Cultural anthropologist Montgomery McFate will discuss the Army's Human Terrain System (HTS) during a special presentation at 4 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12, in the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State. Montgomery is the final guest speaker in the Institute for Information Technology and Culture's 2008 speaker series. "This is Dangerous Territory: Social Research Out of Bounds"

McFate works on defense and national security issues and is senior social scientist for HTS, which was developed to study social groups in Iraq and Afghanistan and provide military commanders with information about the population to help reduce military and civilian conflict. HTS depends on anthropologists because of their expertise in the study of human beings and their societies.

HTS has received commendations from military commanders, the Secretary of Defense and citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan, but has generated controversy within the academic community. This lecture will describe the transformation that has occurred within the Department of Defense over the past few years, of which HTS is a small but significant part.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more details or to reserve a seat for this event, e-mail series coordinator Cevan Castle at cevan@wayne.edu or call (313) 874-7010.

Wayne State University is a premier institution offering more than 350 academic programs in 13 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students.