In 1961, twenty-year-old Peter Sterling left Cornell University to join the Freedom Rides in Jackson, Mississippi where he was arrested and jailed. That experience shaped his eventual career as a neuroscientist and for the next 20+ years, Sterling split his time between the microscope and the streets of poor communities. What he found is an alarming correlation between social tension and hypertension that challenges the traditional way America views health. A lifelong political activist and prominent neuroscientist, Sterling believes that society has narrowed the oppor- tunities for Americans to exercise our innate gifts — especially those who are in poor and marginalized commu- nities — and that this mismatch has only increased “deaths of despair.” Join us as we welcome Dr. Sterling to the University of Notre Dame to share his view of what health is: equality, education, community, and the belief that your life actually matters.