Sunday, April 26, 2015

Energy (and Other) Events - April 26, 2015

Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater Boston area that catch the editor's eye.

Hubevents  http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.

If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com

What I Do and Why I Do It:  The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html

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Monday, April 27
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12pm  MASS Seminar - Clara Orbe (GSFC)
12pm  Low-carbon leapfrogging and globalization: How China developed its solar PV industry
12pm  edTalk: Discover How Learning Works
12:10pm  Urban Nature / Human Nature
12:15pm  "Cities, Technologies and Political Imaginaries"
2pm  Israel’s Triangular Cyber Eco-system, Academia, Government and Industry
3:45pm  EAPS Special Seminar: "Nutrients and Toxic Signals: The Role of Phytoplankton in Cryptic Biogeochemical Cycles"
4pm  The Value of Regulatory Discretion: Estimates from Environmental Inspections in India - joint with IO and Development
4pm  Our Mockingbird: Film Screening and Discussion
5pm  The Arab Networked Public Sphere: Social Mobilization Post-Revolutions
5pm  Gadda Goes To War
5:15pm  Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars
6:30pm  Humanitarian Happy Hour
7pm  Catalyst Conversations Faces, Genes, Patterns, Stories: Alberta Chu and Murray O. Robinson
7pm  Art, Culture and Technology Lecture: MICHAEL RAKOWITZ
8pm  Harvard LITfest: Matthew Weiner, Creator of Mad Men, on the Rise of Literary Television

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Tuesday, April 28
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10:30am  Water Club Lecture Series: 5 Paradigm Shifts for Water Sustainability - A proposition for Tropical Regions
12pm  The Future of Floating Forests in a Changing World
12pm  Ocean anoxia and the biological pump
12pm  Intellectual Privacy
12pm Religion in the News - Inflicting Death: Should the State Execute Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?
12:30pm  Looking inside moons with gravity and topography
2pm  Science and Its Publics: Conversations on Accountability
4pm  Designing Energy-efficient, Reliable, and Secure Systems: From Emerging Devices to Bio-inspired Architectures
4pm  Building Newborn Minds in Virtual Worlds
4pm  Fletcher Ideas Exchange
4:30pm  Migration, National Security, and New forms of Policing: Dubai and Abu Dhabi
5:30pm  Askwith Forum - Religious Freedom: Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Role of Education
6pm  Boston Green Drinks - April Happy Hour
6pm  Disease Gone Global:  What Causese Epidemics?
6:30pm  Why Climate Guilt Doesn't Help:  An Evening with Author Per Espen Stoknes
6:30pm  Solar Water Pumps for Irrigation in Rural India -- Learning Experiences from on the Ground
7pm  Healthy Places in the Transition Century
7pm  Science at MIT: From the Cold War to the Climate Crisis

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Wednesday, April 29
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12pm  Measuring Disaster Response Capacity
12pm  Who's Arming Asia, and Why it Matters
1pm  Preserving Place: Issues and Insights in Documenting Cultural Heritage in the Modern Middle East
2:30pm  Wired: A World Transformed by the Telegraph
2:30pm  Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium - Annual Distinguished Public Lecture
4pm  Deciphering the Evolution of a Cancer, One Cell at a Time
4pm  Translational Research in Mechanics and Structures: From Nano to Continuum
4:30pm  Hrant Dink Memorial Lecture on Human Rights: Forced Migration and Human Rights: Can we maintain the promise of protection?
5:30pm  Giving Voice to Values: The "How" of Values-Driven Leadership
5:30pm  Divestment Debate: Should Harvard Divest from Fossil Fuels?
6pm  Yours, mine, ours: A community conversation
7pm  Celebrating Right Whales: The Trials and Triumphs of a Species on the Edge
7pm  The Health of Democracy: Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement

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Thursday, April 30
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10am  Lesley University Diversity Council presents Culture Fest 2015: Native American Cultures
11:45am  Calestous Juma on Reinventing African Development: Emerging Policy Perspectives
12pm  Optimizing Hydro-Reservoir operation using Model Predictive Control
12pm  Brazil Studies Program Seminar Series: Sustainability of the Amazon: Tradeoffs Between Environmental Change, Hydropower and River Alterations
3:30pm  Book Celebration/Panel on Health, Healthcare, and Inequalities in the United States
4pm  Climate Change and the Permafrost Carbon Feedback
4pm  Visualizing Sovereignty
4:10pm  Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality
4:15pm  The Memory Factory
5pm  Melville in the First Age of Viral Media
6pm  Email Marketing Workshop: What can you learn from half a million emails?
6pm  SOLUTIONS with/in/sight: Blood, Sweat & Pioneers
6pm  Internet Security and Privacy with Google
6:30pm  Screening of Inside Disaster (2011)
7pm  Computing on Encrypted Data
7:30pm  Feminist Pedagogy in a Digital Age: A Workshop on Teaching with Technology

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Friday,  May 1
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Ending Institutional Corruption
8am  Symposium: Descartes and the Enlightenment
9am  HTC Symposium: Revisiting CASE: The Conference of Architects for the Study of the Environment
11am  EAPS Thesis Defense ~ Strong Wind Events across Greenland's Coast and their Influences on the Ice Sheet, Sea Ice and Ocean
2:30pm  Experiments in Environing: An Alternative History of Environmentalism
5:30pm  Jazz on the Plaza
5:30pm  Technovation 2015: Regional Pitch Night & Showcase
6pm  Film Screening: Detropia
7pm  Reframing Complex Water Challenges

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Saturday, May 2
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Ending Institutional Corruption
HTC Symposium: Revisiting CASE: The Conference of Architects for the Study of the Environment
Reframing Complex Water Challenges
9am  Point to Point Camp
11am  Wake Up the Earth Festival
1pm  ARTS FIRST Performance Fair
IoT Hackathon May 2-3, Challenges: Smart City, Accessibility & Smart Agriculture
3pm  Climate Change Session
4:30pm  Winning the Future:  The Struggle for Privacy and Democracy in the Information Age

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Sunday, May 3
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Urban and Suburban Carbon Farming to Reverse Global Warming
11am  Earthfest
12:30pm  Somerville Growing Center’s Spring Garden Day
1pm  Spring Forward: Stories and Music for a New Season

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Monday, May 4
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10am  The Women Sheriffs of Wall Street: A Discussion with Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair, and Mary Schapiro
12pm  MASS Seminar - Suzana Camargo (Columbia)
5pm  The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything
5:30pm  The Outsider: book talk with author Patricia Gercik
6pm  What is the legacy of the 2024 Olympics?

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Tuesday, May 5
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8am  Boston TechBreakfast
The 10th Annual Plant Biology Initiative Symposium:  "From Leaves to Ecosystems: Plants in a Changing World”
12pm  Anti-Drones Rally at M.I.T.
3:30pm  EAPS Thesis Defense ~ Variability of the Polar Stratospheric Vortex and its Impact on Surface Climate Patterns
4pm  PBI Special Lecture: Understanding, Managing, and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change
4pm  Big Data, Big Brother, and Systemic Risk Management in the Financial System
4pm  Why We Should Trust Science: Perspectives from the History & Philosophy of Science
5pm  Opening Talk and Reception: Live Matter, An Exhibition by Rosetta S. Elkin
5:30pm  Climate Resilient Financing
6pm  Architecture Lecture / HTC Forum: Basile Baudez, "Drawing for the Prize: Architectural Competition Drawings from Europe to America"
6pm  BASG May 5th: Population with Alan Weisman, Author of Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com


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Monday, April 27
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MASS Seminar - Clara Orbe (GSFC)
Monday, April 27
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)

Speaker: Clara Orbe

MASS Seminar

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars (MASS)
For more information, contact:  MASS organizing committee
mass@mit.edu

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Low-carbon leapfrogging and globalization: How China developed its solar PV industry
Monday, April 27
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge

with Christian Binz, Giorgio Ruffolo Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program and Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Harvard Kennedy School

ETIP/Consortium Energy Policy Seminar
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/cepr/

Contact Name:  Louisa Lund
Louisa_Lund@hks.harvard.edu

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edTalk: Discover How Learning Works
Monday, April 27
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building 10-105, Bush Room, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Marsha Lovett, Director of the Eberly Center for Teaching and Excellence and Norman Bier, Director of the Open Learning Initiative, Carnegie Mellon University.
Research in cognitive psychology and developments in educational technology are changing the way we learn. Join us for a discussion on how learning works, the role of technology, and strategies you can use to improve your own learning.

Pizza will be served.

Web site: http://odl.mit.edu/news-and-events/events/discover-how-learning-works
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Office of Digital Learning
For more information, contact:  Sarah Jane Vaughan
617-258-6498

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Urban Nature / Human Nature
Monday, April 27
12:10 pm
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Lecture Hall, Jamaica Plain

Peter Del Tredici, Arnold Arboretum and Harvard Graduate School of Design

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"Cities, Technologies and Political Imaginaries"
Monday, April 27
12:15 pm - 2:00 pm
Room 100F, Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Antoine Picon, Harvard, GSD

STS Circle at Harvard

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Israel’s Triangular Cyber Eco-system, Academia, Government and Industry
Monday, April 27
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
MIT, Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street, Room- D463, Cambridge

Hear from Major Gen. (Res.) Professor Isaac Ben-Israel serves as Head of the Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (ICRC). Additionally, he serves as Chairman of the Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, Chairman of the Israeli Space Agency and Chairman of the National Council for Research and Development in the Ministry of Science.

This is the first event in the CyberSecurity@CSAIL Lecture Series.

CyberSecurity@CSAIL

Cyber systems cover nearly every aspect of our lives. Current systems have vulnerabilities that, when compromised, can result in devastating and costly damage. Exposure to breaches in security grow as companies invest in technologies such as the cloud, mobile, and social media.

"There are two kinds of companies today. Those that have experienced a security breach and those that don't know it yet." ~Howard Shrobe

The goal of CyberSecurity@CSAIL is to identify and develop technologies to address the most significant security issues confronting organizations in the next decade. Presently, approaches to system security do not give overall security guarantees, but rather attacks are fought individually - “patch and pray” style. CyberSecurity@CSAIL aims to provide an integrated and formal approach to the security of systems, combining design and analysis methods from cryptography, software and hardware.

Directed by Dr. Howard Shrobe, the effort involves a focused group of industry partners. Throughout the year members will participate in a series of meetings to discuss key issues, learn about ongoing CSAIL research, and suggest new lines of research in the space. The initiative is meant to address the technical challenges of cybersecurity more holistically. Shrobe says that many companies assume that security vulnerabilities are inevitable and therefore adopt "patch-and-pray" strategies that manage attacks retroactively rather than fight them systematically.

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EAPS Special Seminar: "Nutrients and Toxic Signals: The Role of Phytoplankton in Cryptic Biogeochemical Cycles"
Monday, April 27
3:45p–5:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)

Speaker: Julia Diaz, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, WHOI
Microorganisms control the geochemistry of our planet via metabolic pathways that link the global cycles of key elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and metals. However, many biogeochemical transformations are cryptic. Cryptic biogeochemistry involves a chemical species with an exceedingly low residence time, typically driven by high rates of reactive consumption.

Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/events
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), WHOI
For more information, contact:  Allison Provaire
617.253.3382
provaire@mit.edu 

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The Value of Regulatory Discretion: Estimates from Environmental Inspections in India - joint with IO and Development
Monday, April 27
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, Building E62-650, 100 Main Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Rohini Pande (Harvard University)

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Microeconomic Applications
For more information, contact:  economics calendar
econ-cal@mit.edu

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Our Mockingbird: Film Screening and Discussion
Monday, April 27
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall Room 1015, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Charles Hamilton Houston Institute
SPEAKER(S) Sandra Jaffe, filmmaker, Our Mockingbird
Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama—The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution"
LINK http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/2015/04/our-mockingbird-film-screening-and-discussion/

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The Arab Networked Public Sphere: Social Mobilization Post-Revolutions
Monday, April 27
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (second floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2015/04/NetworkedPublicSphere#RSVP

With special guests, Lina Attalah, Rob Faris (moderator), Jazem Halioui, Fares Mabrouk, Dalia Othman and Nagla Rizk
Join us for a round-table discussion on the networked public sphere and social mobilization post-revolutions in the Arab world. Researchers working with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the American University in Cairo’s Access to Knowledge for Development Center, Innova Tunisia and the Arab Policy Institute will discuss current research conducted on the evolution of the networked public sphere in Egypt and Tunisia.

The networked public sphere has emerged as an influential medium for sharing news, disseminating information, and mediating collective action. Many have pointed to the impact of digital media on politics and public affairs, particularly in promoting and coordinating popular protests. Digitally mediated collective action continues to play a prominent role in the political landscape in Egypt and Tunisia. Nevertheless, rigorous assessments of the networked public sphere’s impact, modalities, and relationship to collective action offline are still rare.

In this session, we will present and discuss research that focuses on tracking and analyzing the socio-political topics in online content and their interplay with offline networks based on fieldwork research in Egypt and Tunisia.

This research is part of a joint effort by the Berkman Center, the American University in Cairo’s Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D), Innova Tunisia and the Arab Policy Institute.

Lina Attalah is the chief editor of Mada Masr, a Cairo-based news website. She is also a research fellow with the Access to Knowledge for Development Center.

Rob Faris (moderator) is the Research Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Jazem Halioui is the CEO of Innova Tunisia and an entrepreneur with eighteen years of experience in bootstrapping and managing companies in Tunisia and France.

Fares Mabrouk is the Director of the Arab Policy Institute, a Tunis-based think tank. He also leads Yunus Social Business (YSB) global acceleration programs.

Dalia Othman is a Berkman Fellow and Visiting Scholar at MIT's Center for Civic Media.

Nagla Rizk is a professor of economics and founding director of the Access to Knowledge for Development Center at the American University in Cairo.

Event Hashtag: #ArabNPS

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Gadda Goes To War
WHEN  Mon., Apr. 27, 2015, 5 – 7 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Science Center, Theater C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Theater
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, in collaboration with the Italian Consulate General Boston, the Edinburgh Gadda Prize, the Italian Colloquium and Chiasmi 2015. Event sponsored by the Lauro De Bosis Foundation and Tony Crolla, Vittoria Group Edinburgh UK.
SPEAKER(S)  Fabrizio Gifuni and Federica G. Pedriali
COST  Free and open to the public
TICKET WEB LINK  http://www.gaddaprize.ed.ac.uk/events.php
TICKET INFO  Seat reservation is highly recommended. To reserve your seats email fpedriali@fas.harvard.edu
CONTACT INFO fpedriali@fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS  Lecture-performance based on Carlo Emilio Gadda's WWI Diaries and anti-Mussolini's writings.
When do we start going to war with our country, and why? What did it mean to go to war from WWI to WWII and beyond, in Italy, before and after Mussolini?
Italy’s leading actor Fabrizio Gifuni takes these questions on board as he presents his award-winning show "Gadda Goes to War" (Ubu Prize for Best Actor and Best Show) in this unique lecture-performance addressed to all those with a passion for civic commitment and political theater.
The show had a sold-out British premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of Edinburgh 2012.
Languages: English and Italian
LINK http://www.gaddaprize.ed.ac.uk/events.php

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Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars
Monday, April 27
5:15PM
Harvard, Geology Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street 1st Floor, Cambridge

Margo Oge, Vice Chairman of the Board of Deltawing Technologies, and former director of the Office of Transportation Air Quality at the US Environmental Protection Agency, author of Driving the Future:  Combatting Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars

“The author has a vision for the future of the automobile. It's not exactly the flying car of the future, but almost, as it comes with smartphone-synced scheduling, zero-emissions technology, and the ability to park itself. . . . Astute . . . Oge knows her stuff.”  —Kirkus Reviews

In Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars (Arcade Publishing, April 7, 2015), Margo Oge envisions a future of clean, intelligent vehicles with lighter frames and alternative power trains, such as plug in electric and fuel cell vehicles that produce zero emissions and average 100+ mpg. The cars of tomorrow will have more in common with our smart phones than with the vehicles we drive today. With electronic architectures more like that of airplanes, they will be smarter and safer, will park themselves, and will network with other vehicles on the road to drive themselves, save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These innovative vehicles will be necessary to combat climate change as the transportation sector accounts for one-third the global greenhouse gas emissions in the US.

Oge also provides the ultimate insider’s account of the partnership between federal agencies, California and car manufacturers that led to President Obama’s historic 2012 deal targeting greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles. The deal will double the fuel efficiency of cars by 2025, avoid burning 12 billion barrels of oil and prevent the creation of 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, all while saving the consumer $1.7 trillion. She describes the efforts of a wide-ranging group of people— from a staunchly Republican Texas hedge fund millionaire to a former California public school teacher to the Georgetown lawyer who prepared the winning argument for a Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases, to dedicated EPA engineers in Ann Arbor who play critical roles in the first national climate action in the US.

In large part because of strengthening clean air regulations, Americans are seeing more innovation and faster adoption of advanced technologies.  Today, we can already buy several models that achieve 100 mpg, and there are seventy-six alternative powertrain vehicle models in showrooms. Yet, to avert the worst impact of climate change by 2050, Oge claims that it will be necessary for cars and light trucks to average 180 mpg by 2050—a bold but not impossible target.

To pursue this goal more broadly, Oge also takes the reader through the convergence of macro global trends, advanced power train technologies, energy sources and social trends that will continue to drive car innovation over the next forty years and be every bit as transformative as those wrought by Karl Benz and Henry Ford.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Margo Oge is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Deltawing Technologies, a company bringing a fuel-efficient racing car from the track to the road. Ms. Oge also serves on the boards of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Academy of Sciences for Energy and Environment, the International Council for Clean Transportation and the Alliance for Climate Education. Additionally, she is a member of the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Advisory Committee and the National Academies of Science Advisory Committee for the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program.

Margo Oge served at the US Environmental Protection Agency for 32 years, the last 18 of which she directed the Office of Transportation Air Quality. While there, she was a chief architect of some of the most important achievements in reducing transportation-related air pollution. As a result of these rules, emissions from cars, trucks, buses, off-road vehicles, locomotives and marine vessels—as well as gasoline and diesel fuel—were reduced up to 99 percent. These regulations prevent over 40,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of respiratory illnesses each year.

Ms. Oge led the Obama Administration’s landmark 2012 Clean Air Act deal with automakers, the nation’s first action targeting greenhouse gases. This regulation will double the fuel efficiency of automakers’ fleets to 54.5 mpg and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2025. In the New York Times, Tom Friedman praised the new rules as the “Big Deal” that redeemed the administration’s previous inaction.

In Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars, Ms. Oge provides an insider’s account of the science, politics, policy, legal battles and, most importantly, the people who made possible this historic regulation. She then describes the technological, social, economic and regulatory terrain in which even larger reductions in greenhouse gases could be achieved. Finally, she lays out the future of technology that will enable a global market for super-efficient, zero carbon-emitting vehicles and other sustainable personal mobility options. According to Jerry Brown, Governor of California, “This is the story of how hard it is to combat climate change—and also how imaginative and determined leaders can get it done.“

Ms. Oge holds an MS in Engineering from University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She has received presidential awards for her work at the EPA from President Bill Clinton and President George W Bush.

Contact Name:  Lisa Matthews
matthew@fas.harvard.edu

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Humanitarian Happy Hour
Monday, April 27
6:30PM
The Field Pub (20 Prospect Street, Cambridge

What: Join local humanitarians for drinks and conversation!

Light appetizers provided.

Emily Gooding
Technology & Policy Program | Humanitarian Response Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
egooding@mit.edu | 540.314.1498

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Catalyst Conversations Faces, Genes, Patterns, Stories: Alberta Chu and Murray O. Robinson
Monday, April 27
7:00p–8:30p
MIT, Building E15, Bartos Theater, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge

Catalyst Conversations is pleased to present filmmaker Alberta Chu and research scientist Murray Robinson as they discuss the ideas and results of their current collaboration: FaceTopo. This project stems from their interest in the genetics of faces and a big question: how does one approach quantifying faces? Together, they have set out to build a taxonomy of 3D faces by conceiving a global citizen project to crowd-source data. The FaceTopo App collects data from users, so anyone with an smart phone can create a 3D facemap and join the community.

Web site: http://listart.mit.edu/events-programs/catalyst-conversations-faces-genes-patterns-stories-alberta-chu-and-murray-o
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): List Visual Arts Center
For more information, contact:  Deborah Davidson
deborahdavidson@catalystconversations.net

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Art, Culture and Technology Lecture: MICHAEL RAKOWITZ
Monday, April 27
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, 6th Floor, Cambridge

MIT Architecture Lecture Series
Part of the Spring 2015 Department of Architecture Lecture Series, "Experiments in Architecture".

Part of the 2015 ACT Lecture Series, Civic Art: The lecture series investigates the critical spatial practices that claim manifold definitions of public art, through a diverse array of visual forms argued by key practitioners across the disciplines of art, pedagogy, architecture, and urban studies to identify the tools, tactics and consequences of actively reclaiming public space.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, ACT
For more information, contact:  Amanda Moore
617-253-4415
amm@mit.edu 

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Harvard LITfest: Matthew Weiner, Creator of Mad Men, on the Rise of Literary Television
WHEN  Mon., Apr. 27, 2015, 8 – 9:30 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Sever 113, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film, Humanities, Lecture, Poetry/Prose, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR LITFest, English Department
SPEAKER(S)  Matthew Weiner
CONTACT INFO litfest@fas.harvard.edu
LINK www.harvardlitfest.org

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Tuesday, April 28
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Water Club Lecture Series: 5 Paradigm Shifts for Water Sustainability - A proposition for Tropical Regions
Tuesday, April 28
10:30a–12:00p
MIT, Building 3-442, 33 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), Cambridge

Speaker: Professor Dato Seri Zaini Ujang
Professor Dato Seri Zaini Ujang is the Secretary General II at the Ministry of Education in Malaysia and member of Malaysia's National Water Services Commission. He will discuss water sustainability in tropical regions.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Water Club
For more information, contact:  Neha Mehta
waterclub-officers@mit.edu 

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“The Future of Floating Forests in a Changing World”
Tuesday, April 28
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Harvard University Herbaria, Seminar Room 125, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge 

Jarrett Byrnes, Assistant Professor of Biology, Marine Ecology; Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function; Climate Change Ecology, University of Massachusetts Boston

Harvard University Herbaria Seminar
http://huh.harvard.edu/calendar/upcoming/taxonomy/term/20301

Contact Name:   Barbara Hanrahan
BHanrahan@oeb.harvard.edu
More at: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2015-04-28-160000-2015-04-28-170000/harvard-university-herbaria-seminar#sthash.6y7Vtodq.dpuf

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“Ocean anoxia and the biological pump"
Tuesday, April 28
12:00PM
Harvard, Haller Hall, GM 102, 24 Oxford Street 1st Floor, Cambridge

Dr. Katja Meyer, Willamette University

Geobiology Seminar
Jointly hosted by OEB and EPS

**Please feel free to bring your own lunch**

Contact Name:   Sabinna Cappo
scappo@fas.harvard.edu

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Intellectual Privacy
Tuesday, April 28
12:00 pm
Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East A (second floor)
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2015/04/Richards#RSVP
Event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2015/04/Richards at 12:00 pm.

with author Neil Richards
Why is it bad when the government or companies monitor our reading or web-surfing? We have intuitions that this kind of surveillance is bad, but have failed to explain why digital monitoring in an age of terror and innovation is really a problem. In Intellectual Privacy, Neil Richards offers a new way of thinking about monitoring of our thinking, reading, and communications, one that ensures that our ideas and values keep pace with our technologies.

Although we often think of privacy and free speech as being in conflict, Richards shows how privacy and free speech are often essential to each other. He explains the importance of 'intellectual privacy,' protection from surveillance or interference when we are engaged in the processes of generating ideas - thinking, reading, and speaking with confidantes before our ideas are ready for public consumption. In our digital age, in which we increasingly communicate, read, and think with the help of technologies that track us, increased protection for intellectual privacy has become an imperative.

A timely and provocative book on a subject that affects us all, Intellectual Privacy will radically reshape the debate about privacy and free speech in our digital age.

About Neil
Neil Richards is an internationally-recognized expert in privacy law, information law, and freedom of expression. He is a professor of law at Washington University School of Law, an affiliate scholar with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of Privacy Forum, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. He graduated in 1997 with degrees in law and history from the University of Virginia, and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

Professor Richards is the author of Intellectual Privacy (Oxford Press 2015). His many writings on privacy and civil liberties have appeared in many academic journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the California Law Review. He has written for a more general audience in Time, Slate, Wired, CNN.com, Forbes, the Boston Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Professor Richards regularly speaks about privacy, technology, and civil liberties throughout the United States and Europe, and also appears frequently in the media. At Washington University, he teaches courses on privacy, free speech, and constitutional law, and is a past winner of the Washington University School of Law's Professor of the Year award. He was born in England, educated in the United States, and lives with his family in St. Louis. He is an avid cyclist and a lifelong supporter of Liverpool Football Club.

Twitter:  @neilmrichards
Web:  neilrichards.com

--------------------------

Religion in the News - Inflicting Death: Should the State Execute Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?
WHEN  Tue., Apr. 28, 2015, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT cswr@hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS  Harvard faculty, staff, and students are invited to join us for a discussion on this complex topic.
Lunch will be served. RSVPs are appreciated but not required: cswr@hds.harvard.edu

-----------------------------

Looking inside moons with gravity and topography
Tuesday, April 28
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
MIT, Building 54-517 (the tallest building on campus)

Francis Nimmo, Professor Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz
Gravity measurements provide one of the few ways of looking inside a planetary body. In this talk I will discuss how gravity measurements of our Moon and the icy Saturnian satellites Titan and Enceladus provide insight into their internal structure and thermal evolution.

All are welcome.

If you have any questions regarding the lecture, please contact Alli Cocuzzo at 617.253.9317 or cocuzzo@mit.edu. Reservations not required.
Sponsored by  the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT.

-----------------------------

Science and Its Publics: Conversations on Accountability
Tuesday, April 28
2:00-5:30PM
Harvard University Center for the Environment, 24 Oxford Street, Third floor, Cambridge

Organized by Paulo Fonseca, Zara Mirmalek, Zoe Nyssa, Aleksandar Rankovic and Matthew Sample Science and engineering often set aside some problems as uniquely theirs, from conserving biodiversity to addressing physical disability. At the same time, they tend to define the public as the recipient of their promises of progress. As science and its ramifications grow to influence virtually all the aspects of human lives, the question of scientific accountability towards the public becomes a central issue, increasingly recognized by scientists and engineers themselves. However, as we reveal the complex network-like character of science and engineering, their reciprocal dependence on social and political realities, responsibility seems to have no grip. As agency becomes distributed throughout socio-technical networks – individual scientists, universities, participants in experiments, public agencies, the private sector etc. – the challenge is to understand how accountability is or ought to be distributed. In this workshop, we will discuss new approaches, distributed through socio-technical networks, of scientific accountability towards the public(s). Based on five dialogues between scientists and STS fellows, the workshop proposes to explore the following questions in different settings of science, technology and society: - How is the public defined by different fields of science and technology? - What is the role of the public in framing and addressing the problems that science and technology want to tackle? - How are science and technology accountable to "their publics", and through which mechanisms is this accountability assured? - Are there accountability issues that are unique to particular technoscientific fields and "their publics"?

2-2:15pm            Welcome address and general introduction
Sheila Jasanoff – Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy Schoo
2:15-2:40pm     The public and urban regions
Richard T. T. Forman – Harvard Research Professor of Advanced Environmental Studies
Aleksandar Rankovic – Harvard STS Program
2:40-3:05pm      The public and neuroengineering   
Matthew D’Asaro – MIT and NSF Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering
Matthew Sample – Harvard STS Program
3:05-3:30pm      The public and environmental sciences
Noel Michele Holbrook – Harvard Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry
Zoe Nyssa – Harvard STS Program & Harvard University Center for the Environment
3:30-3:55pm      The public and the deep seas
Brennan T. Phillips, 2014 National Geographic Society, Waitt Grantee Explorer; Chief ROV Pilot, Ocean Exploration Trust; Doctoral candidate,  University of Rhode Island
Zara Mirmalek – Harvard STS Program
3:55-4:10pm      Coffee Break
4:10-4:35pm      The public and nanotechnologies
Flavio Plentz – Professor of Physics at Federal University of Minas Gerais, former general coordinator for micro and nanotechnology, Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation
Paulo Fonseca – Harvard STS Program
4:35-5:30pm      General discussion
Sheila Jasanoff – Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School
Rebecca Lemov – Harvard History of Science
5:30-6:30pm       Reception

Contact Name:
Shana Rabinowich
Shana_Rabinowich@hks.harvard.edu

More at http://sts.hks.harvard.edu

-----------------------------

 "Designing Energy-efficient, Reliable, and Secure Systems: From Emerging Devices to Bio-inspired Architectures" 
Tuesday, April 28
4pm  
BU, Photonics Center 339, 8 St Mary's Street, Boston

Ajay Joshi

-----------------------------

Building Newborn Minds in Virtual Worlds
Tuesday, April 28
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, Building 46-3189, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Justin Wood
Abstract:  What are the origins of high-level vision: Is this ability hardwired by genes or learned during development? Although researchers have been wrestling with this question for over a century, progress has been hampered by two major limitations: (1) most newborn animals cannot be raised in controlled environments from birth, and (2) most newborn animals cannot be observed and tested for long periods of time. Thus, it has generally not been possible to characterize how specific visual inputs relate to specific cognitive outputs in the newborn brain.

To overcome these two limitations, I recently developed an automated, high-throughput controlled-rearing technique. This technique can be used to measure all of a newborn animal's behavior (9 samples/second, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week) within strictly controlled virtual environments. In this talk, I will describe a series of controlled-rearing experiments that reveal how one high-level visual ability "invariant object recognition" emerges in the newborn brain. Further, I will show how these controlled-rearing data can be linked to models of visual cortex for characterizing the computations underlying newborn vision. More generally, I will argue that controlled rearing can serve as a critical tool for testing between different theories and models, both for developmental psychology and computational neuroscience.

Web site: http://cbmm.mit.edu/news-events/events/building-newborn-minds-virtual-worlds
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM)
For more information, contact:  Kathleen D. Sullivan
cbmm-contact@mit.edu

---------------------------

Fletcher Ideas Exchange
Tuesday, April 28
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM (EDT)
Tufts, ASEAN Auditorium, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/fletcher-ideas-exchange-tickets-16628859366

Fletcher Ideas Exchange is an exciting TED like event where distinguished members of the faculty and a select set of students will deliver 10 minute TED like speeches. The theme for this year's event is Media/Tech to connect/change. This is a forum to generate dialogue on innovative and provocative ideas among our community members.
The event is a must attend not only for those interested in media, technology and communications but also for those interested in social empowerment, gender equality and other 'Fletchery' areas because speakers will share their experiences and points of view on using the power of media/tech to address a truly broad array of challenges.
This is also an opportunity to learn the art of public speaking by witnessing Fletcher's own version of TED. Please come join us for great food for thought followed by real food at the reception. Your ticket will double up as your pass to ASEAN and for the reception. Some of the best things in life are FREE - like tickets to this event. REGISTER NOW before they sell out !!!

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Migration, National Security, and New forms of Policing: Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Tuesday, April 28
4:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building E40-464, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Noora A. Lori,Assistant Professor of International Relations, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University
Today non-citizens make up 90 percent of the population in the United Arab Emirates. This 'demographic imbalance' is an outcome of combining expansive temporary worker schemes with a highly exclusionary citizenship regime. Both policies are regulated by a security apparatus that is increasingly pervasive. The expatriate population is at once sanctioned as a necessary economic force and a threat to be 'managed'. But how is this uneasy balance maintained? This presentation will explore the instruments of population management developed by the UAE's security forces - including extensive surveillance networks, multi-cultural community policing, and DNA imaging - to pre-empt the security threats associated with migrant populations. The research finds that security forces loyal to the state are not always instruments of top-down social control. Rather, as the police forces have become more involved in embedded surveillance and active policing strategies, they are also increasingly pulled into the role of alleviating the tensions and responding to communal struggles to define the UAE's public sphere.

A session of the Myron Weiner Seminar Series on International Migration.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, Inter-University Committee on International Migration
For more information, contact:  Phiona Lovett
253-3848
phiona@mit.edu

---------------------------

Askwith Forum - Religious Freedom: Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Role of Education
WHEN  Tue., Apr. 28, 2015, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Longfellow Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138
TYPE OF EVENT Discussion, Forum, Lecture, Question & Answer Session
PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT  AskWith Forum
BUILDING/ROOM  Askwith Hall
CONTACT NAME  Roger Falcon
CONTACT EMAIL  askwith_forums@gse.harvard.edu
CONTACT PHONE  617-384-9968
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT Harvard Graduate School of Education
REGISTRATION REQUIRED  No
ADMISSION FEE This event is free and open to the public.
RSVP REQUIRED No
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education
DETAILS  Moderator: James E. Ryan, Dean and Charles William Eliot Professor, HGSE
Panelists:
Diane L.  Moore, Senior Lecturer on Religious Studies and Education and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School
Farah Pandith, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; former Special Representative to Muslim Communities, U.S. Department of State
Fernando Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’88, Ford Foundation Professor of Practice in International Education and Faculty Director, International Education Policy Program, HGSE
Recent debates about immigration, discrimination, and national identity have often overlapped with those about religion, belonging, and citizenship. In our global landscape, we find ourselves living alongside neighbors whose beliefs and practices are quite different from our own. With this diversity, there is a growing need worldwide to discuss religious freedom — and its limits — in democratic societies. These are not easy conversations, and the tone of recent debates about religious freedom suggests that we need to get better at talking about these issues, or else risk further polarization.
Using as a starting point George Washington's 1790 Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island — a landmark in the history of religious freedom in America — this interdisciplinary panel will explore inclusion and exclusion through the lens of religious differences. Join us as we consider the role that education can play in promoting informed and civil conversation about religious freedom and the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
This forum is being held in collaboration with Facing History and Ourselves and the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom.

Become a fan of the Ed School on Facebook: www.facebook.com/harvardeducation
Tweeting at an Askwith Forum? Use the #Askwith hashtag.

---------------------------

Boston Green Drinks - April Happy Hour
Tuesday, April 28
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Scholars, 25 School Street, Boston
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/boston-green-drinks-april-happy-hour-tickets-16472527774

Join the conversation with sustainability professionals and hobbyists.  Enjoy a drink and build your connection with our green community!
Keep sending feedback to Lyn@bostongreendrinks.com for ideas about speakers or content for the future and mark your calendar for drinks on the last Tuesday of every month.  Also, if you RSVP and can't make it, e-mail us to let us know.

Boston Green Drinks  builds a community of sustainably-minded Bostonians, provides a forum for exchange of sustainability career resources, and serves as a central point of information about emerging green issues.  We support the exchange of ideas and resources about sustainable energy, environment, food, health, education.

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Disease Gone Global:  What Causese Epidemics?
Tuesday, April 28
6pm - 7:30pm
Harvard Medical School, Joseph B Martin Conference Center, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston

Humankind is in an ongoing struggle against infectious invaders.  New diseases are spreading around the globe and diseases that were once considered eradicated are now making a comeback. What's driving the resurgence?  Where do these bugs come from?  How do they spread?  In this seminar researchers explain how they are developing ways to track, control and eventually cure these diseases.

More information:  seminar@hms.harvard.edu
http://hms.harvard.edu/minimedschool
617-423-3038

------------------------------

Why Climate Guilt Doesn't Help:  An Evening with Author Per Espen Stoknes
Tuesday, April 28
6:30PM
Tufts University, Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room, 15 Talbot Ave, Medford

Tufts Institute of the Environment is proud to announce An Evening with Author Per Espen Stoknes
Why does knowing more about the facts of climate change mean believing-- and doing-- less? Join us for a lesson in the psychology of climate (in)action, an evening with Norwegian eco-psychologist Per Espen Stoknes discussing his new book "Why Climate Guilt Doesn't Help."

Contact Name:  tieattufts@gmail.com

------------------------------

Solar Water Pumps for Irrigation in Rural India -- Learning Experiences from on the Ground
Tuesday, April 28
6:30pm-7:30pm
MIT, Building E19-319, 400 Main Street, Cambridge 
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1g9Ncq2raGGtZIw5G5s-LgEuBwEAH0apglqZpUTEMcPk/viewform

Kevin Simon and Katie Taylor, MIT Tata Center Research Fellows and Graduate Students in Mechanical Engineering

------------------------------

Healthy Places in the Transition Century
Tuesday, April 28
7:00PM - 8:30PM
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
RSVP at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu
Cost:  $10
Students: Email to register for free.

An Arnold Arboretum lecture with Ann Forsyth, PhD, Professor of Urban Planning, Harvard Graduate School of Design
In the coming century urban populations around the world will grow at uneven rates--some places will lose population in metropolitan areas and others gain it. Populations in most places will be older on average. How can the growing body of research on the connections between health and environments be used to make a positive contribution to evolving urban and suburban communities? Ann Forsyth will speak about the components that contribute to healthier and more sustainable cities, alternatives to sprawl, and the tensions that exist between social and ecological values in urban design.

https://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?DayPlanner=1407&DayPlannerDate=4/28/2015
Contact Name:  Pamela Thompson
pam_thompson@harvard.edu

-------------------------------

Science at MIT: From the Cold War to the Climate Crisis
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
7:00p
MIT, Building 10-250, 222 Memorial Drive, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus and Subrata Ghoshroy, Research Affiliate; MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society
Subrata Ghoshroy and Noam Chomsky will be discussing how scientific research at MIT has been affected for the past 50+ years by its relationship with outside funding agencies, in particular the US military.

Since the end of the World War II the federal government has largely funded scientific research at US universities. MIT has been receiving millions of dollars annually and a large part of the federal funding comes from the military.

Scientific research is driven by the passion of students and scholars. But what else shapes and influences our research? And what are the social and economical consequences of our research? At the height of the Vietnam War in 1969, in a campus wide protest, MIT students raised these very questions.

Today, the US government is engaged in a "war against terrorism" which has undermined the scope of our civil liberties. We also face social and political threats from climate change and an energy crisis. What should be the role of MIT in fighting these global challenges?

Although the Vietnam War is in the past, the pressing issues and questions that were brought to the forefront then are stunningly relevant today. Please join us for this provocative discussion.

Web site: radius.mit.edu
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): The Technology and Culture Forum at MIT, MIT Chapter of Science for the People
For more information, contact:  Patricia-Maria Weinmann
617-253-0108
weinmann@mit.edu

---------------------------
Wednesday, April 29
---------------------------

Measuring Disaster Response Capacity
Wednesday, April 29
12:00PM
MIT, Building E-38, 6th floor, 292 Main Street, Cambridge

What: Lauren Seelbach will present on her recent work.

Lunch provided.

----------------------------

"Who's Arming Asia, and Why it Matters"
Wednesday, April 29
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Wednesday Seminar Series, Security Studies Program

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
For more information, contact:  Elina Hamilton
617-253-7529
elinah@mit.edu

-----------------------------------

Preserving Place: Issues and Insights in Documenting Cultural Heritage in the Modern Middle East
Wednesday, April 29
1:00p–2:00p
MIT, Building 3-370, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Registration is encouraged http://libcal.mit.edu/event.php?id=945938

Speaker: Dr. Sharon C. Smith, Program Head, Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries
Throughout the Middle East, cultural heritage is being destroyed faster than we can document it. This paper examines the processes and praxes necessary to capture information documenting material and visual culture - from monumental to ephemeral - for future generations.


Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): MIT Libraries
For more information, contact:  Jenn Morris
preserve@mit.edu

-----------------------------------

Wired: A World Transformed by the Telegraph
Wednesday, April 29
2:30p–3:00p
MIT, Building 14N-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

Come check out the current exhibit at the Maihaugen Gallery with a guided tour led by Stephen Skuce, Program Manager for Rare Books, MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections.

Web site: http://libraries.mit.edu/preserve/preservation-week/
Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): MIT Libraries
For more information, contact:  Jenn Morris
preserve@mit.edu

-----------------------------------

Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium - Annual Distinguished Public Lecture
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
2:30p–4:00p
MIT, Building 37-212, 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Astronaut Stanley Love

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): AeroAstro, Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium
For more information, contact:  Liz Zotos
617-253-7805
zotos@mit.edu

-----------------------------------

Deciphering the Evolution of a Cancer, One Cell at a Time
WHEN  Wed., Apr. 29, 2015, 4 p.m.
WHERE  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S)  2014-15 Grass Fellow in Honor of Professor W. B. Cannon and Cornelia Cannon at the Radcliffe Institute
COST  Free and open to the public
LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-itai-yanai-fellow-presentation

-------------------------------------

Translational Research in Mechanics and Structures: From Nano to Continuum
Wednesday, April 29
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 1-131, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Prof. Ken P. Chong
Abstract: Nano science and engineering is one of the frontiers in transformative and translational research. Led by NSF over the past decade, converging interdisciplinary areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) offer the potential of improving human lives as well as society well-being and productivity. Nanotechnology is a very efficient way for the creation of new materials, devices and systems at the molecular level which requires simulation in the multi-scale mechanics. Smart materials, intelligent structures, and sustainability on the other hand have also seen new advances. Mechanics is the common thread among these interdisciplinary areas. Research and challenges in nanotechnology, NBIC converging technologies, simulation-based engineering and sciences, multi-scale systems, energy, smart structures/materials and other related areas are to be presented.
Ken P. Chong, Ph.D.,P.E, was the former Interim Division Director, Engineering Advisor, and Program Director of Mechanics and Materials at the National Science Foundation (NSF), until 2009. Currently he is a Research Professor at George Washington University, advising graduate students, teaching, mentoring young faculty members, doing research, lectures, consulting and other activities.

Mechanics and Infrastructure

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact:  Oral Buyukozturk
617-253-7101
obuyuk@mit.edu

-------------------------------

Hrant Dink Memorial Lecture on Human Rights: Forced Migration and Human Rights: Can we maintain the promise of protection?
Wednesday, April 29
4:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-115, Wong Auditorium, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Jennifer Leaning
Dr. Jennifer Leaning is the guest speaker at the inauguration of a new lecture series honoring the late human-rights activist Hrank Dink.

About the Speaker:
Jennifer Leaning is the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights Director, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Leaning's research and policy interests include issues of public health, medical ethics, and early warning in response to war and disaster, human rights and international humanitarian law in crisis settings, and problems of human security in the context of forced migration and conflict. She has field experience in problems of public health assessment and human rights in a range of crisis situations (including Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Kosovo, the Middle East, former Soviet Union, Somalia, the Chad-Darfur border, and the African Great Lakes area) and has written widely on these issues.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
For more information, contact:  starrforum@mit.edu

-------------------------------

Giving Voice to Values: The "How" of Values-Driven Leadership
Wednesday, April 29
5:30p–6:30p
MIT, Building 32-141, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Mary Gentile | Senior Research Scholar at Babson College
Dr. Gentile will share a ground-breaking new approach to preparing business managers and leaders for values-driven leadership. Drawing on both the actual experience of business practitioners as well as cutting edge research, GIVING VOICE TO VALUES (GVV) fills a long-standing and critical gap in our understanding of how to enable ethical practice. Rather than a focus on ethical analysis, GVV focuses on ethical implementation and asks the question: "What if I were going to act on my values? What would I say and do? How could I be most effective?"

GVV was launched by The Aspen Institute and Yale School of Management, and is now housed and funded by Babson College. Developed by Gentile, a veteran of Harvard Business School and pioneer in both ethics and diversity management curriculum, GVV is now being piloted in over 740 educational and executive settings. Giving Voice to Values holds the promise to transform the foundational assumptions upon which the teaching of business ethics is based, and importantly, to equip future business leaders to not only know what is right ??? but how to make it happen.

Legatum Lecture Series
The Legatum Lecture Series is intended to expose the broader MIT and neighboring communities to entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

Web site: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/giving-voice-to-values-the-how-of-values-driven-leadership-registration-16416697785
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/giving-voice-to-values-the-how-of-values-driven-leadership-registration-16416697785
Sponsor(s): Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship
For more information, contact:  Kavan O'Connor
617-324-1875
legatum@mit.edu 

------------------------------

Divestment Debate: Should Harvard Divest from Fossil Fuels?
Wednesday, April 29
5:30PM - 7:00PM
Harvard, HKS, Wiener Auditorium, Taubman Building, I5 Eliot Street, Cambridge

Should Harvard divest from fossil fuels to address the climate change crisis? A Harvard Kennedy School debate will address the arguments pro and con of a controversial global fossil fuel divestment campaign.

At Harvard, activist groups of students, faculty and alumni are stepping up pressure on the University to divest its endowment assets from fossil fuel companies and invest instead in clean energy. The University’s position is that fossil fuel divestment is not “warranted or wise” for an academic institution, saying Harvard’s commitment to fighting climate change comes through research, teaching and other campus initiatives.

Over 180 institutions, including Stanford University, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the World Council of Churches, have divested either from coal alone or fossil fuels of all types.

Please join us for a divestment debate between two faculty members:
Against divestment: Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard University.
For divestment: James Engell, Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Moderator: Cristine Russell
Speaker Info:

Rebecca Henderson is one of 24 University Professors at Harvard, and a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is also faculty co-chair of HBS’s Initiative for Business and the Environment.

Her research focuses on issues in innovation and sustainability, and particularly on understanding the drivers of innovation and productivity in high performance organizations. She has worked in a wide variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, information technology and consumer goods. She is currently teaching “Reimagining Capitalism: Business and the Big Problems”.

Professor Henderson sits on the boards of Amgen, Inc and of Idexx Laboratories. In May 2011, Dr. Henderson was appointed to the U.S. Department of Commerce Innovation Advisory Board, which guided a study of U.S. economic competitiveness and innovation. In June 2013 she became a member of the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council on the role of business. Her most recent book is “Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective”.

She has been the recipient of a number of academic prizes and awards, including the Dan & Mary Lou Schendel Best Paper Prize and the ASQ Award for Scholarly Contribution. Dr. Henderson received an undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate from Harvard University.

James Engell, Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature, is active in Harvard Faculty for Divestment. Over 240 faculty members from across the University have signed its Open Letter supporting divestment. His own writing on divestment has appeared in The Huffington Post and The Energy Collective.

He co-edited the widely used text Environment (Yale, 2008) and has written four and edited eight other books. His awards and fellowships include those from the Ford Foundation, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and The National Humanities Center. Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money (Virginia, 2005) won the Association of American Colleges and Universities award for “Best Book on Liberal Education.” His essay “The CFR Task Force Report on ‘U.S. Education Reform and National Security’: A Reply and Response,” received acclaim.

While devoting most of his career to the humanities, he has a life-long formal and informal interest in the study of science. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of several faculty- wide teaching prizes as well as a national mentoring award, Engell teaches courses that engage environmental and other issues involving human values and expression, history, science, economics, and reform.

Sponsored by HKS' Belfer Center Environment & Natural Resources Program & Energy & Environment PIC.

Open to the Public
Refreshments served.

Tomas_Insua@hks16.harvard.edu
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/events/6652/divestment_debate.html

More at: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2015-04-29-213000-2015-04-29-230000/divestment-debate-should-harvard-divest-fossil-fuels#sthash.N2qK4aMs.dpuf

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Yours, mine, ours: A community conversation
Wednesday, April 29
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston
RSVP at rsvp@architects.org

In association with the publication of "Public/Private," the BSA and ArchitectureBoston will be holding a public forum in the coming weeks to further discuss some of the issues raised in the magazine. The boundary between Boston’s public and private spaces is not a bright line but a negotiable realm of partnerships and special arrangements. Private and commercial interests are increasingly responsible for nominally “public” areas and benefits that may be unknown to the average citizen—especially along the waterfront.

----------------------------

"Celebrating Right Whales: The Trials and Triumphs of a Species on the Edge"   
Wednesday, April 29
7pm
New England Aquarium, Simons IMAX Theater, 1 Aquarium Wharf, Boston
RSVP at http://support.neaq.org/site/Calendar?id=105801&view=Detail

Amy Knowlton
North Atlantic right whales, one of the most endangered large whale species in the world, remain precariously close to the edge of extinction with just over 500 individuals presumed to be alive today. The Aquarium research team has been documenting the lives of these animals for more than three decades and describing the challenges the whales face from vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements. Join us as we learn about the important role the Aquarium has played in the development of policies to protect these imperiled whales, and hear stories about some of the most famous right whale families followed through multiple generations.

--------------------------

The Health of Democracy: Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement
Wednesday, April 29 
7pm
First Parish (UU), 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Political scientist ERIN O?BRIEN explores current efforts to restrict access to the ballot, through both legislative and judicial changes in states across the nation. Journalist PHILLIP MARTIN responds with examples from the Civil Rights Movement of citizen actions, including civil disobedience, that opened ballot access to previously disenfranchised African Americans.  How can citizens respond when the ideals of democracy come into conflict with the policies of government?
Cambridge Forum, 3 Church Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-2727
www.cambridgeforum.org

-----------------------
Thursday, April 30
-----------------------

Lesley University Diversity Council presents Culture Fest 2015: Native American Cultures
Thursday, April 30
10am - 5pm
Lesley University Doble Campus, 34 Mellen Street, Cambridge

The Lesley University Diversity Council announces Culture Fest 2015 featuring Native American cultures on Thursday, April 30th. Gain a deeper understanding of Native American culture through daylong celebration and activities. Peruse authentic Native American wares, taste some Native American cuisine in White Dining Hall, view the film “Winter in the Blood” followed by a discussion, watch a performance by Joseph Firecrow – Cheyenne Flutist and Storyteller, and converse with the Wampanoag Native People from Plimouth Plantation. There will be gifts raffled off throughout the day. Come and learn about Native American cultures.

This event is free and open to the public. Below is a detailed agenda for the day.

Native American Vendors 10 am – 5 pm
Plimoth Plantation Table (2 Wampanoag Natives will have a demonstration table set up near the vendors) 10 am – 12 noon
Native American Cuisine 11 am – 2 pm
Film Screening & Dialogue “Winter in the Blood” (Marran Theater) 12:30 pm – 3 pm
Joseph Firecrow (Cheyenne Flutist and Storyteller) 3 – 5 pm

----------------------------

Calestous Juma on Reinventing African Development: Emerging Policy Perspectives
WHEN  Thu., Apr. 30, 2015, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, HKS< Bell Hall, 5th Floor Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government (M-RCBG) at the Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S)  Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development and director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project
CONTACT INFO Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu

----------------------------

Optimizing Hydro-Reservoir operation using Model Predictive Control
Thursday, April 30
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 48-308, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Reetik Kumar

Environmental Fluid Mechanics/Hydrology
Join us for a weekly series of EFM/Hydrology topics by MIT faculty and students, as well as guest lecturers from around the globe.

This speaker Reetik Kumar (hosted by McLaughlin group)

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact:  Noriko Endo
617-253-7101
enori@mit.edu

Editorial Comment:  I am assuming that this concerns hydroelectric power and pumped storage as well as possible ecological issues but I could be wrong.

----------------------------

Brazil Studies Program Seminar Series: Sustainability of the Amazon: Tradeoffs Between Environmental Change, Hydropower and River Alterations
WHEN  Thu., Apr. 30, 2015, 12 – 2 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, 1730 Cambridge Street, Room S050, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
SPEAKER(S)  Mauricio E. Arias, Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Sustainability Science, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department
COST  Free and open to the public

----------------------------

Book Celebration/Panel on Health, Healthcare, and Inequalities in the United States
Thursday, April 30
3:30p–6:30p
MIT, Building 32-155, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Andrea Campbell, MIT; Jonathan Gruber, MIT; and Jennifer Hochschild, Harvard University
The Global Health and Medical Humanities Initiative (GHMHI), in conjunction with the Political Science Department and with support from SHASS Anthropology, is hosting a Book Celebration/Panel on Health, Healthcare, and Inequalities in the United States on 4/30/15. This event will feature Andrea Campbell, author of Trapped in America's Safety Net: One Family's Struggle, along with discussants Jonathan Gruber and Jennifer Hochschild.

Event Schedule:
3:30 PM - Reception
4:00 PM - Panel discussion
5:45 PM - Book signing/book sale

Paperback books will be available for sale at the event at a cost of $15.00 and payment will be accepted by cash, check, or credit card.

We hope you will be able to join us!

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Global Health and Medical Humanities Initiative, Anthropology Program, Political Science Department
For more information, contact:  Brittany Peters
bapeters@mit.edu

----------------------------

Climate Change and the Permafrost Carbon Feedback
Thursday, April 30
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 48-316, 5 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Professor Ted Shuur, Northern Arizona University
Environmental Sciences Seminar Series
Join us for a weekly series of EFM/Hydrology topics by MIT faculty and students, as well as guest lecturers from around the globe.

Faculty Host: Dr. Benjamin Kocar, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Web site: https://sites.google.com/site/parsonsseminars/home
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact:  Brenda E. Pepe
617-258-5554
pepebe@mit.edu

----------------------------

Visualizing Sovereignty
WHEN  Thu., Apr. 30, 2015, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Robinson Basement Conference Room, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Charles Warren Center
SPEAKER(S)  Yarimar Bonilla, Rutgers University
CONTACT INFO lkennedy@fas.harvard.edu
LINK http://warrencenter.fas.harvard.edu/fsprogramschedule.html

----------------------------

Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality
WHEN Thu., Apr. 30, 2015, 4:10 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation
SPEAKER(S)  John M. Carey is the John Wentworth Professor in the Social Sciences and the chair of the Government Department at Dartmouth College.
COST  Free and open to the public
DETAILS  John M. Carey is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the author or co-author of over 75 academic articles and 5 books, including Legislative Voting & Accountability (Cambridge UP 2009) and Presidents & Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge UP 1992). His research focuses on the design of constitutions and electoral systems, and on legislative politics. He has consulted on electoral system reform in Nepal, Afghanistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Yemen, South Sudan, Israel, Mexico, and the Philippines.
LINK http://ash.harvard.edu/Home/News-Events/Events/Comparative-Democracy-Seminar-Series

----------------------------

The Memory Factory
WHEN  Thu., Apr. 30, 2015, 4:15 p.m.
WHERE  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Science, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S)  Elizabeth F. Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology and Professor of Law and Cognitive Science at University of California, Irvine
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS  In this lecture, Loftus will explore the tricks that memory can play. For at least a century, scientists have demonstrated that memories are not always as they seem. More recently, they have shown that people can be led to develop entire memories for events that never happened: rich false memories. These findings have implications for the pursuit of justice in legal cases, for the practices of psychotherapists who listen to patients’ memories, and for everyday life.
LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-elizabeth-f-loftus-lecture

----------------------------

"Melville in the First Age of Viral Media"
Thursday, April 30
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 4-231

Ryan Cordell, co-director of the Viral Texts project, will speak about his work uncovering pieces that "went viral" in nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines.

The Viral Texts project seeks to develop theoretical models that will help scholars better understand what qualities--both textual and thematic--helped particular news stories, short fiction, and poetry "go viral" in nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines. What texts were reprinted and why? How did ideas--literary, political, scientific, economic, religious--circulate in the public sphere and achieve critical force among audiences? How might computational methods reveal Melville's popular reception and reputation or expose the shaping influence of the popular press on his writing? And how can these popular (perhaps even ephemeral) texts thicken our understanding of literary authors like Herman Melville?

Cordell is Assistant Professor of English and Core Founding Faculty Member in the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks at Northeastern University (http://nulab.neu.edu). His scholarship focuses on convergences among literary, periodical, and religious culture in antebellum American mass media. Prof. Cordell collaborates with colleagues in English, History, and Computer Science on the NEH-funded Viral Texts project (http://viraltexts.org).

Join our mailing list for an event reminder email: http://cmsw.mit.edu/signup

Web site: http://cmsw.mit.edu/event/ryan-cordell-melville-in-the-first-age-of-viral-media/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Comparative Media Studies/Writing
For more information, contact:  Andrew Whitacre
617-324-0490
cmsw@mit.edu

----------------------------

Email Marketing Workshop: What can you learn from half a million emails?
Thursday,April 30
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Venture Cafe – Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway, 5th floor,  Cambridge

Dakota McKenzie of Yesware will be discussing what they have learned from analyzing 500,000 sales emails written by 1,000+ anonymous inside sales professionals at top performing companies.
Our research reveals key insights, including:
Which words you should avoid in your subject lines
How to target recipients to maximize success
The optimal number of emails to send to an unresponsive prospect
When to send an email to maximize open and reply rates

Website:  http://www.vencaf.org/calendar

----------------------------

SOLUTIONS with/in/sight: Blood, Sweat & Pioneers
Thursday, April 30
6:00p–8:30p
MIT, Building 76, Koch Institute at MIT, 500 Main Street, Cambridge

Speaker: David Baltimore, Michael Hemann, John Whitaker
Action against cancer takes many forms, and progress comes when we push the limits of what's possible. David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate and founding member of MIT's Center for Cancer Research (the predecessor of the Koch Institute), worked tirelessly with his colleagues in an old candy factory, scrutinizing one gene at a time for clues to cancer's origins. His pioneering discoveries laid the groundwork for today's researchers, like Koch Institute member Michael Hemann. Hemann uses newer, faster, higher-volume screening methods and computational models to identify combination therapies that target blood and other cancers to overcome drug resistance. John Whitaker founded the Go Mitch Go Foundation in response to his son's heroic battle with childhood leukemia, to support endurance athletes in raising money for leukemia and lymphoma research. Together, these visionaries exemplify passion and perseverance--both in and outside the lab.

Web site: http://ki.mit.edu/news/events/withinsight/april-2015
Open to: the general public
Cost: free with registration
Tickets: http://withinsight-april2015.eventbrite.com/?aff=mitevents
Sponsor(s): Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
For more information, contact:  Wendy Brown
617-324-2169
kievents@mit.edu

Editorial Comment:  Yes, that Koch.

----------------------------

Internet Security and Privacy with Google
Thursday, April 30
6:00PM - 9:00PM
Cambridge Community Television, CCTV, 438 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Google will cover "access", "malware" and "phishing" security to help you stay safe online.

In this class, a representative from Google will cover the basics of how to safeguard your privacy online. You’ll learn how to keep the bad guys out, how to keep evil software at bay, and how to not fall for tricks and scams.The topics covered include “access security,” “malware security” and “phishing security.” Instructor: Curt Fennell

----------------------------

Screening of Inside Disaster (2011)
Thursday, April 30
6:30PM 
MIT,  Building E-38, 6th floor, 292 Main Street, Cambridge

Light snacks provided.

Emily Gooding
Technology & Policy Program | Humanitarian Response Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
egooding@mit.edu | 540.314.1498

----------------------------

Computing on Encrypted Data
Thursday, April 30
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building 32-G449, CSAIL, Kiva, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Vinod Vaikuntanathan
The basic nature of encryption has always been all-or-nothing: anyone who knows the secret key can decode and recover the entire data; but, without the key, nothing can be revealed. The requirements of our modern computing world raise
fundamentally new challenges: Can we compute on encrypted data without decrypting it, and without knowledge of the secret key? Which functions can be computed this way? Who can learn the results of such computations? In this talk, I will present homomorphic encryption and functional encryption schemes, two powerful methods of computing on encrypted data.

Vinod Vaikuntanathan joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in September 2013. After receiving a S.M. and Ph.D. from MIT, he spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at IBM T.J. Watson, one year as a researcher at Microsoft Redmond, and two years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. He is broadly interested in cryptography, security and distributed algorithms. His current research focus in cryptography is in developing technologies for computing on encrypted data, guaranteeing privacy of sensitive data while at the same time enabling computations on it. His work has been recognized with many awards including the George M. Sprowls Ph.D. Thesis Award at MIT, an IBM Josef Raviv Postdoctoral Fellowship, a University of Toronto Connaught Foundation Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

IEEE/ACM Joint Seminar Series
Exploring the edge of computing technology.

Web site: http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/
Open to: the general public
Cost: 0
Sponsor(s): ACM & IEEE/CS
For more information, contact:  Dorothy Curtis
617-253-0541
dcurtis@mit.edu

----------------------------

Feminist Pedagogy in a Digital Age: A Workshop on Teaching with Technology
Thursday, April 30
7:30p–9:00p
MIT, Building 32-144, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Kim Surkan (WGS, MIT) and Jennifer Musto (WGS, Wellesley College)
The near-ubiquitous use of use of social media (and particularly networked and mobile communications technology in one form or another) by students and faculty invites questions about how these tools might be used in the classroom to facilitate dialogue and to foster collaborations between students and even across institutions. FemTechNet , a group of feminist academic scholars and teachers located within and beyond academe, has proposed a DOCC (Distributed Online Collaborative Course) model of pedagogy that enables instructors engaged in feminist pedagogy to connect with each other and use technology to bring students and faculty from many different locations into shared dialogue.

This workshop will introduce participants to FemTechNet and demonstrate selected teaching techniques now available to instructors seeking to use technology in their courses, including: Electronic feedback and response; Creative use of video as a form of student writing and response; Classroom use of Google docs, Google+, and Twitter to created curated and collaborative learning environments; Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, geo-locative software, and shared open source maps (will demonstrate the FemTechNet Situated Knowledges map project); Feminist video dialogues, etc.

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/gcws/news+events/2015gendertechnology.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies, Office of Digital Learning
For more information, contact:  Andrea Sutton
617-324-2085
gcws@mit.edu

---------------------
Friday,  May 1
--------------------

Ending Institutional Corruption
WHEN  Fri., May 1 – Sat., May 2, 2015
WHERE  Harvard Law School, Milstein Conference Suite, Wasserstein Building,
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Conferences, Education, Ethics, Exhibitions, Humanities, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
SPEAKER(S)  Featuring:  Keynote Lecture by Francis Fukuyama
What is Institutional Corruption? with Lawrence Lessig and Dennis Thompson
Panels on fixing institutional corruption in government, law, academia, nonprofits, finance, economics, public health, medicine, journalism
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO katy@ethics.harvard.edu
DETAILS  A two day conference to celebrate the end of the Edmond J. Safra Lab on Institutional Corruption.
What is Institutional Corruption?
with Lawrence Lessig and Dennis Thompson
Panel Discussions:
Insights from Psychology
Institutional Corruption & Government and Law
Institutional Corruption & Medicine and Public Health
Institutional Corruption & Finance and Economics
Institutional Corruption & Academia and Nonprofits
Workshops
Innovations in Ethics Training
Effective Whistleblower Programs
Using Litigation to Combat Institutional Corruption
Institutional Corruption and Investigative Journalism
Banking Corruption: Are Emerging Reforms Sufficient?
Combating Corruption through Rating and Accreditation
The Commitment Scorecard
Featuring a keynote lecture by Francis Fukuyama
LINK http://ethics.harvard.edu/event/ending-institutional-corruption

-------------------------

Symposium: Descartes and the Enlightenment
Friday, May 1
8:00a–6:00p
MIT, Building W20-491, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Sponsored by the MIT Ben Franklin Project with the support of the Jack Miller Center, and the Templeton Foundation

Web site: http://cheme.scripts.mit.edu/bfranklin-project/
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free - Online registration by April 17.
Sponsor(s): Chemical Engineering Department, MIT Benjamin Franklin Project
For more information, contact:  Daniel Adam Doneson
ddoneson@mit.edu

-------------------------

HTC Symposium: Revisiting CASE: The Conference of Architects for the Study of the Environment
Friday, May 1
9:00a–6:00p
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Symposium hosted by the History, Theory & Criticism of Art and Architecture Program, Department of Architecture, MIT.

MIT Architecture Lecture Series

Open to: the general public
Cost: 0
This event occurs daily through May 2, 2015.
Sponsor(s): History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, Department of Architecture
For more information, contact:  Anne Deveau
(617) 258-8438
adeveau@mit.edu

-------------------------

EAPS Thesis Defense ~ Strong Wind Events across Greenland's Coast and their Influences on the Ice Sheet, Sea Ice and Ocean
Friday, May 1
11:00a–12:00p
MIT, Building 54-823, (the tallest building on campus) and WHOI, Clark 271

Speaker: Marilena Oltmanns (by video link)
EAPS Thesis Defense | Strong Wind Events across Greenland's Coast and their Influences on the Ice Sheet, Sea Ice and Ocean

Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/events
Open to: the general public
Cost: n/a
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:  Roberta Allard
617-253-3382

-------------------------

"Experiments in Environing: An Alternative History of Environmentalism"
Friday, May 1
2:30p–4:30p
MIT, Building E51-095, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Etienne Benson, Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
Seminar in Environmental and Agricultural History

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): History Office
For more information, contact:  Margo Collett
617-253-4965
history-info@mit.edu

-------------------------

Jazz on the Plaza
WHEN  Fri., May 1, 2015, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE  The Plaza adjacent to the Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Concerts, Music, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Office for the Arts
SPEAKER(S)  Harvard Jazz Bands conducted by tenor saxophonist Don Braden ’85, with special guests Vijay Iyer, piano, and Ralph Peterson, Jr., drums
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO arts@fas.harvard.edu
LINK http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/cal/details.php?ID=45391

----------------------------

Technovation 2015: Regional Pitch Night & Showcase
Friday, May 1
5:30 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT)
Microsoft NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technovation-2015-regional-pitch-night-showcase-registration-16306305599

Come out to the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge and celebrate the locally-made apps submitted for the Technovation Challenge!

Up to 7 teams will be presenting their pitches, vying for for the local Technovation crown!

ALL registered teams are welcome to set up their posterboards and show off their apps prior to the pitch contest. The first hour of the event is devoted to all teams showing off their work in a gallery style presentation!
Teachers/coaches can sign up their teams for the gallery when registering.

All teams who take part in the posterboard gallery will be considered in the pre-selection process.The pre-selection process determines which teams will pitch to the judges on the night of the event, but the selections will not be announced until the night of the event.

ALL TEAMS SHOULD BE PREPARED TO PITCH!

Registration closes on Wednesday, April 29th at noon -- make sure to register today!

The winner of this event will proceed to the official Technovation semifinal round.
Technovation will select 10 teams from the semifinal round  to compete at the World Pitch Event in June.


This event is sponsored by the MassTLC Education Foundation, Microsoft, CHEN PR, CSTA, and a grant from Technovation.

----------------------------

Film Screening: Detropia
Friday, May 1
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston
Cost: $12 ($8, BSA Members)

Explore the devastating effects that the collapse of Detroit’s automobile industry had on its residents and urban infrastructure. Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Detropia is a documentary about the tough reality of this post-industrial city. This screening will be held at 6:00 pm on Friday, May 1 at BSA Space (290 Congress Street, Boston) and is the last film in Keeping it Reel, a six-part BSA Space Film Series covering various design topics. Complimentary refreshments and popcorn will be served. All proceeds from the BSA Space Film Series support the BSA Foundation.

More at http://www.architects.org/programs-and-events/film-screening-detropia

-----------------------------

Reframing Complex Water Challenges
Friday, May 1, 2015 at 7:00 PM - Saturday, May 2, 2015 at 5:00 PM (EDT)
MIT, Building 4-163, 182 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/reframing-complex-water-challenges-tickets-16062141297

Learning from trans-disciplinary case studies to support new approaches to research and innovative practice
Increasingly, water resource related disciplines, including hydrology, civil engineering, ecology, architecture, public health, city planning, and political science, acknowledge that water problems are enmeshed in coupled human-natural networks where neither a purely physical nor social interpretation of the problem can solve the challenges we face. 
Complex water problems cannot be broken down to characterize discipline-bounded component mechanisms that are then re-assembled. Who is at the table to conceptualize the problem has bearing on where we ultimately look for solutions. Globally, water practitioners are pioneering innovative trans-disciplinary approaches to support co-learning and redefine water challenges.
This workshop is an opportunity for the broader epistemic water community to work directly with these innovative water practitioners to guide new research agendas. Through this one-and-a-half day event, faculty, students, Boston-region water center directors, and global water practitioners will examine how lessons learned from innovative practices can transform how we look at and define water challenges.

MIT Water Club, Water Diplomacy Program at Tufts University, & MIT Science Impact Collaborative
waterworkshop.mit.edu

---------------------
Saturday, May 2
---------------------

Ending Institutional Corruption
WHEN  Sat., May 2, 2015
WHERE  Harvard Law School, Milstein Conference Suite, Wasserstein Building,
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Conferences, Education, Ethics, Exhibitions, Humanities, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
SPEAKER(S)  Featuring:  Keynote Lecture by Francis Fukuyama
What is Institutional Corruption? with Lawrence Lessig and Dennis Thompson
Panels on fixing institutional corruption in government, law, academia, nonprofits, finance, economics, public health, medicine, journalism
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO katy@ethics.harvard.edu
DETAILS  A two day conference to celebrate the end of the Edmond J. Safra Lab on Institutional Corruption.
What is Institutional Corruption?
with Lawrence Lessig and Dennis Thompson
Panel Discussions:
Insights from Psychology
Institutional Corruption & Government and Law
Institutional Corruption & Medicine and Public Health
Institutional Corruption & Finance and Economics
Institutional Corruption & Academia and Nonprofits
Workshops
Innovations in Ethics Training
Effective Whistleblower Programs
Using Litigation to Combat Institutional Corruption
Institutional Corruption and Investigative Journalism
Banking Corruption: Are Emerging Reforms Sufficient?
Combating Corruption through Rating and Accreditation
The Commitment Scorecard
Featuring a keynote lecture by Francis Fukuyama
LINK http://ethics.harvard.edu/event/ending-institutional-corruption

--------------------------

HTC Symposium: Revisiting CASE: The Conference of Architects for the Study of the Environment
Saturday, May 2
9:00a–6:00p
MIT, 7-429, 77 Vassar Street, Cambridge

MIT Architecture Lecture Series

Symposium hosted by the History, Theory & Criticism of Art and Architecture Program, Department of Architecture, MIT.

Open to: the general public
Cost: 0
This event occurs daily through May 2, 2015.
Sponsor(s): History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, Department of Architecture
For more information, contact:  Anne Deveau
(617) 258-8438
adeveau@mit.edu

--------------------------

Point to Point Camp
Saturday, May 2
9am - 8pm
MIT Media Lab, Cambridge
RSVP at http://ptp.camp/#rsvp

Point to Point Camp, a one day unconference, will bring together technologists, journalists, and lawyers – plus academics who think about those topics – to advance the interests of privacy, transparency, and democracy in the 21st Century.

As an unconference, most of the day’s programming will be created by the conference attendees. Sessions can be skillshares, panel talks, trainings, presentations, or something else entirely.

What do lawyers, journalists, and technologists have to talk about?
how to design systems to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks
101s on data privacy law for journalists and technologists
seeing latent power dynamics inherent in laws and technologies
the best tools to increase your digital privacy
how to combine our efforts to maximize government transparency
how to code for inclusion and social justice
you tell us …
The event will provide ample time for hallway and barstool relationship building among experts in fields that are increasingly reliant on one another.

-------------------------

Wake Up the Earth Festival
Saturday, May 2
11am - 6 pm
Stony Brook Southewest Corridor Park, Jamaica Plain

More information at http://www.spontaneouscelebrations.org/

Editorial Comment:  Always a fine time for all.

-----------------------------

ARTS FIRST Performance Fair
WHEN  Sat., May 2, 2015, 1 – 5 p.m.
WHERE  12 venues in and around Harvard Yard
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Concerts, Dance, Music, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Presented by Office for the Arts at Harvard and Board of Overseers of Harvard College
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO arts@fas.harvard.edu, 617.495.8676
DETAILS  ARTS FIRST Performance Fair, over 100 public performances and presentations at twelve venues in and around Harvard Yard, including Global Arts and “Make Art” stations on the Science Center Plaza.
LINK http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/cal/details.php?ID=45393

---------------------------

IoT Hackathon May 2-3, Challenges: Smart City, Accessibility & Smart Agriculture
Saturday, May 2, 2015 2:00 PM to Sunday, May 3, 2015, 2:00 PM
The Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) at Boston University, 750 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
RSVP at http://liveworx.thingworx.com/WhyAttend/IoTHackathon.aspx

Industry pioneers unite at LiveWorx 2015 for our First Annual 24 hour Internet of Things Hackathon. Compete for cash prizes and put your technical expertise to the test as you crack IoT challenges, wire up prototypes and devices, pitch groundbreaking IoT solutions, and build apps on ThingWorx, the world’s leading IoT platform.

Finalists will have the opportunity to present their innovations on stage to 2,000 LiveWorx event attendees on Tuesday, May 5 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak will award the ultimate prize as he crowns the LiveWorx 2015 #IoT Hackathon champions.

Entry into the IoT Hackathon is open to the public and free of charge. Visit www.PTC.com/go/iot-hackathon to register.

Hackathon Challenges:
Smart City
Boston has been hit by a record-breaking winter which, in many ways, ground the city to a standstill. How could IoT have helped us? Entries in this challenge can focus on anything from transportation to energy consumption.

Accessibility
The Perkins School for the Blind presents us with a compelling challenge for IoT emerging technologies. Entries in this challenge will enable wearable technology that change the way a blind person experiences the world. Make the world a safer, richer experience for the blind by leveraging the unique possibilities of smart, connected products.

Smart Agriculture
Did you know that there are over 7,300 commercial farms in Massachusetts? The world has more and more mouths to feed and the impact of population growth, water restrictions, and climate change will be felt all over the world. For this challenge, our friends at Freight Farm will provide teams with access to real monitoring equipment from an urban agriculture solution. No simulations here; we’re solving real-world problems with IoT.

The Internet of Things is happening now. Be a part of the group of IoT leaders who are shaping the future of IoT technology today.

--------------------------

Climate Change Session
Saturday, May 2
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (EDT)
The Arnold Arboretum, Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain

Keeping in Tune with the Environment: Palaver Strings is teaming up with The Arnold Arboretum and ImprovBoston to address the issue of climate change.  We are excited to present a program featuring Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence and Scandinavian folk tunes, interspersed with speeches from climate change experts and improvised theater from fun-having experts.  We look forward to an event inspiring reflection and forward action to help make our world a brighter place.

---------------------------

Winning the Future:  The Struggle for Privacy and Democracy in the Information Age
Saturday, May 2
4:30PM
Bartos Auditorium, MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge

A discussion with Julia Angwin, James Bamford, and Bruce Schneier
Moderated by Ahmed Ghappour

No registration is necessary for the PTP Keynote, which caps off our day of unconferencing with lawyers, journalists, and technologists at the MIT Media Lab.

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Sunday, May 3
-------------------

Urban and Suburban Carbon Farming to Reverse Global Warming
Sunday, May 3
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (EDT)
Harvard, Science Center, Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/urban-and-suburban-carbon-farming-to-reverse-global-warming-registration-15352859817
Cost:  $11.54 - $53.74

Editorial Comment:  I know the organizers of this conference and went to their previous conference at Tufts last November.  This is not fantasy but a practical way of reversing global warming while improving soil and human health.  The only hopeful approach to turning the clock back on atmospheric carbon that I know of.

--------------------------

Earthfest
Sunday, May 3
11am - 5 pm
Esplanade and Hatch Shell, Boston

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Somerville Growing Center’s Spring Garden Day
Sunday, May 3
12:30-2:30pm
Vinal Avenue, Somerville

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Spring Forward: Stories and Music for a New Season
WHEN  Sun., May 3, 2015, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
WHERE  The Plaza adjacent to the Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Concerts, Dance, Music, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Presented by Office for the Arts at Harvard and Board of Overseers of Harvard College
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO arts@fas.harvard.edu, 617.495.8676
DETAILS  “Spring Forward: Stories and Music for a New Season,” featuring members of “The Sloth” storytelling group telling tales on the theme of “spring,” followed by a performance of Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” by the Eurydice Chamber Ensemble.
LINK http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/cal/details.php?ID=45394

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Monday, May 4
-------------------

The Women Sheriffs of Wall Street: A Discussion with Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair, and Mary Schapiro
WHEN  Mon., May 4, 2015, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
WHERE  Memorial Church Sanctuary, Harvard Yard
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Ethics, Law, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Project on Public Narrative at Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
SPEAKER(S)  Senator Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair (former FDIC chairwoman), and Mary Schapiro (former SEC chairwoman). Ron Suskind (Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and director of the Project on Public Narrative) will be moderating.
COST  Free and open to the public; tickets required
TICKET WEB LINK  womensheriffs.eventbrite.com
TICKET INFO  Event is free and open to the public but you will need a ticket for entry. Early Bird tickets are available now for the Harvard community on Eventbrite!
CONTACT INFO jhendel@law.harvard.edu
DETAILS  Don't miss this truly historic event in which the women sheriffs of Wall Street will reflect on the role that gender played in financial reform and regulation - before, during, and after the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-8.
Tickets are required. Seating is first-come, first-served. Please arrive at least 15 minutes early for seating!
LINK https://www.facebook.com/events/397288070395897/

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MASS Seminar - Suzana Camargo (Columbia)
Monday, May 4
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)

Speaker: Suzana Camargo

MASS Seminar

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars (MASS)
For more information, contact:  MASS organizing committee
mass@mit.edu

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The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything
Monday, May 4
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building E15-341, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Lior Zoref, crowdsourcing researcher and author of "Mindsharing"
MIT Media Lab, MISTI MIT-Israel, Sloan Israeli Business Club and the Israeli Student Association present "The Art of Crowd Sourcing Everything" with Lior Zoref, crowdsourcing researcher and author of "Mindsharing"

This talk explains how we can use social media and the power of big crowds to upgrade our brains, our thinking, and our lives. Mindsharing shows us how to use technology to tap into a collective wisdom that has the power to transform every aspect of our life from finance to romance to family to career. From the prospective of a leading crowd wisdom researcher, author, a former Microsoft vice president and a passionate speaker, Lior Zoref will inspire you to think about the future of thinking in the era of social networks and crowd wisdom.
If the old saying is true that two brains are better than one, get ready to benefit from the power of fifty, five hundred, or five thousand brains.
About Lior Zoref:
Lior Zoref is an author, crowdsourcing researcher and international speaker. He worked for fourteen years at Microsoft, most recently as vice president of marketing for consumer and online services.

Please RSVP at the link below.

Web site: tinyurl.com/crowdsourcingrsvp
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: tinyurl.com/crowdsourcingrsvp
Sponsor(s): MISTI MIT-Israel Program, MIT Media Lab, Israeli Association, Sloan Israeli Business Club
For more information, contact:  Kylie Fisher
617-253-3938
kgfisher@mit.edu

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The Outsider: book talk with author Patricia Gercik
Monday, May 4
5:30p–7:15p
MIT, Building E51-325, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

Speaker: Patricia Gercik
Come hear Pat, former Program Director of MIT-Japan Program and Associate Director, of MISTI talk about her recently published novel, The Outsider set in the chaos of post-war Japan. Reception to follow book talk and book signing with sushi!

Web site: https://misti.mit.edu/outsider-book-talk-author-patricia-gercik
Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, MIT-Japan Program, MISTI
For more information, contact:  Christine Pilcavage
617-258-8208
csp18@mit.edu 

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What is the legacy of the 2024 Olympics? 
Monday, May 4
6pm
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston

With the City anticipating immense growth by 2030, this two-part series will examine the legacy possibilities pertaining to the bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games. Join speaker David Manfredi FAIA, principal at Elkus Manfredi Architects, at 6:00 pm on Monday, May 4, and Monday, June 22, at BSA Space (290 Congress Street, Boston), and be part of a discussion that can effectively inform the evolving planning for 2024. This event is free, open to the public, and supported by the BSA Foundation.

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Tuesday, May 5
---------------------

Boston TechBreakfast
Tuesday, May 5
8:00 AM
Microsoft NERD - Horace Mann Room, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

Interact with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / show-case style presentations.
And yes, this is free! Thank our sponsors when you see them :)

Agenda for Boston TechBreakfast:
8:00 - 8:15 - Get yer Bagels & Coffee and chit-chat
8:15 - 8:20 - Introductions, Sponsors, Announcements
8:20 - ~9:30 - Showcases and Shout-Outs!
GeoOrbital: GeoOrbital Wheel - Michael Burtov
Ulula - Antoine Heuty
Cospan Design: Nysa - David McCoy
Shelfie - CJ Acosta
~9:30 - end - Final "Shout Outs" & Last Words  Boston TechBreakfast Sponsors

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The 10th Annual Plant Biology Initiative Symposium:  "From Leaves to Ecosystems: Plants in a Changing World”
Tuesday, May 5 and Wednesday May 6
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre Street, Boston
RSVP at http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi/

Please save May 5th and 6th for the 10th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Initiative Symposium: "From Leaves to Ecosystems: Plants in a Changing World”. This year the Symposium is being co-sponsored by HUCE.

This year’s symposium will kick off with a special lecture on May 5th by Chris Field, Carnegie Institution for Science, at 4:00PM in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA. The title of Chris’s talk is, "Understanding, Managing, and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change”.  There will be a reception for faculty, and the Symposium speakers, in HUCE following the lecture.

On May 6th, we will hold a full-day symposium from 8:45AM – 5:30PM at the Arnold Arboretum's Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston, MA.  The symposium will wrap up with a panel discussion, with remarks by Harvard Plant Biology faculty. There will be a reception at the end of the symposium.

Confirmed speakers:
Carol Augspurger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joe Berry, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Zoe Cardon, Marine Biological Laboratory
Todd E. Dawson, University of California at Berkeley
Jim Ehleringer, The University of Utah
Graham Farquhar, Australian National University
Christian Körner, Institute of Botany, University of Basel
Beverly Law, Oregon State University
Joy Ward, The University of Kansas

Because we are providing lunch on May 6, we are asking everyone who will attend - faculty and students included - to pre-register. To learn more about the symposium and to register, please visit the PBI Website:  http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi  

Contact Name:
pbi@fas.harvard.edu
http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi/contact-pbi

------------------------

Anti-Drones Rally at M.I.T.
Wednesday, May 6
12:00pm
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

U.S. drones have killed thousands of innocent people. We will read the names of victims and speak out against this insidious form of warfare. We are gathering at MIT, a major center of drone research.

Sponsored by the Eastern Massachusetts Anti-Drones Network, a task force of UJP, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

------------------------

EAPS Thesis Defense ~ Variability of the Polar Stratospheric Vortex and its Impact on Surface Climate Patterns
Tuesday, May 5
3:30p–4:30p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)

Speaker: Aditi Sheshadri

Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu
Open to: the general public
Cost: n/a
Sonsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:  Roberta Allard
617-253-3381

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PBI Special Lecture: Understanding, Managing, and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change
WHEN  Tue., May 5, 2015, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Plant Biology Initiative
SPEAKER(S)  Chris Field, Carnegie Institution for Science
COST  Free and open to the public
TICKET WEB LINK  http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi/register
LINK http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi/schedule

-----------------------

Big Data, Big Brother, and Systemic Risk Management in the Financial System
Tuesday, May 5
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 32-155, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Andrew Lo, Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor, Professor of Finance, Director of Laboratory for Financial Engineering, MITeminar Series (joint with SSRC). A reception will follow.

Overview: A recurring theme among the many narratives of the financial crisis of 2008 is the complexity of the financial system and the failure of private- and public-sector policies to anticipate and attenuate the crisis. This failure may be a symptom of the emergence of a new type of risk to the financial system--systemic risk--and the growing mismatch between rapidly evolving financial technologies and increasingly antiquated regulations that were never designed to address these challenges. However, technology can also be used to improve regulation. In this talk, Prof. Andrew Lo will provide several examples of the potential for big data analytics to transform financial regulation, including self-stabilizing capital requirements, machine-learning models for consumer credit risk management, aggregate risk measures that guarantee individual privacy, and the application of software engineering principles to the design and implementation of financial rules and regulations.

Please join us for the next seminar in the Spring 2015 LIDS S

Web site: ssrc.mit.edu / lids.mit.edu
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Sociotechnical Systems Research Center, LIDS
For more information, contact:  Jacqueline Paris
jparis@mit.edu 

----------------------

Why We Should Trust Science: Perspectives from the History & Philosophy of Science
Tuesday, May 5
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, E51-115, Wong Auditorium, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Naomi Oreskes, Harvard
2015 Arthur Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics

The annual Arthur Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics is funded by the family of MIT alumnus Arthur Miller (B.S., 1934; Ph.D., 1938), this lecture provides an opportunity to present issues of science and ethics to the larger MIT community.

Web site: web.mit.edu/sts
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): HASTS, SHASS Dean's Office
For more information, contact:  Randyn Miller
617-253-3452
randyn@mit.edu

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Opening Talk and Reception: Live Matter, An Exhibition by Rosetta S. Elkin
WHEN  Tue., May 5, 2015, 5 p.m.
WHERE  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Exhibitions, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S)  Rosetta S. Elkin, assistant professor, landscape architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS  Opening Talk with Rosetta S. Elkin: May 5, 5 PM, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge.
Opening Reception: May 5, 5:30 PM, Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden Street.
The Live Matter exhibition is in the Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery of Byerly Hall at 8 Garden Street, Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138.
From May 5–May 29, the exhibition will be open Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m.
Live Matter concerns itself with the ongoing measure of the natural world—how plant life has been described, muted, and labeled throughout botanical history—to reveal a new discourse that delights in an attitude of discovery, one that acknowledges the aliveness of plants. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to stand beneath the complex of a mature root system, gaining a rare vantage point from which to consider the normally concealed foundations of plant life. Live Matter offers a provocative new perspective on the living, breathing organisms that are all around us, yet seldom fully appreciated.
Rosetta S. Elkin works at the intersection of practice, teaching, research, exhibitions, and writing, across scales and media. She is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where her teaching and research focus on innovative applications of ecological and vegetative technologies that highlight the role of plants, from innovative seed mechanics to bionetworks. Elkin’s work has been featured internationally, including installations at the Chelsea Fringe Festival, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Jardins de Métis.
LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-rosetta-s-elkin-exhibition

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Climate Resilient Financing
Tuesday, May 5
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM (EDT)
Goulston & Storrs, 400 Atlantic Avenue, Boston
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-resilient-financing-tickets-16469473639

Thanks to the tremendous work of nearly 350 entrants to the Boston Living with Water design competition, we now have a far better understanding of how climate resilient design can help Boston prepare for increased coastal flooding.

What also became clear is that Boston is looking at a third round--after the Big Dig and Harbor cleanup--of major public and private investment in the city's built environment to prevent widespread flooding in the 1/3 of the city that lies within eight feet of today's high tide.

How and who will pay for this?  How much of this investment will be public and how much can we count on, incentivize, or require private investment?  What’s the role of insurance? How do we make sure investment is equitable, to prevent islands of protected properties surrounded by flooded neighborhoods?

Join Matt Kiefer, real estate lawyer with Goulston and Storrs, for a panel discussion with experts on residential, commercial and infrastructure preparedness financing and insurance.  We look forward to a lively, hopeful conversation focused on maintaining and enhancing Boston's economic and social vibrancy. See you there!

------------------------

Architecture Lecture / HTC Forum: Basile Baudez, "Drawing for the Prize: Architectural Competition Drawings from Europe to America"
Tuesday, May 5
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Basile Baudez
MIT Architecture Lecture Series
Part of the Spring 2015 Department of Architecture Lecture Series

Hosted by the HTC Forum, History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art Program

Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, Department of Architecture
For more information, contact:  Anne Simunovic
617-253-4412
annesim@mit.edu

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BASG May 5th: Population with Alan Weisman, Author of Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
Boston Area Sustainability Group
Tuesday, May 5
6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (EDT)
Cambridge Innovation Center, Venture Cafe - 5th Floor, One Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/basg-may-5th-population-with-alan-weisman-author-of-countdown-our-last-best-hope-for-a-future-on-tickets-16504403114
Cost:  $8 - $10

Population is undoubtedly a root cause of climate change, but it is also the third rail of sustainability. The statistic of human's exponential growth is oft cited to introduce the topic of sustainability and to invite consideration of what changes we might make to accommodate one million more of us every 4 1/2 days on the planet. Rarely though do we delve deeper into the topic to understand the historical, political, religious, and cultural circumstances that incentivize continued growth, even as current events suggest reducing numbers may be in our own best interest. For our May 5th event, the Boston Area Sustainability Group (BASG) brings acclaimed journalist and author, Alan Weisman, to lead us on an important global exploration and intimate discussion of the future of humanity.

About Alan Weisman
Journalist Alan Weisman has worked in more than 50 countries and on all seven continents. His reports from around the world have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, Discover, Orion, Wilson Quarterly, and on National Public Radio. His latest book is Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? (Little, Brown and Company, 2013, and in 13 foreign language editions). Countdown was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Paris Book Festival Prize for Nonfiction, the Nautilus Gold Book Award, the Population Institute’s Global Media Award for Best Book, and was a finalist for the Orion Prize and the Books for a Better Life Award.

His previous book, The World Without Us, an international bestseller translated into 34 languages, was named Best Nonfiction Book of 2007 by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and was the iTunes #1 Nonfiction Audiobook. It was also winner of the Wenjin Book Prize of the National Library of China, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rachel Carson Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Orion Book Prize.

His other books include An Echo In My Blood; Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World; and La Frontera: The United States Border With Mexico.  He is a senior documentary writer and producer for Homelands Productions, and lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, sculptor Beckie Kravetz.

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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, May 6
------------------------

SEAS [School of Engineering and Applied Sciences] Design & Project Fair
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 (All day)
Harvard, Science Center Plaza Tent, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

We invite you to attend the annual showcase of SEAS undergraduate and graduate student demonstrations, presentations, and prototypes. See how our students at SEAS are applying their knowledge to solve real-world problems.
Meet us under the big white tent in the Science Center Plaza, and see what's new at SEAS this year!

Email: events@seas.harvard.edu

-----------------------------

10th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Initiative Symposium: "From Leaves to Ecosystems: Plants in a Changing World”
Wednesday, May 6
All day
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre Street, Boston
RSVP at http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi 

Please save May 5th and 6th for the 10th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Initiative Symposium: "From Leaves to Ecosystems: Plants in a Changing World”. This year the Symposium is being co-sponsored by HUCE.

This year’s symposium will kick off with a special lecture on May 5th by Chris Field, Carnegie Institution for Science, at 4:00PM in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA. The title of Chris’s talk is, "Understanding, Managing, and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change”.  There will be a reception for faculty, and the Symposium speakers, in HUCE following the lecture.

On May 6th, we will hold a full-day symposium from 8:45AM – 5:30PM at the Arnold Arboretum's Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St., Boston, MA.  The symposium will wrap up with a panel discussion, with remarks by Harvard Plant Biology faculty. There will be a reception at the end of the symposium.

Confirmed speakers:
Carol Augspurger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joe Berry, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Zoe Cardon, Marine Biological Laboratory
Todd E. Dawson, University of California at Berkeley
Jim Ehleringer, The University of Utah
Graham Farquhar, Australian National University
Christian Körner, Institute of Botany, University of Basel
Beverly Law, Oregon State University
Joy Ward, The University of Kansas

Because we are providing lunch on May 6, we are asking everyone who will attend - faculty and students included - to pre-register. To learn more about the symposium and to register, please visit the PBI Website:  http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi 

Contact Name:
pbi@fas.harvard.edu
http://hwpi.harvard.edu/pbi/contact-pbi

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"Who's Arming Asia, and Why it Matters"
Wednesday, May 6
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Jonathan Caverley (MIT)
Wednesday Seminar Series, Security Studies Program

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies

For more information, contact:
Elina Hamilton
617-253-7529
elinah@mit.edu

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MIT Kendall Square Initiative Community Meeting
Wednesday, May 6
Noon – 2 PM
MIT Student Center, Building W20 Room 491, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
A light lunch will be provided

Since 2010, MIT has been working with the broader community to advance a proposal to bring new vibrancy and diversity to Kendall Square — the most innovative square mile on the planet. This comprehensive five-year process, involving the MIT and Cambridge communities and benefitting from several critical studies, has served to shape the Kendall Square Initiative. As a result, MIT is now poised to deliver a dynamic blend of uses in this area, including housing, lab and research space, retail, innovation space, open space, and a dedicated facility for the MIT Museum.

The Institute’s process will turn a collaborative vision into a reality. By transforming five MIT-owned parking lots into a mix of lively uses, the Institute will contribute significantly to enhancing the life and character of the local community and will advance the pace of life-changing science by attracting innovative companies and strengthening vital collaborations within the Kendall Square ecosystem.

Consistent with its zoning approval, MIT is launching the design phase of the Initiative and looks forward to engaging in the next steps of the public review process. We invite you to explore the details of the Kendall Square Initiative, including:
Priorities: Community input significantly influenced key elements of the plan, including housing, retail, open space, historic integration, and innovation space.
Planning:  The inclusive process has brought various stakeholders together to create a collaborative vision.
Updates: MIT has started the design phase of the Initiative and will proceed with the public review process. Visit the updates section to review key progress points.
Over the next few months, we’ll add information on the plans for each parcel. Visit this site to review the progress and stay involved.

Ideas/questions?
Contact kendallsquare@mit.edu.

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Liberal Institutions and Social Incorporation: Is There a Trade-off, Or Can We All Be Uruguay?
WHEN  Wed., May 6, 2015, 1 – 6 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, 1730 Cambridge Street, Room S250, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
SPEAKER(S)  Santiago Anria, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Ana María Bejarano, University of Toronto
Catherine Conaghan, Queens University
Juan Pablo Luna, Universidad Católica de Chile
Alberto Vergara, Harvard University/Banting Foundation
LINK http://drclas.harvard.edu/event/liberal-institutions-and-social-incorporation-there-trade-or-can-we-all-be-uruguay

---------------------------

IDeAS: Innovative Design Alternatives Summit
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 3:00 PM - Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 5:30 PM (EDT)
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ideas-innovative-design-alternatives-summit-tickets-16618396070

Shaping a New Vision for Boston
What is our vision for the City of Boston? How can innovative design enhance the quality of life in Boston? How can Boston foster design excellence throughout the City?
Goal: To initiate an inclusive, interactive visioning process, to imagine the collaborative planning process, and to learn how we will experience Boston’s physical and cultural environments in the years 2020 and 2030.
Audience: Boston residents and workers, public officials, community leaders, designers, students and thought leaders engaged in envisioning Boston’s future form and functions.
This two-day conference will kick off with a plenary panel focusing specifically on design. The kick off will be followed by a day-long summit to be held at the Boston Society of Architects.

Plenary Panelists
Francine Houben, Architect, Creative Director, Mecanoo
Tamara Roy, Principal, ADD Inc/Stantec; President-Elect Boston Society of Architects
Bill Rawn, Founding Principal, William Rawn Associates
John Barros, City of Boston, Chief of Economic Development
Robert Campbell, Architect, Architecture Critic, Boston Globe

Panels
Who We Are
How do we best respond to Boston’s emerging demographics? In this session we will discuss how design helps us to integrate our diversity into the fabric of the city, neighborhood identity; historic preservation, and culture, entertainment and sports. How do we describe ourselves to those who do not know Boston?
Panelists
Andrea Leers, Principal, Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Barry Bluestone, Director, Northeastern University Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy
Harry Smith,Director of Sustainable and Economic Development and Dudley Neighbors
Jerome Smith, City of Boston, Chief of Civic Engagement
Charlotte Kahn, Co-Founder & Director, Emeritus, Boston Indicators Project

How We Grow
This panel will address how design enhances economic development, regionalization, transportation and transit-oriented development, and infrastructure. What is our plan for smart growth? What big data and aggregation of design planning will be useful to inform our process and to assess our needed resources?
Panelists
Tony Pangaro, Principal, Millenium Partners
Gia Biagi, Senior Director of Urbanism and Civic Impact, Studio Gang Architects
Aaron Young, Partner, Rogers Partners
Cliff Selbert, Partner, Selbert Perkins Design Collaborative
Bill Christopher, City of Boston, Commissioner of Inspectional Services
Marc Draisen, Executive Director, Metropolitan Area Planning Council

How and Where We Live
In this session we will explore housing, equity, affordability, and design that helps to manage time in a global environment. How do we insure affordability to attract and hold a middle-class economic base? How do we design across generations and for individuals with disabilities? What are the possible effects on housing and transportation by the 2024 Olympics planning process?
Panelists
Chrystal Kornegay, Undersecretary, Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development
Kelly Saito, Partner, Gerding Edlen
Tim Love, Principal, Utile; President, Boston Society of Architects
Glynn Lloyd, Managing Director, Boston Impact Initiative
Sheila Dillon, City of Boston, Chief of Housing and Director of Neighborhood Development
Katherine Swenson, Vice-President for Design, Enterprise Community Partners

Creating Common Ground
Open space can support place-making and facilitate way-finding, enhance community and cultural identity. How do we explore design solutions that work in harmony to support the public good? This panel discussion will address accessibility, design interventions for health and safety, neighborhood needs and scale, and how innovative design enhances the experience of the city. What can we achieve using civic technology and big data to better understand how we live and play?
Panelists
Dick Galvin, President, CV Properties
Geeta Pradham, Associate VP for Programs, The Boston Foundation
Aziza Robinson-Goodnight, Artist in Transit, Fairmount Development Corridor
Mikyoung Kim, Principal, Mikyoung Kim Design
Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director, Institute for Human Centered Design
Julie Burros, City of Boston, Chief of Arts and Culture
Brian Golden, Director, Boston Redevelopment Authority

How We Survive in Our Environment
How do form, materials, technology, energy management, sustainability and resiliency affect planning the built environment? In this session we will discuss morphology and form, innovative technologies, construction practices, and design tools, energy management strategies, climate change and design opportunities. How do we engage and experience the city through digital interfaces?
Panelists
Stefan Behnisch, Partner, Behnisch Architekten
Bryan Koop, Vice-President & Regional Manager, Boston Properties
Kristina Ford, Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
Matthew Clarke, Senior Associate, SHoP Architects
Austin Blackmon, City of Boston, Chief of Environment, Energy, & Open Space
Vivien Li, President, Boston Harbor Association

How We Share Our Resources
As we engage our communities in design, consider innovations in regionalization and infrastructure needs and alternative financing for an innovative plan for our city how do we enhance equal and equitable access to economic development resources? How do we assess community and cultural benefits from design interventions?
Panelists
John Alschuler, Chairman, HR&A Advisors
Jim Rooney, Executive Director, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority
Katie Lapp, Executive Vice President, Administrative, Business and Operating Officer, Harvard University
David Lee, Partner, Stull and Lee
Gail Latimore, Executive Director at Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation
Gina Fiandanca, Commissioner, City of Boston Transportation Department

Please check back soon for a detailed agenda.

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Global and Regional Variability of Tropical Cyclone-induced Ocean Warming
Wednesday, May 6
3:45p–5:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)
Refreshments, 3:45 pm, Ida Green Lounge

Speaker: Isaac Ginis, University of Rhode Island
We examine the magnitude and cumulative footprint of subsurface warm anomalies forced by tropical cyclones, making use of a high resolution global ocean circulation model. Analysis of a 20-year simulation using a realistic global tropical cyclone distribution reveals how the ocean adjusts to tropical cyclone-induced warming. Lateral transport of the warm anomalies plays a key role in redistribution of heat between the ocean basins and maintaining the ocean heat balance. Tropical cyclones induce semi-permanent warming of the upper thermocline in some regions that can reach as much as 1/4C. Transport pathways and ventilation mechanisms are regulated by the large-scale seasonal and interannual climate variability, such as the Asian monsoon and El Nino Southern Oscillation.

EAPS Department Lecture Series
Weekly talks given by leading thinkers in the areas of geology, geophysics, geobiology, geochemistry, meteorology, oceanography, climatology, and planetary science.

A reception in Building 54, Room 923 precedes the talk.
All are welcome.
If you have any questions regarding the lecture, please contact Jen Fentress at 617.253.2127 or jfen@mit.edu. Reservations not required.
Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/events/2015/DLS_Ginis
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:  Jen Fentress
jfen@mit.edu 

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DNA Damage, DNA Repair, and Human Health
WHEN  Wed., May 6, 2015, 4 p.m.
WHERE  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S)  Leona D. Samson, 2014-15 Radcliffe Institute Fellow and Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor in the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
COST  Free and open to the public
LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2015-leona-d-samson-fellow-presentation

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The 2015 Harvard Horizons Symposium
WHEN  Wed., May 6, 2015, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE  Sanders Theater
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Health Sciences, Humanities, Lecture, Science, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard GSAS
COST  Free and open to the public
TICKET INFO  free tickets available from the Harvard Box Office beginning April 22, or at the door
DETAILS  Each year, eight outstanding P.h.D candidates are chosen as Harvard Horizons Scholars and receive targeted mentoring and coaching designed to enhance their presentation skills. The program will culminate in the Harvard Horizons Symposium on May 6, where Horizons Scholars will deliver brief, compelling talks about their research from the Sanders Theatre stage (free tickets available from the Harvard Box Office beginning April 22).
LINK https://www.gsas.harvard.edu/harvard_horizons

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Special Lecture with Lester Brown and J. Matthew Roney, co-authors of The Great Transition
Wednesday, May 6
5:30PM - 7:00PM
Harvard, Science Center, Lecture Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Lester Brown and J. Matthew Roney
The energy transition is here. As fossil fuel resources shrink, as air pollution worsens, and as concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, oil, and natural gas, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old economy, fueled largely by coal and oil, is being replaced with one powered by solar and wind energy.

Lester Brown and J. Matthew Roney, co-authors of The Great Transition, will present and discuss their new book, addressing how we can (and must) move beyond fossil fuels.

Sponsored by the Sustainability and Environmental Management (SEM) Program, Harvard Extension School
Open to the Public

Contact Name: Tim Weiskel
tim@ecoethics.net

Editorial Comment:  I believe this is a session of a Harvard Extension Course ENVR E-130 Global Climate Change: The Science, Social Impact, and Diplomacy of a World Environmental Crisis (http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k108352) taught by William Moomaw and Tim Weiskel but the public is most definitely invited.

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MIT Kendall Square Initiative Community Meeting
Wednesday, May 6
6 – 8 PM
Kendall Marriott, 50 Broadway, Cambridge MA
A light supper will be provided

Since 2010, MIT has been working with the broader community to advance a proposal to bring new vibrancy and diversity to Kendall Square — the most innovative square mile on the planet. This comprehensive five-year process, involving the MIT and Cambridge communities and benefitting from several critical studies, has served to shape the Kendall Square Initiative. As a result, MIT is now poised to deliver a dynamic blend of uses in this area, including housing, lab and research space, retail, innovation space, open space, and a dedicated facility for the MIT Museum.

The Institute’s process will turn a collaborative vision into a reality. By transforming five MIT-owned parking lots into a mix of lively uses, the Institute will contribute significantly to enhancing the life and character of the local community and will advance the pace of life-changing science by attracting innovative companies and strengthening vital collaborations within the Kendall Square ecosystem.

Consistent with its zoning approval, MIT is launching the design phase of the Initiative and looks forward to engaging in the next steps of the public review process. We invite you to explore the details of the Kendall Square Initiative, including:
Priorities: Community input significantly influenced key elements of the plan, including housing, retail, open space, historic integration, and innovation space.
Planning:  The inclusive process has brought various stakeholders together to create a collaborative vision.
Updates: MIT has started the design phase of the Initiative and will proceed with the public review process. Visit the updates section to review key progress points. 
Over the next few months, we’ll add information on the plans for each parcel. Visit this site to review the progress and stay involved.

Ideas/questions?
Contact kendallsquare@mit.edu.

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How To Clone A Mammoth:  The Science of De-Extinction
Wednesday, May 6
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Harvard Book Store welcomes evolutionary biologist and pioneer in "ancient DNA" research BETH SHAPIRO for a discussion of her book How To Clone A Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction.

Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro walks readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the extraordinary cutting-edge science that is being used—today—to resurrect the past. Journeying to far-flung Siberian locales in search of ice age bones and delving into her own research—as well as those of fellow experts such as Svante Pääbo, George Church, and Craig Venter—Shapiro considers de-extinction's practical benefits and ethical challenges. Would de-extinction change the way we live? Is this really cloning? What are the costs and risks? And what is the ultimate goal?

Using DNA collected from remains as a genetic blueprint, scientists aim to engineer extinct traits—traits that evolved by natural selection over thousands of years—into living organisms. But rather than viewing de-extinction as a way to restore one particular species, Shapiro argues that the overarching goal should be the revitalization and stabilization of contemporary ecosystems. For example, elephants with genes modified to express mammoth traits could expand into the Arctic, re-establishing lost productivity to the tundra ecosystem.

Looking at the very real and compelling science behind an idea once seen as science fiction, How to Clone a Mammoth demonstrates how de-extinction will redefine conservation's future.

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Land Stewardship for Pollinator Conservation, a talk by Kelly Gill
Wednesday, May 6
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge

Presented by Grow Native Massachusetts

Pollinators are essential to our ecosystem—more than 85 percent of the world's flowering plants and two-thirds of our agricultural crops depend upon them for reproduction. But loss of habitat due to urbanization and use of pesticides are causing declines in both managed honeybee colonies and native pollinator populations. Come learn about the diverse world of New England’s native pollinators—bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, and wasps— and about the latest science-based approaches to reversing pollinator declines by protecting and managing habitat for these vital insects. Free and Open to the Public

Kelly Gill is the Pollinator Conservation Specialist for the Xerces Society and a Partner Biologist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. More information: http://grownativemass.org/programs/eveningswithexperts

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Alive Inside: Music as Medicine
Wednesday, May 6
7:00 PM (EDT)
Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alive-inside-music-as-medicine-registration-15036441401

Takao Hensch, PhD, director of the Conte Center at Harvard; professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School; professor of molecular and cellular biology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University | Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, director of the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Stroke Recovery Laboratory; associate professor of neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School
Imagine awakening memories, emotions, and long-extinguished passions after years of numbness. The stirring documentary Alive Inside beautifully depicts the miraculous revitalization of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients through the simple experience of listening to music. Alive Inside’s inspirational story left audiences humming, clapping, and cheering at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it won an Audience Award. Join us for a screening and provocative discussion to explore music and the mind, the brain’s plasticity, and the power of music to heal in cases where prescription medication falls short.
Advance registration begins at 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, April 22 (Monday, April 20 for Museum members) at mos.org/events.
This program is free thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute. Additional funding provided by the Richard S. Morse Fund.

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Thursday, May 7
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Comment's Mysteries
Thursday, May 7
12:00pm
MIT Media Lab, 3rd floor, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://civic.mit.edu/event/civic-media-lunch-joseph-reagle-comments-mysteries

In his new book Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web (MIT Press, 2015) Joseph Reagle visits communities of Amazon reviewers, fan fiction authors, online learners, scammers, freethinkers, and mean kids. He shows how comment can inform (through reviews), improve (through feedback), manipulate (through fakery), alienate (through trolling and hate), shape (through social comparison), and perplex us. While we are counseled to “avoid the comments,” Reagle argues that reading the comments permits us to ask important questions about human nature and social behavior. In this talk, he will reflect on four of those questions. What’s behind the boom and bust cycle of blog, comment, and community platforms? Second, can we trust online reviews? Third, why are comments often so hostile, sexist, and racist? And finally, how can we make sense of the product review: “saved my son’s life: 4/5 stars”?

Joseph Reagle is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern and a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. He taught and received his Ph.D. at NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. As a Research Engineer at MIT he served as an author and working group chair within the IETF and W3C on topics including digital security, privacy, and Internet policy. His current interests include geek feminism and online culture.

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Nuclear Waste as a Transnational Problem: Ethics and Governance
WHEN  Thu., May 7, 2015, 12:15 – 2 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, HKS, Belfer Center Library, Liitauer-369, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Ethics, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR International Security Program
SPEAKER(S)  Behnam Taebi, research fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
CONTACT INFO susan_lynch@harvard.edu
LINK http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/events/6645/nuclear_waste_as_a_transnational_problem.html

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Advancing the Status of Women in a Globalizing Japan: A 70-Year Retrospective
WHEN  Thu., May 7, 2015, 1 – 5 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Belfer Case Study Room (S020), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Conferences, Humanities, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies; Showa Women’s University; Showa Boston Institute for Language and Culture
COST  Free and open to the public
DETAILS  The end of the Pacific War ushered in a period of unprecedented freedom for women in Japan. In 1945, they did not even enjoy the right to vote. Seventy years later, “Womenomics,” or the equalization of gender roles in the work force, is an integral part of Prime Minister Abe’s policies to revitalize the Japanese economy. This symposium will examine how women's economic, social, and political status has advanced in postwar Japan, and what obstacles remain.
LINK http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/event/symposium-advancing-status-women-globalizing-japan-70-year-retrospective

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"Towards Artificial Living Materials"
May 7
4:00 pm
MIT, Building 10-250, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Refreshments @ 3:30 pm in 4-349 (Pappalardo Community Room)

Michael Brenner, Harvard University
Biological systems provide an inspiration for creating a new paradigm for materials synthesis. Imagine it were possible to create an inanimate material that could both perform some function, e.g. catalyze a set of reactions,  and also self replicate.   Changing the parameters governing such a system would allow the possibility of evolving materials with interesting properties by carrying out "mutation-selection" cycles on the functional outcomes. Although we are quite far from realizing such a vision in the laboratory, recent experimental advances in coating colloidal scale objects with specific glues (e.g. using complementary DNA strands) have suggested a set of theoretical models in which the possibilities of realizing these ideas can be explored in a controlled way.  This talk will describe our ongoing efforts to explore these ideas using theory and simulation, and also small scale experiments.

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After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar's, What Is God's?
WHEN  Thu., May 7, 2015, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East BC, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Conferences, Humanities, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Petrie-Flom Center
WRITTEN BY  Free; registration required
CONTACT INFO petrie-flom@law.harvard.edu
DETAILS  As prelude to the 2015 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference, "Law, Religion, and Health in America," please join us for a pre-conference session examining the role of religion in the American public sphere. Our expert panel will discuss the nature of conscience and conscientious objection, religious freedom, and religious accommodation from philosophical, theological, historical, legal, and political perspectives. Panelists include:
E. J. Dionne Jr., columnist, The Washington Post; Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Diane L. Moore, senior lecturer on religious studies and education and senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School
Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Frank Wolf, representative, Virginia's 10th Congressional District, U.S. House of Representatives, 1981-2015 (retired)
Reception to follow event. Register and view the full conference agenda on our website!
Co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center and the Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. Initiative on Religious Freedom and Its Implications at the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, and is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.
LINK http://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/events/details/after-hobby-lobby

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Dynamic Pricing in Ride-Sharing Platforms
Thursday, May 7
4:15p–5:15p
MIT, Building E51-395, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Ramesh Johari

ORC Spring Seminar Series
The OR Center organizes a seminar series each year in which prominent OR professionals from around the world are invited to present topics in operations research. We have been privileged to have speakers from business and industry as well as from academia throughout the years. For a list of past distinguished speakers and their seminar topics, please visit our Seminar Archives.

Seminar reception immediately following the talk.

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/orc/www/seminars/seminars.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Operations Research Center
For more information, contact:
Peng Shi, Nataly Youssef, or Jerry Kung
253-6185
pengshi@mit.edu, youssefn@mit.edu, jkung@mit.edu

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Starr Forum: Evolving Security Dynamics in Asia
Thursday, May 7
4:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-115, MIT Wong Auditoirum, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, Taylor Fravel, Vipin Narang
Ambassador Shivshankar Menon was India's former national security advisor and foreign secretary. While foreign secretary in 2008, Menon was an active voice in negotiations over the India-US civil nuclear initiative, which placed India's civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. As a career diplomat, he was India's ambassador to China (2000-2003) and Israel (1995-1997), as well as high commissioner to Pakistan (2003-2006) and Sri Lanka (1997-2000). In addition to this, he served in Japan and in Austria in the Embassy and the Mission to the IAEA. Earlier in his career, Menon was director in the Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai from 1983 to 1986. Earlier this year, he was at MIT CIS as a Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow and is currently a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.

Taylor Fravel is associate professor of political science at MIT and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT. He studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia.

Vipin Narang is associate professor of political science at MIT and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT. His research interests include nuclear proliferation and strategy, South Asian security, and general security studies.

Free and Open to the Public | Light refreshments will be served 
Co-sponsors: MIT Center for International Studies, MIT India Program, MIT Security Studies Program
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, Security Studies Program, MIT India Program
For more information, contact:
starrforum@mit.edu 

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Climate Change & Scientific Consensus
Thursday, May 7
4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
MIT, Building E19-623, 400 Main Street, Cambridge

Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard

Public welcome.

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"Hate Crimes in Cyberspace"
Thursday, May 7
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 4-231, 182 Memorial Dr (Rear), Cambridge

Danielle Keats Citron
Most Internet users are familiar with trolling--aggressive, foul-mouthed posts designed to elicit angry responses in a site's comments. Less familiar but far more serious is the way some use networked technologies to target real people, subjecting them, by name and address, to vicious, often terrifying, online abuse. In an in-depth investigation of a problem that is too often trivialized by lawmakers and the media, University of Maryland Professor of Law Danielle Keats Citron exposes the startling extent of personal cyber-attacks and proposes practical, lawful ways to prevent and punish online harassment. A refutation of those who claim that these attacks are legal, or at least impossible to stop, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace reveals the serious emotional, professional, and financial harms incurred by victims.

Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker's "revenge porn" were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs.

Hate Crimes in Cyberspace rejects the view of the Internet as an anarchic Wild West.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Comparative Media Studies/Writing
For more information, contact:  Andrew Whitacre
617-324-0490
cmsw@mit.edu

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The Half-Wild, Half-Captive Elephants of Burma
Thursday, May 7
6:00PM
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Please join the Harvard Museum of Natural History for a free and public lecture about the current state of elephant conservation in Burma.

In 1920, James Howard Williams began working in the teak logging camps of Burma (now Myanmar). Mesmerized by the intelligence, character, and humor of the great animals that hauled logs through the remote jungles, he became a gifted “elephant wallah” who championed humane treatment for the animals. The elephants led a double life, working alongside men for five hours a day, then living in the forest much like wild elephants for the remaining hours. In this free and public lecture, Author and Journalist Vicki Croke will discuss her best-selling book Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II, which chronicles Williams’ life. She will also provide an overview of elephants in Myanmar today, highlighting why conservationists worry about their future.

Presented in collaboration with the Harvard Animal Studies Project

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Sustainability Collaborative
Thursday, May 7
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Venture Cafe, Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway, 5th floor,  Cambridge

The Venture Café Foundation has partnered with EcoMotion to bring the Sustainability Collaborative to monthly Venture Café gatherings.
Stay tuned for more information about this month’s Sustainability Collaborative.

Questions? Contact Sierra at sflanigan@ecomotion.us

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Strategy to Shelf:  An Insider's View on Bringing Food Products to Market
Thursday, May 7
6:30PM
Cambridge Innovation Center, Havana Center, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at http://strategytoshelf.splashthat.com

The challenges of bringing a food product to market can be daunting. Thinking that you have a great idea, and making it a reality, can be worlds apart. How many times have you heard the words: “We were undercapitalized.” This is one of many statements, that food owners say, time-and-time again. 

Our leading panel of experts are here to help you navigate your way. From product development to packaging, manufacturing, distribution and finance, we will share best practices and helpful tips for building a sustainable, profitable food product business. 

SPEAKERS
Carol Coutrier, President / Massachusetts Specialty Foods Association 
Carol Coutrier offers consulting services to specialty foods entrepreneurs through her company, The Launching Pad & Co. Her entrepreneurial journey began when she co-founded “Just Kids,” the first after school program for the Lincoln and Sudbury, MA public schools, focusing on the arts and performing arts. She was the co-founder and president of The Hommus Factory, Inc., the first company to introduce hommus to supermarkets in New England and the first company to add flavors to hommus. She uses the skills developed and lessons learned from this 16 year experience to help entrepreneurs grow their enterprises. Special skills include determining marketability of products, naming of products/companies, new product development, long range planning and pricing. All of her resources and contacts are available to clients for strategic advice. She is president of the Massachusetts Specialty Foods Association and is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, Northeast Chapter. She was a finalist for New England Women Business Owner’s “Business Woman of the Year” award, 1995.

Bonnie Shershow, Founder / Bonnie's Jams
Bonnie Shershow is Bonnie of Bonnie’s Jams, also known as, “ace jam-maker,” by the Washington Post. Bonnie learned to love cooking with fruit as a child in Southern California, where her family  lived surrounded by acres of fruit trees and berry bushes. The memory of that magic fruit-filled land followed Bonnie east, and the pursuit of producing the perfect jam was the constant in a long and varied career. She has been in Cambridge since attending graduate school at Harvard and began selling her jams commercially in 2000. Recognition by Food & Wine Magazine, The New York Times, and other publications expanded the sales of her products throughout New England to top shops in New York City and other areas in the Northeast and across the country to the South, to California, and now to Europe. Bonnie’s Jams is now a full-time endeavor.

Lisa Sutton, Founder / Kitchen Local
Lisa Sutton is the Founder of Kitchen Local, the North Shore's first commercial shared-use kitchen, filling a niche for small-scale food producers by providing around-the-clock modern, affordable, convenient, and permitted kitchen workspace. Prior to launching Kitchen Local, Lisa worked as the director of fund development at Opportunity Works in Newburyport. With her three kids growing older, Lisa decided to explore new professional opportunities and always had dreams of opening her own shared commercial kitchen. Lisa is a recipient of the Amesbury Chamber of Commerce 2013 Trailblazer Award.
Trish Karter, Founder / Dancing Deer
Trish Karter is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Dancing Deer Baking Company, a Boston-based producer of high-end, natural baked goods sold nationwide. Prior to her work at Dancing Deer, Trish earned her MBA at Yale University and afterwards spent years exploring her love of art. An unintended turn of events led to a return to entrepreneurship, where originally with partners, then on her own, built Dancing Deer into one of the most respected natural food brands and a leader in triple bottom line practice. Trish left Dancing Deer in 2010 to pursue her interests in nutrition, sustainability, social justice and dematerialization, which led to the founding of LightEffect Farms and explorations in Urban Agriculture. She also advises specialty food companies on capital structure and fundraising to market strategy, consumer insights and product development.

Aaron Belyea, Founder / Alphabet Arm Design
Aaron Belyea is the owner and art director of Alphabet Arm, an award-winning, full service design studio specializing in bold, creative and distinctive print design solutions. A self-taught artist, Aaron launched his graphic design career while performing in numerous bands in Boston, for which he would create a visual image that complimented the band’s music. Aaron later honed his artistic talents at The Planetary Group, overseeing the design department for this artist development company.  His ability to successfully develop identities rooted in decisive, visual concepts led to the establishment of his own studio in 2001, Alphabet Arm Design. The company name comes from Aaron’s design moniker, “Alphabet Arm, ” which refers to the alphabet tattoo wrapped around one of his arms. Aaron can often be found speaking at colleges and universities as well as teaching classes and presentations for various entrepreneur / start-up organizations.

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BiblioTech:  Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google
Thursday, May 7
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Harvard Book Store welcomes founding chairman of the Digital Public Library of America JOHN PALFREY for a discussion of his latest book, BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google.

Libraries today are more important than ever. More than just book repositories, libraries can become bulwarks against some of the most crucial challenges of our age: unequal access to education, jobs, and information.

In BiblioTech, educator and technology expert John Palfrey argues that anyone seeking to participate in the 21st century needs to understand how to find and use the vast stores of information available online. And libraries, which play a crucial role in making these skills and information available, are at risk. In order to survive our rapidly modernizing world and dwindling government funding, libraries must make the transition to a digital future as soon as possible—by digitizing print material and ensuring that born-digital material is publicly available online.

Not all of these changes will be easy for libraries to implement. But as Palfrey boldly argues, these modifications are vital if we hope to save libraries and, through them, the American democratic ideal.

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Friday, May 8
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Go Boston 2030 Visioning Lab
Friday, May 8
11:30-7:30
China Trade Center, 2 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/register?orderid=416200568103&client_token=07a3c655ac614bcc8a1b976688d5f6c4&eid=16422121006

More information at http://goboston2030.org/participate/#vision

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Toxic Injustice:  A Transnational History of Exposure and Struggle
Friday, May 8
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Harvard Book Store welcomes environmental scholar and activist SUSANNA RANKIN BOHME for a discussion of her book Toxic Injustice: A Transnational History of Exposure and Struggle.

The pesticide dibromochloropropane, known as DBCP, was developed by the chemical companies Dow and Shell in the 1950s to target wormlike, soil-dwelling creatures called nematodes. Despite signs that the chemical was dangerous, it was widely used in U.S. agriculture and on Chiquita and Dole banana plantations in Central America. In the late 1970s, DBCP was linked to male sterility, but an uneven regulatory process left many workers—especially on Dole’s banana farms—exposed for years after health risks were known.

Susanna Rankin Bohme tells an intriguing, multilayered history that spans fifty years, highlighting the transnational reach of corporations and social justice movements. Toxic Injustice links health inequalities and worker struggles as it charts how people excluded from workplace and legal protections have found ways to challenge power structures and seek justice from states and transnational corporations alike.

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Challenges and opportunities in the production of renewable chemicals and fuels in Brazil and the US
Friday, May 8
3:00p–4:00p
MIT, Building 32-123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Reception at 2:30pm

Bernardo Gradin was born in Bahia, Brazil in 1964. He is a civil engineer by trade, with an undergraduate degree from Politechnic School of Federal University of Bahia (1988), MA in International Studies from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business (1993).

He worked at the Odebrecht Group from 1988 to 1999 in Brazil and the U.S. In 2000 he moved to Braskem, where he was CEO from 2008 to 2010.

In 2011 Gradin founded and became CEO of GranBio, an industrial biotechnology company and became president of Inspirare Institute, a non-profit organization oriented to foster basic education in Brazil.

Gradin is a board member of ABIQUIM (Brazilian Chemical Association), board member of CNPEM (Brazilian National Labs), leader of the CNI Bioeconomy Commission and chairman of the Chemistry & Advanced Material Community at the World Economic Forum.

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/cheme/news/lewis/lewis-2015.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Chemical Engineering Department
For more information, contact:  Melanie Kaufman
617-253-6500
melmils@mit.edu

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Saturday, May 9
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Humanitarian Technology Festival
Saturday, May 9, 9:00 AM - Sunday, May 10 at 4:00 PM (EDT)
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/humanitarian-technology-festival-tickets-15879743741
Cost:  $15.00

Join us for the Humanitarian Technology Festival on May 9 and 10 at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, MA. This two-day gathering will bring people together who are passionate about leveraging technology and creative media for humanitarian aid and disaster response. This event is designed to support dialogues between field practitioners, media makers and storytellers, technology developers, information security practitioners, members of affected populations, researchers, and everyone in between.

Through collaborative workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions, we'll strive to build capacity for humanitarian aid and disaster response efforts. This will be a sibling event to the MIT Humanitarian Technology Conferencetaking place later that week.
Tweet with hashtag: #humtech
Contact us: humtechfestival@aspirationtech.org

What is on the agenda?
To foster a collaborative ethos that reflects the needs, passions, and talents of the people in the room, the agenda topics are emergent, based on input from participants before and during the event. The event will be run using our participatory event methodologies.
We anticipate session topics ranging from existing HA/DR tools, social media strategy, database management, tool gaps and needs, storytelling methods, and even self-care for organizers.
We will begin at 9:00 AM on both days, and end at 19:00 (7pm) on Saturday and 16:00 (4pm) on Sunday. Breakfast and lunch will be served both days, with ample coffee provided.

Get in touch if you have any questions: humtechfestival@aspirationtech.org

We hope to see you there!

Aspiration is co-organizing this event with the Humanitarian Technology Conference, Humanitarian Toolbox, City Awake, and the MIT Media Lab.

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Mid-Cambridge Plant Swap
Saturday, May 9
12 to 2pm
Fayette Park, Cambridge

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Rambax, MIT Senegalese Drum Ensemble
Saturday, May 9
3:00p
W20, MIT Student Center Steps, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

RAMBAX MIT Senegalese Drum Ensemble. Lamine Tour??, director. Outdoor Concert. 3pm, MIT Stratton Student Center steps. Rain Location: Lobdell, Student Center. Free.

Web site: mta.mit.edu
Open to: the general public

Cost: FREE

Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts

For more information, contact:
Clarise Snyder
mta-request@mit.edu 

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Rising Waters/Rising Tides on Muddy River with ArtWeek Boston
Saturday, May 9
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (EDT)
Riverway Park on the Emerald Necklace, Longwood T stop on the Riverway, Chapel Street, Brookline

Susan Israel, Energy Necklace Project
Bring your wellies, because you’ll need them! Not Really – not now, but eventually we all will. Come on out and see how high the flood water will go if we get a super storm at high tide. Will it come all the way to Longwood Ave at the Muddy River? What about in 2050 and 2100, after sea level starts to rise? Come find out and spear a fish to show where the river bank will be. Join Susan Israel, project artist of Rising Tides, in marking the flood levels with fish to show the impact of rising sea levels due to climate change. Chat about where the project has been and its future plans, and find out how you can get involved. By Susan Israel of the Energy Necklace Project. Free. All ages. Will happen in drizzle but not in steady rain! Ground may be messy.
Rising Waters/Rising Tides will be installed on the Muddy River as part of the Seen/Unseen group exhibition of Studio Without Walls, April  25 - May 17. Join the artist at the opening reception April 26th, 1-3pm. www.studiowithoutwalls.org.
ArtWeek Boston: http://www.artweekboston.org/event/rising-tides-on-the-muddy-river/
FAQs
Don't bring a paper ticket- just sign up and come!
Are there ID requirements or an age limit to enter the event
 All ages, will be near water.
What are my transport/parking options getting to the event?
Get off of Longwood MBTA station on D, Green Line, walk into Riverway Park

Where can I contact the organizer with any questions?
EnergyNecklace@gmail.com

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Monday, May 11
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MASS Seminar - Susan van den Heever (Colorado State University)
Monday, May 11
12:00a–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)

Speaker: Susan van den Heever

MASS Seminar

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars (MASS)
For more information, contact:  MASS organizing committee
mass@mit.edu

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Eversource MIT Clean Energy Prize Showcase & Grand Prize Award Ceremony
MIT Clean Energy Prize
Monday, May 11
3:00 PM to 6:30 PM (EDT)
MIT, Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/eversource-mit-clean-energy-prize-showcase-grand-prize-award-ceremony-tickets-15896985311

Join us on May 11 for the MIT Clean Energy Prize Showcase & Award Ceremony. At the showcase (3:00pm – 5:00pm) you'll have an opportunity to meet this year's semifinalist teams and to vote on your favorite team. At the Award Ceremony (5:00pm – 6:30pm) prize winners will be announced for the Audience Choice Awards, the competition Track Awards, as well as the $75,000 DOE EERE and $200,000 Eversource Grand Prize Awards. You'll also hear from our three exciting keynote speakers.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Alex Laskey, President and Founder, OPower
Jon Wellinghoff, former Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Jigar Shah, President and Co-founder, General Capital;  Founder, SunEdison

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The Heterogeneous Effects of Summer Jobs: Evidence from Two Field Experiments - joint with Development
Monday, May 11
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, E62-650, 100 Main Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Sara Heller (University of Pennsylvania)

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Microeconomic Applications
For more information, contact:  economics calendar
econ-cal@mit.edu

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Tuesday, May 12
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Humanitarian Technology 2015
Tuesday, May 12
8AM - 5PM
Le Méridien Cambridge

Humanitarian Technology: Science, Systems and Global Impact is an exciting, relevant and technically focused international conference designed to explore emerging technologies that further enable global humanitarian assistance. HumTech2015 is being held on 12 – 14 May 2015 at the beautiful Le Méridien Cambridge-MIT. Anchoring the renowned University Park at MIT, the conference venue is conveniently located in Cambridge’s vibrant innovation district, home to high-tech firms and leading academic institutions.

HumTech2015 will provide a forum for scientists, engineers, field workers and policymakers to discuss current research and exchange technical ideas that advance global humanitarian action

Humanitarian Technology 2015 Tracks:
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief
Health and Disease Management
Public Safety and Emergency Management
Emerging Technologies
International Development, Poverty Alleviation and Food Security
Water, Energy, Agriculture, Policy, Security, Education, …

Email:  info@humanitariantechnology.org
Website:  http://www.humanitariantechnology.org/

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Economic Inequality and Technology: How Knowledge Sharing Helps
Tuesday, May 12
12:00 pm
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, 23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person vat https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2015/05/Bessen#RSVP
Event will be webcast live on https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2015/05/Bessen at 12:00 pm.

with Jim Bessen in conversation with Karim Lakhani
Today we feel the impact of technology everywhere except in our paychecks. In the past, technological advancements dramatically increased wages, but during the last three decades, the median wage has remained stagnant. Machines have taken over much of the work of humans, destroying old jobs while increasing profits for business owners. The threat of ever-widening economic inequality looms, but in his new book, Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth, James Bessen argues that it is not inevitable. Workers can benefit by acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to implement rapidly evolving technologies. Sharing knowledge is an important part of that process, including via open standards and employee job-hopping. At this event, Bessen will have a conversation with Berkman Faculty Associate Karim Lakhani about knowledge sharing, past and present, about government policies that discourage sharing, and about the broader issue of slow wage growth.

About Jim
James Bessen studies the economics of innovation and patents. He has also been a successful innovator and CEO of a software company. Currently, Mr. Bessen is Lecturer in Law at the Boston University School of Law.

Bessen has done research on whether patents promote innovation, why innovators share new knowledge, and how technology affected worker skills historically. His research first documented the large economic damage caused by patent trolls. His work on software patents with Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics) and Robert Hunt has influenced policymakers in the US, Europe, and Australia. With Michael J. Meurer, Bessen wrote Patent Failure (Princeton 2008), highlighting the problems caused by poorly defined property rights. His new book, Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth (Yale 2015), looks at history to understand how new technologies affect wages and skills today. Bessen’s work has been widely cited in the press as well as by the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court, judges at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the Federal Trade Commission.

In 1983, Bessen developed the first commercially successful “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” PC publishing program, founding a company that delivered PC-based publishing systems to high-end commercial publishers. Intergraph Corporation acquired the company in 1993.

About Karim
Karim R. Lakhani is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the Principal Investigator of the Crowd Innovation Lab and NASA Tournament Lab at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He specializes in the management of technological innovation in firms and communities. His research is on distributed innovation systems and the movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and into communities. He has extensively studied the emergence of open source software communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies. He has also investigated how critical knowledge from outside of the organization can be accessed through innovation contests. Currently Professor Lakhani is investigating incentives and behavior in contests and the mechanisms behind scientific team formation through field experiments on the TopCoder platform and the Harvard Medical School.
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Opportunity
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The Boston Network for International Development (BNID) maintains a website (BNID.org) that serves as a clearing-house for information on organizations, events, and jobs related to international development in the Boston area. BNID has played an important auxiliary role in fostering international development activities in the Boston area, as witnessed by the expanding content of the site and a significant growth in the number of users.

The website contains:

A calendar of Boston area events and volunteer opportunities related to International Development
- http://www.bnid.org/events
A jobs board that includes both internships and full time positions related to International Development that is updated daily - http://www.bnid.org/jobs
A directory and descriptions of more than 250 Boston-area organizations - http://www.bnid.org/organizations

Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter (we promise only one email per week) to get the most up-to-date information on new job and internship opportunities -www.bnid.org/sign-up

The website is completely free for students and our goal is to help connect students who are interested in international development with many of the worthwhile organizations in the area.

Please feel free to email our organization at info@bnid.org if you have any questions!

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Intern with Biodiversity for a Livable Climate!
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (BLC) is a nonprofit based in the Cambridge, MA area. Our mission is to mobilize the biosphere to restore ecosystems and reverse global warming.
Education, public information campaigns, organizing, scientific investigation, collaboration with like-minded organizations, research and policy development are all elements of our strategy.

Background: Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet. Restoring the complex ecology of soils is the only way to safely and quickly remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the ground, where it’s desperately needed to regenerate the health of billions of acres of degraded lands. Restoring carbon to soils and regenerating ecosystems are how we can restore a healthy hydrologic cycle and cool local and planetary climates safely, naturally, and in time to ensure a livable climate now and in the future.

Our Work: immediate plans include
Organizing the First International Biodiversity, Soil Carbon and Climate Week, October 31-November 9, 2014, and a kick-off conference in the Boston area, “Mobilizing the Biosphere to Reverse Global Warming: A Biodiversity, Water, Soil Carbon and Climate Conference – and Call to Action” to expand the mainstream climate conversation to include the power of biology, and to help initiate intensive worldwide efforts to return atmospheric carbon to the soils.
Coordination of a global fund to directly assist local farmers and herders in learning and applying carbon farming approaches that not only benefit the climate, but improve the health and productivity of the land and the people who depend on it.
Collaboration with individuals and organizations on addressing eco-restoration and the regeneration of water and carbon cycles; such projects may include application of practices such as Holistic Management for restoration of billions of acres of degraded grasslands, reforestation of exploited forest areas, and restoring ocean food chains.

Please contact Helen D. Silver, helen.silver@bio4climate.org for further information.
781-316-1710
Bio4climate.org
SharedHarvestCSA.com

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Climate Stories Project
http://www.climatestoriesproject.org

What's your Climate Story?
Climate Stories Project is a forum that gives a voice to the emotional and personal impacts that climate change is having on our lives. Often, we only discuss climate change from the impersonal perspective of science or the contentious realm of politics. Today, more and more of us are feeling the effects of climate change on an personal level. Climate Stories Project allows people from around the world to share their stories and to engage with climate change in a personal, direct way.

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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!

Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Membership in the coop costs $2.50 per quart. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch.  No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.

For more information checkout.
https://sites.google.com/site/somervilleyogurtcoop/home

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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images

Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera?  With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat.  However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.

HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.

Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras.  They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way).  Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.

Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.

The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.

Go to Sagewell.com.  Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return.  Then click on "Here" to request the report.

That's it.  When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.

With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).

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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ

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HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to Cambridge residents.

During the assessment, the energy specialist will:

Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on your energy bills. You might as well use the service.

Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729.  A Next Step Living Representative will call to schedule your assessment.

HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the services and rebates possible.

(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home Energy Assessment.  We won’t keep the data or sell it.)

(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)

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Resource
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide

SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!

To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org

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Free Monthly Energy Analysis

CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.

https://www.carbonsalon.com/

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Boston Food System

"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."

The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas.   Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities.  Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers.  Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.

It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs

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Artisan Asylum  http://artisansasylum.com/

Sprout & Co:  Community Driven Investigations  http://thesprouts.org/

Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project  http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation, contact jmatthaei@wellesley.edu

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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston  http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/

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Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents   http://hubevents.blogspot.com

Thanks to

Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area:  http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com

MIT Events:  http://events.mit.edu

MIT Energy Club:  http://mitenergyclub.org/calendar

Harvard Events:  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/

Harvard Environment:  http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/

Sustainability at Harvard:  http://green.harvard.edu/events

Mass Climate Action:  http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar/events/index.php

Meetup:  http://www.meetup.com/

Eventbrite:  http://www.eventbrite.com/

Microsoft NERD Center:  http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/

Startup and Entrepreneurial Events:   http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/

Cambridge Civic Journal:  http://www.rwinters.com

Cambridge Happenings:  http://cambridgehappenings.org

Cambridge Community Calendar:  https://www.cctvcambridge.org/calendar

Boston Area Computer User Groups:  http://www.bugc.org/

Arts and Cultural Events List:  http://aacel.blogspot.com/

Boston Events Insider:  http://bostoneventsinsider.com/boston_events/

Nerdnite:  http://boston.nerdnite.com/