So, tomorrow (Tuesday, February 28), I will be speaking at The Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO about the Ronin Institute. I’ll talk about my own motivations for founding the Institute, the need for independent scholarship, and the potential future for institutes like this one.

If you’re in the area, c’mon down! (Or, up, probably.)

Here’s the official summary from the organizer, Alejandro Weinstein:

“The Ronin Institute, or how to reinvent academia”

by Dr. Jon Wilkins, Ronin Institute

4:30 P.M., Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Alderson Hall Room 151

Abstract: After more than 10 years of working in traditional research institutions (Harvard University and the Santa Fe Institute), Dr. Wilkins founded the Ronin Institute with the objective to create an organization that can help to connect and support scholars who, by choice or by chance, do not have an affiliation with a university or other research institutes. In this lecture, Dr. Wilkins will share his motivation to found the institute, his long term vision, and how the Ronin Institute fits in the current academic ecosystem.

About the Speaker: Dr. Wilkins is an external professor at the Santa Fe institute and founder of the Ronin Institute. He received an A.B. degree in Physics from Harvard College in 1993, an M.S. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University in 2002. His interests are in evolutionary theory, broadly defined. His prior work has focused on coalescent theory and genomic imprinting. His current research has continued in those areas, and has expanded into areas like human language and demographic history, altruism, cultural evolution, and statistical inference.