The 2026/2027 F. Joseph Callahan Distinguished Lecture at Case Western Reserve University will be presented by New York Times opinion columnist and bestselling author of How to Know a Person and The Second Mountain, David Brooks.
The lecture will be held Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. as part of the Think Forum series.
Introduced in 2005 as the Distinguished Lecture Series, this annual event engages the Greater Cleveland community in discourse on important topics of our time. In 2010, the event was named in honor of Francis Joseph Callahan Jr., local business leader, philanthropist and chairman emeritus of Swagelok, a leading fluid system manufacturer headquartered in Solon, Ohio.
About David Brooks
David Brooks is a bestselling author, Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs first presidential senior fellow, a contributing writer at The Atlantic and recurring commentator on PBS NewsHour. With decades of experience as an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Brooks is an insightful observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs whose columns are among the most read in the nation.
The author of six books with many bestsellers among them, Brooks seeks to share and encourage intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom, emphasizing the value of community and the importance of nourishing both the inner self and the social self in our journeys to live fulfilling lives.
About Our Partner, F. Joseph Callahan (1923-2013)
Born in his family home in Lima, Ohio, F. Joseph Callahan went on to excel in high school athletics, higher education classrooms, nuclear submarines and manufacturing. While working at Swagelok, a Cleveland-based fluid system company, for 42 years, Callahan secured 23 patents, ultimately becoming the company’s president and chairman.
Throughout his life, Callahan maintained a profound commitment to family, service and generosity to those under-resourced—while displaying a powerful intellect, a passion for innovation and overwhelming confidence in the potential of close-knit working groups.
The F. Joseph Callahan Distinguished Lecture emphasizes the same values of excellence, integrity and respect that its namesake embodied as an executive and a family man.
Previous speakers include Booker prize winner Colm Toibin; noted Harvard University psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond; Kay Redfield Jamison, an international authority on mood disorders; New York Times best-selling authors Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband; acclaimed professor, cultural critic, author and filmmaker Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; New Yorker writer and Harvard professor Jill Lepore; and literary scholar and writer Viet Thanh Nguyen.