Internationally recognized agriculturalist Cary Fowler, father of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — the world’s largest secure seed vault located north of the Arctic Circle in Norway — will deliver the President’s Distinguished Lecture at Kansas State University at 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15.

Fowler will present “Understanding Food Insecurity: From Geopolitics to Genebanks” in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. The lecture is free and open to the public. Doors open at 2:30 p.m., and light refreshments will be provided.

Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of how global events shape what ends up on our plates, why protecting crop diversity is among the most cost-effective forms of insurance for humanity, and what role scientists, policymakers and everyday citizens can play in building a more food-secure world.

Fowler’s visit to K-State is also part of the Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Fund Lectureship.

Fowler is the founder and president of the Food Security Leadership Council, which is dedicated to strengthening the U.S. role in global efforts to advance global food security. He is the former special envoy for global food security at the U.S. Department of State, where he served from 2022 to 2025 and headed the Office of Global Food Security. He also served as the deputy coordinator for diplomacy of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s “Feed the Future” program.

A highly respected scientist, he is the recipient of the World Food Prize, the Right Livelihood Award, the Vavilov Medal, the Leadership in Science Public Service Award of the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Heinz Award, Bette Middler’s Wind Beneath My Wings Award, the William Brown Award of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Meyer Medal from the Crop Science Society of America, the Proctor Medal of the Garden Clubs of America, the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Citizen Leadership, and honorary doctorates from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oberlin College, Rhodes College and Simon Fraser University. He is one of two foreign elected members of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The President’s Distinguished Lecture Series at K-State features world-renowned scholars of national and international stature from across human endeavor. Designed by K-State’s University Distinguished Professors, the series advances the Next-Gen K-State vision by inspiring learning, creativity, discovery and engagement that positively impacts society and transforms lives in Kansas and around the world.

The Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Fund was created to honor Basant Kaur and her husband Ram Singh Gill, who raised nine sons and one daughter in the village of Dhudike in Punjab, India and whose farm benefited from advances in international agriculture research. The fund was created thanks to the kind generosity of the Gill family and Bikram Gill, founder of the K-State Wheat Genetics Resource Center, emeritus university distinguished professor of plant pathology, and inaugural Bikram S. Gill chair in wheat genetics. The fund supports a Department of Plant Pathology lecture series that invites outstanding scientists engaged in research affecting international agriculture to present to the K-State community.