The recent earthquake in Turkey/Türkiye and Syria will be the topic of a panel discussion and Q&A session on Feb. 21 presented by the Honors College.

The event, to be held from 2-3 p.m. in 107 Capen Hall, North Campus, is free and open to the public.

It aims to help members of the UB community “better understand the event and what the people of the area face in the upcoming weeks and months,” says Neil Savoy, program director for the Honors College. The quake, Savoy adds, left tens of thousands of people dead, more than a 100,000 injured and millions homeless.

The panelists:

• Ashley Cercone, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology and a former Fulbright scholar to Turkey who is currently a Fulbright-Hays DDRA (Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad) fellow to Turkey. She will speak about the cultural history of the Southeastern Anatolian region, highlighting the diverse cultural heritage and communities that were negatively affected by the earthquakes. 
• Michael C. Constantinou, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering. Constantinou, editor of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, will discuss why this earthquake has been so devastating and what can be done to guard against this in the future. Constantinou was instrumental in development of the UB-Istanbul Technical University dual-degree program in civil engineering and has traveled to Turkey numerous times, including after the 1999 Izmit earthquake that killed 17,000.

“As citizen scholars, honors students are encouraged to take a vested interest in the world around them and understand the complex issues that current and future leaders must address,” Savoy says. “Be it future engineers tackling construction, professionals working with a nonprofit aid organization or learning more about the community impacted, our students have a unique role to play in the world.”