All are invited to the next Research on Tap lecture at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, in the loft of Public House Brewing Co. in Rolla. Dr. Diana Ahmad, Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of history, will give a talk titled “Prairie Dogs: Symbols of a Growing Nation.”

During the mid-19th century, 300,000 people crossed the Great Plains on their way to California and Oregon. On the journey west, they discovered prairie dogs, small members of the ground squirrel family. The overlanders believed the small creatures symbolized the new nation, a nation of democratic-republican expansionists. Ahmad will explain what the pioneers saw in the prairie dogs that so interested them.

Ahmad has taught at Missouri S&T since 2000. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia and master degree and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Before coming to S&T, she taught in Texas, New York, Japan, Korea, Guam and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.