^{Date
Mar182027
March
03
Mar
18
18
2027

Time
09:30:00

Locale
Spokane, WA

Venue
Great Northern University

Save the Date

Save the Date}

Built Different — Intelligent Design Education Day (Spokane)

Discovery Institute is pleased to announce the return of our annual Intelligent Design Education Day to Spokane, Washington, hosted once again by Great Northern University. Bring one student or a whole class and join us on March 18, 2027, for another fun and educational field trip!

This year, students will explore the ingenious engineering of the human body from the extraordinary complexity of the human eye and the remarkable mechanics of our joints to the intricate workings of organs and tissues at the microscopic level. Humans are all “built different,” and our bodies are filled with astonishing evidence of intelligent design.

Confirmed speakers include award-winning designer and mechanical engineer Stuart Burgess, co-authors of Your Designed Body, Steve Laufmann and Howard Glicksman, veterinary scientist Emily Sandico, and physicist Brian Miller.

Open to all ages, the event is designed especially for middle school and high school students in homeschool and private school settings. It’s a perfect field trip opportunity for students to meet scientists and scholars, ask questions, and explore the wonders of human biology and engineering. The day will feature plenty of audience participation, opportunities to win prizes, and a bookstore stocked with resources for further exploration.

Our goal is to introduce students to the scientific case for intelligent design, highlight fascinating discoveries about the natural world, and encourage critical examination of the claims of Darwinian evolution. A lively panel Q&A will give students the opportunity to engage directly with our speakers, thereby inspiring curiosity, sharpening critical thinking skills, and encouraging students to consider the profound implications of intelligent design on science, faith, and worldview.

When

Thursday, March 18, 2027
9:30 AM – 2:00 PM

Where

Great Northern University
at Fourth Memorial Church
2000 N Standard St.
Spokane, WA 99207

Contact

Sarah Jones
eventbrite@discovery.org
(206) 826-5535

Speakers

Stuart Burgess

_{Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture, Professor of Engineering Design at University of Bristol}

Dr Stuart Burgess has held academic posts at Bristol University (UK), Cambridge University (UK), and Liberty University (USA). He has published over 200 scientific publications on the science of design in engineering and biology. In the last three Olympics he was the lead transmission designer for the British Olympic Cycling Team, helping them on each occasion to be ranked in first place for track cycling. For the last two decades his gearboxes have been used successfully on all the large earth-observation satellites of the European Space Agency. He has received many national and international awards for design, including from the Minister of State for Trade and Industry in the UK. In 2019 he was given the top mechanical engineer award in the UK out of 120,000 professional mechanical engineers. He has been an invited speaker in over 30 countries.

Howard Glicksman

Dr. Howard Glicksman is a retired general practitioner who received his medical degree from the University of Toronto. He was a primary care physician in the office and hospital setting for almost 25 years. He then provided medical management in the home for terminally ill hospice patients for the rest of his career. He is the author of “The Designed Body” series for Science and Culture Today. Glicksman further develops the arguments from this series in a book co-authored with systems engineer Steve Laufmann, Your Designed Body (2022). He contributed to the YouTube video series Secrets of the Human Body and co-authored Your Amazing Body.

Steve Laufmann

Steve Laufmann is a speaker, author, computer scientist, and consultant in the design of enterprise-class systems, with expertise in the difficulties of changing complex systems to perform new tasks. He leads the Engineering Research Group at Discovery Institute and chaired the program committee for the 2021 Conference on Engineering in Living Systems. He is co-author, with Howard Glicksman, of Your Designed Body (2022). When he can’t think of anything else to do, he enjoys landscape photography, pizza, and old movies.

Brian Miller

_{Research Coordinator and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture}

Dr. Miller obtained a BS in physics with a minor in engineering from MIT and a PhD in complex systems physics from Duke University. His research focuses on thermodynamics, information theory, protein rarity, and the origin of life. Dr. Miller is a Senior Fellow and Research Coordinator for the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute. He helps manage the ID 3.0 Research Program and helped launch the biennial Conference on Engineering in Living Systems (CELS).

Emily Sandico

_{Special Projects Coordinator and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture}

Emily Sandico is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, where she also serves as Special Projects Coordinator. She holds bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and education from Whitworth University and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Washington State University. She spent 14 years at a major Silicon Valley tech firm, where she worked as a technical editor and product manager, and as a liaison for Fortune 500 clients and the firm’s software development organization, sales force, and technical consultants around the world. Dr. Sandico is a licensed veterinarian with a special interest in how the study of medicine informs our understanding of design in biology. As a citizen and a scientist, she is most interested in helping people to seek truth by building a culture that fosters personal liberty, intellectual honesty, academic freedom, and scientific rigor.