Past Seminars
photo courtesy of Jim Steinberg
Over the years, Seminars at Steamboat talks have focused on a wide variety of policy topics, including the economy, foreign affairs, immigration, environment, health care, drugs and sports, climate change, education, media, cyber security, the 9/11 Commission and more. Among the featured speakers have been former U.S. ambassadors and high-level officials in the Department of State, Department of Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Congressional Budget Office, and political scientists from major universities and research institutions, including The Brookings Institution and The Wilson Center. Past speakers also include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, federal judges and the former commissioner of the National Football League.
“Seminars is satisfying Steamboat’s thirst for intellectual programming. The Seminars series brings the world to Steamboat and provides intellectual nourishment for a community that is most widely known for its outdoor recreation. Like our world class library and our rich arts and culture offerings … Seminars is another piece of the community quilt that makes Steamboat so special.”
– Steamboat Pilot Editorial Board
– 2022 –
Garrett Epps
Monday, August 15, 2022
“The Supreme Court 2022: Institutional Shock and Constitutional Change,” by Garrett Epps.
Garrett Epps is a novelist, journalist, and legal scholar. He has taught Constitutional Law, First Amendment, and Legal Non-Fiction at American University, the University of Baltimore, Boston College, Duke University, and the University of Oregon. He is currently Professor of Practice at the University of Oregon School of Law and Legal Affairs Editor of the Washington Monthly. From 2011 until 2020, he covered the Supreme Court for The Atlantic, filing weekly during the Court’s Term.
Christopher Ptomey
Monday, August 8, 2022
“America’s Dysfunctional Housing Market,” by Christopher Ptomey, The Urban Land Institute.
Christopher Ptomey is Executive Director of the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, a leading authority on housing issues. The Center promotes residential development and housing affordability through research programs, local and national conferences, partnerships with private and public sector organizations and leaders, and the development of practical tools to help developers of affordable housing.
Lee Reiners
Monday, July 25, 2022
“Cryptocurrency: The Future of Money or All Hype?” by Lee Reiners, CFA, Global Financial Markets Center, Duke University.
Lee Reiners joined the Duke Global Financial Markets Center as executive director in 2016. At Duke Law, Reiners teaches FinTech Law and Policy as well as seminars relating to financial policy and regulatory practice. His research focuses on how new financial technologies fit within existing regulatory frameworks and he writes frequently on FinTech and other financial regulatory matters. Prior to joining Duke Law, Reiners worked for five years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), first as a supervisor of systemically important financial institutions and then as a senior associate within the executive office.
Dr. Scott Kennedy
Monday, July 18, 2022
“U.S.-China Strategic Competition,” by Dr. Scott Kennedy, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Scott Kennedy is a leading authority on China’s economic policy and global economic relations. He has been traveling to China for over 30 years and has interviewed thousands of officials, business executives, lawyers, nonprofit organizations and scholars. His specific areas of expertise include industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, multinational business challenges in China, global governance, and philanthropy. He is currently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
William Galston
Monday, July 11, 2022
“Deeply Divided and Closely Divided: Why the Temperature Has Been Rising in American Politics,” by Dr. William Galston, The Brookings Institution.
William A. Galston has written 10 books and more than 100 articles on political theory, public policy, political and moral philosophy, and U.S. politics. He also writes a weekly column on Politics & Ideas for the Wall Street Journal. He is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program.
– 2021 –
Camille Busette
Monday, August 23, 2021
Thinking Differently About Race and Public Policy
Camille Busette, PhD is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies and Director of the Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative at the Brookings Institution. She has dedicated her career to expanding financial opportunities for low-income populations. Her work has centered primarily on systemic racism, the importance of social relationships to economic mobility and equity in healthcare. She also focuses on local and state government policy priorities. Prior to joining Brookings, Camille was an executive at the World Bank, where she led the World Bank’s financial inclusion innovation arm.
Eric Edelman
Monday, August 16, 2021
Prospects for U.S. National Security, Defense Strategy and Policy
Ambassador Eric Edelman served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and Bush Administrations and was Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. He has been Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary of State, special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. His other assignments include the State Department Operations Center, Prague, Moscow and Tel Aviv, where he was a member of the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks.
John Leshy
Monday, August 9, 2021
America’s Public Lands – A Look Back and Ahead
John D. Leshy is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and was formerly solicitor of the Interior Department, counsel to the chair of the Natural Resources Committee, an attorney-advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a litigator in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Considering the political history of America’s 600 million acres of public lands, he’ll look at how Congress and the executive might respond to numerous challenges, especially those related to climate change and the ongoing decline in biodiversity.
Maya MacGuineas
Monday, August 2, 2021
Fiscal Sanity in an Insane World
Maya MacGuineas is the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Her areas of expertise include budget, tax and economic policy. As a leading budget expert and a political independent, she has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted resource on Capitol Hill. She testifies regularly before Congress and oversees a number of the Committee’s projects, including the grassroots coalition Fix the Debt, the Fiscal Institute and FixUS. Her most recent area of focus is on the future of the economy, technology and capitalism.
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo
Monday, July 26, 2021
The Future of Public Health: Why We Should All Be Concerned
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. An epidemiologist by training, her work focuses on global health security, with a focus on pandemic preparedness, outbreak detection and response, health systems as they relate to global health security, biosurveillance, and infectious disease diagnostics.
James Bruce
Monday, July 19, 2021
The Foreign Intelligence Threat to the U.S.: Russia, China and Other Bad Actors
James Bruce is a former senior executive officer at the CIA, where he held analytic and management positions in both directorates of intelligence and operations, including serving as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology, vice chairman of the Director of Central Intelligence Foreign Denial and Deception Committee, Chief of Counterintelligence Training, and a senior staff member on the President’s Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. He is an adjunct researcher and former Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Deval Patrick
Monday, July 12, 2021
Teaching Democracy: Civics and Civility in the Classroom and Beyond
Originally from the South Side of Chicago, Deval Patrick came to Massachusetts at the age of 14, when he was awarded a scholarship to Milton Academy through the Boston-based organization A Better Chance. After Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal appellate judge and then launched a career as an attorney and business executive, becoming a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a partner at two Boston law firms and a senior executive at two Fortune 50 companies.
– 2020 –
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Monday, August 10, 2020
Cyber Hacking and the 2020 Election
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the Walter and Leonore Director of the university’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Program Director of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands.
Sandra Postel
Monday, August 3, 2020
Our Freshwater Future: Building Water Security in A Changing World
Sandra Postel is founding director of the Global Water Policy Project and author of Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity. From 2009-2015, she served as lead water expert and Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. She is co-creator of Change the Course, the water stewardship initiative awarded the 2017 U.S. Water Prize for restoration of depleted rivers and wetlands.
Admiral Jim Stavridis
Monday, July 27, 2020
Leadership and Geopolitics in the Time of Coronavirus
A Florida native, Jim Stavridis attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, earned a PhD from The Fletcher School at Tufts, and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of 4-star admiral. Among his many commands were four years as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans and counter-piracy off the coast of Africa.
Amna Nawaz
Monday, July 20, 2020
Immigration in the Time of COVID: Consequences for Election 2020
Amna Nawaz joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018 and serves as senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor. Prior to joining NewsHour, Nawaz was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s digital coverage of the 2016 presidential election.
Amy Walter
Monday, July 13, 2020
The 2020 Election in a Time of Pandemic
Having built a reputation as an accurate, objective and insightful political analyst with unparalleled access to campaign insiders and decision-makers, Washington political journalist and national editor of the Cook Political Report Amy Walter discusses the 2020 elections.
– 2019 –
Amy Walter
Monday, August 12, 2019
State of Play—The 2020 Election
Having built a reputation as an accurate, objective and insightful political analyst with unparalleled access to campaign insiders and decision-makers, Washington political journalist and national editor of the Cook Political Report Amy Walter discusses the 2020 elections.
Richard Norton Smith
Monday, August 5, 2019
How Do You Get to Mt. Rushmore: Can Presidential Character be Set in Stone?
Nationally revered author and presidential historian Richard Norton Smith shares his broad insight gleaned during research for his award-winning biographies and his experiences as director of the libraries for Presidents Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan, Ford and Lincoln.
Robert Daly
Monday, July 29, 2019
U.S.-China Relations: Can We Step Back from the Brink?
Current director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, a former U.S. diplomat in Beijing and producer of Chinese-language versions of Sesame Street, Robert Daly is recognized East and West as a leading authority on Sino-U.S. relations.
Dr. John Holdren
Monday, July 15, 2019
Meeting the Climate-Change Challenge: What We Know. What We Expect. What We Should Do.
As the longest serving White House Science Advisor, former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner and current Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Dr. John Holdren addresses the future of climate change.
Edward Alden
Monday, July 8, 2019
Trade Wars and the Global Trading Order: Reform or Collapse?
The Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow specializing in U.S. economic competitiveness, trade and immigration policy, and author of Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy, Edward Alden shares his perspectives on international trade policy.
– 2018 –
Elaine Kamarck and Morris Fiorina, with Ron Elving
Future of the Democratic and Republican Parties
Kamarck is a senior fellow in the governance studies program as well as the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. Fiorina is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Elving is senior editor and correspondent on the Washington desk for NPR News.
Robert Puentes
The Road Ahead for Autonomous Vehicles 
Puentes is president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank with the mission of improving transportation policy and leadership.
David Sanger
Cyber Conflict: The Perfect Weapon
Sanger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, national security correspondent for The New York Times and one of the newspaper’s senior writers.
Christopher Hill
Diplomacy and Action: U.S. Options for North Korea
Hill is a former career diplomat, a four-time ambassador nominated by three presidents, whose last post was as ambassador to Iraq.
Stuart Butler
A Bipartisan Roadmap for the American Healthcare System 
Butler is a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution.
– 2017 –
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Fact Checking: Fake News and the Roles of the Press
Jamieson is a professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and FactCheck.org.
Douglas Alexander
Brexit: What Lies Ahead for Britain and Europe?
Alexander is a former top British Labour politician, including serving as Minister of State for Europe, Secretary of State of International Development and Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Robert Gordon
Growth and Economy: Where is it Headed?
Gordon is a distinguished professor of economics and social science at Northwestern University and author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth: the U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War.
Marcia Coyle
The Nations Highest Court:On The Cusp of Change
Coyle is Chief Washington correspondent for the National Law Journal, U.S. Supreme Court correspondent for PBS News Hour and author of The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution.
Elizabeth Kolbert
Can this Planet Be Saved? A Look at the Future of Biodiversity
Kolbert, staff writer covering climate change at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.
– 2016 –
Norman Ornstein
It’s Even Worse Than It Was: Examining Our Political Mess On The Eve Of The Conventions
Ornstein is co-director of The American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Election Reform Project. Author of the New York bestselling book It’s Even Worse The It Looks.
William McCants and Philipe LeCorre
Radical Islam and Terrorism: Views From The U.S. and Europe
McCants is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center of Middle East Policy and LeCorre is a visiting fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Center on the U.S. and Europe.
Matthew Rojansky
Russia-U.S. Conflict: The New Normal?
Rojansky is director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center.
Richard Reeves
Inequality and The American Dream
Reeves is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
– 2015 –
Hanna Rosin
The Shifting Dynamics Between Men and Women: Implications for Marriage, Work and More
Rosin is the author of The End of Men and the Rise of Women.
Christopher Barrett
Food or Consequences: Global Food Security and Sociopolitical Stability
Barrett is the Director of the Charles Dyson School of Applied Management and Economics at Cornell University.
Craig Whitlock
Drones: Can They Revolutionize Aviation Without Endangering Safety and Privacy?
Whitlock is a Washington Post journalist covering the Pentagon and national security.
Martin Indyk
The New Middle East Disorder
Indyk, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, is the Executive Vice President of The Brookings Institution.
– 2014 –
Charles Murray and Timothy Smeeding
Income Inequality and Social Mobility
Murray is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Smeeding is the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.
Matthew Rojansky
Troubled Waters: U.S. Relations with Russia, Ukraine and the Former Soviet Region
Rojansky is director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Arthur L. Caplan
Rationing Health Care: Ethical Challenges, Ethical Answers
Caplan is director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center.
Richard Danzig
Cyber Insecurity: What It Means for National Security and What We Can Do About It
Danzig is former Secretary of the Navy and board chair of the Center for a New American Security.
– 2013 –
Stephen Klineberg
The Changing Face of America
Klineberg is a professor of sociology at Rice University.
Robert O’Harrow
Zero Day: The Threat in Cyberspace
O’Harrow reports on cybersecurity for the investigative unit of the Washington Post.
Robin Raphel
Pakistan and Its Difficult Neighbors
Raphel is U.S. Coordinator for Non-Military Assistance to Pakistan with the rank of ambassador.
Martin Feldstein and William Gale
Reforming Our Broken Tax System
Feldstein is a former director of the Council of Economic Advisors. Gale is the chair of economic policy at The Brookings Institution.
– 2012 –
Christopher Hill
Foreign Policy after the Election: Challenges and Opportunities
Hill, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, the Republic of Korea, Macedonia and Poland, is Dean of the School of International studies at the University of Denver.
John Pomfret
Everything You Wanted to Know about China in 90 Minutes
Pomfret, former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post, is the editor of the Post’s weekly commentary section.
Robert Reischauer
Adjusting to America’s New Fiscal Reality
Reischauer is formerly the Director of the Congressional Budget Office and President of the Urban Institute.
Richard Murray
Change and Continuity: The 2012 Presidential Race
Murray is a professor of political science and Director of Survey Research at the University of Houston.
– 2011 –
Robin Wright
Rock the Casbah
Wright is a journalist and senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Seymour Hersh
Are Obama’s Foreign Policies Working?
Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter.
Tamar Jacoby
Still a Nation of Immigrants?
Jacoby is president of ImmigrationWorks USA.
Zalmay Khalilzad
Afghanistan and Iraq: An Insider’s View
Khalilzad is a former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.
David Walker
Restoring Fiscal Sanity
Walker is a former U.S. Comptroller General.
– 2010 –
David Sanger
The World and Challenges Obama Confronts
Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times.
Paul Volcker
Can We Make the Government and the Economy Work for Us?
Volcker is the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
Paul Peterson
Saving the American School
Peterson is a professor of government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Smart Power: America’s Global Position
Nye is a professor and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
– 2009 –
Adam Liptak
The Roberts Supreme Court in the Obama Era
Liptak is the Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times.
Phil Sharp
Energy and Climate Policy: The Heat Is Rising in Washington about What to Do
Sharp, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana, is the President of Resources for the Future.
Paul Tagliabue
Drugs and Sports: The Evolving Playbook
Tagliabue is the former Commissioner of the National Football League.
Alice Rivlin
The Future of Capitalism
Rivlin, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, was Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board.
– 2008 –
Michael Osterholm
The Next Influenza Pandemic: A Harbinger of Things to Come?
Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota.
Strobe Talbott
Why Foreign Policy Issues in the 2008 U.S. Election Matter So Much to the World
Talbott, President of The Brookings Institution, is a former Deputy Secretary of State.
Swanee Hunt
Women Waging Peace: Lessons from the Bosnian War
Hunt is Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Galia Golan
Israel, Palestine and the Chances for Peace
Golan, a founder of Peace Now, was professor of Soviet and East European studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
– 2007 –
David Cole and Stuart Taylor
A Dialogue on National Security and Civil Liberties: Detention Interrogation and More
Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and author of books on civil liberties. Taylor is a National Journal columnist and senior fellow at The Brookings Institution
Vali Nasr
The United States and the Middle East after Iraq: Taking Stock of Iran and the Shia Revival
Nasr is a professor of Middle East and South Asia politics at the Naval Postgraduate School
Fred Hitz
The Deceptive Nature of Intelligence Reform
Hitz is a former Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency
Steven Schroeder
Critical Issues Facing U.S. Health Care: Access, Availability and Cost
Schroeder is the former President of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
– 2006 –
Linda Chavez
Facing Facts About Immigration Policy
Chavez, a syndicated columnist, is the Chairman of The Center of Equal Opportunity.
Steve Bell
The Media and Politics
Bell is a professor of telecommunications at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.
Steve McCormick
Protecting the Environment: What We Can Do Nationally and Locally
McCormick is the President of The Nature Conservancy.
Robert Scales
What’s Going On in Iraq
Scales, a retired Army Major General, is a commentator on National Public Radio and Fox News.
– 2005 –
David Brooks
Barbeque Grills and the Future of America: How Our Stratifying as a Society is Affecting Lifestyles and Politics
David Brooks is a New York Times columnist, PBS commentator, and author.
James MacNeill
Modern Environment Concerns and Sustainable Development
MacNeill was the Secretary General of the World Commission on Environment and Development.
John Kane
The War on Drugs and Its Effects on the Criminal Justice System
Kane is a Senior Judge in the U.S. District Court in Denver and member of various commissions on drug laws.
Jay Garner
U.S. Policy in Iraq
Garner, a retired Army Lieutenant General, was the first Director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq in 2003.
– 2004 –
Andre Davis
Terrorism and the Courts Since 9/11: A View From The Federal Bench
Davis is a Judge in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
Strobe Talbott
Foreign Policy in an Election Year
Talbott is President of The Brookings Institution and a former Deputy Secretary of State.
E.J. Dionne
Why The American Electorate Is So Polarized
Dionne, a syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
Daniel Marcus
The Report of 9/11 Commission, What It Found and How It Got There
Marcus, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., is General Counsel of the 9/11 Commission.
– 2003 –
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone
Nye, Dean of the School of Government at Harvard University, is the former Undersecretary of State.
Sue Birch, Irwin Garfinkle, Sara McLanahan and Belle Sawhill
Changes in the American Family, a panel discussion
Birch is Executive Director of the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association. Garfinkle is Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems at Columbia University. McLanahan is Director of the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing at Princeton University. Belle Sawhill is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.