John Gibbons, former science adviser to President Clinton, will speak at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the Spahr Classroom in Eaton Hall at Kansas University. The free event is open to the public.

Gibbons is the first speaker in the KU Transportation Research Institute’s new Emerging Challenges in Transportation lecture series.

Gibbons spent 14 years as director of the Office of Technology Assessment, a bipartisan agency of Congress designed to provide committee members with scientific analysis. From there, he spent five years as Clinton’s science adviser.