Lecture, one of U-M’s most visible annual events, is open to the public and the academic community. It addresses important sustainability challenges facing society such as energy security, global climate change, ecosystem degradation and sustainable development strategies — with a focus on improving the systems for meeting human needs in developed and developing countries.

More information is available at snre.umich.edu/wege_lecture.