Each year, the Valley Fever Center for Excellence hosts the Farness Lecture. Orin J Farness was a physician in Tucson and is credited with identifying the first culturally proven Arizona patient with coccidioidomycosis, published in 1938. Dr. Farness also conducted skin test surveys in Pima County, demonstrating that most persons had delayed type dermal hypersensitivity to coccidioidin. A lecture in his honor was endowed by his widow and from 1975 through 1991 it was administered by the Tucson Medical Center and the University of Arizona’s Respiratory Sciences Center. When the Valley Fever Center for Excellence was approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in 1996, the Farness Lecture Series was resumed.
This year's lecture was presented by Dr. Charles Daley, a Professor of Medicine at University of Colorado, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, and National Jewish Health, where he is also the chief of their Mycobacterial and Respiratory Infections Division. His Lecture “Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Infections: What’s in a name?” went in depth on the effects, process of identification, and different treatments for Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Infections, as well as the process of using taxonomic rules to create names for these different infections. To view this lecture's recording please click the link below. https://streaming.biocom.arizona.edu/streaming/30759/event
1996 | 1st Annual. | John E Bennett |
1997 | 2nd Annual. | Garry T Cole |
1998 | 3rd Annual. | George S Deepe |
1999 | 4th Annual. | David A Stevens |
2000 | 5th Annual. | William E Dismukes |
2001 | 6th Annual. | Hans Einstein |
2002 | 7th Annual. | Russ Middaugh |
2003 | 8th Annual. | John W Taylor |
2004 | 9th Annual. | John E Edwards, Jr |
2005 | 10th Annual. | Demosthenes Pappagianis |
2006 | 11th Annual. | Farness Conference: “Valley Fever as a Public Health Problem.” |
2007 | 12th Annual. | Stuart M Levitz |
2008 | 13th Annual. | Steve M Holland |
2009 | 14th Annual. | Arturo Casadevall |
2010 | 15th Annual. | Joshua Fierer |
2011 | 16th Annual. | Kuma Kukarla |
2012 | 17th Annual. | Francesca Geertsma |
2013 | 18th Annual. | Antonino Catanzaro (held April 2014) |
2014 | 19th Annual. | Ben Rybiki |
2015 | 20th Annual. | Tom Chiller |
2016 | 21st Annual. | Janis Blair |
2017 | 22nd Annual. | Marcus Horwitz (held January 2018) |
2018 | 23rd Annual. | David Archer |
2019 | 24th Annual. | Tom Kozel |
2020 | 25th Annual. | Bridget Barker |
2021 | 26th Annual. | George Thompson (held January 2023) |
2022 | 27th Annual. | Robert Modlin |
2023 | 28th Annual. | Thomas Monath |
2024 | 29th Annual. | Charles Daley (held May 2025) |

