Bert Foer is a former member of the NNV Board. Head of a family of writers, Bert’s literary activities include a book group in its 47th year. Along the way he developed a fascination with Mary Shelley's classic novel, Frankenstein, and the enormous popular culture it generated, which he will discuss, with illustrations, in "The Many Lives of Frankenstein." Bert was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review, a practicing attorney specialized in antitrust law, CEO of the former Melart Jewelers chain of retail stores, and a former member of the ACLU national and local boards.

Fungi are not animals and not vegetables. They were critical to creating and maintaining our ecosystem and may be critical to the future of civilization.  This visually impressive zoom describes what they are, their role in creating and maintaining our natural world and recent discoveries that evidence their importance to our future.  It seems they have been around forever and plan to stay here.

Steve Altman is new to studying fungi but has enjoyed photographing them for years. He is a past president of NNV as well as the DC Jewish Community Center.  After retiring from the Department of Justice, Steve served as a mediator in over 1500 cases.  His volunteer activities now include serving as a high school track coach.  

After decades in regulatory exile, psychedelic drugs are making a comeback – this time as promising new therapies for depression and PTSD, among others. In particular, researchers have found that a facilitated psychedelic experience can profoundly shift attitudes about death in ways that deeply enhance the quality of one’s remaining life. While FDA approval is still forthcoming, state and municipal decriminalization initiatives are opening access to these experiences already today. What does this mean for older adults as they contemplate their mortality?

This talk will cut through stigma and hype to provide older adults with the basic information they need to understand the new psychedelic landscape: the opportunities, the insights and the risks.

Abbie Rosner is a writer who grew up in Washington DC in the 1960s and ‘70s. Her professional interest is in the ways that older adults are discovering - and rediscovering - the drugs of our youth, to enhance our experience of aging. Her writing has appeared in Forbes, Next Avenue, Double Blind, and others.

Abbie previously researched and wrote about ancient foodways as they are still practiced in the contemporary Galilee landscape.  Abbie received her BA from the University of California Berkeley and her MSc in Professional Communications from Clark University.

Join the Family History Center team as they share their journeys in genealogy at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This program will explore the tools for getting started in tracing your family tree, highlight similarities and differences in conducting African American genealogy and share highlights in working with the public. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and share family history trivia.

Lisa Crawley is a Genealogy Reference Assistant in the Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center at NMAAHC. Her career experience includes serving as the Resource Center Manager of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, and as the Administrator at the Montgomery County Historical Society in Rockville. A native of Elizabeth, NJ her research interests include antebellum era African American history of the Mid-Atlantic and Upper South, and Methodist history. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Drew University and an M.A. in Museum Studies from Hampton University.

Edwina Parks is a Genealogy Reference Assistant in the Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her professional experience is in research and reference services for genealogy and local history and creating educational programs on these topics for libraries. Her interests include interpreting public records in genealogical research for their historical and geographical context. A native of Southwest Virginia, she holds a B.A. from Fisk University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Alma Thomas is a singular figure in the story of twentieth-century American art. She developed her exuberant form of abstract painting late in life, after retiring from a long career as a schoolteacher. Blossoming in the mid-1960s, her vibrant, rhythmic art transcended established genres, incorporating elements of gestural abstraction and color field painting. Thomas’s abiding sources of inspiration were nature, the cosmos, and music. She created a style distinctly her own, characterized by the dazzling interplay of pattern and hue.

Join curator Melissa Ho for an introduction to the exhibition Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Melissa Ho is the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s curator of 20th-century art; she joined the museum’s staff in September 2016. Ho is responsible for research, acquisitions and exhibitions related to the museum’s collections focusing on art since 1945. She currently is leading an initiative to expand and enrich the representation of Asian American experiences, perspectives and artistic accomplishment in the museum’s collection and public displays.  

Recent projects include “American Voices and Visions: Modern and Contemporary Art” (2023), the first phase of a multiyear renewal and reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection galleries, and “Composing Color: The Paintings of Alma Thomas” (2023), which will travel to several venues in the United States. Ho organized the critically acclaimed exhibition “Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975” (2019) and “Artist to Artist” (2021).