Dr. Ashish Jha, who is one of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” will kick off the Town Hall 2025-26 season at 7 o’clock tonight at the Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall on the campus of Clovis North High School.

Jha is a global health expert who coordinated the White House’s COVID response in 2022 and 2023. He will address climate change as a public health crisis. His talk is titled “The Heat Is On: The Human Cost of Climate Change.”

He is expected to unpack how extreme heat, air pollution, and emerging diseases are already impacting our bodies, minds, and healthcare systems.

Jha has been dean of the Brown University School of Public Health since 2020. His focus there is on improving the quality and cost of health care, and on the impact of public health policy.

A street party with food, music, and entertainment will take place ahead of the talk in the concert hall parking lot beginning at 5 p.m.

A Look at Upcoming Speakers

Other speakers this season will delve into survival in a Middle East war zone, gang rehabilitation, the Japanese American experience during WWII, and more.

The Saroyan Theater will host Daytime Talks at 10:30 a.m. A lunch with the speakers will be hosted after each event, available for an additional charge.

All talks are live streamed and will have a certified sign language interpreter present.

Discounted season tickets are available for $210. Tickets for individual events are $60.

Meet the Town Hall Speakers

The season features eight events ending in April.

The first Daytime Talk, “Reporting Under Fire”, is Oct. 15 with Bob Woodruff. The American journalist will offer an unfiltered look at global conflict.

Woodruff was seriously injured by a bomb in Iraq and founded an organization to help wounded veterans and their families.

On Nov. 19, Father Greg Boyle will talk about a path to gang rehabilitation. He is a Jesuit priest and founder of the world’s largest gang intervention program, Homeboy Industries.

Dr. Steve Boyes, a conservationist of the last untouched wilderness, will take the audience on a journey into Africa’s Okavango Delta on Jan. 21.

Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat, and Tome Ikeda, founder of the Densho Project, will speak on Feb. 18. Together, they’ll offer deeply personal stories of resilience and resistance in American concentration camps during WWII.

On March 18, Ken Jennings, host of “Jeopardy!” and the game show’s all-time winning champion will share the power of lifelong learning.

John Volanthen, the cave diver who helped lead the daring 2018 rescue mission to save a Thai soccer  team, will speak at the second Twilight Talk, on March 24. Volanthen will take audiences “Into the Darkness.”

Amy Tan, the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club, will finish out the 89th season on April 15. Tan will share how nature became a source of creativity, mindfulness and wonder.

About San Joaquin Valley Town Hall

San Joaquin Valley Town Hall is a nonprofit organization that aims to bring thought-provoking speakers to the Central Valley.

The all-volunteer board of directors has hosted hundreds of speakers, from scientists to cultural icons, since 1937.

GV Wire is a media sponsor of Town Hall.