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) EventsGeo
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Details of these events are available when you scroll past the index
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Index
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Monday, February 11
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8:30am Comprehensive Green Roof: Beyond Extensive and Intensive
12pm Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium: Kaustubh Thirumalai (Brown)
12pm How to die young at a very old age
12pm The Bacterial Influence on Algal Life, Death, and Environmental Signature
12pm Surprising Insights from Electricity Customer Micro Data
12pm Cultures of Ability
12pm Harmony Through Harmony
12:30pm Forced Migration and Return: Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the Rohingya Crisis
3:30pm Innovations for Fisheries and Conservation Solutions
4pm Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: Organizing Workers in the Southern USA
4:30pm The Return to Protectionism: An Analysis of the 2018 Trade War
5pm MIT-Africa Forum w/ E4Dev [Energy for Development]
5:30pm The Mathematics of Cooperation
6pm Brexit: What’s Next?
6pm The Digital Hum of the Long, Slow Now: People Disguised as Algorithms
6pm CDD Forum - Oh, The Places You'll Go!
6pm Positive Eco-Ethics in a Human-dominated World
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Tuesday, February 12
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12pm Stop Saving the Planet! A 21st-Century Environmentalist Manifesto
12pm Social Activism Through Pop Culture
12pm Tropical Pitcher Plants as an Ecological Filter
12pm Kim Samuel: Social Inclusion and the Human Right of Belonging
12pm To AI or Not to AI: Image-Based Diagnostics for Post-Cesarean Delivery Infections in Rural Rwanda
12:30pm The Economic Impact of America's New Protectionism
1pm Climate Change, Social Inequity and the People's Health
3pm The Role of Public Policy in Improving Women's Welfare in Developing Countries
4pm Climate Change, Social Inequity and the People's Health
4pm xTalk with Michael Ioffee: Text Messages and the Future of Digital Education
4:15pm Covering Catastrophe: The Dire Science & Heated Politics of Climate Change in the Trump Era
4:30pm Emile Bustani Seminar: "Worst Humanitarian Crises of Our Time: Displacement and Destruction in Syria and Yemen”
4:30pm Can Caribbean Environmental History Teach Us Anything About Resilience?
4:30pm Invest for a better world
5pm Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
5:15pm Amputated from the Land: Black Refugees from America and the Neglected Voices of Environmental History
5:30pm PHMA February - Better Building Codes: Getting to Passive House & Net Zero
6pm Robotland: The Future of Policy and Work in an AI World
6pm The Mathematics of Cooperation
6pm PKG Community Conversations: Healthcare
6pm Personal Genetics: Power to the People or Buyer Beware?
6pm Sophie Hochhäusl: Memories of the Resistance
6pm Leading the Way: An Evening to Celebrate Women in Science
6pm Darwin Day: Twice! Science and the Double Discovery of Evolution
6:30pm Confronting Climate Change: Boston-Based Ideas that Can Change the World
7pm How Worker-Owned Coops Enhance the Solidarity Economy
7pm MIT $100K Accelerate Finale
7:30pm Army ants in an ecological network
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Wednesday, February 13
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8am Living Building Challenge Roundtable
8:30am Building a Sustainable Ocean Economy
10am From TMI and Chernobyl to Fukushima: Safety and Security Culture as Tools of Engineering Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf
11:30am The Spread of Hate and Racism: Confronting a Growing Public Crisis
11:30am Rumors, Truths, and Reality: Political Misinformation in the Modern Day
12pm Research Spotlight: 2018 Menino Survey of Mayors
12pm Study Group: Technology and Human Rights - Technology and Opensource Investigations
12pm Laser Enrichment and Nuclear Proliferation: Unexpected Results & the Lessons for Scholarship
12pm Privacy's Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies
12:15pm Algorithms and/as Culture
12:30pm Samuel Bendett: Russian Military Technology Innovation and Potential Repercussions
2:45pm In Vaccines We Trust? The Effects of the CIA’s Vaccine Ruse on Immunization in Pakistan
3pm Human Rights in Hard Places Speaker Series: Autocrats, Dictators, and the Global Crack down on Human Rights
3pm Robotics Community Meeting: Stakeholder Event on the Energy-Robotics Nexus
3pm Alliance for Business Leadership Business Leaders' Learning Project: Climate Change & Clean Energy Action: Taking Action to Create Change
3:30pm Marine Ecological Genomics: Unraveling the Drivers of Coral Diversity From the Deep Sea to Deep Time
4pm Modelling the strait dynamics in regional climate models: recent progress, current challenges and future direction for Gibraltar-Mediterranean Sea
5:30pm The Other Side Speaker Series: Andy Palmer
5:30pm Data Ethics: Exploring Vice and Virtue in Big Data
6pm Traces and Tracks: Journeys with the San
6pm The Future is Now: A Somerville Panel
6pm Funding Environment in New England
6pm Mass Innovation Nights 119
6pm Basel Night – From the Rhine City to Europe’s Innovation Hub
7pm Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power
7pm Democratizing Art and Science
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Thursday, February 14
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12pm Puffins: The new canary of climate change
12pm Making New York (and other cities) Accessible
12pm Benefitting from Victimhood: Why Mainstream Voters Elect Fringe Politicians
3pm Providing secure Internet services with insecure infrastructure
3:30pm Response of Boreal Larches to Climate Change in Northernmost China
6pm Designing Living Things
6pm MIT D-Lab Talk and Tour: Designing for a More Equitable World
6pm RPP Colloquium: Indigenous Perspectives on Peacemaking in the Face of Racism, Religious Exodus, Oppression, and Unfair Exposure to Trauma and Disaster
7pm Midnight In Chernobyl
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Friday, February 15
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10:30am RPP Special Interactive Workshop: The Kilombo: Lessons Learned from the (First) Democratic Multicultural Multi-Faith Republics in the Americas
12pm Thinking Fast makes Changing S l o w: How Cognitive Processes Interfere with Achieving Diversity
12pm The Past Inside the Present: Bridging the Gap Between the Solar System and Exoplanets via Climate Evolution Research
4pm Film Screening: India's Daughter followed by discussion with Leslee Udwin
5:30pm Re-Framing the Frame: Preparing Justice-Seekers through Legal Education
6pm Swiss Sciences Night 2019
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Saturday, February 16
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10am How to Unmask the Myth of Neutrality in the Use of Technology without Going Full Amish
12pm Somerville Community Summit
9pm Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
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Sunday, February 17
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3pm Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
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Monday, February 18
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12:15pm Strategies of Conflict: Performing Responsibility in the Missile Age
6pm Engineers Week: The Citizen Engineering Movement
7pm Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
9pm Healing Voices // Online Screening & Discussion
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Tuesday, February 19
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10:15am The Energy Transition in India—Towards Climate Change Mitigation
12pm WEBINAR: AI for Good
12pm Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium: Matto Mildenberger (UCSB)
12pm The Politics of Health in the Trump Era
12pm BISG Lunch with Professor Cass Sunstein
12pm Disability and the Social Implications of Communication Technology
12pm The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future
12:30pm Democracy and Inequality: Learning Through Sound in Tokyo, Boston, and Berlin
4:15pm Book Talk: "The Future is Asian”
5:30pm Feminist Economics
6pm Free Speech, Open Minds and the Pursuit of Truth
6pm Conscious Conversation: An Inconvenient Act: How you can be a part of the climate crisis solution
6pm Reparations for Slavery: The Role of Repentance in Politics
6:30pm Donna Brazile
6:30pm Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture: “The Invention of Rivers”
6:30pm Generation Citizen Bar Night: Beyond the Ballot
7pm Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts
7pm FLP Open Meeting: Feed The Resistance with Author, Julia Turshen
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
100% Renewables by 2030?
How to Support the Green New Deal
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Monday, February 11
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Comprehensive Green Roof: Beyond Extensive and Intensive
Monday, February 11
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM EST
Hemingway, Floor 18, 50 Milk Street, Boston
Cost: $45
Learn how to maximize the environmental, social and financial benefit from green roofs. The decade-old U.S. green roof market is largely based on German technology. Advanced understanding has led to breakthroughs that address issues in first-generation green roofs and technology transfer. Comprehensive green roofs bring the most advantageous qualities of intensive and extensive green roofs together. Comprehensive green roofs support plant varieties typically seen in intensive green roofs at the depth and weight of extensive green roofs.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will gain an understanding of current technology in green roof construction illustrated by case studies.
Participants will understand the advantages of combining the best qualities of “extensive” and “intensive” green roofs to create a “comprehensive” green roof design.
Participants will understand the wide range of plant species that comprehensive green roofs can support.
Participants will learn the best practices in design, establishment maintenance and follow-up of comprehensive green roof design.
This presentation can count as a “Structured Self Reported Program” for 1 hour of AIA credit.
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium: Kaustubh Thirumalai (Brown)
Monday, February 11
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
About this Series
The Planet Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate Colloquium [PAOCC] is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm in 54-923. Lunch is provided after the seminars to encourage students and post-docs to meet with the speaker. Besides the seminar and lunch, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. Contact the 2018/2019 Coordinators: paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu
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How to die young at a very old age
Monday, February 11
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Tufts, Jean Mayer Center, Mezzanine Auditorium, 711 Washington Street, Boston
Nir Barzilai, M.D., Director, Institute for Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Director, Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research and National Institutes of Health’s Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging
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The Bacterial Influence on Algal Life, Death, and Environmental Signature
Monday, February 11
12:00PM
Harvard, Haller Hall (102), Geo Museum, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
with Einat Segev, Weizmann Institute of Science.
Abstract: Micro-algae have played key roles in shaping past oceans and continue to greatly influence the marine environment. Recent studies reveal that bacteria interact with micro-algae in various ways, ranging from pathogenicity to mutualism. My research investigates the physical and chemical interactions between micro-algae and bacteria across multiple scales, from the chemical crosstalk to the influence these interactions have on the marine environment. In my talk, I will introduce Emiliania huxleyi, the most prevalent micro-alga in modern oceans. I will discuss the role of bacteria as algal farmers, controlling the life cycle of algae by determining how fast they will grow and how fast they will die. I will link laboratory findings to work conducted at sea and demonstrate the importance of these findings to the study of proxies for climate reconstructions.
EPS Colloquium
Contact Name: Summer Smith
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Surprising Insights from Electricity Customer Micro Data
Monday, February 11
12:00PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
Pasi Miettinen, President and CEO of Sagewell
Lunch will be served. This event is free and open to the public.
HKS Energy Policy Seminar
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Cultures of Ability
Monday, February 11
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Northeastern, 909 Renaissance Park, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
Meryl Alper, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, College of Arts, Media, and Design
“The Cultural Politics of "Sensory-Friendly" Mediated Spaces”
Elizabeth Britt, Associate Professor, Department of English, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
“The Ability to Change: Batterer Intervention as Rhetorical Education”
Adam Hosein, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
“Anti-Discrimination Norms, Conceptions of Ability and Social Change”
For more information, please contact Gaby Fiorenza at g.fiorenza@northeastern.edu
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Harmony Through Harmony
Monday, February 11
12 – 1:30PM
Tufts, Varis Lecture Hall, Granoff Music Center, 20 Talbot Avenue, Medford
Distinguished Tufts alumnus Deke Sharon, producer of the hit show The Sing-Off and arranger/music director/producer for all three Pitch Perfect movies, leads the Tufts Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, and many of Tufts's talented student a cappella groups in a performance of exciting a cappella music at the culmination of his residency.
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Forced Migration and Return: Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the Rohingya Crisis
Monday, February 11
12:30 pm
Cambridge Main Library, Community Room, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Since 2015, 3 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes in Myanmar due to persecution. Despite the international community’s outcry, the government of Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, has proven incapable of ending the crisis. Join Dr. David Dapice a Myanmar expert with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation for an in-depth examination of the plight of the Rohingya.
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Innovations for Fisheries and Conservation Solutions
Monday, February 11
3:30pm
Harvard, Haller Hall, Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street
Reniel Cabral, University of California, Santa Barbara
Abstract: Fisheries and conservation challenges are becoming more complex, requiring innovative solutions. My work can be categorized into three approaches for addressing long-standing, fundamental problems in fisheries and conservation: 1) Using big data and novel technologies; 2) Applying established methods from other fields in new ways; and 3) Applying innovative computational models. I will provide examples of each approach, focusing on the following three studies: 1) Using novel data from satellite technologies to empirically assess the effect of policies aimed at combating illegal fishing in Indonesia and The Gambia; 2) Quantifying the responses of commercial and recreational vessels to the establishment of marine protected areas using 14 years of aerial surveys around California's Channel Islands; and 3) Using a decision framework from economics to derive optimal policies for the situation in which stakeholders value multiple ecosystem services and these services have uncertainties. Specifically, these studies address the following questions: 1) Can addressing illegal fishing be an alternative pathway to fishery recovery? 2) How do stakeholders respond to management interventions? 3) How do uncertainties affect optimal decision making?
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Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: Organizing Workers in the Southern USA
Monday, February 11
4 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Room 2019 (Milstein West A), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Professor, West Virginia University
Ken Fones-Wolf, Professor, Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair, West Virginia University
Commenter: Sister Marie-Therese Browne aka "Sister Tess”, Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky
Description: This forum honors the noted labor historian James Green (1944-2016). It will feature the recent book of Elizabeth and Ken Fones-Wolf, Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South (University of Illinois Press), a study of Operation Dixie and efforts to stop labor organizing in the region. Their presentation will be followed by commentary by Sister Tess, who was involved in many labor struggles in Texas and various Southern states. There will also be copies of the book available at the event.
James Green Memorial Forum
Contact: Jack Trumpbour 617-495-0404
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The Return to Protectionism: An Analysis of the 2018 Trade War
Monday, February 11
4:30pm to 5:45pm
Harvard, Littauer Center, M-15, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
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MIT-Africa Forum w/ E4Dev [Energy for Development]
Monday, February 11
5-7pm
Whitehead Auditorium, 455 Main Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0espQBEfBzafh-BRRaLFMAVvkheA35yZLyV3a8ST5p4XoBQ/viewform
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The Mathematics of Cooperation
Monday, February 11
5:30 pm
Harvard, Science Center D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Martin Nowak (Harvard)
Abstract: Cooperation means that one individual pays a cost for another to receive a benefit. Cooperation can be at variance with natural selection: Why should you help a competitor? Yet cooperation is abundant in nature and is an important component of evolutionary innovation. Cooperation can be seen as the master architect of evolution and as the third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and selection. I will present mathematical principles of cooperation.
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Brexit: What’s Next?
WHEN Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Ed Balls, Research Fellow, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, HKS, United Kingdom Shadow Chancellor (2011- 2015)
Harriett Cross, British Consul General to New England
Amanda Sloat, Robert Bosch Senior Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe, Brookings, Fellow, Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs
Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook (Moderator)
Executive Director, The Future of Diplomacy Project and Executive Director, The Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, HKS
CONTACT INFO IOP Forum Office, 617-495-1380
LINK https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/brexit-what’s-next
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The Digital Hum of the Long, Slow Now: People Disguised as Algorithms
Monday, February 11
6:00pm
MIT, ACT Cube (e15-001), 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Eva and Franco Mattes are an artist duo originally from Italy, living in New York. They have continually made work that responds to and dissects the contemporary networked condition, always approaching the ethics and politics of life online with a darkly humorous edge.
Their latest body of work, Dark Content, sheds light on the largely anonymous labour force of content moderators that has emerged with the rise of social media. Throughout the discussion, they will explore how what is concealed is often what matters most.
Group exhibition highlights include SFMOMA (2019); Athens Biennale (2018); Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2018); Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, 2018); Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie (2017); Yokohama Triennale (2017); Biennale of Sydney (2016) and Whitechapel Gallery (London, 2016). In 2001 they were among the youngest artists ever included in the Venice Biennale.
They are part of the collective Don’t Follow the Wind, a collaborative project that organized an inaccessible exhibition in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone (2015-present).
They are faculty members at the MFA Fine Arts Department and the MFA Photography Department of the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Respondent:
Gary Zhexi Zhang (SMACT ’19) is an artist and writer interested in socio-technical objects. His current work explores decentralised organisations such as swarms, mycelia and markets within the context of aesthetics, cryptography and work. He works with film, installation and software.
Part of the Spring 2019 Lecture Series: The Digital Hum of the Long, Slow Now
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CDD Forum - Oh, The Places You'll Go!
Monday, February 11
6:00pm
MIT, Building 9-255, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Dan D'Oca, Interboro Partners and Harvard GSD
Daniel D’Oca is an urban planner and educator. He is Principal and co-founder of the New York City-based architecture, planning, and research firm Interboro Partners, and Associate Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. With Interboro, Daniel has won many awards for participatory, place-based planning and design projects. Interboro’s book The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion is an encyclopedia about accessibility and the built environment that was published in 2017.
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Positive Eco-Ethics in a Human-dominated World
Monday, February 11
6 to 7:30pm
Come to the front door of the water treatment plant at 250 Fresh Pond Parkway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/positive-eco-ethics-in-a-human-dominated-world-tickets-52433879144
Claire O’Neill, the engaging director of Earthwise Aware, leads a discussion on the state of nature, and various environmental worldviews, including anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. How can we find a more positive and balanced worldview and move back towards being a critical component of Nature? EA (earthwiseaware.org) offers lots of interesting programs. FREE.
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Tuesday, February 12
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“Stop Saving the Planet! A 21st-Century Environmentalist Manifesto”
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Loeb Library, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Environmental Sciences, Ethics, Humanities, Lecture, Science, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Critical Conservation, MDes, Graduate School of Design
SPEAKER(S) Jenny Price
DETAILS
Are you freaking out about climate change? Then come hear why "save the planet!" has always been a lousy environmentalist mantra. Why "environment" has become the F-word in American politics. And why, if we really want to clean up environmental messes, we need to stop obsessing about how to "save the planet” — and start obsessing instead about how to change, use, and live inside of environments more sustainably and more equitably.
Jenny Price, a writer, public artist, and historian works on environment and public space. As a co-founder of the LA Urban Rangers public art collective, she has co-created projects: Malibu Public Beaches, Water Bar, and Public Access 101: Downtown LA; and has exhibited or been a resident artist at MOCA, the California Biennial (Orange County Museum of Art), and the Cooper Hewitt. She is currently a Research Fellow, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University.
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Social Activism Through Pop Culture
Tuesday, February 12
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Wexner Conference Room, Wexner Building, Room 434AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Justin Tinsley is a culture and sports writer for The Undefeated, a sports and pop culture website owned and operated by ESPN. He received a BA in Public Relations/Image Management from Hampton University, and a Masters in Strategic Marketing & Communications Grade from Georgetown University.
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Tropical Pitcher Plants as an Ecological Filter
Tuesday, February 12
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Harvard, 22 Divinity Avenue, HUH Seminar Room 125, Cambridge
Kadeem Gilbert, PhD Student
Naomi Pierce Lab, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University
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Kim Samuel: Social Inclusion and the Human Right of Belonging
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Austin Hall, Morgan Courtroom (Third Floor), 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Law School Project on Disability
SPEAKER(S) Kim Samuel, Professor of Practice at Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO hpod@law.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join HPOD for a lunchtime talk on social inclusion and the human right of belonging.
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To AI or Not to AI: Image-Based Diagnostics for Post-Cesarean Delivery Infections in Rural Rwanda
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Global Health Institute, 42 Church Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Information Technology, Lecture, Research study, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Global Health Institute
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Bethany Hedt-Gauthier, Associate Professor, Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Rich Fletcher, Director, Mobile Technology Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
TICKET WEB LINK https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eg2a5djz45c0ae2e&oseq=&c=&ch=
CONTACT INFO Megan Diamond
DETAILS In rural Rwanda, 11% of women who deliver via c-section develop a surgical site infection (SSI). Delays in SSI diagnosis and treatment can lead to severe morbidity and mortality among mothers. Our team is assessing ways to leverage the existing network of community health workers (CHWs) to improve post-c-section follow-up with a focus on timely identification of SSIs. We will briefly discuss an image-based diagnostic tool that uses artificial intelligence to diagnose infection based on CHW-generated photos of the c-section incision. The talk will also outline the often forgotten but extremely important questions around the utility of this AI-based diagnostic tool, namely the appropriateness, value-added, feasibility, acceptability, and scalability of this intervention in the context of health care delivery in rural Africa.
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The Economic Impact of America's New Protectionism
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel Building, Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), 1737 Cambridge Stret, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
SPEAKER(S) David Weinstein, Carl S. Shoup Professor of Japanese Economy; Director of Research, Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
Moderated by Christina Davis, Acting Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations (Spring 2019); Professor of Government and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
COST Free and open to the public
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Climate Change, Social Inequity and the People's Health
Tuesday, February 12
1:00PM
Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge 502, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
The Planetary Health Alliance hosts a lecture and book signing with Sharon Friel, Director, School of Regulation and Global Governance; Professor of Health Equity, Australia National University.
Climate change threatens humanity and the planet on which we live. Social inequities, including startling variance in the health outcomes that different population groups enjoy, also pose a threat to humanity, although less directly. Together, the scale of devastation these threats pose is unprecedented…but wholesale destruction is not inevitable. Humanity can and must act to prevent catastrophic climate change and redress egregious global health inequities. It must act now. This talk, and the associated book [Climate Change and the People’s Health, OUP 2018], outlines some of the steps necessary to move from denial and inertia towards effective mobilization across multiple policy domains and institutions.
Sharon Friel is Professor of Health Equity and Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University. She is also Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy ANU. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. She is Co-Director of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in the Social Determinants of Health Equity. Between 2005 and 2008 she was the Head of the Scientific Secretariat (University College London) of the World Health Organisation Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Her interests are in the political economy of health; policy, governance and regulation in relation to the social determinants of health inequities, including trade and investment, food systems, and climate change.
Sharon's book Climate Change and the People's Health will be available for purchase at the book reading.
Contact Name: pha@harvard.edu
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The Role of Public Policy in Improving Women's Welfare in Developing Countries
Tuesday, February 12
3:00pm to 4:30pm
Northeastern, Renaissance Park, 909 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
The faculty panel (Catalina Herrera, Northeastern University, Anne Fitzpatrick, University of Massachusetts and Silvia Prina) will present their research on the role of public policy in improving women's welfare in developing countries.
This is part of the Gender and Development Speaker Series.
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Climate Change, Social Inequity and the People's Health
Tuesday, February 12
4:00PM
Harvard, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
The Planetary Health Alliance hosts a lecture and book signing with Sharon Friel, Director, School of Regulation and Global Governance; Professor of Health Equity, Australia National University.
Climate change threatens humanity and the planet on which we live. Social inequities, including startling variance in the health outcomes that different population groups enjoy, also pose a threat to humanity, although less directly. Together, the scale of devastation these threats pose is unprecedented…but wholesale destruction is not inevitable. Humanity can and must act to prevent catastrophic climate change and redress egregious global health inequities. It must act now. This talk, and the associated book [Climate Change and the People’s Health, OUP 2018], outlines some of the steps necessary to move from denial and inertia towards effective mobilization across multiple policy domains and institutions.
Sharon Friel is Professor of Health Equity and Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University. She is also Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy ANU. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. She is Co-Director of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in the Social Determinants of Health Equity. Between 2005 and 2008 she was the Head of the Scientific Secretariat (University College London) of the World Health Organisation Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Her interests are in the political economy of health; policy, governance and regulation in relation to the social determinants of health inequities, including trade and investment, food systems, and climate change.
Sharon's book Climate Change and the People's Health will be available for purchase at the book reading.
Contact Name: pha@harvard.edu
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xTalk with Michael Ioffee: Text Messages and the Future of Digital Education
Tuesday, February 12
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 3-442, 33 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), Cambridge.
In early 2018, Babson College and USC worked together to create the first text message course for students trapped in the Yemeni conflict. The resulting initiative, Arist, is now building the first text message university, designed to serve the 2 billion students worldwide without regular internet access.
In this talk, Michael Ioffe, the 19-year-old founder of Arist (and the social entrepreneur behind TILE.org, the world's largest conversation series, and Energy.org, a student-led environmental advocacy organization), explains why text messages are the next frontier in digital education, and how SMS can be a more scientific, relevant, and novel approach to learning for students of all kinds.
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Covering Catastrophe: The Dire Science & Heated Politics of Climate Change in the Trump Era
Tuesday, February 12
4:15pm - 5:30pm
Harvard, Littauer Building - Malkin Penthouse, 4th Floor, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Please join the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program for a lively discussion with The Washington Post's national environmental reporter Brady Dennis and The Guardian's Emily Holden on Tuesday, February 12 from 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Malkin Penthouse, Littauer 4th Floor. Moderated by Cristine Russell, the event is cosponsored by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and the HKS student SEE PIC—Sustainability, Energy, Environment. Refreshments will be served and RSVP is requested.
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Emile Bustani Seminar: "Worst Humanitarian Crises of Our Time: Displacement and Destruction in Syria and Yemen"
Tuesday, February 12
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E51-325, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Denis J. Sullivan, Director, Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies (BCARS, a Carnegie Corporation Project). Professor of Political Science & International Affairs, Co-Director, Middle East Center, Northeastern University
Since early 2011, both Syria and Yemen have been in the throes of displacement and near-total destruction. Syria has received far more attention than Yemen has over the past eight years due primarily to the international meddling in the war itself: Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Hezbollah (Lebanon), ISIS, the US, Israel, Bahrain, Jordan… To varying degrees, all of these actors have been involved in maintaining the war itself, fueling the displacement and destruction of Syria. In addition, around one million Syrian refugees have made their way to Europe whereas Yemen’s victims – internally displaced families, famine and cholera victims, and refugees – have not forced their way into “Western consciousness” via the media or through millions of civilians seeking refuge in Europe or North America. Yemen has, finally, found its way into global consciousness due in large part to the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s personal security detail, which led to increased US Congressional and media scrutiny of the Saudi war in Yemen and of US complicity there. After mapping out the humanitarian crises affecting both Yemen and Syria, the focus of this talk will be on Syria primarily.
Denis J. Sullivan is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Northeastern, and the Director of BCARS, the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Dr. Sullivan is the author of a number of books, including: Egypt: Global Security Watch, with Kimberly Jones; Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State, with Sana Abed-Kotob; The World Bank and the Palestinian NGO Project: From Service Delivery to Sustainable Development; among others; as well as dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and policy briefs. Sullivan’s current research and policy focus is on the Crisis and Future of Citizenship in the Arab Region, an expansion of his ongoing work on the Syrian refugee crisis and the impact of the crisis on host societies, especially Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
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Can Caribbean Environmental History Teach Us Anything About Resilience?
Tuesday, February 12
4:30pm to 6:00pm
Northeastern, Renaissance_Park, 909, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
The Caribbean has undergone serious social, environmental and economic changes since the advent of colonization. What kind of society, consumption patterns, political organization or economic model should be adopted to build a more sustainable future in the Caribbean? History shows that today’s situation is not a consequence of a linear evolution, however; we can take lessons from the environmental history of this region that give us hope for more affordable alternatives to the regional patterns and their heavy social and environmental costs through the ages.
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Invest for a better world
Tuesday, February 12
4:30 PM – 6:30 PM EST
Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center, 10th floor Conference Room F (Glass Box), 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Do you believe solar panels are better than pipelines?
Do you prefer pasta straws to plastic straws?
Did you know that your investments can change the world?
Join us on February 12th, 2019 as industry leaders discuss
responsible investing and the importance of
sustainable investing “influencers”.
The #Physiser events are designed to empower people to promote sustainable investing as a concrete solution to fight global challenges. Sustainable investing can help fix global environmental and social challenges by directing money flows toward companies offering sustainable services and products.
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Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
Tuesday, February 12
5 – 7PM
Tufts, Cabot Intercultural Center, ASEAN Auditorium, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford
Silvia Federici, scholar-activist and professor emerita at Hofstra University, will discuss her most recent book “Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons” (2018), which builds on Federici’s pathbreaking analyses of reproductive labor to develop a feminist politics of the commons that engages new forms of enclosure, debt, agriculture, land grabs, environmental justice, and building another world.
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Amputated from the Land: Black Refugees from America and the Neglected Voices of Environmental History
Tuesday, February 12
5:15PM
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston
The Massachusetts Historical Society hosts "Native American Environmental History hosts "Amputated from the Land: Black Refugees from America and the Neglected Voices of Environmental History" with Bryon Williams, Academy at Penguin Hall. Comment by John Stauffer, Harvard University.
Attendance is free, but you can subscribe online ($25) for the convenience of advance online access to the papers in FOUR series: this, our new Boston African American History Seminar, the Boston Area Early American History Seminar, and the Boston Seminar on Modern American Society and Culture.
Boston Seminar on Environmental History
Contact Name: Alex Buckley
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PHMA February - Better Building Codes: Getting to Passive House & Net Zero
Tuesday, February 12
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST
BSA Space, 2nd Floor, #200, 290 Congress Street, Boston
Join Passive House MA for their February meeting, focusing on the next major area of Passive House policy change in MA - building codes. A collection of presenters will discuss the process to update codes and how we can push them towards energy efficient buildings, including adopting Passive House and Net-Zero goals. We will also look beyond building codes and discuss what communities can do now to encourage better buildings.
5:30pm - Networking Hour
6:30pm - Presentations and Discussion
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Robotland: The Future of Policy and Work in an AI World
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Jason Furman, Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy
Mary L. Gray, Senior Researcher, Microsoft, Fellow, Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
William R. Kerr, Dimitri V. D'Arbeloff - MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration, HBS
David Eaves (Moderator), Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
CONTACT INFO IOP Forum Office, 617-495-1380
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The Mathematics of Cooperation
Tuesday, February 12
6 pm
Harvard, Science Center 507, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Martin Nowak (Harvard)
Abstract: Cooperation means that one individual pays a cost for another to receive a benefit. Cooperation can be at variance with natural selection: Why should you help a competitor? Yet cooperation is abundant in nature and is an important component of evolutionary innovation. Cooperation can be seen as the master architect of evolution and as the third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and selection. I will present mathematical principles of cooperation.
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PKG Community Conversations: Healthcare
Tuesday, February 12
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
MIT Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street, R&D Commons (4th floor), Cambridge
Join the conversation! Meet local healthcare organizations and MIT students, staff, and faculty who are interested in addressing healthcare challenges.
Community organizations and social entrepreneurs can sign-up for 90-second "pitches" to share their goals and opportunities. Pitching is optional, but is a great way to quickly share your message or needs with everyone in the room. Presenters may send one slide in advance to serve as a visual aid.
Join us and enjoy good food in good company!
Agenda:
6:00 pm Mingle with other health and healthcare advocates
6:45 pm Community health organizations and social ventures share 90-second overviews of their foci and needs
End-of-pitches to 8:00pm Additional time to network
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Personal Genetics: Power to the People or Buyer Beware?
Tuesday, February 12
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
American Rhino, 4 South Market Street, 1st Floor, Boston
$5 donation requested
The field of genetics has advanced so rapidly that it’s no longer necessary to go to the doctor for a basic mapping of your DNA. With less than $100 and a simple swab you can be tested for specific diseases, learn your genetic makeup, and see your family tree. We’re all curious to understand where we came from and what we’re made up of! However, this easy access to information doesn’t mean the quality of the data and interpretation of results can be trusted. There are consequences (unintended or otherwise) and potential harms in personal genetics testing for health that need to be examined now that test results are as close as your mailbox.
What does the trend of personal genetics mean for you? We’ll discuss:
How did personal genetic testing became so mainstream?
What is the role of my doctor now?
Can I trust these test results?
Who owns my data?
Please note this session is not a discussion about gene research, nor will counsel be given for personal genetic results.
Join Civic Series to answer these questions and yours during our panel. This event will start at 6:15pm with a 30-minute presentation by Boston University Professor Catharine Wang, followed by a 30-minute Q&A with the audience. Following the event, there will be an opportunity for networking with attendees.
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Sophie Hochhäusl: Memories of the Resistance
Tuesday, February 12
6:00pm to 8:00pm
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Sophie Hochhäusl (Architectural History and Theory, University of Pennsylvania) with a commentary by Raphael Koenig (Comparative Literature, Harvard University) and Christianna Bonin (History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture + Art, MIT)
Today Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) is widely recognized as one of the pioneering female figures in modern design, who worked in Vienna, Frankfurt, the Soviet Union, and Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet, these decades of professional work were marked by a drastic break between 1940 and 1945, when Schütte-Lihotzky was interned for her participation in the Communist resistance against by the Nazi regime. Her recollections from the years of internment became the subject of the 1984 German-language book Erinnerungen aus dem Widerstand (Memories of the Resistance).
The lecture “Memories of the Resistance” explores Schütte-Lihotzky’s book as a critical historical document that exemplifies the spatialization of organized dissent in the 1940s. It also provides a glimpse into resistance as lived practice and how it became activated by human solidarity and collective action. Finally, the lecture comments on why Schütte-Lihotzky’s activism led to the ostracization of the important architect in postwar Austria, where her struggle for spaces of collective memorialization remains largely forgotten until today. The talk will include excerpted readings from the English language book, which is currently edited and translated by Sophie Hochhäusl, Raphael Koenig, and Christianna Bonin.
Sophie Hochhäusl is an Assistant Professor for Architectural History and Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the Faculty at Penn Architecture she was the Frieda L. Miller Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study at Harvard University.
Hochhäusl’s scholarly work centers on modern architecture and urban culture in Austria, Germany, and the United States, with a focus on the history of social movements, environmental history, and women’s and gender studies. Currently, she is working on two forthcoming book projects. The monograph Housing Cooperative: Politics and Architecture in Vienna, 1904-1934, which elucidates the role of cooperatives in shaping architectural debates in interwar Vienna. The interdisciplinary history and translation project Memories of the Resistance: Women, War, and the Forgotten Work of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, 1938-1989, illuminates the Austrian architect’s participation in the Communist resistance against the Nazi regime.
In the past Hochhäusl has received a Carter Manny Award and the Bruno Zevi Award. Her research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the Botstiber Foundation for Austrian-American Studies, the Clarence Stein Fellowship for Landscape and Urban Studies, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education and the Viennese Mayor’s Office.
Hochhäusl holds an M.Arch. from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in History of Architecture and Urbanism. Together with Torsten Lange (ETH Zürich), she organizes the European Architectural History Network’s interest group Architecture and the Environment.
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Leading the Way: An Evening to Celebrate Women in Science
Tuesday, 12 February
6:00 - 8:30 PM
Boston College Club, 100 Federal Street, 36th Floor, Boston
RSVP by 5 February
Please note that space is limited, and registration is required.
Any questions may be directed to James Cribbs at James.Cribbs@dfa.ie
The Consulate General of Ireland and the Global Leadership Institute at Boston College cordially invite you to Leading the Way: An Evening to Celebrate Women in Science.
Join us for a panel discussion featuring leading women in STEM, as well as remarks from Minister for the Diaspora and International Development Ciarán Cannon.
Panel Members Include:
Elizabeth O'Day, CEO and Founder of Olaris Therapeutics
Aoife Ryan, International Development Lead at Science Foundation Ireland
Máire Quigley, Principle Scientist at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR)
Kate Fitzgerald, Professor of Medicine and Principal Investigator at the Fitzgerald Lab at UMass Medical School
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Darwin Day: Twice! Science and the Double Discovery of Evolution
Tuesday, February 12
6 PM – 9 PM
MIT, Building 2-190 (1st Floor, 182 Memorial Drive), Cambridge
"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure." - Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
In celebration of Charles Darwin Day 2019, the Secular Society of MIT presents a special talk by Harvard University evolutionary biologist and science historian Andrew Berry. Dr Berry's research combines the techniques of field biology with those of molecular biology to seek evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection. He has given lectures on evolutionary topics to popular audiences all over the world – from Ankara to the Antarctic – occasionally drawing the ire of creationists.
As an educator and popularizer, he seeks to demystify the most important and most misinterpreted of all biological ideas: evolution. He will be speaking about the double discovery of evolution by natural selection by both Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, and what this incident tells us about how science works.
Free entry. Darwin's birthday party with cake, beverages, and evolution-themed games follows talk.
The event will be photographed and recorded.
More information at https://www.facebook.com/events/329135307700708/
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Confronting Climate Change: Boston-Based Ideas that Can Change the World
February 12
6:30-8:30pm
Harvard Business School, Williams Room in Spangler Center, Allston
Over time, climate change will transform Boston’s landscape and economy. Disruption will bring opportunities as well as risks. What are Boston-area businesses doing to confront this challenge? What can they do? What should they do? Find out, and share your ideas with a dynamic panel of some of Boston’s top leaders from business and government. Enjoy conversation and a networking reception with fellow alumni and the HBS community before and after the panel. This event is organized by the HBS Business & Environment Initiative (BEI) in partnership with the HBS Association of Boston (HBSAB), and is part of a series of regional alumni events on the role of business leaders in the age of climate change.
Moderated by Mike Toffel, John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management, Harvard Business School; Faculty Chair, Business & Environment Initiative, panelists include:
Jeremy Grantham (MBA 1966), Co-founder, Chief Investment Strategist, and Chairman of Grantham Mayo and van Otterloo (GMO, LLC)
Gina McCarthy, Former U.S. EPA Administrator (2013-2017) and Director of C-CHANGE (Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
David Perry (MBA 1997), President, CEO, and Director of Boston-based Indigo Agriculture (Indigo Ag, Inc.)
Tickets are complimentary but please register early as space is limited. For more information, contact bei@hbs.edu
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How Worker-Owned Coops Enhance the Solidarity Economy
Tuesday, February 12
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Sustainable Business Network (SBN) of Massachusetts, 99 Bishop Allen Drive, Cambridge
Cost: $15 – US$25
Come and learn about the solidarity economy, which seeks to build an economy that serves people and planet. It's a framework, a global movement, and a broad set of practices that align with its values of solidarity, democracy, equity, sustainability and pluralism (not a one size fits all model).
A huge foundation of solidarity economy practices already exist all around us (e.g. worker/consumer/producer/housing cooperatives; credit unions; community loan funds; public banks; community land trusts; community supported agriculture; participatory budgeting; the commons; community gardens; skill shares; swap meets; edible urban landscaping; unpaid care work...) but are marginalized because they are isolated from each other. The solidarity economy seeks to pull these practices together in order to build a just and sustainable economy and world.
This interactive workshop will explore the solidarity economy and use Wellspring Cooperative as a case study in building towards system change.
The workshop will be led by Emily Kawano, Co-Director of the Wellspring Cooperative and Coordinator of the United States Solidarity Economy Network.
Light refreshments will be provided.
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MIT $100K Accelerate Finale
Tuesday, February 12
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Join us for an action-packed evening as we highlight some of MIT's most exciting student entrepreneurs and their startups!
This event is the culmination of MIT $100K's second competition of the year: ACCELERATE. Our semi-finalist teams have worked with dedicated mentors and a marketing support team to get ready for the main event. Don't forget - the audience gets to pick our $10K grand prize winner!
Doors will open at 6:30pm. Ticketed attendees are guaranteed seats until 6:45pm, at which at which point we will allow waitlisted attendees to be seated. Presentations start promptly at 7pm.
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Army ants in an ecological network
Tuesday February 12
7:30 PM
Harvard, MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Daniel Kronauer, Professor, Rockefeller University
Army ants are keystone species in tropical ecosystems. As top arthropod predators, they not only have direct effects on their prey populations, but they also affect guilds of ant-following birds, butterflies, and parasitic flies that indirectly rely on the presence of the ants. Furthermore, a large number of socially parasitic species, so-called myrmecophiles, have evolved a variety of strategies to infiltrate and exploit army ant colonies. Professor Kronauer will discuss how DNA barcoding and ecological network analyses can reveal the specificity of these manifold interactions, and shed light on the underlying ecological and evolutionary dynamics
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Wednesday, February 13
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Living Building Challenge Roundtable
Wednesday, February 13
8:00 AM – 9:30 AM EST
Hercules, Floor 17, 50 Milk Street, Boston
Cost: $50
USGBC MA’s mission is to drive sustainable and regenerative design, construction, and operation of the built environment. The only way to accomplish our mission is to collaborate with community members. To that end, join us for our first Living Building Challenge (LBC) Roundtable.
The LBC Roundtable will enable like-minded professionals to gather and explore specific issues, define actions, develop strategies and explore solutions related to LBC in the green building industry. Join us in moving the needle towards a net positive environment, society, and economy.
This event is free for members.
To get your member discount, just enter your email address as a promotional code.
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Building a Sustainable Ocean Economy
Wednesday, February 13
8:30AM TO 10:00AM
Harvard, Malkin Penthouse, 4th Floor, Littauer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
HKS Professor Nicholas Burns and Kåre Aas, Ambassador of Norway to the United States, will discuss the role of diplomacy in combating climate change and the precarious state of our shared oceans.
Contact Name: belfer_events@hks.harvard.edu
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From TMI and Chernobyl to Fukushima: Safety and Security Culture as Tools of Engineering Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, 10 – 11:30 a.m.
WHERE Harvard, Littauer Building, Fainsod Room, 324, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Science, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) Najmedin Meshkati, Research Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom
CONTACT INFO Jacob Carozza
617-495-4219
DETAILS In the last forty years, the world has witnessed three major (preventable) nuclear power plants accidents with serious consequences — Three Mile Island (US, 1979), Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986), and Fukushima (Japan, 2011). In the interim, we have learned that the safe and efficient operation of these complex systems is a function of the interactions among their three major human, organizational and technological/engineered subsystems. In these interactions, safety and security culture is analogous to the human body’s “immune system.” Lessons from past nuclear accidents have important applications in the Persian Gulf, where the operation of at least five newly-built nuclear power reactors is expected in the next five years, and where a major accident with radiation contamination could have spillover effects. These lessons also apply to systems for seawater desalination, oil and gas drilling, and heavy maritime traffic, where accidents could have significant combined effects on sea-life and the ecosystem of the Gulf.
Najmedin (Najm) Meshkati is a Research Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is a Professor of Civil/Environmental Engineering; Industrial & Systems Engineering; and International Relations at the University of Southern California. Between 2009-2010, he was a Jefferson Science Fellow and a Senior Science and Engineering Advisor to the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser of the U.S. Secretary of State. He has inspected many nuclear power plants around the world, including Chernobyl (1997), Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (2012). His current interests include nuclear safety, environmental sustainability, and developing cooperative regional approaches to nuclear fuel cycle management.
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The Spread of Hate and Racism: Confronting a Growing Public Crisis
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Leadership Studio, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) Maureen Costello, Director of Teaching Tolerance and Member of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Senior Leadership Team
Jim Doyle, Former Governor and Attorney General of Wisconsin and Former Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Dipayan Ghosh, Pozen Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
Oren Segal, Director, Center on Extremism, Anti-Defamation League
David Williams, Chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Moderator
Phillip Martin, Senior Investigative Reporter, WGBH News
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8dEhDm9kY2uyg3X
CONTACT INFO theforum@hsph.harvard.edu
DETAILS In 2017, reports of hate crimes in the United States increased for the third consecutive year, according to the FBI. In addition to physical acts, such actions and other messages of racism, intolerance and extremism potentially impact large numbers of people online. In this Forum, experts will tackle the painful and distressing spread of hate and racism. What social, political and psychological forces drive prejudice? How do modern media and the Internet enable and amplify hateful and racist messages? What are the impacts on the health and cohesion of society — and what can be done?
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Rumors, Truths, and Reality: Political Misinformation in the Modern Day
Wednesday, February 13
11:30 AM- 1:00 PM
Harvard, Wexner 434AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Speaker series on fake news and misinformation, co-sponsored by the NULab at Northeastern University.
Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Berinsky received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is the author of “In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq” (University of Chicago Press, 2009). He is also the author of “Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America“ (Princeton University Press, 2004) and has published articles in many journals. He is currently the co-editor of the Chicago Studies in American Politics book series at the University of Chicago Press. He is also the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
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Research Spotlight: 2018 Menino Survey of Mayors
Wednesday, February 13
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
BU, Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eg1x0907ee612299&oseq=&c=&ch=
Co-principal investigators Assistant Professors Katherine Levine Einstein and Max Palmer and Associate Professor David Glick will share the key findings from the 2018 Menino Survey of Mayors. Lunch provided.
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Study Group: Technology and Human Rights - Technology and Opensource Investigations
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Taubman 102, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
DETAILS The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy invites you to join a study group on technology, human rights and artificial intelligence. The study group, which will meet three times this semester, is convened and moderated by Steven Livingston, Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
This is an open study group. No registration is required.
The study group will meet from 12:00-1:15 p.m. on three occasions this semester:
- Wednesday, Feb. 13 in room Taubman-102
Topic: Technology and Opensource Investigations
Guest Speakers: Scot Edwards, Senior Advisor, Amnesty International
- Wednesday, March 6 in room Wexner-102
Topic: Disinformation
- Wednesday, April 17 in room Wexner-102
Topic: Superintelligent AI and Rights
Session 1 - Technology and Opensource Investigations:
In recent years, journalists and human rights investigators have turned to opensource investigations in their efforts to report the news and document human rights abuses and war crimes. In addition to conventional field investigations, data drawn from commercial satellite imagery, social media platforms, video and still images captures with nearly ubiquitous handheld multipurpose devices. Groups like Forensic Architecture, Bellingcat, Situ Research, the New York Times Video Investigations Unit, and the Digital Verification Corps of Amnesty International use these data to learn and verify events. For the first time, the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued an arrest warrant based solely on opensource evidence. We will review this trend in human rights work.
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Laser Enrichment and Nuclear Proliferation: Unexpected Results & the Lessons for Scholarship
Wednesday, February 13
12:00pm to 1:30pm
MIT, Building E40-496, Pye Room, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Jim Walsh (MIT)
Dr. Jim Walsh is a Senior Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program (SSP). Dr. Walsh's research and writings focus on international security, and in particular, topics involving nuclear weapons, the Middle East, and East Asia. Dr. Walsh has testified before the United States Senate and House of Representatives on issues of nuclear terrorism, Iran, and North Korea. He is one of a handful of Americans who has traveled to both Iran and North Korea for talks with officials about nuclear issues. His recent publications include “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences” and “Rivals, Adversaries, and Partners: Iran and Iraq in the Middle East” in Iran and Its Neighbors. He is the international security contributor to the NPR program “Here and Now,” and his comments and analysis have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and numerous other national and international media outlets. Before coming to MIT, Dr. Walsh was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has taught at both Harvard University and MIT. Dr. Walsh received his Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Privacy's Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies
Wednesday, February 13
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Northeastern, 250 Dockser, 65 Forsyth Street, Boston
Faculty Book Forum Series: Professor Woodrow Hartzog
Join us for a lively discussion about Professsor Woodrow Hartzog's new book.
Every day, internet users interact with technologies designed to undermine their privacy. Social media apps, surveillance technologies and the internet of things are all built in ways that make it hard to guard personal information. And the law says this is ok because it is up to users to protect themselves --- even when the odds are deliberately stacked against them.
In Privacy's Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies, Professor Woodrow Hartzog pushes back against this state of affairs, arguing that the law should require software and hardware makers to respect privacy in the design of their products. "This is a book about the technology design decisions that affect our privacy," says Hartzog. "It's about going beyond scrutinizing what gets done with our personal information and confronting the designs that enable privacy violations. And it's about how everyone --- companies, lawmakers, advocates, educators and users --- can contribute to and interact with the design of privacy-relevant technologies."
Comments by Noah Phillips Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Light refreshments will be provided.
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Algorithms and/as Culture
Wednesday, February 13
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM
Tufts, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford
Prompted by the intertwined themes of technology and embodied experience in the exhibition "Harry Dodge: Works of Love", Nick Seaver, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Science, Technology, and Society, presents a new talk on Algorithms and/as Culture.
The algorithms that shape culture, filtering what we see and hear, are often understood as inhuman forces. Explore how these systems, from music recommenders to personalized newsfeeds, are full of people who impart their own points of view on the software they build.
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Samuel Bendett: Russian Military Technology Innovation and Potential Repercussions
Wednesday, February 13
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM EST
Tufts, Crowe Room, Goddard 310, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
Please join the Fletcher Eurasia Club for a lunch conversation with Samuel Bendett on technological innovation in the Russian military and U.S. policy toward Russia. Lunch will be served. Attendance is by registration only on Eventbrite.
Samuel Bendett is a Research Analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses' Adversary Analysis Group, where he is a member of the Russia Studies Program. His work involves research on the Russian defense and technology developments, such as Russian naval and land capabilities, unmanned military systems and artificial intelligence, and Russian decision-making calculus during military crises. He is also a member of CNA’s Center for Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence.
Prior to joining CNA, Samuel worked at the National Defense University on emerging and disruptive technologies for government response in crisis situation, where he conducted research on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy (OSD-P) and Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (OSD-AT&L). His previous experience includes working for the U.S. Congress, the private sector, and non-profit organizations on foreign policy, international conflict resolution, defense and security issues. Samuel is also a Fellow in Russia Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. His analyses appear regularly in the C4ISRnet, DefenseOne, Breaking Defense, The National Interest, War Is Boring, and The Strategy Bridge. He was also a foreign policy and international affairs contributor to the RealClearWorld.com blog.
Samuel received his M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and B.A. in Politics and English from Brandeis University. He has native fluency in Russian.
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In Vaccines We Trust? The Effects of the CIA’s Vaccine Ruse on Immunization in Pakistan
Wednesday, February 13
2:45pm to 4:00pm
MIT, E51-395, 2 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Monica Martinez-Bravo
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Human Rights in Hard Places Speaker Series: Autocrats, Dictators, and the Global Crack down on Human Rights
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, 3 – 4:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Carr Center, Wexner Room 102, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
SPEAKER(S) Sarah Margon
DETAILS The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is excited to announce its 2019 Speaker Series: Human Rights in Hard Places, facilitated by Carr Center Executive Director, Sushma Raman.
The Human Rights in Hard Places Speaker Series was formed to underscore that despite the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, vast human rights abuses are still occurring 7 decades later.
We hope for this to serve as a platform for individuals to hear from the world's leading practitioners and academics in the human rights field, and to listen, question and engage.
In the second installment of the series, Sarah Margon, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch, will give a talk titled, "Autocrats, Dictators, and the Global Crack down on Human Rights."
Sarah Margon is the Washington director at Human Rights Watch. In this role, she serves as the organization’s main point of contact with the US government and provides strategic and advocacy guidance, including legislative and policy development. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Margon was associate director of sustainable security and peacebuilding at the Center for American Progress. Margon also served as senior foreign policy advisor to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and as staff director to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs. She has been a guest on various national and international media programs and has published in a wide range of outlets from the Washington Post to USA Today to Foreign Affairs. Margon holds a graduate degree from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University (Connecticut).
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Robotics Community Meeting: Stakeholder Event on the Energy-Robotics Nexus
Wednesday, February 13
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, 63 Franklin Street, 3rd Floor, Boston
Please join us as we hear from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and MassRobotics, and brainstorm clean energy market opportunities for robots and methods for robots to use, manage and store energy more efficiently, and reduce the impact on the grid when charging.
Clean energy companies and start-ups are solving complex engineering challenges that often require the application of robots to save time, increase productivity and optimize performance. As the deployment of robots continues to grow, more efficient, better managed and cleaner energy solutions for robots will be required.
MassCEC and MassRobotics are seeking input from stakeholders to guide a White Paper on clean energy applications and energy use for the robotics industry. The purpose of the conversation is to frame a deeper analysis of the issues that may help inform robotic design, policy, and the energy sector. Stakeholder input will be used to guide the framework of the White Paper.
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Alliance for Business Leadership Business Leaders' Learning Project: Climate Change & Clean Energy Action: Taking Action to Create Change
Wednesday, February 13
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
ML Strategies, 1 Financial Center, 38th Floor, Boston
The Alliance for Business Leadership has joined with industry experts to intentionally design a four part informational and interactive series to educate business leaders on the realities of climate change in Massachusetts and the opportunities in transitioning to a clean energy economy. Consider this a 101 boot camp that provides the resources to business executives to understand the issue and the tools to use their platform to highlight it.
Climate change does not discriminate. It is a phenomena that is impacting all sectors across the business community, and promises to impact Massachusetts’ economic future if we do not take measures to mitigate and adapt to a changing environment. ABL’s Board of Directors and members see the importance of the business community understanding and speaking on the issues, and are committed to a successful series.
The 2018-2019 Business Leaders’ Learning Project: Climate Change and Clean Energy Action is chaired by:
Phil Edmundson, Founder, Corvus Insurance Holdings, Inc.
Elyse Cherry, Chief Executive Officer, Boston Community Capital
Bev Armstrong, CEO & Founder, Brewer, Brazo Fuerte Artisanal Beer
Sara Ross, Co-Founder, CEO, and VP of Sales, Sungage Financial
When are the sessions?
Session I: The risks of climate change in Massachusetts (September 25, 2018 | 3-5 pm)
Location: ML Strategies (One Financial Center, 38th Floor, Conference Room 38 A, Boston, MA 02111)
Session II: Resiliency isn’t enough, the case for mitigation (October 24, 2018 | 3:30-5:30 pm)
Location: ML Strategies (One Financial Center, 38th Floor, Conference Room 38 A, Boston, MA 02111)
Session III: How can businesses do their part? (January 16, 2019 |3-5 pm)
Location: ML Strategies (One Financial Center, 38th Floor, Conference Room 38 A, Boston, MA 02111)
Session IV: Taking Action to Create Change (February 13, 2019 |3-5 pm)
Location: ML Strategies (One Financial Center, 38th Floor, Conference Room 38 A, Boston, MA 02111)
Do I have to attend every session? ABL knows all too well how busy business leaders are and that their time is already limited. This series allows us to spread out the two-hour sessions over six months to limit the time commitment. We ask that you do your best to attend all of the sessions.
How do I register for the series? Please register through this Eventbrite page, and select the dates you plan to attend at the bottom of the form.
What is the Business Leaders’ Learning Project? Learn more here.
Questions? Please contact ABL’s Senior Director of Policy and Operations, Meagan Greene, at mgreene@alliancebl.org
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Marine Ecological Genomics: Unraveling the Drivers of Coral Diversity From the Deep Sea to Deep Time
Wednesday, February 13
3:30pm
Harvard, Haller Hall, Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street
Andrea Quattrini, Harvey Mudd College
Abstract: Corals and their relatives are some of the most ecologically important metazoans on earth, from shallow waters to the deep sea. With ocean conditions changing at rates faster than previously recognized, we must determine the factors that shape coral diversity across depth, space, and time. Because the drivers of marine diversity are poorly known in the largest environment on earth—the deep sea—I harness the power of genomics to answer fundamental questions in deep-sea systems. My research seminar will be centered on the drivers of coral diversity from the deep sea to deep time, with a particular focus on the influence of environmental conditions in shaping coral diversity and associated traits. First, I will focus on the role of dispersal limitation and environmental filtering in structuring deep-sea corals. I will highlight the influence of oceanographic conditions, including major ocean currents and water masses, on coral diversity and discuss how deep water masses may present adaptive challenges. I will then discuss how past environmental conditions influenced the diversification of corals with particular skeletal traits. It is important to understand how the past has influenced extant functional diversity because traits impact the distribution of species and assembly of communities, which ultimately results in a feedback loop between the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape patterns in diversity.
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Modelling the strait dynamics in regional climate models: recent progress, current challenges and future direction for Gibraltar-Mediterranean Sea
Wednesday, February 13
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915/923, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
Since ancient times the narrow and shallow Strait of Gibraltar has fascinated and captured mankind’s imagination: for a long period of time the Pillars of Heracles - the Rock of Gibraltar to the north and Mount Hacho to the south - were thought to be the extreme edges of the Earth.
Most probably the first oceanographic definition of the Strait of Gibraltar is to ascribe to Horatius who wrote: (Roma) horrenda late nomen in ultimas extendat oras, qua medius liquor secernit Europem ab Afro, qua tumidus rigat arva Nilus…” In this Ode (23 B.C.), Horatius describes the Strait of Gibraltar as the place where the midway water separates Europe from Africa.
From a geological point of view, about five million years ago, during the Miocene, the strait was topographically blocked. This caused the desiccation of the Mediterranean, giving rise to the so-called Messinian Salinity Crisis characterised by a dramatic drop in sea level, estimated to be up to 1500 m below the current sea level. The reopening of the Strait of Gibraltar in the early Pliocene, probably due to regressive erosion, has made it possible to restore the water exchange between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Since then, the Strait of Gibraltar is the only dynamically significant connection between the Mediterranean and the global ocean. Through the Strait, the Mediterranean Sea exchanges water, salt and heat with the Atlantic, influencing the sea level in the basin through hydraulic controls. Long-term variability in these transports may be indicative of changes in the interior of the Mediterranean basin. On shorter time scale, the water exchange between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean is significantly affected by tidal forcing. The relevance of such effect has been recently acknowledged as one of the largest in determining the evolution of the Mediterranean water masses and therefore needs to be appropriately accounted for in numerical simulation of the Mediterranean circulation.
Nevertheless, tides and circulation on climate time scales have so far been treated separately, mainly due to the insufficient computational resources of most climate research laboratories, which imposed the implementation of relatively coarse spatial resolution models whose associated time step was at least two orders of magnitude larger than that needed to account for the fast barotropic tidal signal.
The aim of this talk is twofold. Firstly, to provide an overview of the Strait modelling works that have been determinant in filling the gaps left by the intrinsic simplicity of analytical solutions and the lack of long-term observational data. Secondly, to present the results of the first Mediterranean regional climate model, based on the MIT general circulation model, that explicitly resolves tides and the local-scale dynamics of the Strait of Gibraltar.
About this Series
Weekly talks given by leading thinkers in the areas of geology, geophysics, geobiology, geochemistry, atmospheric science, oceanography, climatology, and planetary science. Lectures take place on Wednesdays from 3:45pm in MIT Building 54 room 915, unless otherwise noted.
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The Other Side Speaker Series: Andy Palmer
Wednesday, February 13
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Harvard Innovation Labs, 125 Western Avenue, Classroom, Boston
This event is open to everyone.
Speaker Bio: Andy Palmer is a serial entrepreneur who specializes in accelerating the growth of early-stage, mission-driven startups. He has helped found and/or fund more than 50 innovative companies. Andy is a nexus for entrepreneurs in the Boston area and has changed people’s lives and career paths by leveraging his experience and networks.
He’s also an active angel investor and founder partner at Founder Collective investing in early stage ventures
Who is this event for?
This event is for anyone looking to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation from a seasoned expert in the field.
What will you get out of it?
Hear authentic lessons learned from a successful serial entrepreneur
Find out if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur
Learn what really matters when starting a company
This event is open to everyone.
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Data Ethics: Exploring Vice and Virtue in Big Data
Wednesday, February 13
5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Nutter McClennen & Fish, Seaport West 5th Floor, Louis D. Brandeis Conference Center, Boston
Cost: $25 Members; $25 Livestream Members; $45 Non-Members: $45 Livestream Non-Members; $10 Students; $10 Livestream Students; $5 Student Members; $5 Livestream Student Members
This event will be live streamed - select the live stream ticket option @ checkout if you would like to watch the event online.
If you registered for the live stream, you'll be emailed a link & password between 5:30PM & 6:00PM on the day of the event
With great power, comes great responsibility. Voltaire said it long ago and it still resonates, especially when you’re talking about the ethical use of data.
As big data and machine learning become essential in business operations, we’re seeing more and more flaws in data-driven algorithms and malpractice in the use of data emerge. This New York Times article entitled “Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret,” is just one recent example. Facebook, as we all know, is another.
As even more stories emerge in the mainstream media, it’s clear that government, businesses, from the fortune 500 to the earliest stage startup, and individuals all need to take the responsible handling of data seriously.
In collaboration with Insight Data Science, join us as we gather a panel of experts for a crash course in data ethics by exploring questions like:
Why is data ethics so important right now?
What are some of the biggest challenges of data ethics?
Why should companies and consumers care about data ethics?
How should they safeguard themselves?
Should we expect a data scientist to address social, economic and political bias in data models?
Moderator
Karen Hao, AI and Social Impact Reporter, MIT Tech Review
Panel
Clare Bernard, Director of Product, Data Generation, The Broad Institute
Irene Chen, PhD Candidate, MIT CSAIL and Founder, AI Ethics Reading Group
Dan Stowell, Head of Engineering, Canopy
Greg Woolf, CEO/founder, Coalesce.ai
Event Schedule
Registration & Networking: 5:30 - 6:00 PM
Welcome and Panel Discussion: 6:00 - 7:15 PM
Networking hour after the event 7:15 - 8:00 PM
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Traces and Tracks: Journeys with the San
Wednesday, February 13
6:00 pm
Harvard, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Paul Weinberg, Photographer
For nearly three decades, Paul Weinberg has travelled to Namibia, Botswana and South Africa to document the lives of hunter-gatherer communities, the San (Africa’s first people) and their struggles to hang on to their land, culture, and values, as they faced serious threats by outside settlers. Weinberg will discuss his book Traces and Tracks (Jacana Media 2017), the culmination of his thirty-year journey, featuring essays and over 100 photographs that convey the modern-day San’s daily lives, their relationship to nature, game parks, and their ways of adjusting to a fast-changing world.
Lecture and Book Signing. Free and open to the public.
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The Future is Now: A Somerville Panel
Wednesday, February 13
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Avenue, Somerville
Somerville is thriving in a period of accelerating change, with new transit, new development, new zoning, and new businesses in town. What are current and future residents, startups, and employees seeking during this extraordinary period of opportunity?
Join a panel with homegrown talent and recent arrivals in the local business and entrepreneurial scene for a discussion and audience Q&A, moderated by WBUR Senior Innovation Reporter Callum Borchers:
Nadia Cheng, RightHand Robotics
Zach Baum, Bow Market
Julia Travaglini, Greentown Labs
Dan Bartman, City of Somerville
Doors will open at 5:30 PM, with the program starting at 6 PM. Beer and appetizers will be served.
Sponsored by: Somerville Chamber of Commerce New Group
Organized by: Somerville YIMBY, Union Square Main Streets, & Greentown Labs
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Funding Environment in New England
Wednesday, February 13
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EST)
WeWork, 745 Atlantic Avenue, Boston
The funding landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years and alternative forms of funding have gained traction in New England. Information technology driven and innovative life sciences start-ups have typically attracted the most investment in New England compared to other early stage companies.
How will your firm be affected by the changing funding environment and market forces with the New England economy growing but at a decelerating rate?
If your startup will be looking for funding in 2019 you have to be aware of how these changes will affect your ability to attract and close a successful round.
Join The Startup Coalition, where moderator Eric Solem will host a panel discussion with investors and entrepreneurs to discuss what it all means for your startup and fundraising efforts.
Panelists:
Jason Ray, paperlessPARTS
Kristoffer Landmark Maroe, Companyon Ventures
Kyle Chapman, COSIMO Ventures
Mary Beth Kerrigan, Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton
Event Schedule:
6:00 pm - Sign in and Networking
6:30-8:00 pm - Panel Discussion
8:00 pm – Networking & Refreshments
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Mass Innovation Nights 119
Wednesday, February 13
6:00pm - 8:30pm
Jobcase, 201 Broadway, Cambridge
It's a night of innovation in Cambridge on Wednesday, February 13th for Mass Innovation Nights #119 at Jobcase. Jobcase is dedicated to empowering the world’s workers. From the heart of Kendall Square, they're building the future of work. Now.
Mass Innovation Nights will feature a great collection of innovative, local products and we hope you will join us and check them out!
Check out the new PRODUCTS and
VOTE for your favorites - click on the words VOTE HERE (found on this page to the immediate left) and once on the product voting page, click LOVE IT to vote for your favorite product!
RSVP to attend the event on THURSDAY, February 13th (free to attend and open to all)
See who else is planning on attending (click the ATTENDEES tab)
Help spread the word - blog, tweet (using the #MIN119 hashtag), like and post!
Support local innovation -- network and have fun at the same time!
Don't miss it -- Wednesday, February 13th 6pm-8:30pm for Mass Innovation Nights #119!
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Basel Night – From the Rhine City to Europe’s Innovation Hub
Wednesday, February 13
6 pm - 9pm
swissnex Boston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.swissnexboston.org/event/basel-night-from-the-rhine-city-to-europes-innovation-hub/
Join us as Christian Schneider, Head of Innovation at University of Basel, speaks about the ongoing transformation of the “Rhine City” into a thriving innovation hub.
How does a Swiss city become a world-leading environment for innovation and entrepreneurship? Join us as Christian Schneider, Head of Innovation at University of Basel, speaks about the ongoing transformation of the “Rhine City” into a thriving innovation hub – and the many challenges along the way. His keynote will be followed by a Q&A session and a networking reception.
A Tale of Two Cities
Home to the oldest universities in their respective countries and thriving life sciences scenes, both Boston and Basel are two hot contestants in the global competition for talent.
Now, the University of Basel decided to also go all in when it comes to translating bright ideas into actionable startups. With the newly established Innovation & Entrepreneurship division, headed by Christian Schneider, the school is working towards a regional and global innovation network to support a thriving startup culture in Basel.
Hear Christian Schneider detail Basel’s story of innovation and their effort to actively promote the translation of scientific discoveries into innovative applications and spin-off companies. The process was inspired by the University of Basel’s 2016 delegation study tour to Boston.
Program
6:00 pm Doors open
6:30 pm Welcoming remarks | swissnex Boston
6:35 pm Introduction | Matthias Geering, Head of Communication & Marketing, UniBas
6:45 pm Keynote | Christian Schneider, Head of Innovation, UniBas
7:15 pm Q&A session followed by a networking reception
Keynote Speaker
Christian Schneider, Head of Innovation, University of Basel
With an academic background in International Affairs, European Studies and over 10 years professional experience internationally – Christian Schneider is a true global citizen. Before joining the University of Basel, Schneider headed the Science & Technology office in Seoul, Korea. He joined the University of Basel with the ambitious mission of establishing a culture of entrepreneurship and a thriving environment for innovation.
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Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power
Wednesday, February 13
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes technologist and digital media scholar AN XIAO MINA for a discussion of her new book, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power. She will be joined in conversation by ETHAN ZUCKERMAN, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT.
About Memes to Movements
Memes are the street art of the social web. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics. She finds that the "silly" stuff of meme culture—the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags—are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture. Mina finds parallels, for example, between a photo of Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, raising their hands in a gesture of resistance and one from eight thousand miles away, in Hong Kong, of Umbrella Movement activists raising yellow umbrellas as they fight for voting rights. She shows how a viral video of then presidential nominee Donald Trump laid the groundwork for pink pussyhats, a meme come to life as the widely recognized symbol for the international Women's March.
Crucially, Mina reveals how, in parts of the world where public dissent is downright dangerous, memes can belie contentious political opinions that would incur drastic consequences if expressed outright. Activists in China evade censorship by critiquing their government with grass mud horse pictures online. Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation. Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread them to confuse and distract internet communities. On the long, winding road from innocuous cat photos, internet memes have become a central practice for political contention and civic engagement.
Memes to Movements unveils the transformative power of memes, for better and for worse. At a time when our movements are growing more complex and open-ended—when governments are learning to wield the internet as effectively as protestors—Mina brings a fresh and sharply innovative take to the media discourse.
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Democratizing Art and Science
Wednesday, February 13
7 pm (Reception to follow)
MIT, Bartos Theater List Visual Arts Center at MIT, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Both Joe Akin and Jason Talbot believe in the power of observation, collaboration, and communication in their respective fields and in all of us. Jason Talbot’s undying passion for utilizing the talents of inner-city youths and his ability to see art in everything around him, both helped in his development of Artists For Humanity. Joe Akin, a Novartis researcher has an abiding interest for cutting edge technology. He co-founded a company as he was finishing his graduate work, to better communicate scientific results. The startup REfigure which aims to Reuse, Reveal, and Recreate, is devoted not only to helping scientists communicate their results but also to contribute to the broader population’s understanding of science. Their conversation will convey their interest in how openness leads to creativity in both fields and in the imperative of egalitarianism in our current culture.
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Thursday, February 14
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Puffins: The new canary of climate change
Thursday, February 14
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Multi-purpose Room, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford
Derrick Z. Jackson, Environmental Writing Fellow, Union of Concerned Scientists
Puffins, down to their last 2 or 4 birds in the state of Maine in the early 1900s, are now 1,300- pairs strong on several islands. They were restored on several islands by Project Puffin, the 45- year-old brainchild of a then-young Audubon bird instructor.
Derrick Z. Jackson is an environmental writing fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), newspaper and magazine essayist and co-author and photographer of Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock
A Boston Globe columnist from 1988 to 2015, Jackson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a 10-time award winner from the National Association of Black Journalists, a 2-time commentary winner from the national Education Writers Association, and a commentary winner from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association among many others.
Jackson is a native of Milwaukee, Wis., and is a 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Jackson was a 1984 Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and holds three honorary degrees, from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Salem State University and the Episcopal Divinity School. He was also given Curry College’s Human Rights Award and the UW-Milwaukee Distinguished Alumni Community Service award for his volunteering for Scouting and Big Brothers.
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Making New York (and other cities) Accessible
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall (Third Floor), Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Law, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Law School Project on Disability
SPEAKER(S) Victor Calise, Commissioner, NYC Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities
COST Free
CONTACT INFO hpod@law.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join HPOD for a lunchtime talk.
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Benefitting from Victimhood: Why Mainstream Voters Elect Fringe Politicians
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Taubman Building, Darman Seminar Room (Room 135), 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Kimberly Guiler, MEI Research Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in Government, University of Texas at Austin
DETAILS A seminar with Kimberly Guiler, MEI Research Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in Government, University of Texas at Austin. Moderated by Kristin Fabbe, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Business, Government, and International Economy Unit, Harvard Business School and MEI Faculty Affiliate.
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Providing secure Internet services with insecure infrastructure
Thursday, February 14
3:00 PM
Tufts, Halligan 102, 161 College Avenue, Medford
Speaker: Yixin Sun, Princeton University
Abstract
The insecurity of Internet services can lead to disastrous consequences – confidential communications can be monitored, financial information can be stolen, and our critical Internet infrastructure can be crippled. However, many prior works on Internet services only focus on the security of an individual network layer in isolation, whereas the adversaries do quite the opposite – they look for opportunities to exploit the interactions across heterogeneous components and layers to compromise the system security. This gap leaves the privacy and security of billions of users as well as our critical infrastructure at risk. I aim to bridge this gap to build privacy-preserving and secure Internet services. In this talk, I will focus on two Internet services, the Tor network and the Public Key Infrastructure. I have uncovered new vulnerabilities in these services by taking a cross-layer approach to exploit the interdependencies across different network layers. I have demonstrated attacks in the wild (ethically) to evaluate the real effects of vulnerabilities. Consequently, I have built practical defenses that have received real-world deployment by the Tor Project which serves millions of users, and Let's Encrypt which is the world's largest Certificate Authority that has issued hundreds of millions of digital certificates.
Bio
Yixin Sun is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Princeton University. Her research focuses on building privacy-preserving and secure networked systems. She received the Information Controls Fellowship from the Open Technology Fund, the SEAS Award for Excellence from Princeton, and the EECS rising star from MIT. Throughout her career, Yixin has collaborated with many industrial labs and non-profit organizations, such as the Tor Project, Let's Encrypt, Verisign Labs, NEC Labs and International Computer Science Institute (ICSI). Previously, Yixin received her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Virginia.
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Response of Boreal Larches to Climate Change in Northernmost China
Thursday, February 14
3:30PM
Harvard, Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
The Harvard-China Project at SEAS hosts a talk by Liu Jialin, Visiting Fellow, Harvard-China Project; Ph.D. Student, Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology, Northeast Forestry University
Contact Name: Tiffany Chan
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Designing Living Things
Thursday, February 14
6:00pm
Harvard, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Christina Agapakis, Creative Director, Ginkgo Bioworks
Biology can be a design medium: scientists can now “write” DNA and manipulate microbial behavior. In the future, they could also reshape entire ecosystems. Christina Agapakis is a synthetic biologist, writer, and artist who collaborates with engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore the many unexpected connections between microbiology, technology, art, and popular culture. In this lecture, she will discuss current and potential uses of biotechnology in various fields from agriculture and medicine to consumer goods and renewable energy.
About the speaker: Christina Agapakis is Creative Director at Ginkgo Bioworks, an organism design company based in Boston, that is bringing biology to industrial engineering. She holds a B.A. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University. Her doctoral thesis focused on producing hydrogen fuel in bacteria and making photosynthetic animals. Agapakis has written on biology, technology, and culture for a number of outlets, has taught designers at the ArtCenter College of Design and biomolecular engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a founding editor of Method Quarterly, a magazine about science in the making.
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MIT D-Lab Talk and Tour: Designing for a More Equitable World
Thursday, February 14
6:00 PM – 8:15 PM EST
MIT, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor, MIT Building M51, Cambridge
Cost: $5 – $20
MIT’s D-Lab works with people around the world to develop and advance collaborative approaches and practical solutions to global poverty challenges.
Attendees will learn about the educational, research, and field programs of MIT D-Lab, get a chance to interact with staff and see their facility.
See https://d-lab.mit.edu/ for more information.
Speaker Bob Nanes
Bob Nanes joined MIT D-Lab in the newly created position of executive director, in fall of 2016. For 25 years, Bob worked with iDE (formerly International Development Enterprises), an international non-profit dedicated to ending poverty in the developing world through helping farm families access the tools and knowledge they need to increase their income. At iDE, Bob served as Country Director in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Ghana and as the Director of Training.
From 2007 to 2008, Bob was Director of iDE's Rural Prosperity Initiative. Most recently, Bob was the head of iDE's Technology and Innovation Group, supporting the iDE country programs in technology development, agriculture program development, global equipment supply, agriculture knowledge management and microfinance.
In addition to his roles with iDE, Bob has worked as an independent consultant and has started and run an irrigation contracting business and a food processing business. Bob holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering from Cornell University.
Schedule
6:00–6:30 Arrival and Registration
6:30–7:00 Light Dinner (e.g., pizza, sandwiches, and soft drinks)
7:00–7:45 Talk
7:45–8:15 Tour
8:15 Adjourn
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RPP Colloquium: Indigenous Perspectives on Peacemaking in the Face of Racism, Religious Exodus, Oppression, and Unfair Exposure to Trauma and Disaster
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
SPONSOR Religions and the Practice of Peace (RPP) and Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHIRJ) at Harvard Law School
CONTACT RPP
DETAILS Religions and the Practice of Peace Colloquium Dinner Series
Space is limited. RSVP is required at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_emKkKxsAU6As2JT
Reimagine the very definition of peace as we explore the intersection of racism, oppression, urban trauma, disaster, and other social realities faced by those desperately in need of peace. More than the absence of violence and war, we need the aggressive and proactive generation of peace, healing, and bliss under a continuing barrage of compromises to health and well-being. What is peace? How do we create it when there is little? Who deserves peacemaking?
Bring a pal or two or a boo! Enjoy Valentine’s Day treats at the reception following the colloquium.
Speaker
Zumbi, founder, Kilombo Novo; director, Trauma Response and Recovery at Boston Public Health Commission
Moderator
Emily Click, assistant dean for ministry studies and field education and Lecturer on Ministry at Harvard Divinity School
Discussant
David Harris, managing director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School
Zumbi (Courtney Grey) is initiated in multiple indigenous cultures and cofounded the group - Kilombo Novo “New Roaming Community.” He strives to reconstruct Bantu principles on peacemaking, conflict resolution and serving those most impacted by oppression, trauma, terrorism, and disaster. He has taught internationally, and has served Lakota/Sioux, Cambodian, Bosnian, Cape Verdean, Haitian and several other populations after trauma and disaster including the Marathon Bombing and Parkland, FL. He is published and graduated from MIT.
David Harris is the managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and a lecturer at Harvard Law School. Prior to his position at the Houston Institute, he served as founding executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston. Dr. Harris is recognized as a leading voice for civil rights in the Boston region and has spoken extensively at local, regional and national forums on civil rights, regional equity and fair housing. He previously served with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard University and a BA from Georgetown University. Dr. Harris currently chairs the Massachusetts Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Recommended Readings
Carter, J. Kameron. Race: A Theological Account. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Townes, Emilie M. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. Black Religion/Womanist Thought / Social Justice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2006.
With generous support from the Rev. Karen Vickers Budney, MDiv ’91, and Mr. Albert J. Budney, Jr., MBA ’74, as well as the Once Here Foundation.
This monthly public series, convened by HDS Dean David N. Hempton, brings together a cross-disciplinary RPP Working Group of faculty, experts, graduate students, and alumni from across Harvard University and the local area to explore topics and cases in religions and the practice of peace. A diverse array of scholars, leaders, and religious peacebuilders are invited to present and engage with the RPP Working Group and general audience. A light dinner is served and a brief reception follows the program.
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Midnight In Chernobyl
Thursday, February 14
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster—and a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth century’s greatest disasters.
Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear disaster. In the thirty years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers its citizens and the entire world. But the real story of the accident, clouded from the beginning by secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation, has long remained in dispute.
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. The result is a masterful nonfiction thriller, and the definitive account of an event that changed history: a story that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth.
About the Author
Adam Higginbotham writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, and Smithsonian. He lives in New York City.
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Friday, February 15
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RPP Special Interactive Workshop: The Kilombo: Lessons Learned from the (First) Democratic Multicultural Multi-Faith Republics in the Americas
WHEN Friday, Feb. 15, 2019, 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Braun Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
SPONSOR Religions and the Practice of Peace (RPP)
CONTACT RPP
DETAILS Religions and the Practice of Peace Special Interactive Workshop
Space is limited. RSVP is required at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1KZ9JI9bhBHGYOV
In this session, learn about Afro/Indigenous practices inspired by the countless African and AfroBrazilian Kilombos such as Capoeira Angola. These were considered the first Democratic Multicultural Multi-Faith Republics in the Americas, formed by Africans transported to Brazil in the Middle Passage with Aboriginal Natives, and White Portuguese dissenters from the slave trade. There will be optional low intensity movements. Please consider wearing loose clothing and comfortable footwear you can move in. Black pants and yellow shirt if you can.
Zumbi (Courtney Grey) is initiated in multiple indigenous cultures and co-founded the group—Kilombo Novo “New Roaming Community.” He strives to reconstruct Bantu principles on peacemaking, conflict resolution and serving those most impacted by oppression, trauma, terrorism, and disaster. He has taught internationally, and has served Lakota/Sioux, Cambodian, Bosnian, Cape Verdean, Haitian and several other populations after trauma and disaster including the Marathon Bombing and Parkland, FL. He is published and graduated from MIT.
Recommended Readings
Carter, J. Kameron. Race: A Theological Account. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Townes, Emilie M. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2006.
This special interactive workshop is in conjunction with the RPP Colloquium on Thursday, February 14.
With generous support from the Rev. Karen Vickers Budney, MDiv ’91, and Mr. Albert J. Budney, Jr., MBA ’74, as well as the Once Here Foundation.
Join the RPP mailing list and visit the RPP website.
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Thinking Fast makes Changing S l o w: How Cognitive Processes Interfere with Achieving Diversity
Friday, February 15
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Nelson Auditorium, Anderson 112, 200 College Avenue, Medford
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The Past Inside the Present: Bridging the Gap Between the Solar System and Exoplanets via Climate Evolution Research
Friday, February 15
12:00PM
Harvard, MD G-115, Lessin Lecture Hall, Maxwell-Dworkin, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Robin Wordsworth
Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
Contact Name: Kelvin Bates
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Film Screening: India's Daughter followed by discussion with Leslee Udwin
WHEN Friday, Feb. 15, 2019, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Askwith Forum, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR South Asia ConnectED, South Asia Institute, Office of Student Affairs HGSE
SPEAKER(S) Leslee Udwin
COST Free
CONTACT INFO ghazimirza@gse.harvard.edu
DETAILS "India’s Daughter" is a documentary film based on the story of the brutal gang rape and murder of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, and the unprecedented protests and riots which this
horrific event ignited throughout India.
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Re-Framing the Frame: Preparing Justice-Seekers through Legal Education
Friday, February 15
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM ET
Harvard, Lewis 214A, 1557 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSQHDddPIguNrnFT00DOdrv5kJV4k5nqR-Bf06S1lDgm7S8g/viewform
This talk takes a critical look at the consequences of framing legal education as it stands now: as law from the top down. It will consider law from the viewpoint of the indigenous, constitution as law of we the people, and the first year of law school as lacking this perspective.
Kathleen Mahoney and a select panel of indigenous lawyers and government representatives from Canada, Jamaica and the US will speak on the meaning of re-education in the context of healing and bringing justice to communities. They will share specific challenges they have faced to secure justice and remediation against negligent governments, extractive industries, and other capitalist structures.
The discussion will end with an audience Q and A geared to provide best practices for real cases and hurdles today.
Video from this talk will be available on this page in the week following this event.
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Swiss Sciences Night 2019
Friday, February 15
6 pm
MIT, Building E14-6, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Join swissnex Boston and representatives from Switzerland’s top universities, research institutions and companies for the 9th annual Swiss Sciences Night – an evening of conversation, science and opportunities.
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Saturday, February 16
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How to Unmask the Myth of Neutrality in the Use of Technology without Going Full Amish
Saturday, February 16
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM EST
Park Street Church, 1 Park Street, Boston
If technology can be used for good or for evil, how is it not neutral?
Is technology today qualitatively different from other eras?
Are there technologies that thoughtful people should just avoid?
How do we do technology without compromising our humanity?
What does the examined technological life look like, in practice?
Boston Fellows is pleased to host John Dyer, author of From the Garden to the City for a deep dive on these issues.
This event is free and open to the public. Lunch is provided. (Contributions accepted.)
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Somerville Community Summit
Saturday, February 16
12 - 2pm
ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Avenue, Somerville
RSVP Erica Jones at ejones@somervillemedia.org
Somerville residents are welcome to come meet DigBoston journalists and colleagues from other news outlets to discuss local issues that need more coverage.
More information from editorial@digboston.com or https://www.facebook.com/events/726356937746713/
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Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
Saturday, February 16 (More dates through February 18)
9:00pm
MIT Theater Building W97, MIT Theater 345 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA
Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone (US Premiere) is an immersive, synesthestic performance/installation that allows audience members to experience ‘life in the web.’
A co-creation of composer and MIT CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, and based closely on a tent-web made by a South American cyrtophora citricola spider, the work is not simply interdisciplinary, but quite literally an interspecies collaboration.
Spider’s Canvas was inspired and commissioned by visual artist Tomas Saraceno, and was premiered in November as part of Saraceno’s acclaimed exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
To see excerpts of the Paris performances, please visit http://arachnodrone.com
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Sunday, February 17
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Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
Sunday, February 17
3:00pm
MIT Theater Building W97, MIT Theater 345 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA
Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone (US Premiere) is an immersive, synesthestic performance/installation that allows audience members to experience ‘life in the web.’
A co-creation of composer and MIT CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, and based closely on a tent-web made by a South American cyrtophora citricola spider, the work is not simply interdisciplinary, but quite literally an interspecies collaboration.
Spider’s Canvas was inspired and commissioned by visual artist Tomas Saraceno, and was premiered in November as part of Saraceno’s acclaimed exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
To see excerpts of the Paris performances, please visit http://arachnodrone.com
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Monday, February 18
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Strategies of Conflict: Performing Responsibility in the Missile Age
Monday, February 18
12:15PM
Harvard, CGIS South S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7VGUkAvTU655Dub2FTGSNMjpVs6f8Qbu0kpmXh6oz11MgFw/viewform
Please RSVP via the online form by Wednesday at 5PM the week before.
Benjamin Tyler Wilson, Harvard, History of Science
STS Circle at Harvard
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Engineers Week: The Citizen Engineering Movement
Monday, February 18
6:00pm
Tufts, Room 253, Robinson Hall, 212 College Avenue, Medford
As part of Tufts' celebration of Engineers Week (February 15-22), the School of Engineering and the Tisch College of Civic Life are pleased to welcome Cathy Leslie, executive director of Engineers Without Borders USA, to deliver a talk on the story of a citizen engineering movement that creates a mission-driven, highly-skilled professional who knows how to combat global poverty.
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Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone
Monday, February 18
7:00pm
MIT Theater Building W97, MIT Theater 345 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA
Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone (US Premiere) is an immersive, synesthestic performance/installation that allows audience members to experience ‘life in the web.’
A co-creation of composer and MIT CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, and based closely on a tent-web made by a South American cyrtophora citricola spider, the work is not simply interdisciplinary, but quite literally an interspecies collaboration.
Spider’s Canvas was inspired and commissioned by visual artist Tomas Saraceno, and was premiered in November as part of Saraceno’s acclaimed exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
To see excerpts of the Paris performances, please visit http://arachnodrone.com
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Healing Voices // Online Screening & Discussion
Monday, February 18
9:00 PM EST
online
As a social action documentary, "HEALING VOICES" has made a meaningful impact in communities around the world with regard to how we think about and talk about mental health.
Join the Producers of "HEALING VOICES" and organizers of "REAWAKEN AUSTRALIA" Monday, February 18th for a free online screening and panel discussion intended to promote the upcoming "REAWAKEN" conference and Digital Eyes Film's next social action documentary "RECOVERING ADDICTION: A PUBLIC HEALTH RESCUE MISSION.”
Registrants will receive a private link to watch "HEALING VOICES" starting at 9:00pm EST, followed by a live panel discussion including questions from the audience. *Please note that this screening begins at 12:30pm February 19th Australian Central Daylight Time.
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Tuesday, February 19
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The Energy Transition in India—Towards Climate Change Mitigation
Tuesday, February 19
10:15AM TO 12:00PM
Harvard, Rubenstein Building,Room 414 A/B, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Speakers:
Mr. Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Secretary, Ministry of Power, Government of India
Dr. Ajay Mathur, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi; India
Prof. Johannes Urpelainen, Founding Director, Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP), Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.
Mr. Ranjit Bharvirkar, Principal and India Program Director, Regulatory Assistance Project, Vermont
Moderated by Professor John P. Holdren, Co-Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
The seminar will begin with an introduction of the Science, Technology, & Public Policy Program and its focus on India's energy decarbonization and then each speaker will present for 15 minutes. This will be followed by a panel discussion and question and answer session moderated by Prof. John P. Holdren.
Coffee & Tea will be provided.
Co-sponsored by the Consortium of Energy Policy Research.
Contact Name: Kaveri Iychettira
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WEBINAR: AI for Good
Tuesday, February 19
12pm
ONE HOUR OF DISCUSSIONS AT 17:00 GMT
LEARN HOW WE CAN LEVERAGE AI FOR GOOD
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS TO EXPERTS
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium: Matto Mildenberger (UCSB)
Tuesday, February 19
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
About this Series
The PAOC Colloquium [PAOCC] is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm in 54-923. Lunch is provided after the seminars to encourage students and post-docs to meet with the speaker. Besides the seminar and lunch, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. Contact the 2018/2019 Coordinators: paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu.
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The Politics of Health in the Trump Era
Tuesday, February 19
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, Wexner Conference Room, Wexner Building, Room 434AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Rachana Pradhan is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro. Before coming to POLITICO, she spent more than three years at Inside Health Policy focusing on implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Prior to that, Pradhan worked at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va., and spent most of her time covering city government (with the occasional foray into stories on urban chicken-keeping and the closure of neighborhood pools).
Pradhan is a rare local of the Washington, D.C., area and graduated from James Madison University. She was also news editor of JMU’s student newspaper, The Breeze.
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BISG Lunch with Professor Cass Sunstein
Tuesday, February 19
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
Harvard, Taubman Building, 5th floor, 520 NYE A, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
Launched in 2013 and directed by faculty chair Todd Rogers, the Behavioral Insights Group (BIG) brings together Harvard’s outstanding group of decision research scholars, behavioral economists, and other behavioral scientists to focus their energies on improving how decisions are made, both by leaders, and by individuals. The Behavioral Insights Student Group (BISG) is the student arm of the Behavioral Insights Group (BIG). Run by students, for students, BISG brings together students from across Harvard who are interested in the application of behavioral science to policy challenges.
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Disability and the Social Implications of Communication Technology
Tuesday, February 19
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EST
BU, Castle Room, 213 Bay State Road, 4th Floor, BU Hillel House, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/learning-sciences-speaker-series-meryl-alper-tickets-55357757543
While the field of communication increasingly addresses the role of new media in the lives of marginalized populations—spanning race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and diaspora—disability and its relationship with social, cultural, and political life is little understood. Meanwhile, people with disabilities are the largest minoritized group in the U.S.—nearly 20% of the population according to the Census. This exclusion not only masks the multifaceted ways that disability and specific disabilities intersect with other dimensions of difference, but also dislocates disability from important theoretical and conceptual debates. In this talk, I will present an overview of my on-going research on disability, youth, and communication technology in three respects: exploring the shifting nature of learning, voice, and most recently, sociality. My work aims to fundamentally alters how we conceive of the “human” in mediated human communication by incorporating insights learned from and alongside young people with disabilities.
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The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future
Tuesday, February 19
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West B (Room 2019, Second Floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTu1vpM2URUvwlVYwdQGZiNJujB7t70mCqsiv29L-SEnbPBA/viewform
Ben GreenSHARE TOSmart cities, where technology is used to solve every problem, are hailed as futuristic urban utopias. We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be “smart enough”: to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change—but not to value technology as an end in itself.
The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future By Ben Green, MIT Press 2019
This event will be live webcast on https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2019-02-19/smart-enough-city at noon on the event date.
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Democracy and Inequality: Learning Through Sound in Tokyo, Boston, and Berlin
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel, Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
SPEAKER(S) Ian Condry, Professor of Japanese Culture and Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moderated by Theodore Bestor
Reischauer Institute Professor of Social Anthropology, Harvard University
COST Free and open to the public
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Book Talk: "The Future is Asian”
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, 4:15 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS South (S250, Second Floor), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and the Harvard University
Asia Center
SPEAKER(S) Parag Khanna, Author; Managing Partner of FutureMap
Chair, Professor Tarun Khanna
Director, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute
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Feminist Economics
Tuesday, February 19
5:30 pm
Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Boston Seminar Series on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
These papers begin a conversation on the intersection of the study of the women’s liberation movement with the history of capitalism. Danielle Dumaine’s paper “Sisterhood of Debt: Feminist Credit Unions, Community, and Women’s Liberation” examines the role of feminist credit unions in the women’s liberation movement. Julie Enszer’s paper, "'a feminist understanding of economics based on a revolutionary set of values': Feminist Economic Theories and Practices" looks at the feminist organizations that created the feminist economic network.
SPEAKERS:
Danielle L. Dumaine, University of Connecticut
Julie R. Enszer, University of Mississippi
COMMENT: Juliet B. Schor, Boston College
The Boston Seminar Series on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality—cosponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—offers scholars and students an opportunity to discuss new research on any aspect of the history of women and gender in the United States, without chronological limitation.
To RSVP and for more information: e-mail seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
Registered participants may access the papers online at the Massachusetts Historical Society website.
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Free Speech, Open Minds and the Pursuit of Truth
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy, Harvard University
Professor Emeritus, Princeton University
Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University.
CONTACT INFO IOP Forum Office, 617-495-1380
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Conscious Conversation: An Inconvenient Act: How you can be a part of the climate crisis solution
Tuesday, February 19
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
ImpactHub, 50 Milk Street, Boston
Cost: $5 - $20
The reality about climate change is somewhere in between doomsday scenarios and science denialism. This presentation and group discussion will clear up the uncertainties about climate change today, and outline clear steps that you can take tomorrow to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
You'll learn:
What is the reality behind the climate crisis?
What solutions are at hand to solve the climate crisis?
How can you and your business contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation?
Speaker
Larry Yu, Thought leadership consultant
Larry Yu is a business writer and consultant specializing in thought leadership. He is Managing Editor of the Milken Institute Review and was formerly Managing Director of Kite Global Advisors, Executive Editor of strategy+business and Global Thought Leadership Fellow for PwC. Larry trained as a speaker with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project in 2017.
About the Conscious Conversations series Our Conscious Conversations are designed to facilitate peer exchange about a specific aspect of Conscious Capitalism. Each event consists of a short panel discussion, followed by small group discussions to allow participants to share ideas, challenges and solutions. We leave plenty of time to make new connections with other conscious capitalists.
Who we are Our mission is to connect, educate and inspire leaders and workers to consciously build businesses that positively impact the world. Members of the Boston chapter of Conscious Capitalism are diverse individuals who recognize the power of capitalism to improve the human condition and create enduring value for all stakeholders. We come from organizations large and small, at different stages of our careers, from CEO to student. We’re bound by our common curiosity about these ideas and the desire to create change in organizations and society.
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Reparations for Slavery: The Role of Repentance in Politics
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, 6 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
SPONSOR Student-Initiated Event
CONTACT studentlife@hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS United States presidential candidate, spiritual lecturer, and number one New York Times best selling author of A Return to Love will offer a lecture at Harvard Divinity School titled "Reparations for Slavery: The Role of Repentance in Politics" with an opening talk by HDS student Kassi Underwood, MDiv '19.
Tickets are required. Get yours at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/marianne-williamson-at-harvard-divinity-school-tickets-55483686199
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Donna Brazile
Tuesday, February 19
6:30 PM
Tufts, ASEAN Auditorium, Cabot Intercultural Center, 419 Boston Avenue, Medford
Join Tisch College for a conversation about contemporary politics, and about past and future presidential elections, with Donna Brazile, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee and one of the most astute political strategists in America. A veteran of Democratic politics and campaigns, Brazile worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 to 2000, when she was the first African American woman to run a presidential campaign when she served as campaign manager for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential bid. Known for her candor, she is a sought-after political commentator who has appeared on CNN and ABC; she is also a best-selling author of Hacks, which tells the inside story of Democratic Party machinations during the 2016 presidential election. Her recent book which she co-wrote, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics, was released last fall. The recipient of numerous awards including the Congressional Black Caucus’ highest award for political achievement, Brazile moonlights as an actress and has made cameo appearances on CBS’s The Good Wife, Netflix’s House of Cards, and BET’s Being Mary Jane. Follow the conversation live at #BrazileAtTufts.
Sponsored by Tisch College, the Africana Center, the Political Science Department, and the Tufts Democrats.
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Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture: “The Invention of Rivers”
Tuesday, February 19
6:30PM TO 8:00PM
Harvard, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 42 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Separating land and water is not just an act of division; it is also an act of creation. It creates land and water from ubiquitous wetness, defining them on either side of a line. It is one of the first acts of design, setting out a ground of habitation with a line that has largely been naturalized in features such as the coastline, the riverbank, and the water’s edge. These features are subjected to artistic representations, scientific inquiry, infrastructural engineering, and landscape design with little awareness of the act that brought them into being. Today, however, with the increasing frequency of flood and, not unrelatedly, sea-level rise attributed to climate change, the line of separation has come into sharp focus with proposals for walls, levees, natural defenses, and land retirement schemes. These responses raise questions on where the line is drawn, but they also raise questions on the separation that this line facilitates. Is this separation found in nature or does nature follow from its assertion? Are there other beginnings to design and consequently, other possible natures and grounds of habitation?
Dilip da Cunha is an architect and planner based in Philadelphia and Bangalore. He is co-director of the Risk and Resilience program at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and Adjunct Professor at the GSAPP, Columbia University. He is author with Anuradha Mathur of Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape (2001); Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain (2006); Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (2009); and Design in the Terrain of Water (2014). His new book, The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent, was just published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15913.html). In 2017, da Cunha along with Anuradha Mathur received a Pew Fellowship Grant in recognition of their collaborative work. They are currently working on a multimedia exhibition titled The Ocean of Rain. http://www.mathurdacunha.com
Contact Name: events@gsd.harvard.edu
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Generation Citizen Bar Night: Beyond the Ballot
Tuesday, February 19
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EST
TripAdvisor, Inc. Boston Office, 226 Causeway Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/generation-citizen-bar-night-beyond-the-ballot-registration-54648412874
Hosted by the Generation Citizen Associate Board of Young Professionals, our annual bar night is focused on going ‘Beyond the Ballot’ and the ways that Greater Boston community members can impact their communities and engineer change beyond voting. We will be hosting three amazing local changemakers who epitomize modern civic engagement for a casual Q/A and networking session.
Join us at 6:30 on February 19th at the TripAdvisor Boston space for our annual bar night! Come grab a drink, hear about some of the amazing work of your peers, and find out more about how to drive more change in 2019!
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Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts
Tuesday, February 19
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome renowned journalist JILL ABRAMSON—Harvard University senior lecturer and former executive editor of the New York Times—for a discussion of her latest book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts.
About Merchants of Truth
Merchants of Truth is the groundbreaking and gripping story of the precarious state of the news business told by one of our most eminent journalists.
Jill Abramson follows four companies: The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE Media over a decade of disruption and radical adjustment. The new digital reality nearly kills two venerable newspapers with an aging readership while creating two media behemoths with a ballooning and fickle audience of millennials. We get to know the defenders of the legacy presses as well as the outsized characters who are creating the new speed-driven media competitors. The players include Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron (The Washington Post), Arthur Sulzberger and Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), and Shane Smith (VICE) as well as their reporters and anxious readers.
Merchants of Truth raises crucial questions that concern the well-being of our society. We are facing a crisis in trust that threatens the free press. Abramson’s book points us to the future.
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FLP Open Meeting: Feed The Resistance with Author, Julia Turshen
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel K050, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Food Literacy Project
SPEAKER(S) Julia Turshen
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://www.eventbrite.com/e/feed-the-resistance-with-author-julia-turshen-tickets-55293812281
CONTACT INFO foodliteracy@harvard.edu
DETAILS Whether you know her as the first host of Radio Cherry Bombe, the current host of Keep Calm and Cook On, a podcast, or the bestselling author of cookbooks Feed The Resistance, Small Victories or most recently, Now & Again, Julia Turshen brings a breadth of experience to the table that is deeply inspiring. Julia will be joining us via Skype, highlighting her book about advocacy through food, Feed The Resistance, as well as a project she founded called Equity At The Table (EATT): the inclusive digital directory of women and non-binary individuals in food. EATT is inspired by the aphorism that it’s better to “build a longer table, not a higher fence.”
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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, February 20
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Boston Sustainability Breakfast
Wednesday, February 20
7:30 AM – 8:30 AM EST
Pret a Manger, 101 Arch Street, Boston
Join us every month for Net Impact Boston's informal breakfast meetup of sustainability professionals for networking, discussion, and moral support. It's important to remind ourselves that we are not the only ones out there in the business world trying to do good! Feel free to drop by Pret a Manger any time between 7:30 and 8:30 AM.
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'Goodbye Congress, Don't Get Rolled'
Wednesday, February 20
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Olin Center, Packard Avenue, Medford
Join Tisch College for a special screening of “Goodbye Congress, Don’t Get Rolled,” the newly released short film from documentarian Alexandra Pelosi that is a farewell to departing members of congress and a window into the inner workings of the institution itself. Pelosi sits down for a series of insightful, honest, and highly entertaining exit interviews that offer a unique look at congress as it is seen from within its own walls. A short Q&A with the filmmaker will follow the screening.
tischcollege.tufts.edu/content/goodbye-congress
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Narrative Events: Slavery, Testimony, and Temporality in the Afro-Atlantic World
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Barker Center, Thompson Room, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
SPEAKER(S) Nicholas Rinehart, Doctoral Candidate, English, Harvard University
COST Free and open to the public
DETAILS A Q&A will follow the colloquium
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Constitutional Crises in Central and Eastern Europe: A Legal Analysis
Wednesday, February 20
12:30 pm to 2:00 pm (Lunch served at 12:15. Talk begins at 12:45)
BU School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 410 (Redstone Building), Boston
RSVP tgabs@bu.edu
Speakers: Dominika Harasimiuk, PhD (Faculty of Law and Administration, Lazarski University, Warsaw), Vlad Perju, Professor of Law and Director of the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy (Boston College)
Convener: Daniela Caruso, Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Chair (Boston University School of Law)
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Bioethics on the Margins: Vulnerable Populations and Health Outcomes
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Braun Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
SPONSOR Women's Studies in Religion Program
CONTACT 617.495.5705
DETAILS Wylin D. Wilson, 2018-19 WSRP Visiting Associate Professor, will deliver the lecture "'Bioethics on the Margins: Vulnerable Populations and Health Outcomes." Lunch will be served.
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Symposium on Contemporary Design Practice in Historic Chinese Cities
Wednesday, February 20
1:30pm to 5:00pm
Northeastern, Curry Student Center, 333, 346 Huntington Avenue, Boston
The symposium will focus on contemporary architectural design works, urban planning, and historical preservation projects in historic cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Xi’an and Kashgar.
More information at https://camd.northeastern.edu/event/symposium-on-contemporary-design-practice-in-historic-chinese-cities/
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El Niño as a Topological Insulator: A Surprising Connection Between Climate, and Quantum, Physics
Wednesday, February 20
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915/923, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
EAPS Department Lecture Series - Brad Marston, Brown University
Symmetries and topology play central roles in our understanding of physics. Topology, for instance, explains the precise quantization of the Hall effect and the protection of surface states in topological insulators against scattering from disorder or bumps. However discrete symmetries and topology have so far played little role in thinking about the fluid dynamics of oceans and atmospheres. In this talk I show that, as a consequence of the rotation of the Earth that breaks time reversal symmetry, equatorially trapped Kelvin and Yanai waves emerge as topologically protected edge modes. Thus the oceans and atmosphere of Earth naturally share basic physics with topological insulators. As equatorially trapped Kelvin waves in the Pacific ocean are an important component of El Niño Southern Oscillation and other climate processes, these new results demonstrate that topology plays a surprising role in Earth’s climate system. [See Science 358, 1075 (2017).]
About this Series
Weekly talks given by leading thinkers in the areas of geology, geophysics, geobiology, geochemistry, atmospheric science, oceanography, climatology, and planetary science. Lectures take place on Wednesdays from 3:45pm in MIT Building 54 room 915, unless otherwise noted.
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Henry L. Pierce Laboratory Seminar Series: The Science Behind Understanding Attributes That Make a Community Disaster-Resilient
Wednesday, February 20
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 1-131, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Prof. Bruce R. Ellingwood
Abstract: Community resilience depends on the performance of the built environment and on supporting social, economic and public institutions which, individually and collectively, are essential for immediate response and long-term recovery within the community following a disaster. A community’s social needs and objectives (including post-disaster recovery) are not reflected in the codes, standards and other regulatory documents applied to design of individual facilities. Furthermore, science-based measurement tools to evaluate performance and resilience at community scales, fully integrated supporting databases, and risk-informed decision frameworks to support optimal life-cycle technical and social policies aimed at enhancing community resilience are in a rudimentary state of development. A new approach is required, one that reflects the complex inter-dependencies among the physical, social and economic systems on which a healthy and vibrant community depends and involves engineering, social sciences, and information sciences. The Center of Excellence for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, headquartered at Colorado State University, was established by The National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2015 to advance the measurement science for understanding the factors that make a community resilient, to assess the likely impact of natural hazards on communities, and to develop risk-informed decision strategies that optimize planning for and recovery from disasters. This presentation summarizes the approach taken by the Center management and research teams to advance the science underlying community resilience assessment and provides an illustration of how physical, social and infrastructure models can be integrated in a risk-informed decision context.
Bio: Dr. Ellingwood is Co-Director of the NIST-sponsored Center of Excellence for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning at Colorado State University. His teaching, research and professional interests center on the application of methods of probability and statistics to structural engineering. He is internationally recognized as a leading authority on structural load modeling, reliability and risk analysis of engineered facilities and as the seminal figure in the technical development of probability based codified standards for design of structures. He has authored more than 400 research papers and reports, is Editor of Structural Safety, and serves on five other editorial boards. He is recipient of numerous prizes and recognitions, is a Distinguished Member of ASCE and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
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Civic Arts Series, “Bringing the War Home”: Visual Aftermaths and Domestic Disturbances in the Era of Modern Warfare
Wednesday, February 20
5:00pm
MIT, Building 4-270, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
At the close of the First Gulf War, feminist architectural historian Beatriz Colomina wrote that “war today speaks about the difficulty of establishing the limits of domestic space.” That conflict of 1990-91 is most often cited as the first to pull the waging of war fully into the digital age and therefore into a blurring of boundaries of all kinds. Yet, most modern wars have introduced technological innovations that transform social relations and modes of communication and representation. In this paper Caren Kaplan focuses on a period that includes the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and extends into the “War on Terror” through a consideration of Martha Rosler’s photo collage series “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home” (1967-2004). The technique of collage reinforces the artist’s emphatic effort to bring together seemingly incommensurable elements—images of exquisite domestic interiors, glamorous consumer commodities, and landscapes and bodies damaged by warfare. Literally bringing wars waged by the United States throughout this long durée into the hyper commodified environment of fashion layouts and magazine advertisement, Rosler demonstrates the impossibility of limiting domestic space, an impossibility that challenges representation across genres and practices—televisual, photographic, cinematic, social media, analogue, digital, etc. Such disturbances of “here” and “there,” “now” and “then,” resonate as powerful “aftermaths” of wars visible and invisible, always already underway.
Caren Kaplan is Professor of American Studies at the UC Davis. Her research draws on cultural geography, landscape art, and military history to explore the ways in which undeclared as well as declared wars produce representational practices of atmospheric politics. Recent publications include Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above (Duke 2018) and Life in the Age of Drone Warfare (Duke 2017).
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Promise and Perils of the Public Humanities Pivot
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room, Quincy Street and Harvard Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Houghton Library, the Mahindra Humanities Center, and he Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.
SPEAKER(S) Mariët Westermann, Executive Vice President, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO humcentr@fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS At a time when the humanities appear to be losing prestige — as measured by declining enrollments and skeptical views expressed by public officials, parents, and students — humanists and their institutions are seeking to highlight the worldly utility of the humanities to societies and individuals under the rubric of the Public Humanities. This talk describes some of the most promising current efforts to bring humanities research into wider worlds, and also considers the potential risks that might arise when universities channel their commitment to the humanities in the direction of immediate and evident public value.
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The Subversive Politics of Sentient Places: Climate Change, Collective Ethics, and Environmental Justice in Northern Peru
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT CSWR, 617.495.4476
DETAILS Poor mestizos in northern Peru offer a new way to theorize humanism and sentient landscapes that interact with humans in terms of environmental justice, collective ethics, and health. This model transcends the limits of ontological cosmopolitics and political ecology. Mestizos respond to climate change and environmental devastation and challenge the governance of late liberalism by engaging indigenous sentient landscapes as leaders of environmental movements and co-creators of an interethnic world. They attach moral agency to the natural world for social and environmental transformation and open up a new kind of political debate. By defining “community” and “well-being” as humans-in-relationship-to-places-as-persons, poor mestizos resignify “nature” itself as an anchor for social justice.
Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York-Buffalo, has worked with Mapuche shamans in Southern Chile and shamans on the north coast of Peru. She has authored 5 books and over 55 articles. Her most recent books are Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Patagonia (University of Texas Press, 2016) and Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender, Power and Healing Among the Chilean Mapuche (University of Texas Press, 2007). Bacigalupo’s work has been funded by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Max Planck Institute, the Radcliffe Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the School of Advanced Research, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the Divinity school and the Center for World Religions at Harvard University, and the Henry Luce Foundation.
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MIT Transportation Showcase 2019
Wednesday, February 20
6:00pm to 9:00pm
MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
The Transportation Showcase is the MIT Transportation Club's flagship event, and is widely attended by the students, alumni, faculty, and professionals that make up the MIT transportation community. As the only transportation-specific career fair in the Boston area, the Showcase is a great way to meet representatives from a wide variety of transportation organizations ready to recruit, including public sector transportation agencies, private sector service providers, consultants, software developers, and much more! The event also showcases the transportation research carried out at MIT, strengthening the connections among the MIT transportation community, particularly between industry and academia.
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Boston New Technology Business and Workforce Solutions Startup Showcase #BNT98
Wednesday, February 20
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Microsoft NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Cost: $15.00 /per person
Join us to:
See 7 innovative and exciting local Business and Workforce Technology - Solution demos, presented by partners and startup founders
Network with attendees from the Boston-area startup/tech community
Get your free professional headshot photo from The Boston Headshot (non-intrusively watermarked)
Enjoy pizza, salad and beverages
Each company presents an overview and demonstration of their product within 5 minutes and discusses questions with the audience.
Please follow @BostonNewTech and support our startups by posting on social media using our #BNT98 hashtag. We'll retweet you!
To save on tickets and enjoy exclusive benefits, purchase a BNT VIP Membership: http://bit.ly/bNtvip
Brought to you by:
Microsoft New England was founded with the recognition that the greater Boston area is home to the world’s leading universities, cutting edge technology and the vibrant investment and emerging growth company community. http://bit.ly/BNTmsftne
From the travel innovators who brought you KAYAK comes Lola.com, a super easy, completely stress-free and fun — yes, fun! — way to manage corporate travel.
DigitalOcean provides the easiest cloud platform to deploy, manage, and scale applications of any size, removing infrastructure friction and providing predictability so developers can spend more time building what they love. Try DigitalOcean for free with a $100 credit: do.co/boston
Cape Ann Development - Enterprise-class software, app and web development for startups! We offer the best value for early-stage companies who are not ready to hire full-time technical staff or need to quickly augment their existing IT staff. Contact Chris Requena at Chris "at" CapeAnnDevelopment.com.
TRBdesign - WordPress Maintenance, Development and Website Marketing from experts! Contact Reiko Beach at reiko "at" trbdesigns.com
Your Profile Video is a full-service video production agency, specializing in content creation strategies and digital marketing. Call or email us today for a free strategy consultation! www.YourProfileVideo.com
The Boston Headshot - You only get one shot to impress a potential client. www.TheBostonHeadshot.com
The Yard: Back Bay - Coworking, dedicated desks, and private offices in the Hancock. The Yard offers flexible, month-to-month memberships for entrepreneurs and creatives. High-tech conference rooms, lounges, monthly events and hundreds of amenities. Sign up for a tour and get a FREE week trial: http://bit.ly/BNTyard
Chuck Goldstone | Strategies and Stories - It's about your story. Getting audiences to listen. Like you. Do what you want. www.ChuckGoldstone.com
Climbing The Success Ladder helps you with Goal Setting. Positivity. NLP Coaching. Change. Getting Unstuck. Tom Maloney trains entrepreneurs to be successful! www.ClimbingTheSuccessLadder.com
Products & Presenters:
1. Lola.com - Agile Travel Management is a quick, dynamic and flexible way to create a corporate policy that enables employees to do what's right for the business. Happy employee travel experiences within a policy can be set up in five minutes.
2. Live Undistracted: Phone Safe System / @SmartPhoneSafe - A novel approach to eliminate the phone as a driver distraction in commercial fleets. (Mike Falter)
3 - 7. Sign up to present: http://bit.ly/bntdemo
Agenda:
6:00 to 7:00 - Networking with pizza, salad and beverages served and free headshot photos (non-intrusively watermarked)
7:00 to 7:10 - Welcome & BNT Partner Introductions
7:10 to 8:30 - Business and Workforce Technology Solution Presentations, Q&A
8:30 to 9:00 - More Networking and free headshot photos
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Innovation in Digital Health: Swiss and US Perspectives
Wednesday, February 20
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
swissnex Boston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.swissnexboston.org/event/innovation-in-digital-health-swiss-and-us-perspectives/
The Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) & swissnex Boston invite you to a panel discussion featuring Swiss and American experts from the connected healthcare ecosystem.
What are the key components to innovate in today’s highly competitive digital health industry? CSEM (The Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology) & swissnex Boston invite you to a panel discussion featuring Swiss and American experts from the connected healthcare ecosystem to highlight some of the crucial points that will enable the development of tomorrow’s connected solutions.
Switzerland as a leader in medical innovation
Just like the Greater Boston Area, Switzerland hosts some of the most innovative organizations in the field of medical technologies. As a leader of the industry, CSEM is committed to developing solutions that will pave the way for the future of healthcare. Come meet some of the executives and companies using their disruptive algorithms and sensors.
Program
6:00 pm: Doors open
6:30 pm: Welcoming remarks, swissnex Boston
6:35 pm: Lightning talks
CSEM – Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology
Biospectal – optical blood pressure monitoring through ubiquitous connected devices
MyStetho – connected stethoscope for telemedicine
7:10 pm: Panel discussion
Jens Krauss – VP of Systems, CSEM
Eliott Jones – CEO, biospectal
Josie Elias – Program Manager, Brigham Digital Innovation Hub
Cris De Luca – Global Director, Digital Innovation at Johnson & Johnson Innovation
Moderator: Mary Ann Picard, Director of Operations, M2D2
7:45 pm: Networking reception & demos
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Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation
Wednesday, February 20
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome constitutional law expert and American University professor ROBERT L. TSAI for a discussion of his latest book, Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation. He will be joined in conversation by Harvard Law School professor NOAH FELDMAN.
About Practical Equality
Equality is easy to grasp in theory but often hard to achieve in reality. In this accessible and wide–ranging work, American University law professor Robert L. Tsai offers a stirring account of how legal ideas that aren’t necessarily about equality at all―ensuring fair play, behaving reasonably, avoiding cruelty, and protecting free speech―have often been used to overcome resistance to justice and remain vital today.
Practical Equality is an original and compelling book on the intersection of law and society. Tsai, a leading expert on constitutional law who has written widely in the popular press, traces challenges to equality throughout American history: from the oppression of emancipated slaves after the Civil War to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to President Trump’s ban on Muslim travelers. He applies lessons from these and other past struggles to such pressing contemporary issues as the rights of sexual minorities and the homeless, racism in the criminal justice system, police brutality, voting restrictions, oppressive measures against migrants, and more.
Deeply researched and well argued, Practical Equality offers a sense of optimism and a guide to pursuing equality for activists, lawyers, public officials, and concerned citizens.
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"Lest We Forget: A Doctor’s Experience with Life and Death During the Ebola Outbreak"
Wednesday, February 20
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
In 2014 after fighting through yards of bureaucratic red tape, leaving her family, and putting her own health at risk in order to help suffering strangers, Kwan Kew Lai finally arrived in Africa to volunteer as an infectious disease specialist in the heart of the largest Ebola outbreak in history. What she found was not only blistering heat, inadequate working conditions, and deadly, unrelenting illness, but hope, resilience, and incredible courage.
Lest We Forget chronicles the harrowing and inspiring time spent serving on the front lines of the ongoing Ebola outbreak--the complicated personal protective equipment, the chlorine-scented air, the tropical heat, and the heartbreaking difficulties of treating patients she could not touch. Dr. Lai interweaves original diary entries to create a gripping narrative about life, death, and human relationships that will leave no reader unmoved.
About the Author
Kwan Kew Lai is an infectious disease specialist. More than a decade ago, after first volunteering in the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami, she left her position as a full-time professor of medicine and now divides her time between practicing clinical medicine and aiding with disaster relief in various parts of the world. Seeing the horrific effects of the Ebola outbreak on the people of West Africa, she felt a moral obligation to be both a participant and a witness of the efforts to stamp out this epidemic.
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Thursday, February 21
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Pursuing a Career in Global Anti-Corruption
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Austin Hall (308), Morgan Courtroom, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR East Asian Legal Studies
SPEAKER(S) Michael Huneke, ’05, Partner, Hughes Hubbard and Reed
Rayhan Asat, LL.M. ’16, Visiting Specialist, Hughes Hubbard and Reed
CONTACT INFO Mike Zaisser
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Patents and Market Concentration: Measuring the Impact on Global Access to Medicines
Thursday, February 21
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Room 2009 (Second Floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIZqaxiG4m45_9TIsfwkzCy2FnlKJNZZfTYzLVPft_MxC_MA/viewform
Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Mark Wu
Please join us for an event featuring Padmashree Gehl Sampath, a leading expert on trade policy, innovation policy and economic development, in conversation with Mark Wu, Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School.
Despite the vigorous strengthening of the global patent system in recent years, not only in industrialized economies like the USA, but also in the developing world, there have been limited attempts to measure the rise in concentration levels due to the patent system. This talk provides a first empirical assessment showing that concentration of patents results in market concentration in the pharma sector in the USA and contributes to greater returns for affiliates of U.S. companies in developing country markets of India, China and Brazil. A number of questions for intellectual property policy and competition policy are examined.
Padmashree Gehl Sampath is a leading expert on trade policy, innovation policy and economic development. She works at the United Nations in Geneva and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, and is currently a 2018-2019 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University. She has worked on issues of IP and access to medicines for over two decades, as an academic and in the UN system, serving first as an expert to WHO’s Committee on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health in 2005 and then leading WHO’s work on local production, technology transfer and access to medicines in 2009-2010. She has coordinated large inter-agency projects of the UN on local production and access to medicines, authored several white papers on the topic, as well as been as consultant to various donor UN agencies on the topic of promoting capacity building in African and Asian countries to improve drug pricing, access to medicines and health innovation. She is the author of five books, several journal publications and book chapters.
Mark Wu is an Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a Director of the Berkman Klein Center. His work focuses on international trade and international intellectual property matters. Prior to joining HLS the faculty in 2010, Mark Wu was an Academic Fellow at Columbia Law School and a law clerk to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He has served as the Director for Intellectual Property in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he led negotiations on the IP chapters of various free trade agreements. In addition, he worked as an engagement manager for McKinsey & Co., as an economist and operations officer for the World Bank in China, and as an economist for the United Nations Development Programme in Namibia.
This event is a brown-bag luncheon and we encourage you to bring lunch to enjoy during event. Please note this event is not being live webcast and we encourage you to attend in person.
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Book Talk -- Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Ash Center Foyer, Second Floor, Suite 200N, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
SPEAKER(S) Yao Li, China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center, author of "Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable Despite Rising Protests”
COST Free
CONTACT INFO info@ash.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join us and Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies for a discussion with Yao Li, China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center, author of Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests. Elizabeth Plantan, China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center, will serve as a respondent. Anthony Saich, Ash Center Director, Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, HKS, will moderate.
Lunch will be served.
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Building Healthier Communities Through Environmental Justice
Thursday, February 21
12:00PM-1:30PM
Brown Rudnick, 1 Financial Center, Boston
Panel: Cassandria Campbell, Co-founder of Fresh Food Generation, Kalila Barnett, Program Officer of Climate Resilience at the Barr Foundation, and Lead Innovator Patricia Spence, Executive Director of The Urban Farming Institute of Boston, Inc.
Facilitated by: Greg Watson, Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics.
Featured Innovator: The Urban Farming Institute of Boston
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Islamizing Rebel Governance: Jihadi Insurgencies and Symbolic Power
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, 12:15 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, 1 Brattle Square (Room 350), Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR International Security Program
SPEAKER(S) Christopher Anzalone, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Security Program
CONTACT INFO susan_lynch@harvard.edu
DETAILS Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come, first served basis.
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Fresh Pond: Vacation Week: Ecology Hike through an Urban Woods
Thursday, February 21
1 to 2:30pm
Meets at the Ranger Station (under the clock tower), 250 Fresh Pond Parkway, Cambridge
Ready your winter boots and venture off-trail with Ranger Tim! Take a close look at some of the things that make the woods habitable even in winter and learn about what animals call Cambridge home. Bundle up! Great for families. Questions: Ranger Tim at tpuopolo@cambridgeMA.gov/
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Climate Change in Boston: Preparing for Impacts
Thursday, February 21
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST
Northeastern University Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex, 805 Columbus Avenue, Room 102, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-change-in-boston-preparing-for-impacts-tickets-55719622892
Coastal cities face unique challenges from the effects of a warming planet. What issues are most likely to impact Boston, and how can our city best prepare itself? In this panel discussion hosted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University, we bring together premier experts from industry and academia to examine our vulnerabilities to climate change and how civil and environmental engineers can help build a more sustainable, resilient Boston.
Moderator: Dr. Matthew Eckelman, Associate Professor, Northeastern University
Panelists: Dr. Auroop Ganguly (Professor, Northeastern University), Dr. Jim Chen (Professor, Northeastern University), Dr. Paul Kirshen (Professor UMass Boston), and Dr. Indrani Ghosh (Technical Leader, Kleinfelder)
About the Panelists
Dr. Matthew J Eckelman is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair For Research at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. He is an affiliated Faculty member with the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Marine and Environmental Sciences, and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Yale University in 2009. His research interests include energy efficiency and emissions modeling, life cycle assessment, material and energy use in urban buildings and infrastructure, nanotechnology, and environmental engineering and health.
Dr. Paul Kirshen is a Professor of Climate Adaptation at the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is an expert in water resources, coastal zone management and climate variability and change. Kirshen has worked on several projects for the EPA, US NOAA, US Army Corp of Engineers and the Union of Concerned Scientists studying the impact of climate change on the greater Boston area. He is the Director of the UMass Boston Sustainable Solutions Lab, which assesses the impact of climate change on underserved populations and investigates solutions to these complex issues. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975.
Dr. Indrani Ghosh is the Technical Leader for climate change science at Kleinfelder. She models the impacts of climate change on future flooding and heat to identify risks and evaluate adaptation strategies at the local scale. Dr. Ghosh has published several papers which describe how cities and municipalities can translate the uncertainty of climate change into engineering design criteria. She has worked on several projects predicting flooding impacts in the greater Boston area, including climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation plans, sea level rise modeling for coastal towns, and the Disaster and Infrastructure Resiliency Plan for Boston’s Logan International Airport. She was the recipient of the 2014 Clemens Herschel Award from The Boston Society of Civil Engineers (BSCES) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975.
Dr. Qin Jim Chen is an expert in coastal engineering and science, particularly in the development of state-of-the-art numerical models to address coastal resiliency and sustainability. He leads the Coastal Hydrodynamics Lab out of the Nahant Marine Science Center at Northeastern University, where he is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, interdisciplinary with the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences. Through grants from the National Science Foundation, US Geological Survey, US Army Corp of Engineers and the Department of Treasury, Chen conducts research into the effects of extreme weather and climate change on coastal regions. Chen received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Old Dominion University, in collaboration with Danish Hydraulic Institute.
Auroop R. Ganguly, Ph.D., is a hydrologist and a civil engineer, and currently a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, USA, where he is the Director of the Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory (SDS Lab). He is also Professor by courtesy of multiple NU departments and colleges, specifically, Khoury College of Computer and Information Sciences, Marine and Environmental Sciences, Political Science, and Public Policy and Urban Affairs, as well as a Visiting International Professor of Computer Science and Environmental Science at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. He is a member of the United Nations Environmental Program review panel and the lead author of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) section of the Sustained National Climate Assessment of the United States. He is the Chief Specialty Editor for water and built environment of the upcoming Frontiers in Water journal and serves on the editorial board of the journal PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports published by Nature, as well as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. Ganguly received his Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from MIT in 2002.
It’s a Fluid Situation: Adaptive Strategies for Feeding and Moving in Marine Environments
Thursday, February 21
3:30PM
Harvard, Room 1080, Biological Labs Lecture Hall, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge
Bradford Gemmell, University of South Florida, Tampa
OEB Special Seminar
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Tech News & Tech PR: It's not just tech anymore
Thursday, February 21
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
BU, COM- 209, 640 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Speakers Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt (Visiting Research Fellow at Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California)
What is tech news today? And consequently, what is tech PR? Research by Dr. Weiss-Blatt discovered a major turning-point in both practices. Her previous study examined “Who sets the technological agenda?” by analyzing millions of articles/posts, and deploying time-series and network analyses. Her current research focuses on the role of tech PR due to the accumulating tech scandals. Her talk will summarize the rapid changes in the tech news ecosystem and provide preliminary conclusions, both theoretical and practical.
Contact Name Susannah Blair
Contact Email susieb@bu.edu
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Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI
Thursday, February 21
6:00 PM (Doors at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
Cost: $6 - $29.75 (book included)
Harvard Book Store welcomes one of the nation’s leading science editors JOHN BROCKTON—founder of The Edge Foundation, Inc. and editor of Know This, This Idea Must Die, This Explains Everything, and other volumes—for a discussion of his latest book, Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI.
About Possible Minds
"Artificial intelligence is today's story—the story behind all other stories. It is the Second Coming and the Apocalypse at the same time: Good AI versus evil AI." —John Brockman
More than sixty years ago, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener published a book on the place of machines in society that ended with a warning: "We shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions . . . The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door."
In the wake of advances in unsupervised, self-improving machine learning, a small but influential community of thinkers is considering Wiener's words again. In Possible Minds, John Brockman gathers their disparate visions of where AI might be taking us.
The fruit of the long history of Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI—from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram—Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures, such as computer scientist Stuart Russell, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and physicist Max Tegmark, are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others, notably robotics entrepreneur Rodney Brooks, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and bestselling author Steven Pinker, have a very different view. Serious, searching, and authoritative, Possible Minds lays out the intellectual landscape of one of the most important topics of our time.
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Design as Protest: Building Power
Thursday, February 21
6:00pm to 8:00pm
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Bryan Lee & Sue Mobley |
Design as Protest explores the privilege and power structures that have defined injustice from America's inception. Like all institutions, Design imposes its power through policies, procedures, and practice and is subject to its own inherited biases. We look at the history of the design justice movement and how the theory of practice continually advocates for the dismantling of power ecosystems that use architecture and design to create injustice throughout the built environment. The lasting permanence of our professional decisions requires us to pay particular attention to the residual impact of our work in and to seek Design Justice wherever possible. Architecture has the power to speak to the language of the people it serves, we as designers, are at our best when we are willing to serve the people denied power.
Bryan Lee is an Architect, educator, and Design Justice Advocate. He is the founder/Design Director Colloqate Design in New Orleans LA, a nonprofit multidisciplinary design practice dedicated to expanding community access to design and creating spaces of racial, social and cultural equity. Architect and Design Justice Advocate. Founder/Director of Colloqate Design, a nonprofit multidisciplinary design practice. Founding organizer of the Design Justice Platform and organized the Design As Protest National day of Action. Bryan has led two award-winning architecture + design programs for high school students and has received multiple national awards and fellowships most recently noted as one of the 2018 Fast Company Most Creative People in Business.
Sue Mobley is Director of Advocacy at Colloqate Design. She comes to Colloqate with over a decade of experience in New Orleans non-profit and policy sectors. Mobley holds a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University New Orleans in Anthropology and a Masters of Arts in Political Science from the American University in Cairo. Her primary research interests are in urban studies, public history, and design ethnography with a focus on race, class, and gender. She is the author of Human Rights, Human Wrongs, Observation of Human Rights Law and Norms in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.
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Sustainable Peace Café
Thursday, February 21
6 – 8:30pm
Harvard, Braun Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
Space is limited. RSVP is required.
What forms of nourishment bring you inner peace and comfort? Is there a particular food or drink that brings you closer to the people around you, your home, your community, or your identity?
Join us as we explore these questions, surrounded by food, stories, fireplace, and companions. You are welcome to bring a recipe, sample of a dish, or a story to share.
Sustainable Peace Cafés welcome Harvard students and alumni from across the University and friends and colleagues from the local area to come connect with new companions aspiring to advance sustainable peace. Together, we will nurture our commitment to the practice of peace; contemplate our visions of peace and how to make peace in our communities substantive, shared, and sustainable; and share insights and practices from our spiritual and cultural traditions and life experiences.
Each session features a new theme and activities, touching upon six dimensions of holistic peace practice to which we attend in the emerging “One Harvard” Sustainable Peace Initiative (SPI):
sharing inspiration and wisdom
self-cultivation and virtue-cultivation
friendship-building and bridge-building
leveraging resources of culture
leveraging resources of institutions and communities
practical projects for shared flourishing
Attendees are encouraged to explore ways to advance the SPI global trend in their own contexts. A light dinner is served, and informal networking time follows.
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Grabbing Pussy
Thursday, February 21
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes celebrated performance artist and NYU professor KAREN FINLEY for a discussion of her latest book, Grabbing Pussy.
About Grabbing Pussy
Based on her widely praised performance piece Unicorn Gratitude Mystery ("Wickedly funny," as described by The New York Times), Karen Finley’s Grabbing Pussy explores the Shakespearean dynamics that surface when libidos and loyalties clash in the public and private personas of Donald Trump, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, and now Harvey Weinstein.
Standing in the tradition of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, Finley’s words jolt the reader into new insights about the ways the darkly private can drive the public realm in dizzying twists and turns. The aggression of intimacy, the disparity of gender, and the vital importance of hair are all encompassed in Finley’s exhilarating canter.
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Friday, February 22 - Sunday, February 24
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Tech for Truth Hackathon
Friday, February 22 - Sunday, February 24
MIT, Building E70, 12th Floor, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
How will we use technology to find and communicate truth in the 21st century?
Theme areas:
Track 1: Using technology to understand the impact of climate change to enable and support aid and humanitarian efforts
Track 2: Truth in a digital world (i.e. combatting fake news, social media bots, and deep fakes)
Track 3: Ensuring supply chain integrity
Prize: The winning team in each track will receive Platinum passes to SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, TX with roundtrip airfare and lodging.
Hosted by: MIT Innovation Initiative
Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
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Friday, February 22
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Community Engagement Training
Friday, February 22
9:00am - 4:00pm
MAPC, Conference Room, 60 Temple Place, Boston
Registration fee: $100 Regular, $50 Student/Americorps/Intern
Instructors: MAPC Community Engagement Division
Are you kicking off a community planning process and beginning to think about outreach and engagement? Are you feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start? Have you had little success in engaging more than the usual suspects?
This hands-on interactive training proposes 5 Steps that break down the process of creating a public participation strategy. Learn best practices for thoughtful community engagement including examples of meeting design and engaging ways of getting public participation outside of the traditional public meeting format.
Done right, community engagement builds trust – even when consensus is out of reach. It brings fresh thinking, new voices, and creates a more informed, involved public. It brings people into the process, and brings the process to them. That means new ideas, new participants – and plans with wider support.
This training is for anyone who wants to enhance their outreach practices, including municipal staff and others doing similar work. It includes a Community Engagement Guide, a Strategy Chart, example activities and more!
The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) is a regional planning agency serving the people who live and work in the 101 cities and towns of Metropolitan Boston. Our mission is promoting smart growth and regional collaboration. Making sure we are working for the best interests of everyone in the Metro Boston Region is a critical component of MAPC’s mission. Therefore, effective community outreach and civic engagement is at the core of our success!
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NULab: Climate Change/Crisis/Creativity Conference
Friday, February 22
9:00am - 5:30pm
Northeastern, Raytheon Amphitheater, 120 Forsyth Street, Boston
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHKFzno2u4VwgBwiK-ZAO2vbIwAG_jgQc9x_foRgf5M0bUYw/viewform
Join us for a one-day conference, “Climate Change/Crisis/Creativity,” featuring lightning talks by Northeastern faculty and staff, presentations by artists whose work engages with climate change, a hands-on workshop session, and a keynote lecture by Bethany Wiggin, University of Pennsylvania.
Space is limited and registration is required; please RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHKFzno2u4VwgBwiK-ZAO2vbIwAG_jgQc9x_foRgf5M0bUYw/viewform
This all-day conference will begin with lightning talk presentations by a range of Northeastern faculty and staff whose research relates to climate change:
Daniel Aldrich, Political Science, Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Joan Fitzgerald, Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Brian Helmuth, Marine and Environmental Sciences
Laura Kuhl, Public Policy and Urban Affairs and International Affairs
Kyla Van Maanen, Global Resilience Institute
Dietmar Offenhuber, Art + Design and Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Jennie Stephens, Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Dean’s Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy
John Wihbey, Journalism
Sara Wylie, Sociology and Health Science
Following these talks will be a keynote address by Bethany Wiggin, co-founder of the Data Refuge project. After lunch, there will be a hands-on workshop session and then a panel of presentations by artists whose creative works intersects with climate change:
Carolina Aragón, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, UMass Amherst
Geoffrey Hudson, Composer, creator of “A Passion for the Planet”
Sarah Kanouse, Art + Design, Northeastern University
Schedule
9:am: Breakfast and registration
9:15am: Welcome
9:30 to 11:15am: Lightning talks by Northeastern faculty and staff
11:30am to 12:45pm: Keynote: Bethany Wiggin
2:45 to 2pm: Lunch
2 to 3:30pm: Hands-on workshop session
4 to 5:30pm: Artist presentations: Carolina Aragón, Geoffrey Hudson, and Sarah Kanouse
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Global Change and the Ecology of Vector-Borne Disease
Friday, February 22
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Parsons Laboratory, 48-316 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Prof. Erin Mordecai, Biology Department, Stanford University
Global anthropogenic changes in climate, land use, species invasions and extinctions, and population growth and movement are rapidly transforming the Earth's ecosystems and with them, the landscape of human health. Vector-borne diseases spread by mosquitoes and other biting arthropods are particularly prone to responding to global change because transmission depends on climate and habitat and how humans interface with them. In this talk, I present our work on how changing climate and land use affect a range of diseases including malaria, dengue, and Zika, and how humans can respond to that changing risk. Our work shows that understanding vector ecology is critical for predicting changes in disease burden because many responses are nonlinear and complex. By taking a mechanistic approach we show that intermediate temperatures (25-29°C) are optimal for transmission of malaria, dengue, and other pathogens, suggesting that warming climate will shift, rather than expand, the seasonal and geographic burden of disease. At a local scale, climate interacts with land use to determine vector abundance, biting rate, and infection rates in humans. Urban and sub-urban vectors like Aedes spp. do not occur in forests or forest edges, suggesting that intact forest might prevent dengue and Zika spread. By contrast, Amazonian malaria vectors thrive in forest edge habitats, and incidence is highest at edges created by deforestation. Finally, we show evidence that human behavior responds to malaria risk by reducing deforestation in the highest-incidence sites. Better understanding the complex and often nonlinear ecology of vector transmission is critical for predicting how future anthropogenic changes will affect human health—and for mitigating their impacts.
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#BUcityplanning Movie Screening: Paris To Pittsburgh
Friday, February 22
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EST)
BU, College of Arts and Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, CAS-B36, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bucityplanning-movie-screening-paris-to-pittsburgh-tickets-54954390060
Join the Boston University City Planning and Urban Affairs Program for a screening of Paris to Pittsburgh.
"From coastal cities to America's heartland, Paris to Pittsburgh celebrates how Americans are demanding and developing real solutions in the face of climate change. And as weather grows more deadly and destructive, they aren't waiting on Washington to act." -paristopittsburgh.com
Open to the public.
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BetterMIT Innovation Across Disciplines Speaker Series
Friday, February 22
7:00pm to 8:30pm
MIT, Building W20: Stratton Student Center, La Sala, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Come here from great leaders across different fields!
Free Food!!
Chandra Briggman -- Director Venture Cafe
Prof Martin Culpepper -- MIT Project Manus
Dr. Joel Salinas -- Harvard Med School & MGH
Anantha Chandrakasan -- Dean of Engineering
Susan Silbey -- MIT Prof of Anthrolpology
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Saturday, February 23 - Sunday, February 24
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BetterMIT Innovation Challenge
Saturday, February 23 - Sunday, February 24
9:00am to 10:00pm
MIT, Building W20: Stratton Student Center, La Sala, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Come work on projects to better MIT & the world! Work with great resources & mentors and compete for awesome prizes! Great workshops on the innovation process, designing majors, making change happen!
Food, workshops, prizes!
Register at goo.gl/iC2o51
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Monday, February 25
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium: Julien de Wit (MIT)
Monday, February 25
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
About this Series
The PAOC Colloquium [PAOCC] is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm in 54-923. Lunch is provided after the seminars to encourage students and post-docs to meet with the speaker. Besides the seminar and lunch, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. Contact the 2018/2019 Coordinators: paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu.
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Waking Up to the Internet Platform Disaster
Monday, February 25
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Harvard, Austin Hall, Austin Hall North Room 100, 1515 Massachusetts AVenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSczE_BtlKPPBpzmxkCNa_m0bkSBvYjdRJo20RhxY3c7CSDRqg/viewform
Roger McNamee
Lawrence Lessig
Join us for a conversation with Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook and Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School.
Facebook, Google and other internet platforms employ a business model – surveillance capitalism – that is undermining public health, democracy, privacy, and innovation in unprecedented ways. They use persuasive technology to manipulate attention for profit. They use surveillance to build data sets with the goal of influencing user behavior. The negative externalities of internet platforms are analogous to those of medicine in the early 20th century and chemicals in the mid-20th century, situations that required substantial regulatory intervention.
This event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2019-02-25/waking-internet-platform-disaster at noon on event date.
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The Cost of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Monday, February 25
12:00PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
Jim Stock, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University
Lunch will be served. This event is free and open to the public.
HKS Energy Policy Seminar
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Sociology Department Seminar: Down Out and Under Arrest: How Policing Shapes Everyday Life in Urban Poor Communities
Monday, February 25
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
BU, Room 241, 100 Cummington Mall, Boston
Forrest Stuart, Associate Professor of Sociology, Stanford University, will present his work “Down Out and Under Arrest: How Policing Shapes Everyday Life in Urban Poor Communities.”Since the 1990s, American cities have embraced hyper-aggressive policing policies. Drawing on over 7 years of in-depth, ethnographic fieldwork alongside police and residents in Los Angeles’s Skid Row and on Chicago’s South Side, Dr. Forrest Stuart analyzes how the omnipresent threat of harmful police contact reshapes the cultural contexts and patterned behaviors in criminalized neighborhoods. In the hope of reducing such police contact, residents adopt a particular cognitive schema—which he refers to as “cop wisdom”—that transforms the way residents understand and interact with physical environments, peers, and strangers. He traces how cop wisdom leads to new and potentially troubling forms of behavior and social interaction.
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American Geomimesis: The Earth's Past and Engineering Environments
Monday, February 25
12:15PM
Harvard, CGIS South S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7VGUkAvTU655Dub2FTGSNMjpVs6f8Qbu0kpmXh6oz11MgFw/viewform
Please RSVP via the online form by Wednesday at 5PM the week before.
Daniel Francis Zizzamia, Harvard, Solar Geoengineering, will discuss "."
STS Circle at Harvard
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Opioid Epidemic & Harm Reduction: Social Work, Public Health & Emergency
Services Approaches
Monday, February 25
5:30 – 7:00 pm
BU, Kilachand Center, 610 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
This event will feature diverse perspectives of individuals working at the forefront of the opioid epidemic. Panelists will discuss care for people who use opioids (or other substances), and opportunities for prevention, harm reduction, and inter-professional collaboration.
Speakers:
Chief Scott Allen, Chief of Police, East Bridgewater; Member of the PAARI (Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative) National Advisory Police Council
Caitlin Clark, MSW, Social Worker, Project RESPECT Clinic, Boston Medical Center
Tyshaun Perryman, Recovery Coach, Project RECOVER, Boston Medical Center
Clare Schmidt, MPH, Program Coordinator, AHOPE Needle Exchange, Boston Public Health Commission
Christopher Salas-Wright, PhD, MSW, Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Social Work, moderator
The first half will be focused on panelists’ experiences in the field and the second half will be a moderated panel discussion with Q&A from the
audience.
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CDD Forum - Nerding-out Over Design and Social Justice
Monday, February 25
6:00pm
MIT, Building 9-255, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Jason Schupbach, Director of the Design School at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, ASU
Nerding-out Over Design and Social Justice: Insights from a recovering Federal employee who tried to help the designers working to make America better. Come hear an inside view on how the Federal government supports good urban design, and to hear about the people and projects across the country that are building more equitable communities.
Jason Schupbach is the Director of the Design School at Arizona State University. Previous to this position he was Director of Design and Creative Placemaking Programs for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw all design and creative placemaking grantmaking and partnerships, including Our Town and Design Art Works grants, the Mayor’s Institute on City Design, the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, and the NEA's Federal agency collaborations. Previously, Jason served Governor Patrick of Massachusetts as the Creative Economy Director, tasked with growing creative and tech businesses in the state. He formerly was the Director of ArtistLink, a Ford Foundation funded initiative to stabilize and revitalize communities through the creation of affordable space and innovative environments for creatives. He has also worked for the Mayor of Chicago and New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs. He has written extensively on the role of arts and design in making better communities, and his writing has been featured as a Best Idea of the Day by the Aspen Institute.
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The Heart Is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai
Monday, February 25
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Elizabeth Flock in conversation with Min Jin Lee
Elizabeth Flock has observed the evolving state of India from inside Mumbai, its largest metropolis. She spent close to a decade getting to know these couples—listening to their stories and living in their homes, where she was privy to countless moments of marital joy, inevitable frustration, dramatic upheaval, and whispered confessions and secrets. The result is a phenomenal feat of reportage that is both an enthralling portrait of a nation in the midst of transition and an unforgettable look at the universal mysteries of love and marriage that connect us all.
Elizabeth Flock is a reporter for PBS NewsHour. She began her career at Forbes India magazine, where she spent two years as a features reporter in Mumbai, and has worked for U.S. News & World Report and the Washington Post. She has also written for major outlets, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Hindustan Times, and The Hindu. She lives in Washington, DC. The Heart Is a Shifting Sea is her first book.
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Tuesday, February 26
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EBC Climate Change Program: The Challenge of Designing Systems for an Uncertain Climate Future
Tuesday, February 26
Registration: 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Program: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Pierce Atwood LLP, 100 Summer Street, 2nd Floor, Boston
Cost: $50 - $185
This EBC Climate Change program explores the design and liability issues associated with designing resilient systems that are able to withstand increased demands due to climate change impacts. Traditionally, design professionals rely on historical data to design systems that have a 50 to 100 year timeframe. Due to the impacts of climate change, historical data may not be the appropriate basis of design for future systems. This EBC program will explore the dilemma that design professionals have in designing systems with uncertain design parameters. It will also explore the potential exposures and liabilities associated with designing for an uncertain future.
Ample time is provided for discussion with program speakers during the moderated panel discussion.
General Continuing Education Certificates are awarded by the EBC for this program (3.5 training contact hours). Please select this option during registration if you wish to receive a certificate.
Program Chair:
Scott Turner, Director of Planning, Nitsch Engineering
Speakers:
Sandy Brock, Chief Engineer, Nitsch Engineering
Barbara Landau, Counsel, Noble, Wickersham & Heart LLP
Deanna Moran, Director, Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts
Ellen Watts, President & Co-Founder, Architerra, Inc.
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Speaker Series: James Bennet
Tuesday, February 26
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, Wexner Conference Room, Wexner Building, Room 434AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
James Bennet, the editorial page editor of The New York Times, is in charge of the Opinion department. He oversees the editorial board and the Letters and Op-Ed sections. Mr. Bennet became editorial page editor in May 2016. Before this role, Mr. Bennet was the president and editor in chief of The Atlantic. Under Mr. Bennet, who was named editor in 2006, The Atlantic substantially increased its editorial reach and impact while returning to profitability for the first time in recent history. Adweek named Mr. Bennet editor of the year in 2012 and Ad Age did the same in 2009. The Atlantic was honored with the National Magazine Award four times during his tenure, including Magazine of the Year and best website, for TheAtlantic.com.
Before joining The Atlantic, Mr. Bennet worked for The Times for 15 years in several roles, including Detroit bureau chief, White House correspondent and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also served as a staff writer for The Sunday Magazine. Before joining the Times, Mr. Bennet was an editor with The Washington Monthly. He and his wife have two sons.
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Goodbye California? The New Tech Worker Market
Tuesday, February 26
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West B (Room 2019, Second Floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Moira Weigel
Yarden Katz
The past several months have seen a wave of worker actions at major tech firms. Tech workers have challenged their company's contracts with the Pentagon, ICE, and other government agencies. They have organized for safe and equitable workplaces, free from sexual harassment and discrimination. They are demanding better wages, benefits, and working conditions for both white and blue collar contractors. My talk will place these actions in context, drawing on several years of research and writing on the movement and my work as an editor of Logic magazine and publisher of the book Tech Against Trump (2017). In addition, I will propose that these actions point to the need for new frameworks for interpreting the culture or world view of the tech industry--frameworks beyond "The Californian Ideology" that has dominated since the 1990s. To this end, I visit several recently proposed alternatives for thinking about "tech work" (e.g. platform capitalism, surveillance capitalism, data colonialism) that members of tech worker organizations themselves have studied and drawn on.
Join us for a presentation by Moira Weigel, followed by a conversation with recent Berkman Klein Fellow, Yarden Katz.
This event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2019-02-26/goodbye-california at noon on event date.
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Technology, Science, and Frontiers in the Arts
Tuesday, February 26
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
MIT, Wong Auditorium, Tang Center, Building E51, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/frontiers-in-science-technology-and-the-arts-registration-55030609033
A symposium at MIT exploring the intersection of the frontiers of science and technology with artistic practice.
Co-organized by MIT.nano and the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), this afternoon symposium will examine art forms and expressions enabled by the emergence of new materials and by advances in computing paradigms. The program will showcase artistic collaborations and innovations from across disciplines. The four sessions are:
1. Frontiers: Art and Computing
2. Frontiers: Art and Materials
3. Frontiers: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Arts
4. Collaborations in Art, Science, and Technology at MIT
Each session will feature lightning talks, panels, and presentations from an interdisciplinary array of MIT faculty, visiting artists, and other researchers, practitioners, and innovators.
This event is free and open to the public. Registration required.
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Focus on Russia: Putinism
Tuesday, February 26
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
What is Vladimir Putin up to? Drawing on his new study, Brian Taylor will argue that we can only understand Putin’s Russia if we understand the set of ideas, emotions, and habits that influence how Team Putin views the world.
Each semester the MIT Security Studies Program, together with the MISTI MIT-Russia Program, and the MIT Center for International Studies, presents a speaker series entitled “Focus on Russia,” which considers a number of current issues in Russian domestic and foreign policies. The public is welcome to attend.
About the Speaker: Brian Taylor is Professor and Chair of Political Science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Taylor is the author of three books on Russian politics: The Code of Putinism (Oxford University Press, 2018); State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion after Communism (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1689-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2003). He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Copies of Taylor's latest book The Code of Putinism will be available for purchase for purchase at the event.
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Public Program | Artist Talk by Olafur Eliasson
Tuesday, February 26
6:00pm
MIT, Building 32-123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Join us for the dedication of Northwest Passage by Olafur Eliasson. This program is in celebration of one of the newest additions to MIT’s Public Art Collection. Olafur Eliasson works through multiple mediums, including sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installation. This piece is a site-specific work for the ceiling of the breezeway of Building 12, MIT.nano.
Please note: this event is SOLD OUT. Additional tickets will be made available 2 weeks before the event. Please stay tuned for more information.
About MIT’s Percent-for-Art Program
The MIT List Visual Arts Center maintains one of the most active Percent-for-Art programs in the country. Over the years MIT’s campus public art collection has continued to grow with new commissions by important and critically acclaimed contemporary artists.
All programs are free and open to the general public.
Please note RSVPs are required. RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sold-out-artist-talk-olafur-eliasson-tickets-53700194728
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Yemen: The Human Cost of War, a conversation with Abby Maxman, CEO & President of Oxfam America
Tuesday, February 26
6:00pm to 7:30pm
Northeastern, Renaissance_Park, 909, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
Abby Maxman is the president and CEO Oxfam America, a global non-profit dedicated to ending the injustice of poverty. Abby brings more than twenty five years of experience in international humanitarian relief and development to her role. In this talk, she will discuss her recent trip to Yemen and the ongoing humanitarian crisis there.
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MIT Water Night
Tuesday, February 26
6:00pm to 9:00pm
MIT, Building 50: Walker Memorial, 50-140, 142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Come join the MIT Water Club for its annual Water Night, a family-friendly event to celebrate water on the evening of Feburary 26 with research posters, art exhibits, interactive demos, and more. Researchers at MIT, local universities and industries will present their water-related work. In addition to a research showcase, we will feature artistic and experimental displays, as well as company and NGO tables! Open to everybody -- attendance is FREE and food will be provided. Don't miss this amazing opportunity to interact with the local water community!
Call for Presenters: Are you working on a great water-related topic? Do you have an experiment that you'd like to show the world? Do you have cool artistic items - pictures, paintings, displays, etc - related to water? Are you a company or organization working in the water space? Then hesitate no more and come present at the MIT Water Night by filling out the form on ourwebsite! Over $1000 in prizes available to the top presenters.
Volunteering Opportunities are available with the MIT Water Night organizing team. If you are interested in artistic and scientific content development, or gaining experience in PR, fundraising, or event organizing, please send an email to water-night@mit.edu expressing your interests and our team will get in contact with you.
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WHERE DOES THE PATH OF VIRTUE LIE ON ENGINEERING HUMAN GENOMES?: Faculty Lecture with Professor Louis M. Guenin
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Club of Boston, 374 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Ethics, Health Sciences, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Club of Boston
SPEAKER(S) Professor Louis M. Guenin
COST Complimentary with registration
CONTACT INFO To register, contact Matt Hegarty at mghegarty@post.harvard.edu
DETAILS WHERE DOES THE PATH OF VIRTUE LIE ON ENGINEERING HUMAN GENOMES?
Advances in molecular biology have yielded efficient laboratory maneuvers by which to select components of a human genome. Philosopher Louis M. Guenin, Lecturer on Ethics in Science in the Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, who works in moral philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science, will discuss how fundamental moral reasoning may be brought to bear on whether and how it is virtuous to practice human genetic engineering.
Concerning a related controversial practice, embryonic stem cell research, his book The Morality of Embryo Use (Cambridge University Press), named Outstanding Academic Title for 2009, presents a justification, constructed within an overlapping moral consensus, for the use of donated embryos in service of humanitarian ends. He has served as a consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services on research ethics and as co-chair of the Ethics Committee, International Society for Stem Cell Research. In other writings he has discussed issues in distributive justice, the patentability of human life forms, and the theory of social choice.
On the one hand, genetic engineering poses the prospect of curing and preventing diseases of known genetic origin. On the other hand, such interventions pose the risk of errors. We shall hear how these prospects, joined with concerns of propriety even if risk can be minimized, pose a challenging question for collective resolution.
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Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture: David Hartt, “Urban Futures of the Recent Past”
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Conferences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard University Graduate School of Design
SPEAKER(S) David Hartt
CONTACT INFO Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.
DETAILS This talk borrows the sub-title from Reyner Banham’s seminal book Megastructure, published in 1976. As a reference, Banham’s text critiques the failure of translating the energy and optimism of 60’s era civic projects into lasting institutions; thus creating fertile conditions for the seeds of our own post-ideological crisis to germinate in the capitalist restructuration of the mid 70’s. Hartt will focus on the relationship between the speculative and documentary aspects of his practice and, in particular, works that continue this narrative forward into our own age of fiction.
David Hartt (b. 1967, Montréal) lives and works in Philadelphia where he is an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. His work explores how historic ideas and ideals persist or transform over time.
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The Shape of a Life: One Mathematician's Search for the Universe's Hidden Geometry
Tuesday, February 26
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes renowned mathematician and Harvard professor SHING-TUNG YAU and science writer STEVE NADIS—contributing editor to Astronomy and Discover magazines—for a discussion of their new book, The Shape of a Life: One Mathematician's Search for the Universe's Hidden Geometry.
About The Shape of a Life
Harvard geometer and Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians. Beginning with an impoverished childhood in China and Hong Kong, Yau takes readers through his doctoral studies at Berkeley during the height of the Vietnam War protests, his Fields Medal–winning proof of the Calabi conjecture, his return to China, and his pioneering work in geometric analysis. This new branch of geometry, which Yau built up with his friends and colleagues, has paved the way for solutions to several important and previously intransigent problems. With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, this book offers readers not only insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics.
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Opportunity
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MIT Energy Conference: Tough Tech & The 2040 Grid, scheduled for April 4th & 5th, are once again offering a generous discount for subscribers to our NE Roundtable listserv. Just enter the discount code NEERR when you purchase your ticket for 15% off the price of admission.
If you purchase your ticket before February 1st, this discount will stack on top of the Early Bird discount, for a total of 35% off!
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Announcing Destination 2040: The next long-range transportation plan for the Boston region
How would you improve the Boston region’s transportation system? That’s the question at the heart of the MPO’s preparations for Destination 2040, which the MPO expects to adopt in the spring of 2019.
Every four years, the MPO identifies the system’s strengths and weaknesses; forecasts changes in population, employment, and land use; and creates a plan to address existing and future mobility needs. The resulting long-range transportation plan (LRTP) allocates funding for major projects in the Boston region and guides the MPO’s funding of capital investment programs and studies.
Use the new Destination 2040 website at http://ctps.org/lrtp-dev to explore the state of the system; learn how the MPO will identify needs, revisit its vision and goals, and prioritize its investments; and share your own interests, concerns, and ideas.
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Resource
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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. 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.
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
Solar map of Cambridge, MA
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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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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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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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Boston Maker Spaces - 41 (up from 27 in 2016) and counting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zGHnt9r2pQx8.kfw9evrHsKjA&hl=en
Solidarity Network Economy: https://ussolidarityeconomy.wordpress.com
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston: http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at over 50 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://calendar.mit.edu
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
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
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 11 AM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
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