NEWS

By MEREDITH HERMANCE
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Three University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty members will share their expertise locally this month in speeches at the Carolina Meadows retirement community and the Men' Newcomers' Club of Chapel Hill.

All three talks will be open to the public, but reservations and in one case a fee are required.

At Carolina Meadows, Dr. Pamela Guest of the dermatology department in Carolina's medical school will speak at 2 p.m. March 15 about "Skin Manifestation of Internal Disease." Geology professor Dr. John W. Rogers will speak at 2 p.m. March 28 on "Causes and Consequences of Rapid Climate Change."

Both programs will be free. Non-Carolina Meadows residents should make reservations -- by March 8 for the first talk and March 21 for the second -- by calling Martin Green at 968-1654. For more information or directions to Carolina Meadows, off Mount Carmel Church Road south of Chapel Hill, call 942-4014.

Dr. Scott Madry, a research associate professor of anthropology, will speak to a newcomers' club luncheon at noon March 16 at the Chapel Hill Country Club, 103 Lancaster Drive. Tickets are $10.75 for the talk, titled "How Will Global Positioning Affect Our Daily Lives?" For reservations, call Raoul Lueuteritz at 545-9519. For directions to the club, call 960-2584.

The Global Positioning System is a U.S. satellite system developed for the military in the 1970s. Now, it is used far more for commercial and civilian pursuits including car navigation and mapping systems, search and rescue operations and routing airplanes.

Madry is founder and president of Chapel Hill-based Informatics International Inc., a consulting firm that provides services related to GPS, geographic information systems and other high-tech resources. The company has worked for organizations including NASA, NATO and the United Nations, and recently won a contract with the N.C. Department of Transportation -- through Environmental Services Inc. of Raleigh -- to develop a geographic information systems model of the state.

In archaeology, he uses GPS and other advanced technologies to study vestiges of ancient landscapes and peoples. Besides Carolina, he is a professor at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.

Rogers’ book, "People and the Earth: Basic Issues in the Sustainability of Resources and Environment," looks at environmental issues from a geologic standpoint. He is especially interested in the effect of human activities on the planet. He has charted the history of Earth's land masses from Ur, which existed three billion years ago, to the supercontinent of Pangea to today's continents. Discover magazine named his paper on the subject one of the top 100 science stories for 1996.

The lectures were arranged by Carolina Speakers at UNC, an outreach program that brings 83 faculty members and four student scholars to business, civic and community groups across the state. The speakers share their expertise on more than 150 topics, including 46 that focus on North Carolina and the South.

For more information or to schedule a Carolina Speaker, contact Sandy Roberts at 919-962-1993 or sandy_roberts@unc.edu, or visit the Carolina Speakers web site at www.unc.edu/depts/uncspeak.

- 30 -

(Hermance is a senior journalism and mass communication major from Scituate, Mass.)