November 29, 2005 | Events

Peter Dallos to Deliver Inaugural Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Lecture

By Wendy Leopold

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern Professor Peter Dallos -- widely believed to have contributed more than any other living scientist to our understanding of the mammalian hearing organ known as the cochlea -- will deliver the inaugural Pepper Lecture Thursday, Dec. 1.

Co-hosted by President Henry S. Bienen and School of Communication Dean Barbara J. O’Keefe, the Pepper Lecture celebrates the naming of The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. It will begin at 4 p.m. at the James L. Allen Center, 2169 Campus Drive, on the Evanston campus. A cocktail reception will follow at 5:30 p.m.

In “Hearing: From Sound to Molecules,” Dallos will explain why the human ear is the most complex sense organ and how it converts and amplifies sound into signals that are then interpreted by the brain. His lecture is open to the University community.

A professor in The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Dallos also is John Evans Professor of Neuroscience, professor of otolaryngology and professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern. A native of Hungary, he came to the United States in 1956 and joined Northwestern's faculty in 1962. After two decades, he became the founding chairman of the department of neurobiology and physiology.

The newly named Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders is named in honor of the Peppers and their $5 million gift to the department.

Pepper, chairman emeritus of Pepper Construction Group, LLC, of Chicago, was graduated in civil engineering from Northwestern in 1953. His wife received a degree in communication sciences and disorders from Northwestern the same year.

For further information about the Pepper Lecture, e-mail ana-davis@northwestern.edu or call (847) 491-3751.