The F. B. Watts Memorial Lectures, commonly known as the Watts Lectures, is a series of public lecture

Public lecture

A public lecture is one means employed for educating the public in the sciences and medicine. The Royal Institution has a long history of public lectures and demonstrations given by prominent experts in the field...

s held at the University of Toronto Scarborough

University of Toronto Scarborough

The University of Toronto Scarborough is a satellite campus of the University of Toronto. Based in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the campus is set upon suburban parkland in the residential neighbourhood of Highland Creek...

 several times annually. It was established in 1970 and named after Fred Watts, a former professor of geography at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 and founding member of the Scarborough Campus, who deceased a year before the inception of the lecture series. The series was inaugrated by Lester B. Pearson

Lester B. Pearson

Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, PC, OM, CC, OBE was a Canadian professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat, and politician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis...

, former Prime Minister of Canada

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

.

Notable lecturers

• 1970 — Lester B. Pearson
  Lester B. Pearson
  Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, PC, OM, CC, OBE was a Canadian professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat, and politician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis...
  
  
• 1977 — John Diefenbaker
  John Diefenbaker
  John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 21, 1957, to April 22, 1963...
  
  
• 1983 — Hans Küng
  Hans Küng
  Hans Küng is a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and prolific author. Since 1995 he has been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic . Küng is "a Catholic priest in good standing", but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology...
  
  
• 1994 — Abdullah Abdullah
  Abdullah Abdullah
  Abdullah Abdullah is an Afghan politician and a doctor of medicine. He was an adviser and friend to Ahmad Shah Massoud, legendary anti-Taliban leader and commander known as the "Lion of Panjshir". After the fall of the Taliban regime, Dr. Abdullah served as Afghanistan's Foreign Minister from 2001...
  
  
• 1995 — Roberta Bondar
  Roberta Bondar
  Roberta Bondar,is OC, O.Ont, FRCP, FRSC is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. Following more than a decade as NASA's head of space medicine, Bondar became a consultant and speaker in the business, scientific and medical communities.-Education:Roberta Bondar had...
  
  
• 2011 — Romeo Dallaire
  Roméo Dallaire
  Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general...
  
  
• 2011 — Noam Chompsky