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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                Contact:   Michelle Tooker, Public Relations
                                                                                                                                                                    610-359-5276

(Delaware and Chester Counties, PA)—Delaware County Community College’s new STEM Speaker Series continues with a lecture by Dr. Miguel Vilar on “The Peopling of the Caribbean: A Genetic Perspective.”  The lecture will be held on Tuesday, February 26, 2013, from 11:10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 5 to 5:50 p.m. in the STEM Center, Room 1403 (901 S. Media Line Road, Media, PA). Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Vilar, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, will explain the peopling of the Caribbean and how these islands bore witness to both pre-historic human migrations as well as the forced movement of peoples to and from Africa, Europe and North, Central and South America. His research uses modern genetic tools to reconstruct the origins of Taino and Carib populations, while making sense of the modern biological admixture in today’s Caribbean people.

Vilar earned his bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Haverford College, his master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and master’s and PhD degrees in Biological Anthropology from Binghamton University. In addition to working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, he is an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Lincoln University.

The STEM Speaker Series features lectures on a range of topics covering the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Lectures are offered in the fall and spring semesters and are open to students, faculty and community members. The next two lectures are:

• “Achieving Excellence in the World of Architecture: An Architect’s Perspective” presented by Ed Rahme on March 26
• “Mathematical Modeling and Computation for the Collective Motion of Animal Groups” presented by Dr. Allison Kolpas on April 23

For more information, contact series coordinator and Assistant Professor of Mathematics Sidney Kolpas  at skolpas@dccc.edu. 

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