The Mercyhurst Student Government (MSG) kicked off its five-part Distinguished Speaker Series by inviting Jeff Lieberman, host of The Discovery Channel’s “Time Warp,” to Mercyhurst College on Tuesday, Jan. 12.

Thirty-year-old Jeff Lieberman has earned four degrees and is working on his fifth. He works in just as many fields. On top of being a musician, photographer, roboticist and sculptor, Lieberman finds time to teach and to host a television show.

Lieberman is best known for his “technological sculptures,” including the Cyberflora, a garden of robotic flowers built with enough artificial intelligence to react when a person enters the room, or the Motor Learning Robotic Wearable Suit, robotic clothing which accelerates motor skill learning.

Lieberman does not stop at science. He has mastered high-speed photography and has toured around the world in the musical duo Gloobic, in which Lieberman partners with Eric Gunther to make music labeled “pastoral electroacoustic.”

Lieberman presented everything from classic optical illusions to videos of vacuums being formed inside a glass bottle.

He said that science allows us to interpret things we see in our daily lives, such as water droplets, and appreciate them: Those same water droplets form flower patterns for tiny periods of time.

Science’s lack of popularity stems from the lack of emotion in this field, Lieberman said. He said he hopes to change the image of science with exciting explosions and awe-inspiring images which cannot be fully appreciated by the chemical equations that can predict these events.

Freshman Matthew Teleha, a fan of Lieberman’s TV show, said, “That was pretty sweet.”

Teleha also invited his friend, Braden Greenawdt, who had never heard about “Time Warp” before the presentation. “It was very interesting. I don’t know what my favorite part was.”

Lieberman’s presentation represents the first of five speakers MSG will bring to Mercyhurst’s campus this spring.

Mercyhurst students can look forward to free talks by Ed Miller, Raymond Ablack, Gary Telgenhoff and Jeff Havens.

According to Alexandra Miniri, the MSG Public Relations Coordinator, “The MSG Distinguished Speaker Series strives to bring in the best speakers who will be interesting and beneficial to the Mercyhurst community academically and culturally, as well as being entertaining.”

For more information on the upcoming speakers, check out the Mercyhurst Web site or e-mail Event Coordinator Chris Ulrich at msgevents@mercyhurst.edu