LEWISTON – A computer design expert will speak from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Great Falls Forum at the Lewiston Public Library.

Dana Hutchins will present “Beyond the Aquarium: High-Tech Marine Science for Maine Youth.”

Hutchins has a national reputation as an innovator in the science museum exhibit and computer interaction design fields. He will be talking about one of his latest projects, which involves the design and development of a $2.4 million system of 12 networked interactive multimedia marine research simulation stations and 30 high-definition video displays for the new Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

For more than 25 years, Hutchins has created interactive systems, educational games, software user interfaces, multimedia and Web products for NASA, National Semiconductor, Fairchild, Polaroid, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System and the Orlando Science Center.

He is a long-time member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group and the Association of Science-Technology Center. He is president and director of Image Works, whose team recently completed a networked exhibit demonstration project for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

The forum is a monthly public platform for thought-provoking speakers and discussion. It is sponsored by the Sun Journal, Lewiston Public Library, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Bates College. Everyone is welcome and reservations are not necessary. Bring a lunch. Bottled water will be provided at a small cost. A question-and-answer period follows each talk.

This season’s remaining speakers are Bates College associate professor of pyschology Amy Bradfield Douglass on Feb. 21; New York Times best-selling author Tess Gerritsen on March 20; the Somali Immigrant Panel on April 17; and Maine’s first female public safety commissioner, Anne Jordan, on May 15.

Go and do

Who: Dana Hutchins

What: Great Falls Forum speaker

When: Noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17

Where: Marsden Hartley Cultural Center, Lewiston Public Library, Lisbon St.