Renowned Epidemiologist Steven Blair, who found that people can be both fat and fit, will present the Wenner-Wingate Memorial Lecture at McDaniel College 8 p.m. March 9 in McDaniel Lounge.

His lecture, "Physical Inactivity: The Biggest Public Health Problem of the 21st Century," is free and open to the public. For more information, call 410-857-2294.

Blair’s research focuses on the associations between lifestyle and health, with a specific emphasis on exercise, physical fitness, body composition, and chronic disease.  He has published more than 300 papers and chapters in the scientific literature, and was the Senior Scientific Editor for the U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health. 

Blair is president and CEO of The Cooper Institute in Dallas.  He is an adjunct professor in the schools of Public Health at the University of South Carolina and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the College of Education Academy for Research and Development at the University of North Texas, and the College of Education at the University of Houston.  He is also the recipient of three honorary doctoral degrees.  

Blair is a Benjamin Meaker Fellow at the University of Bristol, England, and fellow in the American College of Epidemiology, Society for Behavioral Medicine, American College of Sports Medicine, American Heart Association, and American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. He was elected to membership in the American Epidemiological Society. 

Blair was the first president of the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, and is a past-president of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. 

He has received awards from many professional associations, holds a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, and is one of the few individuals outside the U.S. Public Health Service to be awarded the Surgeon General's Medallion.  He has delivered lectures to medical and scientific groups as well as the public in 48 states and 30 countries.

The Wenner-Wingate Memorial Lecture was established through the bequest of Dr. Evelyn Wingate Wenner, a longtime Western Maryland professor of literature and a resident of Westminster.  Before her death in 1989 at the age of 88, Wenner planned the new lectureship in honor of her husband, C. Malcolm Wenner Jr., and her brother, W. Wilson Wingate.  Prior to his death in 1975, Mr. Wenner was a retired railroad official who was supportive of WMC students and his wife's research.  A distinguished Baltimore sportswriter in the 1920s and '30s and a 1918 graduate of Western Maryland, Mr. Wingate is credited with coining the name of the WMC mascot¬¬ - the Green Terror - and with advancing the sport of lacrosse as a writer for the Baltimore Sun and later The Baltimore News and Post.

Wenner is best remembered as an astute scholar of Shakespeare and the literature of the British Enlightenment.  While teaching at WMC from 1931 to 1967, her main interest was George Steevens, an 18th century Shakespearean scholar and editor.

McDaniel College, a private four-year college of the liberal arts and sciences, was founded in 1867 as Western Maryland College. Students pursue more than 60 programs of study, including dual majors and student-designed majors.  The 1,600 undergraduates and 1,600 graduate students receive personal attention and take advantage of leadership opportunities in the close-knit community, where the average class size is 17 and professors are dedicated mentors.  The 160-acre campus is located in Westminster, Md., 30 miles northwest of Baltimore and 56 miles north of Washington, D.C.