[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events - January 27, 2019
gmoke
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Jan 27 10:26:07 PST 2019
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 at world.std.com
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) EventsGeo
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html
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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, January 28
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5pm An Energy Plan the Earth Can Live With? A Lecture with Daniel Kammen
5:45pm A Revolutionary Harbor: Lecture with author Eric Jay Dolin
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Tuesday, January 29
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12pm Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Planning and Paying for Tomorrow’s Transportation
12pm Biological Gods: UFOs, Science (Fiction), and Some Emergent Mythologies
3pm Symposium: Art, Disability, and Mental Illness in Nanjing, China and Shiga-ken, Japan
4pm Screening of "Jizo and Libido" (Japanese with English subtitles, 62min)
5:30pm Andrey Makarychev: Russia and the EU: Spaces of Interaction in Times of Crisis
6pm Mark Leibovich on the Political Culture and the NFL
6pm Boston Green Drinks
7pm The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com
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Monday, January 28
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Understanding and Improving our Urban Climate
Monday, January 28
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
BU, Florence and Chafetz Hillel House Bay State & Castle Rooms, 213 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at http://www.bu.edu/research/news-events/featured-events-2/understanding-and-improving-our-urban-climate-rsvp/
Hosted by Lucy Hutyra, Co-Director, Urban Climate Research Initiative, and Associate Professor, Earth & Environment, CAS; and Patrick Kinney, Co-Director, Urban Climate Research Initiative, and Beverly A. Brown Professor for the Improvement of Urban Health, Environmental Health, SPHBy mid-century, seven of every ten people are projected to reside in an urban area. The concentration of infrastructure, fossil fuel emissions, and people make cities the epicenter for both climate impacts and solutions. This session highlights the new Urban Climate Research Initiative working to galvanize faculty from across the university to advance our basic scientific understanding and improve the health and livability of our cities. In this session, hosted by Lucy Hutyra, Associate Professor, Earth & Environment, CAS, and Patrick Kinney, Professor, Environmental Health, faculty from across the University discuss their research on the physical, biological, chemical, social, and policy aspects of our urban climate.
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An Energy Plan the Earth Can Live With? A Lecture with Daniel Kammen
WHEN Monday, January 28, 5 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Health Sciences, Lecture, Research study, Science, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Daniel M. Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group, and Professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy and in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. Served as chief technical specialist for the World Bank in 2010-2011 and served as the science envoy for the US Department of State in 2016-2017.
COST Free
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a critical report in October 2018 on the vital need to hold anthropogenic global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Humans have already warmed the planet 1 degree.
In this talk, Kammen will examine the pace of scientific change, the problem of sustained innovation and deployment, and the tremendous array of benefits that could be realized by making climate protection the priority it must become. Most remarkable, perhaps, is the range of benefits — in social equity, ethnic and gender inclusivity, cultural diversity, and poverty alleviation — that can be realized through an energy plan Earth can live with. Register online.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2019-daniel-m-kammen-lecture
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A Revolutionary Harbor: Lecture with author Eric Jay Dolin
Monday, January 28
5:45 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Atlantic Wharf, 280 Congress Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-revolutionary-harbor-lecture-with-author-eric-jay-dolin-tickets-54008090653
Join the National Park Service, Boston Harbor Now and Save the Harbor, Save the Bay in the first of three winter lectures exploring our Revolutionary Harbor.
Best-selling author, Eric Jay Doln will speak about his new book, Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Dolin provides this wholly original account of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.
Following the lecture, Eric Jay Dolin will be available for book signing.
Light refreshments and drinks provided.
Funded in part by Boston Harbor Now and Mass Humanities.
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DEF Boston Drink & Think
Monday, January 28
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
The Engine, 501 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/def-boston-drink-think-tickets-55071534442
DEF Boston is excited to host our first Drink & Think of 2019 on Monday, 28 January at 6:00 PM at MIT's The Engine. Our goal is to connect community members in the area and share what the virtuous insurgency is all about. Elsa Kania will discuss her research on China's national defense strategies.
Elsa is an Adjunct Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Her research focuses on Chinese military innovation in emerging technologies in support of the Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Initiative at CNAS. Elsa is also a PhD student in Harvard University's Department of Government.
Come join a host of other people that care about national security innovation to talk about ongoing projects and upcoming events (perhaps brainstorm all the reasons why DEF2019 should be here in Boston). We'd love to hear about some of youre awesome ideas for what DEF can tackle in the upcoming year!
The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum is a non-profit network of problem solvers in the military, government and private sector that work together to increase innovation and support disruptive thinkers in the national security space. The mission of DEF is "Inspire - Connect - Empower" and involves not only monthly gatherings around the world, but periodic DEFx events, an annual conference, and ongoing collaboration via Slack, Facebook and LinkedIn. DEF communities usually meet once a month to hear innovative leaders, entrepreneurs and authors share their stories and to get new ideas flowing in a casual environment (where uniforms and rank are left at the door).
If you are a military member, work in government, are an entrepreneur focused on national security, or find the idea of helping solve tough problems enticing, then the DEF's monthly Drink & Thinks are great ways to learn more.
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Tuesday, January 29
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Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Planning and Paying for Tomorrow’s Transportation
Tuesday, January 29
12:00 - 2:00 PM (Lunch will be served)
Foley Hoag, 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston
RSVP at ndubin at e2.org
Whether you've been stuck in traffic on I-93 or watched helplessly as MBTA shut down operations during the winter of 2015, if you're a commuter, you know that our transportation system is broken. At the same time, transportation has become the biggest source of GHG emissions in the Northeast and one of the leading drivers of climate change worldwide. An important step toward solving these seemingly intractable problems is on the horizon: the Transportation and Climate Initiative, through which states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are developing a regional approach to modernize, and reduce emissions from, the transportation sector. As commuters, members of the business community know all too well how badly these changes are needed, but what role should and can private industry play as states such as Massachusetts bring their transportation systems into the 21st Century?
Please join E2 New England at “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Planning and Paying for Tomorrow’s Transportation” as we explore the business perspective on our broken transportation system, how tools such as regional rail can help, and where Massachusetts and its neighbors are headed with the Transportation and Climate Initiative.
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Biological Gods: UFOs, Science (Fiction), and Some Emergent Mythologies
Tuesday, January 29
12 – 2pm
Harvard, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Avenue, Conference Room, Cambridge
After a summary of the UFO phenomenon and its modern histories and interpretations, this lecture will reference four texts: Philip K. Dick’s Valis (1981), Whitley Strieber’s Communion (1987), Kary Mullis’s Dancing Naked in the Mind Field (2000), and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Living with a Wild God (2014). In each case, we will see how the author describes a deeply personal, life-changing encounter with what any earlier culture would have recognized as a deity or demon. Each author engages these earlier religious interpretations but finally moves outside of them to posit actual invisible species in the environment that interact with human beings at their own whims and for their own interests, perhaps, some of the authors speculate, to "feed off" of human emotion or to tame, domesticate or evolve us via sexual communion and interspecies symbiosis. The result is a new set of evolutionary panpsychisms, erotic vitalisms and biological polytheisms that pose a challenge to the reigning materialisms and projection theories of conventional science and the humanities. The lecture concludes by reading at least some aspects of the UFO phenomenon in “eschatological” terms, that is, as dealing with the dead and the destiny of the human soul.
Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University and is the Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jeff is the author of eight monographs, including, most recently, The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge (Bellevue Literary Press, 2019). He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the history of science and esoteric literature for the University of Chicago Press collectively entitled The Super Story. His full body of work can be seen at http://jeffreyjkripal.com
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Carbon Free Boston: Pathways to Carbon Neutrality by 2050
Tuesday, January 29
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM EST
Add to Calendar
Cahners Theater, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/carbon-free-boston-pathways-to-carbon-neutrality-by-2050-registration-55050526607
Join the Boston Green Ribbon Commission for a presentation and panel discussion on the Carbon Free Boston report.
About this Event
The Carbon Free Boston report, commissioned by the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, identifies for the first time specific strategies for the City of Boston to meet its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. The report was undertaken at the request of Mayor Walsh to in order to provide an analytic foundation for carbon mitigation actions in the City. The Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy led the report's research and analysis.
To kick off the event, Cutler J. Cleveland, Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University and Principal Investigator for the Carbon Free Boston report, will present key findings. A panel discussion will follow, with audience Q&A, moderated by John Cleveland, Executive Director of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission. Panelists include:
Chris Cook, Chief of Energy, Environment and Open Space, City of Boston; Commissioner, Parks and Recreation for the City of Boston
Gina McCarthy, Professor of the Practice of Public Health and Director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Former EPA Administrator
Mindy Lubber, CEO & President, Ceres
Dr. S. Atyia Martin, CEO & Founder, All Aces, Inc.; Distinguished Senior Fellow, Northeastern University Global Resilience Institute
Peter Hamill, Senior Vice President & Regional General Manager, New England, Turner Construction
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Symposium: Art, Disability, and Mental Illness in Nanjing, China and Shiga-ken, Japan
WHEN Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019, 3 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Conferences, Exhibitions, Health Sciences, Humanities, Law, Social Sciences, Special Events, Support/Social
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR A Fung Scholar Event sponsored and organized by:
The Harvard Asia Center
With the generous support of:
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University
The Harvard Law School Project on Disability
The Harvard-Yenching Institute
The Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University
SPEAKER(S) Panel 1: Art Production at the Margins: Atelier Yamanami and Nanjing Outsider Art Studio
Prof. Karen Thornber, Director, Harvard Asia Center, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Comparative Literature
Masato Yamashita, Director, Atelier Yamanami
Haiping Guo, Director, Nanjing Outsider Art Studio
Prof. Shaun McNiff, University Professor, Lesley University
Exhibition curators:
Raphael Koenig, Ph.D., Harvard University, Comparative Literature
Benny Shaffer, Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University, Anthropology
Panel 2: Disability and Mental Illness in China and Japan: Social and Legal Issues
Prof. William Alford, Director, Harvard Law School Project on Disability & Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Prof. Andrew Campana, Post-Doctoral Associate, Cornell University
Prof. Cui Fengming, Director, China Program, Harvard Law School Project on Disability; Professor, Renmin University of China Law School and Senior Fellow, Renmin University of China Disability Law Clinic
Prof. Arthur Kleinman, Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine, & Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard University
COST Free entry
DETAILS On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition "Eye Eye Nose Mouth: Art, Disability, and Mental Illness in Nanjing, China and Shiga-ken, Japan"
The opening reception on Jan. 29, 2019 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. will be preceded by an interdisciplinary academic symposium (3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.) that will provide further context on the broader aesthetic, legal, and sociopolitical conditions under which each of these workshops featured in the exhibition operates.
LINK https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/events/exhibition-opening-eye-eye-nose-mouth-art-disability-and-mental-illness-in-nanjing-china-and-shiga-ken-japan-306
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Coaching Well Trained Fleas - How to become aware of the limiting beliefs that keep away possibilities
Tuesday, January 29
3:30pm to 5:30pm
MIT, Building E25-111, 45 Carleton Street, Cambridge
RSVP requested but not required: https://goo.gl/forms/H2Pj1vEaOEJVZ8AH3
Inspirational TEDx Speaker, Comedian & Professor Shayla Rivera, Funny Rocket Scientist, Inc.
IAP workshop
The most important subject to study for anyone seeking true success is the one subject usually given the least amount of study, that subject is the self. I realized that I was going on through my existence feeling many times like I was dragging a great bag filled with some discomfort that I wasn't quite sure what it was. This affected my daily life in negative ways, the most common of which was keeping me from my best. I have made it my business to get to understand me and through that I have gotten to understand most others. Through paying attention, I can report that I found a way to get 'clear' about why I do what I do and this has opened the door to me changing the things I need to and want to change. Humor has been my saving grace and combining humor with respectful contemplation I can share ways to become clear and then free from what holds us back. However, I only point the path to the water and sometimes lead the horse there, ultimately the horse must decide to drink.
Self-exploration and contemplation have never been given importance in our modality of education, however, they are paramount to success. This workshop will offer tools and guidance to help find our way through the cobwebs of our own limiting beliefs.
Co-sponsored by De Florez Humor Fund, Institute Community and Equity Office, International Students Office, Latino Employee Resource Group, & Student Activities Office
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Screening of "Jizo and Libido" (Japanese with English subtitles, 62min)
WHEN Tuesday, January 29, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Exhibitions, Film, Health Sciences, Humanities, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR A Fung Scholar Event sponsored and organized by:
The Harvard University Asia Center
with the generous support of:
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University
The Harvard Law School Project on Disability
The Harvard-Yenching Institute
The Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University
SPEAKER(S) Director Yoshiaki Kasatani.
With the participation of:
Julia Alekseyeva, Postdoctoral Fellow, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University
Yukiko Koide, Gallery owner and leading expert of Japanese self-taught art
Masato Yamashita, Director of Atelier Yamanami
COST Free entry
DETAILS Screening of a recent documentary film about Atelier Yamanami, followed by a Q&A with the director and panel discussion.
On the occasion of the exhibition "Eye Eye Nose Mouth: Art, Disability, and Mental Illness in Nanjing, China and Shiga-ken, Japan."
LINK https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/events/exhibition-opening-eye-eye-nose-mouth-art-disability-and-mental-illness-in-nanjing-china-and-shiga-ken-japan-306
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Andrey Makarychev: Russia and the EU: Spaces of Interaction in Times of Crisis
Tuesday, January 29
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Tufts, Cabot 702, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrey-makarychev-russia-and-the-eu-spaces-of-interaction-in-times-of-crisis-registration-53519823232
Please join the Russia and Eurasia Program at The Fletcher School for a book talk by Professor Andrey Makarychev of the University of Tartu on "Russia and the EU: Spaces of Interaction in Times of Crisis." He will discuss relations between Russia and the European Union after the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014. Refreshments will be provided. Attendance is by registration only on Eventbrite.
Andrey Makarychev is Visiting Professor at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. Before he came to Tartu, he was Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Institute for East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, as well as Professor of International Relations at the Linguistic University (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia). His research interests include Russian foreign policy discourses, international security and regionalism in EU – Russia common neighborhood. He has worked for the Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research, ETH Zurich (2000-2001) and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copenhagen (2003-2004). He was visiting fellow at several European and US Research Institutes, among them the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute; Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies (Washington, D.C.); George Mason University, Fairfax, and the JFK Institute for North American Studies, Free University of Berlin.
Russia and the EU: Spaces of Interaction is an important resource for researchers in Russian and Soviet Politics, Eastern European Politics and the policy, politics and expansion of the European Union. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russia’s support for military insurgency in eastern Ukraine undermined two decades of cooperation between Russia and the EU leaving both sides in a situation of reciprocal economic sanctions and political alienation. What is left of previous positive experiences and mutually beneficial interactions between the two parties? And, what new communication practices and strategies might Russia and Europe use? Previously coherent and institutionalized spaces of communication and dialogue between Moscow and Brussels have fragmented into relations that, while certainly not cooperative, are also not necessarily adversarial. Exploring these spaces, contributors consider how this indeterminacy makes cooperation problematic, though not impossible, and examine the shrunken, yet still existent, expanse of interaction between Russia and the EU. Analysing to what extent Russian foreign policy philosophy is compatible with European ideas of democracy, and whether Russia might pragmatically profit from the liberal democratic order, the volume also focuses on the practical implementation of these discourses and conceptualizations as policy instruments.
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Ahead of Their Time - Unrecognized women inventors
Tuesday, January 29
5:45pm to 7:00pm
MIT, Building 2-142, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
RSVP at: http://upop-portal.mit.edu/events/view/?id=1060
UPOP Mentor, Herbert R. ("Dick") Schulze ’67 will present an engaging and informative talk about unrecognized women inventors. True stories of women inventors who patented their inventions – including such fundamental advances as windshield wipers and spread-spectrum technology – so far ahead of their time that they went unrecognized and unrewarded, sometimes for years and sometimes for their entire lives.
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Mark Leibovich on the Political Culture and the NFL
WHEN Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Mark Leibovich, Chief National Correspondent, The New York Times Magazine, Author of “Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times”
CONTACT INFO 617-495-1380
LINK https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/mark-leibovich-political-culture-and-nfl
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Boston Green Drinks
Tuesday, January 29
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Warehouse Bar & Grille 40 Broad Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boston-green-drinks-january-2019-happy-hour-tickets-54216340534
Happy New Year!!
Looking for resolutions...joining Boston Green Drinks on a monthly basis sounds perfect!
Join the conversation with sustainability professionals and hobbyists. Enjoy a drink and build your connection with our green community! Boston Green Drinks builds a community of sustainably-minded Bostonians, provides a forum for exchange of sustainability career resources, and serves as a central point of information about emerging green issues. We support the exchange of ideas and resources about sustainable energy, environment, food, health, education.
Special Guest: While the majority of our time is spent socializing and networking, we on occassion will have a community member share a bit about what they're doing, providing a potential direction for surrounding conversations.
For January 2019, we will be joined by Sam Josiah, a Financial Advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Sam will be sharing a bit about the efforts Ameriprise has been putting into Sustainable Investing. To sweeten the pot basket, he will be raffling off a free basket of sustainable products!
https://bosgreendrinks.wordpress.com/
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The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind
Tuesday, January 29
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Aveue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and the American Constitution Society welcome award-winning scholar and University of Chicago Law School professor JUSTIN DRIVER for a discussion of his new book, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind. He will be joined in conversation by Harvard Law School professor RANDALL KENNEDY.
About The Schoolhouse Gate
Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to unauthorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compulsory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation.
Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked transforming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any procedural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the viewpoint it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech.
Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magisterial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.
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Wednesday, January 30
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Governing AI — How Do We Do It?
Wednesday, January 30
8:00am - 9:00am
Harvard, Littauer Building, Belfer Center Library, Room L369, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
RSVP REQUIRED
RSVP to patricia_mclaughlin at hks.harvard.edu by 4 PM, Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Speaker: Mr. Tommy Ahlers, Minister of Higher Education and Science, Kingdom of Denmark
Moderators: Professor John P. Holdren, Co-Director, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and Professor Daniel Schrag, Co-Director, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program
Please join us for an open discussion over breakfast on the usage and potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and the legislative challenges that usage of such new technology entails. The minister will present the challenges that he is wrestling with in this field and afterwards open up the floor for discussion.
Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program Seminar Series
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Emerging Trends Series: Visions for a Clean Energy Economy
Wednesday, January 30
8:30 AM – 10:30 AM EST
Greenberg Traurig, One International Place, Suite 2000, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/emerging-trends-series-visions-for-a-clean-energy-economy-tickets-53818894763
Cost: $0 – $50
Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Trump Administration make it clear that action is needed now to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to climate change. To do so, increasing amounts of clean energy will be needed.
Speakers include:
Marcy Reed, President, MA and EVP US Policy & Social Impact, National Grid
Peter Rothstein, President, NECEC
Kevin Self, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Business Development and Government Relations, Schneider Electric
Dan Sosland, President, Acadia Center
Janet Gail Besser, Executive Vice President, NECEC (moderator)
Please join NECEC to kick off the new year by hearing from some of the region’s thought leaders about their visions of the future and the path to a clean energy economy.
By registering for and attending this event you agree to event-related photographs being taken on this specific event day by NECEC approved photographers being used in future NECEC-related printed, published and/or broadcasted material. NECEC may exercise any of these rights itself or through any successors, transferees, licensees, distributors or other parties, commercial or nonprofit.
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Impact of Memory Training on Brain Function
Wednesday, January 30
10:30am to 12:30pm
MIT, Building 46-3002, McGovern Institute, Singelton Auditorium, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Three speakers will discuss the impact of memory training on brain function from a variety of different perspectives. Martin Dresler is an assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands and further affiliated to the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich. He will speak about changes in functional connectivity that take place in the brains of memory experts and naive individuals who are in the process of learning to employ the techniques. Boris Konrad is the only individual to have been both a world memory record holder and a PhD in neuroscience. He will discuss experiments he has performed on the degree to which enhanced memory function transfers to other cognitive capacities. Finally, the man who arguably possesses the greatest long-term memory in the world, Jim Karol, will speak on some of his personal experiences in transforming his memory from the rudimentary to the phenomenal in the last 15 years of his life. Specific attention will be focused on his emphasis on long-term memory and how memory can be transformed into knowledge.
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Challenging Times in Higher Education: A Conversation with Lawrence S. Bacow
WHEN Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Online or at The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Kresge Building, The Leadership Studio (10th Floor), 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Voices in Leadership webcast program at Harvard T.H. School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) Lawrence S. Bacow, President of Harvard University
Michelle Williams, Dean of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eDxbDrVakC9delf
CONTACT INFO Alison Barron
abarron at hsph.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join us for the next Voices in Leadership event of the spring semester on Wed., Jan. 30 from 12-1 p.m., featuring Lawrence S. Bacow, President of Harvard University. One of higher education’s most widely experienced leaders, President Bacow is committed to supporting scholarship and research, encouraging civic engagement, and expanding opportunity for all. From 2001 to 2011, he was president of Tufts University, where he fostered collaboration and advanced the university’s commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and public service. Prior to Tufts, he spent 24 years on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he held the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professorship of Environmental Studies and served as Chair of the Faculty (1995-97) and as Chancellor (1998-2001). Michelle Williams, Dean of HSPH, will moderate. For lottery and live webcast details, visit hsph.me/Bacow.
LINK https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/voices/events/lawrence-s-bacow-president-of-harvard-university/
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Reading the Sphinx: Iconographies of Race, 1890s-1930s
WHEN Wednesday, Jan. 30, 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) Antonia Lant, Professor, Cinema Studies, New York University
COST Free and open to the public
DETAILS A Q&A will follow the colloquium.
LINK https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/event/colloquium-antonia-lant
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The State of the Union and Congressional Action On Climate in 2019
Wednesday, January 30
1:30 - 2:30 PM Eastern
Dial-in information will be provided immediately upon registration. If you have any questions, please contact Zach Amittay at zamittay at e2.org
President Trump will give his State of the Union (SOTU) address on January 29. Please join E2 for this webinar the following day, where we will be recapping the SOTU and analyzing its implications for E2’s clean energy, jobs and environmental priorities. We will also look at what is planned in Congress on our policy priorities and identify some of our federal policy plans for the coming months.
Speakers To Be Announced
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Batteryless Intermittent Computer Systems
Wednesday, January 30
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM **Refreshments at 2:45 pm
MIT, Building 32-D463 Star, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Brandon Lucia , Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract: The emergence of extremely low-power computing components and efficient energy-harvesting power systems has led to the creation of computer systems that operate using tiny amounts of energy scavenged from their environment. These devices create opportunities for systems where batteries and tethered power are inapplicable: sensors deeply embedded in pervasive civil infrastructure, in-body health monitors, and devices in extreme environments like glaciers, volcanoes, and space. The key challenge is that these devices operate only intermittently, as energy is available, requiring both hardware and software to tolerate power failures that may happen hundreds of times per second. This talk will describe the landscape of intermittent computing systems. I will briefly describe our newest programming and execution models that are robust to arbitrarily frequent power failures, providing a simple programming model and reliable intermittent operation. I will discuss our latest hardware platform, Capybara, which enables applications to dynamically provision energy to different parts of an application. I will close with a discussion of our recent work on intermittent deep neural network inference and a recent deployment of an intermittent computer system work to the International Space Station.
Bio: Brandon Lucia is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Lucia's lab's work spans programming languages, software and hardware computer systems, and computer architecture. Lucia and his research group are defining the
area of intermittent computing on energy-harvesting devices, and developing future edge computing systems that make near-sensor computing more efficient on Earth and in deployments to Earth's orbit. Lucia's work has been recognized with a number of awards, including several best papers, 3 IEEE MICRO Top Picks, a 2016 Google Faculty Award, and the 2015 Bell Labs Prize.
His lab's website is http://intermittent.systems and his personal website is at
https://brandonlucia.com.
Contact: Sally O. Lee, 3-6837, sally at csail.mit.edu
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It's Too Complicated: How the Internet Upends Katz, Smith, and Electronic Surveillance Law
Wednesday, January 30
3:30 pm to 5:00
BU, School of Law, 15th Floor Faculty Lounge, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Electronic surveillance law seeks to balance protecting the privacy of the people while enabling government's surveillance capabilities. In the U.S., legal frameworks governing surveillance have, for forty years, drawn a distinction between content and non-content components of communication. The non-content portion of a communication and those aspects of non-content being shared with a third party receive a lower degree of privacy protection than the content shared between two communicating parties. Such protections were developed in an era when public service telephony reigned. Today’s communications systems, particularly on the Internet, are far more complex.
In this Cyber Alliance talk, Tufts University Bridge Professor in Cyber Security and Policy Susan Landau will show how complexity collapses traditional content/non-content distinctions and disrupts application of the third party doctrine to such an extent that, in many circumstances, they have become too difficult for courts to construe and apply consistently. It's too complicated.
The implications of this in-depth technical analysis, worked on jointly with Steve Bellovin, Matt Blaze, and Stephanie Pell, are huge, overthrowing many aspects of surveillance law. Prof. Landau will also provide recommendations as to how new electronic surveillance law should be shaped.
There will be time for casual conversation and light refreshments before and after the presentation.
Please RSVP to tgabs at bu.edu
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The Price of Biodiesel RINs and Economic Fundamentals
Wednesday, January 30
4:15PM TO 5:30PM
Harvard, Littauer-382, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Scott Irwin, University of Illinois, Kristen McCormack, and James Stock, Harvard University
Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/30064
Contact Name: Casey Billings
casey_billings at hks.harvard.edu
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Moral Resistance: When Faith & Activism Meet in the Streets
WHEN Wednesday, Jan. 30, 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) Chaplain Khalil Abdur, Father J. Bryan Hehir, Brittany Packnett, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Reverend Cornell William Brooks (Moderator)
CONTACT INFO IOP Forum Office, 617-495-1380
DETAILS In this moment of generationally unprecedented activism, millions are engaged in moral resistance. Whether it be the Women’s Marches, March for Our Lives, Border demonstrations, Climate Marches or Black Lives Matter, religious activists are both sources of support and opposition. This JFK Jr. Forum explores some of the most recent policy, moral and organizational movement challenges of when faith and activism meet in the streets.
LINK https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/moral-resistance-when-faith-activism-meet-streets
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The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution
Wednesday, January 30
6:00 PM
Harvard Science Center, Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
The Harvard University Division of Science, Cabot Science Library, and Harvard Book Store welcome distinguished primatologist RICHARD WRANGHAM—Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University—for a discussion of his latest book, The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution.
About The Goodness Paradox
What during human evolution accounts for this paradox: we can be the nicest of species and also the nastiest? What are the two kinds of aggression that primates are prone to, and why did each evolve separately? How does the intensity of violence among humans compare with the aggressive behavior of other primates? How did humans "self-domesticate” themselves? And how were the acquisition of language and the practice of capital punishment determining factors in the rise of culture and civilization?
Authoritative, provocative and engaging, The Goodness Paradox offers a startlingly original theory of how, in the last 250 million years, humankind became an increasingly peaceful species in daily interactions, even as its capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains undiminished. In tracing the evolutionary histories of reactive and proactive aggression, biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham forcefully and persuasively argues for the necessity of social tolerance and the control of savage divisiveness still haunting us today.
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Future Fossil Exhibition Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 30
6:00 pm
Radcliffe, Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden Street, Cambridge
Clarissa Tossin, a Radcliffe fellow in 2017–2018, expands upon her fellowship project with a newly commissioned exhibition that considers the ecology of an uncertain future. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction trilogy Xenogenesis (1989), in which the Amazon becomes the site for a new civilization of alien-human hybrids, Tossin speculates upon a postapocalyptic world following ecological collapse. Pairing DIY plastic recycling techniques with the materials and practices of Amazonian aesthetic traditions, Tossin highlights the contemporary footprint left in the geological sedimentation of the earth. These new works consider indigenous knowledge in relationship to the environment, while they also resemble ruins of a world yet to come.
Exhibition organized by Meg Rotzel, Radcliffe Arts Program manager
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Land, Water & Climate Change in Cambridge
Wednesday, January 30
6:30 PM – 8 PM
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
The Boston region's wetlands, marshes, and streams have been largely filled in and are increasingly looked upon as prime sites for new development. But in areas like Alewife, East Cambridge, and throughout the Mystic River and Charles River watersheds, the water hasn't gone away and flooding will only get worse in the coming years. We also share an outdated sewer and storm water system that sends precious water resources to the ocean as waste and is ill-prepared for rising sea levels.
New approaches to infrastructure and the realities of climate change can restore and enrich our environment, generate income, and save our neighborhoods and communities. Bob Zimmerman formerly of the Charles River Watershed Association and Doug Brown of the Fresh Pond Residents Alliance will lead a discussion on not just ideas but action for a better tomorrow.
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The Future of Food
Wednesday, 30 January
6:30 – 8:30 pm EST
District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://generalassemb.ly/education/future-of-food/boston/67117
Kale Rogers, Co-Founder & COO, Spyce
Joe Blunda, CEO, Forager
About This Event
Our food system is rapidly changing and these innovators are staying ahead of the game.
Join us at General Assembly for lightning talks exploring the future of the food industry as it intersects with technology and changing consumer behaviors. We'll delve into the rising trends around food tech as it applies to on demand delivery, access to healthy meal plans, culinary media, food waste management, and consumer experiences. Hear straight from experts in the space to small business food entrepreneurs who are revolutionizing the industry in Boston.
About the Experts
Kale Rogers, Co-Founder & COO, Spyce
As COO, Kale is responsible for the restaurant experience as a whole - from shaping the in-store design to guiding the creative direction of Spyce’s brand. He handles location acquisition, legal and financial matters, and manages logistics of the build. Kale also supports the culinary, marketing, and engineering teams to ensure deadlines are being met.
Kale was first introduced to the world of culinary talent when he started watching Food Network with his mom. They began recreating recipes together, which is how Kale’s house became known as having the best dinner in town (and partially because he couldn’t stop telling everyone). After years of growing accustomed to this, Kale found himself extremely frustrated by MIT’s dining options. He couldn’t afford to eat meals that were as good as the ones at home, but he didn’t have time to cook, so he kept turning to fast food. When he heard Michael’s idea of a restaurant featuring a robotic kitchen, he realized this could be a perfect way to eat good food, all the time.
Raised in Newberg, Oregon, Kale has always been a jack of all trades. He is an outstanding athlete and teammate. A four time Academic All-American in Swimming and Water Polo, and the 2013 NCAA swimming champion, he was voted as MIT’s male athlete of the year with the highest quality of humility, inspiration, and leadership.
Joe Blunda, CEO, Forager
Joe Blunda has been in the food business since 2016, most recently joining local food pioneer Forager as CEO at the request of its founder, David Stone. As a boy, Joe sold native blueberries in Maine and has had a passion for local food ever since. Before coming to food, Joe was an aerospace and defense consultant for private equity firms. He earned his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin and completed his graduate business studies at Fletcher/Tufts University.
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Living with Robots
Wednesday, January 30
7 pm.
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Computers are learning to read our emotions and it is big business. Alexa will soon be servicing all our needs. But can we really trust the robots?
Join Judith Shulevitz, from the Atlantic Monthly and Maxim Pozdorovkin, film-maker of The Truth About Killer Robots as they discuss the future of robots
More information at https://www.cambridgeforum.org/?cat=3
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Brighton and Allston Through Time
Wednesday, January 30
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-local-author-and-historian-anthony-sammarco-tickets-53927922869
"Brighton and Allston Through Time” outlines a neighborhood of the city of Boston which was once known as Little Cambridge before it became an independent town from Cambridge in 1807. With contemporary photographs by Peter B. Kingman, Anthony M. Sammarco has created a fascinating book of 19th- and 20th-century images that chronicles the history and development over the last hundred years. Once renowned throughout New England for its cattle industry as well as its horticultural gardens, Brighton and Allston became a well-known town. With prosperity, an ever-increasing population and proximity to the city of Boston, Brighton and Allston was annexed to the city in 1874 and henceforth became known as Ward 25. Over the century that followed, the neighborhood saw new places of worship, public and parochial schools, and housing ranging from one-family and two-family houses which were quickly augmented by three deckers and the largescale building of apartment buildings. During the first three decades of the 20th century, Brighton and Allston saw its population double, from 27,000 residents in 1910 to 47,000 residents by 1925 and today, with a population of 75,000 people, Brighton and Allston has a rich and ever evolving history, with demographics which are constantly in flux.
About the Author:
ANTHONY SAMMARCO is a noted historian and author of over seventy books on the history and development of Boston, and he lectures widely on the history of his native city. His books Lost Boston, The History of Howard Johnson's: How A Massachusetts Soda Fountain Became a Roadside Icon, Christmas Traditions in Boston, and The Baker Chocolate Company: A Sweet History have been bestsellers.
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Outbreak: Fighting Disease in a Changing World
Wednesday, January 30
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Museum of Science, Science Park, Boston
RSVP at https://www.mos.org/public-events/outbreak-fighting-disease-in-a-changing-world
Some of the most infectious and harmful pathogens originate in wildlife, infect humans, and spread rapidly around the world. Viruses such as Ebola and influenza have caused outbreaks that killed thousands of people in the last five years alone. What would you do if an Ebola or influenza outbreak were unfolding in your community?
In this program, you'll hear from experts from Boston University's Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Learn about infectious diseases that affect millions of people all over the world, then work with other participants to explore strategies of outbreak response and prevention by considering lessons learned from diseases we've managed to eradicate.
Join us for a fun and interactive evening where you decide how your community handles these outbreaks.
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Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Signing with Rabbi Jonah Pesner & Rev. Cornell Brooks
Wednesday, January 30
7:20 PM – 8:00 PM EST
The Harvard Coop, 1400 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/signing-with-rabbi-jonah-pesner-rev-cornell-brooks-signing-following-the-jfk-jr-forum-event-tickets-55346980308
Signing - Level 1 (following the JFK Jr. Forum event)
Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice.
This foundational new book reminds us of our ancient obligation to bring justice to the world. The essays in this collection explore the spiritual underpinnings of our Jewish commitment to justice, using Jewish text and tradition, as well as contemporary sources and models. Among the topics covered are women's health, LGBTQ rights, healthcare, racial justice, speaking truth to power, and community organizing.
Contributors:
Rabbi Jonah Pesner Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Senior Vice President, Union for Reform Judaism
Reverend Cornell William Brooks Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice, and Director, William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice, Harvard Kennedy School 18th President & CEO, NAACP
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Thursday, January 31
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Annual Davos Debrief
WHEN Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Belfer Building, Bell Hall (Fifth Floor), 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at the Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief, Harvard Business Review
Jane Nelson, Director, Corporate Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Mark Wu
Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
CONTACT INFO mrcbg at hks.harvard.edu
DETAILS Commentary and takeaways from Harvard leaders who attended the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
LINK https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/news-events/event-calendar
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Designing biology for sustainability
Thursday, January 31
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Multi-purpose Room, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford
Kit McDonnell, Manager of Capital Markets and Special Projects, Ginkgo Bioworks
As the original circular economy, biology is the most sophisticated form of sustainable technology on the planet. Ginkgo Bioworks is tapping into this inherent trait to create new modes of production, recycling, and remediation. From engineering plant probiotics for improved agricultural practices to resurrecting the fragrance of extinct flowers to building and breaking down plastics, Ginkgo is using biotech to improve the value chains of consumer markets.
Kit McDonnell (A16) operates at the intersection of design, tech, and sustainability. At Ginkgo Bioworks she specializes in futures-driven business development with consumer brands— how might we wear, eat, drive, and interact with new forms of biology—as well as corporate strategy, branding, and compelling organism design. As an advocate for a future that is grown, she’s spoken and led workshops on the subject of biodesign at Harvard University, MIT, the Japanese Business Federation Keidanren, Rhode Island School of Design, and Brown University, among other places, and exhibited at HUBweek in collaboration with the design agency Faber Futures.
At Tufts, Kit studied Biology, launched the Tufts Venture Lab, and founded TEDxTufts, among other ideation-minded initiatives. Between Tufts and the Field Museum of Natural History, she’s conducted research on myriad organisms. From Costa Rican ant metagenomics, cheese microbiomes, and malaria in Neotropical birds to pu-erh tea polyphenolics, hermit crab behavior, and Malawian mammal phylogenentics. She caughtthe biodesign bug while studying abroad at the University of Hong Kong and hasn’t looked back since.
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Climate Actions: Transformative Mechanisms for Social Mobilisation
Thursday, January 31
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
BU, The Pardee Center, 67 Bay State Road, Boston
Laurence Delina, a post-doctoral associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, will discuss his recent book, Climate Actions: Transformative Mechanisms for Social Mobilisation, at a seminar on Thursday, January 31 from 12:00 to 1:30 pm at the Pardee Center, 67 Bay State Road (Lunch will be available beginning at 11:30 am).The book, published by Palgrave Macmillan, gives an overview of global climate change action and explores ways to mobilize groups and individuals to become more successful activists. By synthesizing insights from a series of international surveys, Delina introduces a novel set of mechanisms to strengthen the climate action movement’s campaigns, tactics, and strategies. His recommended mechanisms are designed around five major themes: enhancing relationships, developing value-based messaging, presenting alternatives, establishing networks, and increasing public communication.
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The Nexus between Internationalism and Localism in Civil Conflict: Insurgents' Policy toward Humanitarian Access
WHEN Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, 12:15 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, One Brattle Square (Room 350). Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR International Security Program
SPEAKER(S) Ayako Kobayashi, Research Fellow, International Security Program
CONTACT INFO susan_lynch at harvard.edu
DETAILS Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come, first served basis.
LINK https://www.belfercenter.org/event/nexus-between-internationalism-and-localism-civil-conflict-insurgents-policy-toward
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Environment Matters: Neuro-Immune Interactions in Development and Implications for Lifelong Health
Thursday, January 31
1:00PM TO 2:00PM
Harvard School of Public Health, Building 1-1302, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston
HSPH NIEHS Center for Environmental Health presents Staci Bilbo, Associate Professor of Pediatrics & Program in Neuroscience, who will give a talk as part of the Re-Envisioning the Environment Colloquium Speaker Series.
Dr. Staci Bilbo is the Director of Research for the Lurie Center for Autism at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. She received her Ph.D. in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 2003, and continued her training with a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She directed the Developmental Neuroimmunology Laboratory in the Department of Neuroscience at Duke University from 2007-2016, until joining the faculty at HMS in 2016. Her research is broadly focused on the mechanisms by which the immune and endocrine systems interact with the brain to impact health and behavior. Current research in her laboratory focuses on understanding the consequences of early life events, including infection, stress, environmental toxins, and maternal obesity on neural and immune system development.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/niehs/event/niehs-center-speaker-series/
Contact Name: Monica Russell
mjrussell at hsph.harvard.edu
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The Massachusetts Food is Medicine State Plan GIS Methodology: Mapping the need for and access to interventions across the Commonwealth
Thursday, January 31
1:00-2:30PM EST
Webinar
RSVP at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2812482970174931713?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=d5071c9d-611c-43a8-b949-86d2b1749635
Join us as we explore the geospatial methodologies behind the Massachusetts Food is Medicine State Plan maps. This webinar will review the datasets used and the decisions that were made throughout our mapping process. After walking listeners through the creation of the Food is Medicine Priority Level map that considers town-level food insecurity, chronic disease burden, and vehicle access rates, we will discuss the spectrum of Food is Medicine interventions that currently exist throughout the state.
We welcome stakeholders from Massachusetts and beyond to seize this opportunity to learn more about the role of GIS within the groundbreaking Massachusetts Food is Medicine State Plan. There will be ample opportunity for discussion and questions.
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Transportation Connect 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019
3:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Venture Café Cambridge @ Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), 5th Floor, 1 Broadway 5th Floor, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Venture-Cafe-Cambridge-Meetup/events/257457716/
Join us for Transportation Connect at Venture Café Cambridge to hear more about The Future of Transportation. The evening will feature three talks on the latest business, technology, and regulatory developments in the movement of people and goods.
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Bridging the Bi-Partisan Divide: A Hands-On Workshop Towards Depolarization
Thursday, January 31
5:00 - 8:30P
MIT, Building 66-160, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
RSVP: https://goo.gl/forms/VRfFojzIrnCs8H6M2
Both research and personal experience show that polarization is increasing in the United States. This has real implications for all of us.
The great challenge is to encourage people to move from passive, accepting actors to being catalysts towards a constructive, mediated dialogue model. We think it requires a lot of people working within their communities to address this reality and work to strengthen connectors between and across communities.
This IAP, we invite you to join us for a hands-on workshop on depolarization, where together we will learn and explore:
How are our relationships and interactions are changing in the current political environment, online and offline?
Are Facebook and Twitter driving us further apart from those with whom we disagree? (includes short presentation)
What language and actions can we use to create more civil and egalitarian conversations online and offline?
This is a three-part evening. You can join for all of it or choose the part to join.
5:00 - 6:30: Introduction & Training
6:30 - 7:00: Dinner
7:00 - 8:30: DIY: Apply what you learn to engage your community
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Beloved Streets: Race & Justice in America — A Community Conversation
WHEN Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Smith Campus Center, Harvard Commons Room, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School; Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Office of Student Affairs; Prison Studies Project; Transformative Justice Program
COST Free
DETAILS How might we seek to address the degradation of the communities surrounding the streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? What is necessary to create and sustain a positive environment for growth? This community conversation will consist of students and practitioners within the Harvard community as well as leaders and activists from across the United States.
This event is the culmination of a winter-term course at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, also called "Beloved Streets: Race and Justice in America.”
LINK https://charleshamiltonhouston.org/events/beloved-streets-community-conversation/
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Martin Luther King Now: Toward a Public Philosophy of Justice, Democracy, and Peace for the 21st Century
Thursday, January 31
6:00pm to 7:00pm Reception to follow
Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon Street, Boston
Registration is required at https://www.bostonathenaeum.org/events/6168/martin-luther-king-now-toward-public-philosophy-justice-democracy-and-peace-21st-century
Cost: Members $10 and Non-members $15
Brandon M. Terry
Join us for a lecture on one of our nation’s most prominent and important figures. Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies Brandon M. Terry will explore the ethical and political thought of arguably the greatest public intellectual and activist that the United States ever produced, Martin Luther King, Jr. In interrogating King’s body of public philosophy, as well as its leading critics and interpreters, Terry argues we can find indispensable conceptual and philosophical resources to navigate many of our current political crises and confusions.
Brandon M. Terry is an Assistant Professor at Harvard as well as the editor, with Tommie Shelby, of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fifty Years Since MLK. He is currently completing a book entitled The Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement: Political Theory and the Historical Imagination that interrogates, with philosophy of history, literary theory, and political philosophy, the ethical and political significance of the different ways we imagine African American history. Terry earned a PhD with distinction in political science and African American studies from Yale University, an MSc in political theory research as a Michael von Clemm Fellow at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, and an AB, magna cum laude, in government and African and African American studies from Harvard College. He has published work in Boston Review, Dissent, The Point, New Labor Forum, Du Bois Review, Huffington Post, and Perspectives on Politics. An active contributor to public debate, Brandon has also provided commentary for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, NPR, Time, the Associated Press, The Nation, and other national and international publications.
This event is the first program in the three-part “Undermining Racism” series, which presents thoughtful examinations of people who found ways to navigate, undermine, and change a system designed to limit African Americans’ rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Join us on February 7 for a screening of the documentary Fair Game: Surviving a 1960 Georgia Lynching and a discussion with filmmaker Clennon King and on March 7 for a preview of and discussion on Steeplechase Film’s documentary Driving While Black: African Americans on the Road in the Era of Jim Crow with Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, the film’s senior historical advisor.
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ADL's Breaking Barriers Speaker Series presents: A Conversation with Carmen Ortiz
Thursday, January 31
6pm
CIC Boston, 50 Milk Street, 20th Floor, Boston
RSVP at https://support.adl.org/event/adls-breaking-barriers-speaker-series/e213283
Tickets $25
In 2009, Carmen Ortiz became both the first woman and the first Hispanic to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts where she led many high profile prosecutions including cases against the Boston Marathon bomber and mobster Whitey Bulger.
Carmen has broken down barriers throughout her career and has been a champion of civil rights, working with various community groups to protect Massachusetts residents' rights, and implementing the District's first Civil Rights Unit. Join us on January 31st to hear Carmen's inspiring story.
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More than Linkedin Connections: Building Social Capital to Reach Your Goals
Thursday, January 31
6:30 – 8:30 pm EST
GA Boston, 125 Summer Street 13th Floor, Boston
RSVP at https://generalassemb.ly/education/more-than-linkedin-connections-building-social-capital-to-reach-your-goals/boston/67118
Introduction
Networking is more than handing out business cards at events. Cultivating strong and lasting relationships is so valuable. We are coming together to discuss how to build and leverage that social capital to grow in your career.
Why it Matters
Reputation is everything in business. Connecting and helping others within your network creates good will amongst your community, helps to build a positive reputation for you and/or your business, and helps you make smarter connections.
What You'll Take Away
Understand how your network can help you grow in your career and learn from those in Boston experienced in creating and driving social capital about some of the easiest and most impactful ways you can build your own reputation in business.
By signing up for this event, you're giving our sponsors permission to contact you about upcoming events and promotions.
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The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty
Thursday, January 31
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Karen Dillon & Efosa Ojomo
Clayton M. Christensen, the author of such business classics as The Innovator’s Dilemma and the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life, and co-authors Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon reveal why so many investments in economic development fail to generate sustainable prosperity, and offers a groundbreaking solution for true and lasting change.
Efosa Ojomo works side-by-side with Christensen and the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, where he leads the organization’s Global Prosperity Practice. His work has been published in the Harvard Business Review, the Guardian, Quartz, CNBCAfrica, and the Emerging Markets Business Review.
Karen Dillon is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life? She is a graduate of Cornell University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. In 2011 she was named by Ashoka as one of the world’s most influential and inspiring women.
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Friday, February 1 - Sunday, February 10
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The Power of Community Summit is an entirely free, online experience organized with the goal of catalyzing community, exploring the leading edge of the regenerative future movement and increasing our collective consciousness in a climate-changing world. It will take place February 1-10, 2019 and will feature three conversations per day shared and discussed worldwide on multiple platforms. To see the full list of speakers and to see which interviews are live at any given time, visit http://summit.ecovillage.org
The Power of Community Summit is the very first ever organized by the Global Ecovillage Network, in partnership with Pioneers for Change, an organization with proven success on past summits. The theme of the event is also in coordination with the upcoming Climate Change and Consciousness Conference 2019 to be held at Findhorn in April 2019. For more on CCC19, visit https://ccc19.org
The Power of Community Online Summit aims to turn our conscious and compassionate attention towards a climate-changing world and inspire individual and community-led action for a regenerative future.
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Friday, February 1
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Mapping Neighborhood Change in Greater Boston: A Webinar & Training Session for Our New Interactive Mapping Tool
Friday, February 1
12:15 – 2:00 pm
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 1 Bow Street, Suite 400, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mapping-neighborhood-change-in-greater-boston-a-training-session-for-our-new-interactive-mapping-tickets-55035270977
Daniel McCue, Senior Research Analyst, Joint Center for Housing Studies
Alexander Hermann, Research Analyst, Joint Center for Housing Studies
This two-part event will begin with a webinar on the Boston Neighborhood Change Interactive Map, a new tool, developed by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, that allows users to visualize a variety of demographic, social, and economic changes in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area between 1990 and 2016. After the webinar, those attending the event in person are welcome to stay for a hands-on training session in how to use the new tool, which uses census-tract level data from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses as well as the 2010 and 2016 American Community Surveys and which was funded, in part, by The Boston Foundation.
Pre-registration is required.
Note: there is limited space for this event. We may change the location of the event if demand is high. We will email updates to all registrants as necessary.
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Voyager 2 in the Interstellar Medium, Finally!
Friday, February 1
1:30pm to 2:30pm
MIT, Building 6-120, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
John Belcher - Professor of Physics
Abstract: Voyager 2 crossed into the interstellar medium (ISM) in November 2018. I discuss current conditions in the ISM as measured on Voyager 2.
IAP 2019 Physics Lecture Series
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America, Compromised
Friday, February 1
3:00pm to 4:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
In collaboration with the Harvard Book Store, we are thrilled to welcome former Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and Harvard Law School professor LAWRENCE LESSIG—author of The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace—for a discussion of his latest book, America, Compromised.
About America, Compromised
“There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are.”
So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of contemporary American institutions and the corruption that besets them. We can all see it—from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. Something is wrong. It’s getting worse.
And it’s our fault. What Lessig shows, brilliantly and persuasively, is that we can’t blame the problems of contemporary American life on bad people, as our discourse all too often tends to do. Rather, he explains, “We have allowed core institutions of America’s economic, social, and political life to become corrupted. Not by evil souls, but by good souls. Not through crime, but through compromise.” Every one of us, every day, making the modest compromises that seem necessary to keep moving along, is contributing to the rot at the core of American civic life. Through case studies of Congress, finance, the academy, the media, and the law, Lessig shows how institutions are drawn away from higher purposes and toward money, power, quick rewards—the first steps to corruption.
Lessig knows that a charge so broad should not be levied lightly, and that our instinct will be to resist it. So he brings copious, damning detail gleaned from years of research, building a case that is all but incontrovertible: America is on the wrong path. If we don’t acknowledge our own part in that and act now to change it, we will hand our children a less perfect union than we were given. It will be a long struggle. This book represents the first steps.
The “Ethics in Your World” series features leading thinkers taking on tough problems that matter to us all and is part of the Harvard Book Store's Friday Forum.
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Combating Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs across Diverse Habitats
WHEN Friday, February 1, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Health Sciences, Lecture, Research study, Science, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Gautam Dantas, Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Biomedical Engineering, and Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine
COST Free
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS Disease-causing bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to all available antibiotics, causing approximately 700,000 annual deaths globally and costing the U.S. economy $55 billion each year.
In this lecture, Gautam Dantas will discuss how new genomic and computational technologies are enabling a deeper understanding of how antibiotics affect diverse microbiomes, including the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance across diverse habitats. These insights enable the design of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for maintaining healthy microbiomes and preventing and treating future infections. Register online.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2019-gautam-dantas-lecture
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Digital Reinvention - Geraldo Cavagnari
Friday, February 1
4:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Hult International Business School, 1 Education Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-reinvention-geraldo-cavagnari-tickets-54940873632
How companies are rethinking their business strategies
What is driving the digital transformation wave?
Strategy implications
Culture and people
Career opportunities
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The Need for a Spiritual Vision in the Age of Crisis
Friday, February 1
6:00 PM – 7:15 PM EST
MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-need-for-a-spiritual-vision-in-the-age-of-crisis-tickets-55341620276
This talk will explain the role of spiritual vision in handling challenges both on the individual and global fronts. It will also highlight how having a spiritual outlook towards the world can bring peace and harmony in the entire world. Importantly, join us to learn practical techniques in developing spiritual perspective which can transform one's day to day life.
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Downhill from Here: Retirement Insecurity in the Age of Inequality
Friday, February 1
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning writer and sociologist KATHERINE S. NEWMAN—author of No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City—for a discussion of her latest book, Downhill from Here: Retirement Insecurity in the Age of Inequality.
About Downhill from Here
As millions of Baby Boomers reach their golden years, the state of retirement in America is little short of a disaster. Nearly half the households with people aged fifty-five and older have no retirement savings at all. The real estate crash wiped out much of the home equity that millions were counting on to support their retirement. And the typical Social Security check covers less than 40% of pre-retirement wages―a number projected to drop to under 28% within two decades. Old-age poverty, a problem we thought was solved by the New Deal, is poised for a resurgence.
With dramatic statistics and vivid portraits, acclaimed sociologist Katherine S. Newman shows that the American retirement crisis touches us all, cutting across class lines and generational divides. White-collar managers have seen retirement benefits vanish; Teamsters have had their pensions cut in half; bankrupt cities like Detroit have walked away from their commitments to municipal workers. And for Generation X, the prospects are even worse: a fifth of them expect to never be able to retire. Only the vaunted “one percent” can face retirement without fear.
Other countries are confronting similar demographic challenges, yet they have not abandoned their social contract with seniors. Downhill From Here makes it clear that America, too, can―and must―do better.
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American Dharma
WHEN Friday, February 1, 7 – 8:35 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Film Archive
COST $12 - Special Event Admission
CONTACT INFO bgravely at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS The Harvard Film Archive is happy to welcome back documentary legend Errol Morris with a screening of his provocative new film "American Dharma" followed by a conversation with Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
"Steve Bannon asked me why I wanted to make American Dharma. I told him I didn’t understand him or why he was doing what he was doing. But I thought if making a film could help me, and others, understand any of this, then it would be a good thing."
LINK https://library.harvard.edu/film/films/2018decfeb/american.html
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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Friday February 1
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Steven Pinker
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise - not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
Steven Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of many awards for his research, teaching, and books, he has been named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World Today and Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers
eeking non-techies to attend for discussions. This event will not be a tech rant or people speaking above our heads and it will be run by us! The discussion will be moderated by Alfredo Lopez and Rajesh Kasturirangan
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Saturday, February 2
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The Politics of Cooperation and Co-ops: discussions about building a cooperative future
Saturday, February 2
10AM - Noon
Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge
For more information, contact pledgetofuture at hotmail.com
Note: the Democracy Center is partially wheelchair accessible with no wheelchair .bathroom on site.
Also contact contact pledgetofuture at hotmail.com
for a discussion group on "Cooperation, Community and Co-ops in a Global Era* by Carl Ratner:
[publisher's comments] Carl Ratner "demonstrates how cooperative principles can make a social system not just more efficient and less wasteful of time and resources, but also more democratic, empowering, and fulfilling for everyone involved. . . .Social scientists, co-op members, policy makers, social philosophers, mediators, community builders, social reformers, and all those concerned with a viable solution to contemporary crises will find Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era stimulating and informative."
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Technology and Revolution
Saturday, February 2
1:00 - 4 p.m.,
encuentro5, 9A Hamilton Place, Boston
/encuentro5/ (e5), /DigBoston, / UjimaBoston and Agaric Cooperative/ invite your participation in an important discussion on Technology and Revolution.
The event is part of a series of discussions being held nationwide and coordinated by May First/People Link and the Center for Media Justice—leading up to an international convergence in Mexico City later this year.
Notable participants include: Alfredo Lopez, author, Puerto Rican independista, and co-director of May First/People Link; and Rajesh Kasturirangan, mathematician, cognitive scientist, and professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in India.
Over the last few decades, technological advances have not only radically changed methods of human communication but have also started to change humanity itself in ways that grassroots organizations on the political left have been slow to address. To the extent we have done so, it has been mostly to advocate for disenfranchised communities’ access to computers and broadband internet service.
But we have largely failed to grapple with issues beyond the rise of the internet and huge corporate social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And we’ve barely scratched the surface of those key changes, let alone put much thought into analyzing the effects of newer technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence, big data, and
genetic engineering on our communities. This is all the more alarming because rapid technological has aggravated the inequalities about which the left has traditionally cared.
Nonetheless, social-change movements continuously emerge, often in unexpected spaces, but especially in artistic and youth spaces or from insurgent social movements of the oppressed and exploited. They create campaigns to challenge potentially negative technological developments and propose more helpful community-centered technologies in their place.
In the interest of promoting these movements and their just agendas, this gathering will convene organizers for an afternoon of sharing and thinking together. We will be sharing information and analyses about these topics in short, plain-spoken, manageable conversations. Our thinking together will be strategic, asking and answering straightforward questions:
What are the most urgent and important challenges connected with
technology?
What are the key areas for intervention?
Who are our allies?
What are our resources?
Before we can talk about joint and/or coordinated campaigns and targeting, what do we need?
More information from MayFirst People Link: http://techandrev.org
Please let us know if your organization will be able to attend -
Questions? Please contact me here: micky at agaric.com
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Monday, February 4
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Equity and Social Justice: Precision Medicine
WHEN Monday, Feb. 4, 2019, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Medical School, Countway Library, Minot Room (5th Floor), 10 Shattuck Street, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Health Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR HMS Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership;
co-sponsored by: Personal Genetics Education Project; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; The Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard University
SPEAKER(S) Keynote presentation:
Vence L. Bonham Jr., JD, Senior Advisor to the Director on Genomics and Health Disparities
National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health
Panel discussion:
Marnie Gelbart, Ph.D., Director of Programs, Personal Genetics Education Project
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
Jonathon Jackson, Ph.D., Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Director, CARE Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital
Paul Underwood, MD, Medical Director, Clinical Interventional Cardiology, Boston Scientific
Moderator:
Latrice Landry, Ph.D., Genomic Medicine Fellow, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ESJ_2-4-19
CONTACT INFO Jackie Wright
jackie_wright at hms.harvard.edu
617-432-2645
DETAILS The goal of this session is to foster a dialogue on health equity, health disparities, and health policy issues related to involving diverse communities in genetic innovations in medicine.
LINK https://mfdp.med.harvard.edu/node/1506
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Symposium: Reinventing Cancer Prevention and Early Detection for the 21st Century - World Cancer Day
Monday, February 4
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Harvard, Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston
RSVP at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9tnvRD2zw8POgL3
Kindly RSVP by January 28, 2019
The new Zhu Family Center for Global Cancer Prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to prevention education and research across the cancer continuum. The Center focuses on primary prevention (including lifestyle and behavior modifications), secondary prevention (including screening and early detection), and tertiary prevention (including cancer survivorship and disease monitoring).
Our mission is to support groundbreaking research that develops and implements novel methods, technologies, and tools to further the translation of this work into clinical and public health practice. By forming cross- collaborative partnerships among researchers, physicians, thought leaders, pharma, academic collaborators, philanthropists, technology companies, and innovators, we strive to accelerate progress within the field and optimize the pathways of care.
The Zhu Family Center for Global Cancer Prevention supports the training of next-generation prevention and early-detection researchers, the recruitment of top talent in the field, and the education of policymakers, public health organizations, and health care providers to ensure that interventions are cost- effective and implementable within existing health systems. We are motivated by the belief that all populations worldwide should benefit from state-of-the-art cancer-prevention strategies.
For questions, please email the Center for Global Cancer Prevention.
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Blockchain Technology in the Education/Social Sectors
WHEN Monday, Feb. 4, 2019, 10 – 11 a.m.
WHERE Harvard, HGSE Gutman Conference Center (Area 1), 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Information Technology, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR HGSE Emerging Tech Club
SPEAKER(S) Iliana Oris Valiente, Managing Director - Emerging Tech, Blockchain Innovation Lead, Accenture
COST Free
CONTACT INFO harvardeto at gmail.com
DETAILS Join us for refreshments and a presentation by Iliana Oris Valiente, Accenture's Blockchain Innovation Lead and Managing Director of Emerging Tech, on blockchain technology in the education and social sectors.
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Shifting the Story: Narrative Change in the Time of Trump
Monday, February 4
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Northeastern University School of Law, 416 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Winter 2019 Daynard Visiting Fellow: Dimple Abichandandi '02, Executive Director, General Service Foundation
In her community lecture, Dimple will discuss the role of narrative in our quest for justice and will share case studies of successful narrative change efforts. She will explore the intersection of law and narrative, how lawyers are using narrative change approaches and make recommendations for how lawyers can think about narrative in their practices.
Dimple Abichandani is the executive director of the General Service Foundation (GSF), a private foundation that supports organizations advocating for racial and gender justice. Dimple joined General Service Foundation in 2015, bringing almost two decades of experience advancing social justice as a lawyer, funder and educator.
Prior to joining GSF, Dimple was the executive director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Center, Dimple launched a social justice innovation lab aimed at generating new long-term approaches to persistent social justice challenges and providing law students opportunities to develop skills and mindsets including creativity, empathy, collaboration and social justice problem-solving.
As the founding program officer of the Security and Rights Collaborative (SRC) at the Proteus Fund, Dimple managed a donor collaborative aimed at challenging post-9/11 Islamophobia and discrimination and restoring civil rights and liberties. Earlier in her career, Dimple worked at Legal Services NYC, first as a staff attorney where she represented low wage workers and later as the Director of Program Development.
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Strangers in the night: Will light pollution lead to firefly declines?
Monday, February 4
12:10p
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill, 1300 Centre Street, Roslindale
Avalon Owens, PhD Student, Tufts University
Cunin/Sigal Award Recipient
Editorial Comment:
I want
lightning bugs
back.
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Crypto: A Look at the Current State of the Controversy
Monday, February 4
12:15pm - 1:30pm
Harvard, 1 Brattle Square - Suite 470, Cambridge
Join the Cybersecurity Project for a lunch talk on "Crypto: A Look at the Current State of the Controversy" with Professor Susan Landau, Bridge Professor of Cyber Security and Policy in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science, Tufts University.
Lunch will be served on a first come, first served basis.
Cyber Security Project Events Series
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2019 John T. Dunlop Memorial Forum feat. Congressman Joe Kennedy III
WHEN Monday, Feb. 4, 2019, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall (Room 2019), Milstein West A, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Law School Labor & Worklife Program and Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Congressman Joe Kennedy III
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cong-joe-kennedy-iii-building-a-moral-capitalism-tickets-54557515999
CONTACT INFO info at ash.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join us and the Harvard Law School Labor & Worklife Program for the 2019 John T. Dunlop Forum featuring Congressman Joe Kennedy III. Congressman Kennedy will discuss his recent call for “moral capitalism” and outline how he believes a new Congress can recalibrate our country’s economy back toward American workers.
LINK https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cong-joe-kennedy-iii-building-a-moral-capitalism-tickets-54557515999
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Twins in Space
Monday, February 4
5:00 pm
Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2019-brinda-rana-lecture
The Undiscovered Lecture Series
Spaceflight poses unusual stressors to the human body. Microgravity, confined spaces, radiation exposure, and restricted diets are among the challenges faced by astronauts. To ensure that astronauts can perform under these daunting conditions, NASA investigators have been studying the effect of long-duration spaceflight on crew members.
One such investigation is the NASA Twins Study, which is an integrated, multi-omic, molecular, physiological, and cognitive portrait of a pair of identical twin astronauts—one who spent a year in space while his co-twin stayed on Earth to provide ground-control measures. In this talk, Brinda Rana will present the findings of the NASA Twins Study and discuss additional findings from our simulated microgravity studies.
Please register and join us.
Free and open to the public.
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Reception for “Saints of Star Wars” Exhibit
Monday, February 4
5 – 6:30pm
Harvard, Center for the Study of World Religions, CSWR Conference Room, 42 Francis Ave.nue, Cambridge
This series of Star Wars characters cast in the guise of Byzantine saint icons is a playful parody of the worship and adoration that fans give to these beloved figures. The paintings in this series draw on many of the typical features of Byzantine iconography, including the subjects’ hand gestures and postures, draped clothing with angular folds in high contrast, and stylized portraits with large eyes, elongated faces, and distinct outlines. Jabba the Hutt’s Last Supper, diverging somewhat from this pattern, blends a more realistic style in portraying the figures (in accordance with da Vinci’s masterpiece) with the gold background and Greek character labeling deployed in the rest of the series.
Alex Ramos is a self-taught artist working in acrylic paints on canvas. In addition to his popular Icons of Science Fiction series, he paints landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes so realistic and detailed that they are often mistaken for photographs. Alex is an alumnus of Harvard Divinity School and earned a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and he currently resides in central Pennsylvania.
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There will be Blood: The Genetics of Blood Production in Health and Disease
Monday, February 4
6:30pm
Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler Street, Somerville
ViJay Sankaran
More information at http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/science-by-the-pint/
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Is A.I Laughing at Us? A Conversation with David Weinberger, Jessica Fjeld, and Nikhil Dharmaraj on Ethics and Governance of AI
Monday, February 4
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM ET
Cambridge Public Library Lecture Hall, Main Branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Join a spirited and accessible discussion of artificial intelligence and art, how humor and creativity interrelate, and the successes and the shortcomings of new Al technologies, featuring poet and lawyer Jessica Fjeld, author and thinker David Weinberger, and metaLAB research assistant (and incoming Harvard student) Nikhil Dharmaraj. Inspired by Cambridge Public Library's recent exhibition, The Laughing Room by Jonny Sun and Hannah Davis, in which visitors found themselves on a sitcom set where the laughter was controlled by an Al.
Presented as part of Horizons: Exploring Breakthroughs in Science & Technology and Their Impact on Society, a lecture series of the the STEAM Initiative at Cambridge Public Library Cosponsored by metaLAB (at) Harvard and the ARTificial Intelligence group at MIT.
Jessica Fjeld is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. and the Assistant Director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Recently, she has emphasized work with Al-generated art. the overlap of existing rights and ethics frameworks on emerging technologies. and legal issues confronted by digital archives. She holds a JD from Columbia Law School and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts.
Author and thinker David Weinberger explores the effect of technology on ideas. He is a senior researcher at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and is serving a stint as a writer-in-residence at Google's People + Al Resesarch group He was co-director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. a journalism fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center. and a Franklin Fellow at the US. State Department. He has PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, and has worked as a humor writer. His next book, Everyday Chaos (Fall 2019). argues that Al and the Internet are transforming our understanding of how things happen, enabling us to acknowledge the complexity and unknowability of our world.
Nikhil Dharmaraj is fascinated by the intersection of technology and the humanities. As an intern at Harvard's metaLAB, Nikhil worked with artists Jonny Sun and Hannah Davis on The Laughing Room. A senior at The Harker School in San Jose, California, he will enter Harvard College as a member of the Class of 2023.
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The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century (Paperback)
Monday, February 4
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
The Beiging of America: Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century takes on "race matters" and considers them through the firsthand accounts of mixed race people in the United States. Edited by mixed-race scholars Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts, this collection consists of 39 poets, writers, teachers, professors, artists and activists, whose personal narratives articulate the complexities of interracial life.
The Beiging of America was prompted by cultural critic/scholar Hua Hsu, who contemplated the changing face and race of U.S. demographics in his 2009 The Atlantic article provocatively titled "The End of White America." In it, Hsu acknowledged "steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage" that undergirded assertions about the "beiging of America."
The Beiging of America is an absorbing and thought-provoking collection of stories that explore racial identity, alienation, with people often forced to choose between races and cultures in their search for self-identity. While underscoring the complexity of the mixed-race experience, these unadorned voices offer a genuine, poignant, enlightening and empowering message to all readers.
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The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation
Monday, February 4
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center NARAYAN HELEN LIEBENSON for a discussion of her debut book, The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation.
About The Magnanimous Heart
In her long-awaited debut, a beloved master teacher shows us how to move from the “constant squeeze” of suffering to a direct experience of enoughness.
The magnanimous heart is a heart of balance and buoyancy, of generosity and inclusivity. It allows us to approach each moment exactly as it is, in a fresh and alive way free from agendas and “shoulds,” receiving all that arises. It has the capacity to hold anything and everything, transforming even vulnerability and grief into workable assets.
In writing evocative of Pema Chödrön’s, Narayan Helen Liebenson teaches us exactly how it is possible to turn the sting and anguish of loss into a path of liberation—the deep joy, peace, and happiness within our own hearts that exists beyond mere circumstances. The Magnanimous Heart shows us how to skillfully respond to painful human emotions through the art of meditative inquiry, or questioning wisely. Readers will learn how to live from a compassionate love that guides our lives and warms whatever it shines upon. With metta and compassion as companions and allies, we discover how our own magnanimous hearts can gently allow the inner knots to untie themselves.
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Reimagining The Microbial World
Monday, February 4
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
Venture Cafe Kendall, I Broadway, 5th floor, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reimagining-the-microbial-world-tickets-53211566227
Cost: $15 in advance // $20 at the door. Students w/ID admitted free.
Doors open @ 6pm -- Come early and meet other Long Now thinkers -- Presentation starts @ 7pm
A Long Now Boston Community Conversation with Roberto Kolter Director, Kolter lab for Microbiology and Scott Chimileski Microbiologist, Science Photographer and Author
Sometimes what you can't see is best. When you can see it, it's even better!
In the past several decades, surprising scientific discoveries have revealed complex and sophisticated interdependencies between the macro world of human, plant and animal bodies and the invisible microbial world. We are the beneficiaries of billions of years of microbial evolution that encoded biological solutions to environmental challenges in our own genes. But we also receive direct functional benefits from the living microbial communities that comprise the bulk of our own bodily ecosystem.
Microbes have an enormous and overwhelmingly positive impact on our lives. Our bodies are the bedrock for many unique microbial communities that help keep us healthy. Microbes produce many of our favorite foods, our most valuable medicines and most of the oxygen we breathe. They are the foundation of the global ecosystem. A few can make us sick. Yet microbes do not work alone – they form complex microbial communities whose collective behaviors drive Earth’s biogeochemical cycles as well as the microbiotic ecosystems supporting all life on Earth, including our own.
Scott Chimileski’s photography provides a unique and compelling imagery of the microbial world. While individual microbes are generally invisible to the naked eye, the microbial colonies they create are not. Microbial communities show us how cells self-organize and how multi-cellularity and social behaviors evolve. The shapes, structures, colors and behaviors of these colonies offer a dazzling display of life at work in our macro world. The complex and beautiful structures also exhibit the same emergent properties as human cities and galactic clusters, providing evidence of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
Join the conversation and be part of the solution.
Audience participation is encouraged.
Roberto Kolter is the Director of the Kolter Lab for Microbiology at the Harvard Medical School. More than 120 individuals have trained in his laboratory during his 35-year tenure, most of whom followed careers in science in both academic and industry settings. Research in the Kolter Lab has always gravitated around the study of microbes and the exploration of a large number of different subjects ranging from basic bacterial physiology to bioactive compound discovery. Roberto is an author, Professor Emeritus of microbiology at Harvard Medical School and past president of the American Society for Microbiology. Robert joined Harvard Medical School in 1983 and has been Co-director of Harvard's university-wide Microbial Sciences Initiative since 2003. In 2016, Kolter became co-blogger (with Moselio Schaechter) of the popular microbiology blog, Small Things Considered.
Scott Chimileski, is a photographer and microbiologist serving as a Research Fellow at the Kolter Lab for Microbiology and Immunology at the Harvard Medical School. His work is currently being featured at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in the Exhibit on Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight. Scott also coauthored, with Professor Roberto Kolter, Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World (September 2017). Scott’s images have been published by WIRED, TIME, The Atlantic, STAT, The Scientist, NPR, Natural History Magazine, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, Fast Company, and many other outlets. He received a Passion in Science Award from New England Biolabs in 2016 and was a winner of FASEB's BioArt competition in 2016 and 2017. Scott earned his PhD in Genetics and Genomics from the University of Connecticut.
We’re proud and excited to welcome Roberto and Scott to the Long Now Boston community.
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Tuesday, February 5
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Energy Storage & Solar Safety Training - Everett, MA
Tuesday, February 5
8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
enVision Hotel Boston-Everett, 1834 Revere Beach Parkway, Everett
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/energy-storage-solar-safety-training-everett-ma-tickets-52608269751
Registration: This course is being offered free of charge to a maximum of 50 members of the area fire service. Follow the link for free registration:
Questions: Linda MacKay, lmackay at nfpa.org
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is excited to offer its newly updated fire service Energy Storage & Solar Safety Training Classroom Course to the Massachusetts fire service. Recognizing that energy storage and solar systems are rapidly becoming a reality across the United States, NFPA has developed its Energy Storage & Solar Safety Training Program to help the fire service handle the unique challenges presented by these emerging technologies. MassCEC has recently awarded several energy storage projects as part of its Advancing Commonwealth Energy Storage (ACES) program that aims to catalyze the Massachusetts market for increased commercialization and deployment of storage technologies. In line with this effort, MassCEC also seeks to support energy storage safety training for first responders in the Commonwealth in order to enable safe implementation and handling of the ACES program and other energy storage projects.
This engaging 4 hour instructor-led classroom course is taught by NFPA’s highly knowledgeable and experienced instructors, and covers the following topics:
Introduction to energy storage system & solar concepts including applications, types, & terminology
Basic electrical theory
Introduction to battery energy storage systems including Lead Acid, Lithium Ion, Sodium Sulfur, & Flow Batteries
Failure modes and hazards
Pre-incident planning & Emergency response procedures
About The Program – In 2016, the National Fire Protection Association developed and launched its safety training program for the fire service when dealing with high powered energy storage system incidents. The program was developed as a combined effort of NFPA, Strategen Consulting, the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), DNV-GL, the Fire Protection Research Foundation, and several highly knowledgeable fire service subject matter experts who identified and confirmed best practices for handling incidents involving this emerging technology. Concepts are delivered through online & classroom training, educational videos, animations 3D modeling, scenario rooms, mobile apps, and quick reference materials. In 2018, NFPA received funding from the MassCEC to offer our classroom training in four strategic venues across the state, to ensure the MA fire service are prepared with the understanding of energy storage and solar safety concepts.
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Community Engagement Forum - Best Practices for Translating Evidence into Policy: Present and Future Considerations
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, 9 – 10:30 a.m.
WHERE Harvard Medical School, Countway Library (Ballard Room), 25 Shattuck Street, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Conferences, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Catalyst
SPEAKER(S) Panelists include:
Sue Curry, Ph.D., Interim Provost, University of Iowa College of Public Health
Michael Curry, Esq, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs & Public Policy, Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers
Carlene Pavlos, MTS, Executive Director, Massachusetts Public Health Association
Eric Rimm, Sc.D., Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Moderated by:
Howard K. Koh, MD, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
TICKET WEB LINK https://hms.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6mXeiiTIHT9Y3pr
DETAILS Join the Harvard Catalyst Community Engagement Program for an expert panel discussion on best practices for translating evidence into policy. The panelists will examine contextual challenges and current best practices and discuss the future of evidence-based policy making and public health. Registration required. Space is limited.
LINK https://hms.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6mXeiiTIHT9Y3pr
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The External Sources of Rising State Strength
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel Building, Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
SPEAKER(S) Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College; Faculty Associate, Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, Harvard 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
LINK https://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/calendar/upcoming
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UnBooks at Baker with Michael Wheeler
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, 3:30 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Business School, Cumnock Hall 220, 33 Harvard Way, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Education
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Baker Library
SPEAKER(S) Michael Wheeler, Professor of Management (2001-2013)
COST Free
CONTACT INFO schurch at hbs.edu
DETAILS The Art of Negotiation shows how master negotiators thrive in the face of chaos and uncertainty. Michael Wheeler illuminates the improvisational nature of negotiation, drawing on his own research and his work with Program on Negotiation colleagues. He explains how the best practices of diplomats such as George J. Mitchell, dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein, and Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub apply to everyday transactions like selling a house, buying a car, or landing a new contract. Wheeler also draws lessons on agility and creativity from fields like jazz, sports, theater, and even military science.
Based on Wheeler’s chapters on openings, critical moments, and techniques for closing, negotiate123.com seeks to provide business practitioners, MBA students, and other learners an interactive online resource for improving their negotiation skills. The site features key concepts on negotiation illustrated through text, videos, quizzes, and a variety of other interactive tools.
Q&A with the author. Books available for signing.
LINK https://www.library.hbs.edu/Articles/Books-Baker
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In Real Life: Designing for Impact Workshop
Tuesday, February 5
5:30 - 7pm
BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center, 730 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/in-real-life-designing-for-impact-workshop-tickets-53916063397
In your community or across the globe, learn how to develop ideas that solve problems and make things better. This workshop will teach attendees the design thinking process, also known as human-centered design.
Facilitated by School of Hospitality Administration professor Christopher Muller.
Attendees will:
Be introduced to design thinking process and how we articulate it at BU, with a particular focus on reframing.
Apply the design thinking process to a real challenge
Identify challenges that you could/want to apply design thinking towards
Learn about BU and community resources for innovation and design thinking
Each workshop follows a similar format:
Overview of workshop goals
Overview and lesson on the topic
Hands-on activity and exercise
Share learnings and activity results
Wrap up and questions
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Botany Blast: New and Emerging Pests at the Arnold Arboretum
Tuesday, February 5
6:00–7:00pm
Arnold Arboretum, Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain
Jared Rubinstein, Living Collections Fellow, Arnold Arboretum, and Javier Marin, Forest Pest Outreach Coordinator, Crop & Pest Services, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources
The Arnold Arboretum has a long history of finding innovative ways of responding to threats to the collection from pests and diseases. Come learn about some new and emerging pests in the region and how the Arboretum is trying to get ahead of their arrival. We’ll talk specifically about spotted lanternfly, thousand cankers disease, southern pine beetle, and winter moth.
Fee Free, but registration requested
Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.
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3rd Annual INVITE TO IGNITE
Tuesday, February 5
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
The Venture Cafe - Cambridge Innovation Center, 5th Floor, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3rd-annual-invite-to-ignite-tickets-54447788802
Cost: $8 – $12
Welcome to our 3rd Annual INVITE TO IGNITE evening showcasing local organizations in need of volunteer help. We believe the best antidote to the attrocities of the day is ACTION. So if you're among the many frustrated by the events of the day, we invite you to come be uplifted and maybe even inticed into getting involved.
For the last two years in February, the Boston Area Sustainability Group (BASG) has hosted a special evening to affirm the positive actions of local groups with the goal of providing a breadth of opportunity for our members to sample volunteer opportunities. We do this in a rapid-fire manner to leave ample time for our "Speed Dating for Cause" portion of the evening.
Confirmed 2019 Organizations
The Trustees of Reservations
Manomet
Community Servings
A Better City
The Emerald Necklace Conservancy
Mystic River Watershed
BINA Farms
Massachusetts Refugee and Immigrant Advocacy Coalition
Rescuing Leftover Cuisine
Boston Green Ribbon Commission
Cleantech Open
Environmental League of Massachusetts
Environmental Entrepreuners
Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light
Conservation Law Foundation
The Carrot Project
COGDESIGN
We're still accepting nominations for this year's event, so get your ideas in quickly! Note that we think there are many worthy groups we haven't yet showcased, so our emphasis is on groups new to us. You can see our past guests below.
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Open Project Night at Impact Hub Boston
Tuesday, February 5
6-8:30pm
50 Milk Street, 15th floor, Boston
Impact Hub Boston opens their doors the second Tuesday of each month to social impact movers and shakers to build momentum, find community, and develop their projects. At Open Project Night, you can bring a social impact project for which you need help, feedback, or collaboration, or join existing projects as a collaborator!
For February’s OPN, we have the following projects:
*Emerson Prison Initiative* (EPI); EPI will host a discussion on fundraising strategies. The Emerson Prison Initiative provides high-quality college courses to people incarcerated in Massachusetts. EPI’s mission is to democratize access to tertiary education for those who have been historically marginalized or otherwise unable to attend college. Visit http://epi.emerson.edu/ for more information.
*Incluvie – Diversity in Film Focus Group*: Incluvie is the IMDb for diversity in film! You can find out how any movie or TV show represents women and people of color, and share your own feelings! Visit https://incluvie.com/ to learn more.
We’ll update you as additional projects soon, and you can *apply to bring your project here! *
*Come join us for Open Project Night and kickstart your social impact project!*
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The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump
Tuesday, February 5
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Three veteran constitutional attorneys say there’s no way around it: The Constitution demands that Donald Trump must be impeached.
And in clear language using compelling logic rooted firmly in the Constitution, they detail why the time to start is now—not in the indefinite future after criminal investigations have ended. In fact, much of Trump’s impeachable conduct lies outside the scope of ongoing federal criminal investigations.
Citing charges such as accepting illegal payments from foreign governments, using government agencies to persecute political enemies, obstructing justice, abusing the pardon power, and the undermining freedom of the press, they provide the factual and legal basis for eight articles of impeachment.
In short, they argue, abuses threatening our constitutional democracy should be dealt with by the remedy that the Constitution provides for a lawless, authoritarian president: impeachment. And an informed citizenry should be part of the process.
After all, they say, impeachment is not a constitutional crisis — impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis.
Ron Fein, legal director for Free Speech For People, is a constitutional lawyer who previously served as assistant regional counsel in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he received the National Gold Medal for Exceptional Service. He appears regularly on television and in the op-ed pages of The Washington Post, commenting on constitutional matters.
John Bonifaz is the co-founder and president of Free Speech For People. He previously served as the executive director and general counsel of the National Voting Rights Institute, and as the legal director of Voter Action, a national election integrity organization. A distinguished attorney, he has been at the forefront of key voting rights battles across the country for more than two decades, and is a winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award.
Ben Clements is the chair of the board of directors of Free Speech For People and chair of its legal committee. He is also a founding partner of the Boston law firm, Clements & Pineault, LLP. His clients have included the state and federal governments, candidates for state and federal office, senior public officials, large corporations and small businesses. He is a former federal prosecutor and former chief legal counsel to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.
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Food Politics & The Farm Bill With Erika Dunyak
Tuesday, February 5
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Rm. S354, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/food-politics-the-farm-bill-with-erika-dunyak-tickets-55293253610
We’re kicking off our month of Food Politics by featuring the #1 agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government: the farm bill. In a fun and informative presentation, Clinical Fellow, Erika Dunyak, will break it down for us so we have a better sense of how the farm bill came to be and how it affects farmers and consumers (that’s you!) now.
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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, February 6
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The New Wave in Robot Grasping
Wednesday, February 6
10:00am to 11:00am
Harvard, Jefferson 256, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Ken Goldberg
Despite 50 years of research, robots remain remarkably clumsy, limiting their reliability for warehouse order fulfillment, robot-assisted surgery, and home decluttering. The First Wave of grasping research is purely analytical, applying variations of screw theory to exact knowledge of pose, shape, and contact mechanics. The Second Wave is purely empirical: end-to-end hyperparametric function approximation (aka Deep Learning) based on human demonstrations or time-consuming self-exploration. A "New Wave" of research considers hybrid methods that combine analytic models with stochastic sampling and Deep Learning models. I'll present this history with new results from our lab on grasping diverse and previously-unknown objects and discuss exciting future research including cloud and fog robotics.
Speaker Bio: Ken Goldberg is an artist, inventor, and UC Berkeley Professor focusing on robotics. He was appointed the William S. Floyd Jr Distinguished Chair in Engineering and serves as Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department. He has secondary appointments in EECS, Art Practice, the School of Information, and Radiation Oncology at the UCSF Medical School. Ken is Director of the CITRIS "People and Robots" Initiative and the UC Berkeley AUTOLAB where he and his students pursue research in machine learning for robotics and automation in warehouses, homes, and operating rooms. Ken developed the first provably complete algorithms for part feeding and part fixturing and the first robot on the Internet. Despite agonizingly slow progress, he persists in trying to make robots less clumsy. He has over 250 peer-reviewed publications and 8 U.S. Patents. He co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Ken's artwork has appeared in 70 exhibits including the Whitney Biennial and films he has co-written have been selected for Sundance and nominated for an Emmy Award. Ken was awarded the NSF PECASE (Presidential Faculty Fellowship) from President Bill Clinton in 1995, elected IEEE Fellow in 2005 and selected by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for the George Saridis Leadership Award in 2016. He lives in the Bay Area and is madly in love with his wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain, and their two daughters.
Special Robotics Seminar
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Ocean heat transport from the subtropical gyre to the subpolar gyre in the North Atlantic
Wednesday, February 6
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
Sack Lunch Seminar (SLS) Series: Nick Foukal (WHOI)
About this Series
The Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Sack Lunch Seminar Series is an informal seminar series within PAOC that focuses on more specialized topics than the PAOC Colloquium. Seminar topics include all research concerning the science of atmosphere, ocean and climate. The seminars usually take place on Wednesdays from 12-1pm in 54-915. The presentations are either given by an invited speaker or by a member of PAOC and can focus on new research or discussion of a paper of particular interest.
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The Evolution of Carbon Markets: Design, Diffusion and Linking
Wednesday, February 6
12:30PM TO 1:45PM
Tufts, The Fletcher School, Goddard 310 (Crowe), 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
with Jørgen Wettestand, Research Professor, Fridtjof Nansen Institute.
Tufts University CIERP Research Seminar
Contact Name: Sara Rosales
sara.rosales at tufts.edu
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Looting and Climate Change Threaten Mongolia's Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, 1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
WHER# Harvard, CGIS South (S250), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Inner Asian and Altaic Studies Lecture Series
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Julia K. Clark, Founding Director of NOMAD Science and Archaeology Project and Field School, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
CONTACT INFO iaas at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS The illegal looting of archaeological sites and shifting climate norms are not new phenomena in Mongolia, as in much of the world. However, there is increasing evidence that both are having an effect on Mongolian archaeological sites and cultural heritage at unprecedented levels. The impacts of looting and climate change on archaeological remains are complex and interwoven. Properly addressing sites endangered by these issues demand a variety of skill sets in community engagement, law enforcement and legal protocols, field conservation, and more. This presentation will discuss the impacts of climate change and looting on the archaeology of Mongolia today, as well as steps being taken to protect Mongolia’s priceless cultural heritage from these threats.
LINK https://iaas.fas.harvard.edu/pages/iaas-lecture-series
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The Truth Wears Off? The Reproducibility Crisis in Historical Perspective
Wednesday, February 6
4:00 pm
Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Lecture by Nicole C. Nelson RI '19
During her fellowship year, Nicole C. Nelson is beginning a new project on the “reproducibility crisis,” a recent phenomenon where scientists have found many supposedly stable findings to be difficult to replicate on subsequent investigation. Using a combination of historical and ethnographic methods, she will map out the origins of this crisis and examine how scientists’ assumptions about stability and variation shape their perceptions of this crisis. More broadly, she aims to contribute to both scholarly and public discussions on notions of scientific fact, connecting scientists’ concerns about reproducibility with current discussions about post-truth politics.
Free and open to the public.
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The Electric Gini: Income Redistribution through Energy Prices
Wednesday, February 6
4:15PM TO 5:30PM
Harvard, Littauer-382, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Arik Levinson, Georgetown University, and Emilson Silva, University of Alberta.
Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/30064
Contact Name: Casey Billings
casey_billings at hks.harvard.edu
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Series Fluid-Elastic Mechanics and Soft-Composite Design for Human-Safe and Interactive Robots
Wednesday, February 6
4:30pm to 5:30pm
Harvard, Pierce Hall, Room 209, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Peter Whitney, Northeastern
Fluid-based actuation is an increasingly attractive option for soft, lightweight, and human-safe robots. These systems are similar in principle to series-elastic actuation (SEA) designs for classic rigid robots. In this talk we explore the design and mechanics of rolling-diaphragm fiber-reinforced soft-composite fluid actuators, which offer unique low-friction and low-hysteresis mechanical properties. We will also discuss how these and other soft actuators can be controlled using series-elastic principles extended to include fluid-pressure feedback, with the goal of maximizing the closed-loop system bandwidth while providing a high dynamic range in endpoint impedance. Example systems with applications in autonomous manipulation, prosthetics, and MRI-compatible surgical tele-manipulation will be presented.
Speaker Bio: Peter Whitney is an assistant professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University, engaged in research on human-safe, medical, and collaborative robot systems, through advances in mechanical design, soft-composite engineering, and multi-sensory feedback control. He obtained his PhD in 2012 at Harvard University, working with Prof. Robert Wood on pop-up book style micro-composite MEMS fabrication and insect-scale experimental aerodynamics, and worked as a postdoc under Jessica Hodgins at Disney Research (CMU) on human-safe robot design, which culminated in the development of "Jimmy", a human-safe mechanically tele-operated robot puppet. His research is currently funded by grants from NSF CHS, NSF NRI, ONR, and the ARM Institute.
Applied Mechanics Colloquia
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Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison
Wednesday, February 6
6:00 PM (Doors at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.harvard.com/event/jason_rezaian/
Cost: $6 -$32.00 (book included)
Harvard Book Store welcomes journalist JASON REZAIAN—who served as the Washington Post correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016—for a discussion of his new memoir, Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison—Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out.
About Prisoner
In July 2014, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian was arrested by Iranian police, accused of spying for America. The charges were absurd. Rezaian’s reporting was a mix of human interest stories and political analysis. He had even served as a guide for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Initially, Rezaian thought the whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding, but soon realized that it was much more dire as it became an eighteen-month prison stint with impossibly high diplomatic stakes.
While in prison, Rezaian had tireless advocates working on his behalf. His brother lobbied political heavyweights including John Kerry and Barack Obama and started a social media campaign—#FreeJason—while Jason’s wife navigated the red tape of the Iranian security apparatus, all while the courts used Rezaian as a bargaining chip in negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal.
In Prisoner, Rezaian writes of his exhausting interrogations and farcical trial. He also reflects on his idyllic childhood in Northern California and his bond with his Iranian father, a rug merchant; how his teacher Christopher Hitchens inspired him to pursue journalism; and his life-changing decision to move to Tehran, where his career took off and he met his wife. Written with wit, humor, and grace, Prisoner brings to life a fascinating, maddening culture in all its complexity.
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Synthetic Biology: Life Redesigned
Wednesday, February 6
Door: 6:00pm / Talk: 6:30pm
Le Laboratoire, 650 East Kendall Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/synthetic-biology-life-redesigned-tickets-55091158137#tickets
A Presentation by Jim Collins
Synthetic biology is bringing together engineers, physicists and biologists to model, design and construct biological circuits out of proteins, genes and other bits of DNA, and to use these circuits to rewire and reprogram organisms. These re-engineered organisms are going to change our lives in the coming years, leading to cheaper drugs, rapid diagnostic tests, and synthetic probiotics to treat infections and a range of complex diseases. In this talk, we highlight recent efforts to create synthetic gene networks and programmable cells, and discuss a variety of synthetic biology applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.
Jim Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty. He is also a Core Founding Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Professor Collins' patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies, and he has helped to launch a number of companies, including Synlogic (NASDAQ: SYBX). He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship and a MacArthur "Genius" Award, and he is an elected member of all three national academies - the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.
As usual, the talk is free.
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The next phase of big genetics
Wednesday, February 6
6:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 415 Main Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-next-phase-of-big-genetics-registration-54977228370
For just over a decade, scientists have used an approach called the genome-wide association study, or GWAS, to measure the extent to which small, common variations called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) at millions of sites across the genome affect traits like height or a person's risk of developing diseases like diabetes or heart attack. Thanks to GWAS, researchers have identified tens of thousands SNP-to-trait and SNP-to-disease links. The question today is: How do we put all these data to use to impact human health and advance our understanding of human biology?
Population geneticist Alicia Martin will provide a brief primer on GWAS, and explain how gaps in the diversity of the data available today affect how researchers make use of the data now and in the future. Cardiologist Amit Khera will discuss polygenic scoring, a method that integrates information from millions of SNPs to predict an individual's likelihood of developing a given disease. Cancer biologist JT Neal will talk about the challenges of studying the functional roles of the thousands of SNPs associated with disease, the genes and pathways they affect, the cells they impact — and doing it all at massive scale.
Alicia Martin, Research Fellow, Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital
Amit Khera, Associated Scientist, Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital
JT Neal, Research Scientist, Broad Institute
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The Challenge and Promise of Restoring Urban Landscapes
Wednesday, February 6
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Cambridge Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Grow Native Massachusetts is proud to present our 2019 Evenings with Experts lecture series!
Join us for this talk with Steven Handel, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University.
Human activity has degraded much of our urban landscape, making the rebuilding of native habitat on these lands an important priority. But potential restoration sites are often small and heavily altered, and questions about best strategies abound. Can these landscapes be designed and managed to support native biodiversity? How can we rebuild functioning ecosystems on them? Which target sites are practical ones, especially in this time of rapid climate change? Noted ecologist Steven Handel has been researching these challenges for most of his career and his work illustrates the surprising and significant transformations that are possible. He will discuss projects that he has worked on, including Freshkills Park (a former landfill on Staten Island), Brooklyn Bridge Park, and other coastal sites. Join us to learn more about urban ecological restoration in a world that desperately needs it.
Dr. Steven Handel is currently a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and editor of the journal, Ecological Restoration.
Thank you to our community partners— the Cambridge Public Library, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects— for their support of this series.
Continuing education credits will be available.
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Thursday, February 7
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Visual Media and Storytelling on Criminal Justice Reform
Thursday, February 7
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, Wexner Conference Room, Wexner Building, Room 434AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
Please join us on for a highly visual panel discussion on the use of visual journalism for purpose and impact. The theme is visual media and storytelling for the social good, specifically in criminal justice reform and advocacy journalism on the issue- what can visual media do, and what do we want it to do, in framing human rights issues and advocating for awareness and change?
Carroll Bogert – moderator, founder of the award winning media operations of Human Rights Watch, President at The Marshall Project.
Brian Frank – photo journalist and CatchLight Fellow, currently exhibiting at the Shorenstein Center.
Rebecca Richman Cohen – Emmy Award nominated documentary filmmaker and Lecturer at Harvard Law School.
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From Aspiration to Action: How outreach and mobilization, and advocacy are keeping Massachusetts on track to meet its clean energy and climate objectives
Thursday, February 7
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Multi-purpose Room, Curtis Hall
Eugenia Gibbons, Policy Director, Green Energy Consumers Alliance
In 2008, Massachusetts passed landmark clean energy and climate legislation. The Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) set binding GHG emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2050. The Green Communities Act (GCA) prioritized investments in efficiency and renewable energy resources. Together these laws set the stage for rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the state partly driven by growth of a robust clean energy sector. Goal-setting alone is not enough to ensure compliance with the law. Prodding, including a lawsuit taken all the way to the state’s highest court, has been needed along the way. A decade later, we are approaching the first big milestone – the 2020 target. Will we make it?Discussion during this session includes a crash course in state energy policy & requirements, an overview of how Massachusetts is progressing towards its GWSA goals, and explores the role of advocacy (and the effective advocate) in getting all the way to the finish line.
Eugenia Gibbons is the Policy Director at Green Energy Consumers Alliance (formerly Mass Energy and People’s Power & Light). First established in 1982 as the Boston Oil
Consumers Alliance, Green Energy Consumers Alliance is a nonprofit consumer and environmental advocacy organization that works to enable people to make clean energy choices in the most cost-effective, practical, and seamless ways possible. The organization also advocates for policies that accelerate the Commonwealth’s transition to a low-carbon economy in a manner that is expeditious and equitable. Green Energy Consumers Alliance was co-plaintiff in Kain v. DEP, the lawsuit that instigated very specific state action taken in recent years to get to the 2020 target. The organization was also a lead advocate for increasing renewable energy requirements in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Eugenia previously served as Program Director at the Environmental League of Massachusetts where she launched a multi-disciplinary effort to facilitate and maximize implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). Gibbons is a graduate of Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planing Program. She currently sits on the Board of the Applied Economics Clinic housed at Tufts and volunteers with Mothers Out Front.
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Structure, Meaning, Action and Interaction: a future vision for augmenting human, machine, and network intelligence
Thursday, February 7
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
MIT, Building E32- D463, Star, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
We sit at the cusp of a new revolution. A revolution born at the nexus of advances in devices used to sense ourselves and our environment, in algorithms that enable optimization, prediction, and learning and in networks that enable near instantaneous action and communication over terrestrial distances. This revolution promises to save time and create new knowledge through the automation of the mundane and augmentation of human, machine and network intelligence. Within this talk I will focus on several Bell Labs disruptive innovations that make possible this future and the technical challenges we use to define our research vision.
Presenter: Chris White, Head Algorithms, Analytics and Augmented Intelligence Lab, Nokia Bell Labs
Christopher A. White leads the Algorithms, Analytics & Augmented Intelligence (AAAI) lab in Nokia Bell Labs. He joined Bell Labs in 1997 after graduating with a Ph.D. in theoretical quantum chemistry from the University of California in Berkeley, California. His research interests include the development of computational models and methods for the simulation and control of interesting physical and digital systems. This has included work in areas ranging from linear scaling quantum chemistry simulations, to the design of new optical devices, to the global control of transparent optical mesh networks and to understanding and facilitating the propagation of ideas in organizations. In addition to the management of an international team of world-class researchers, Dr. White’s current work focuses on the creation of assisted thinking tools that leverage structural similarity in data with the goal of augmenting human intelligence.
Lunch and light beverages provided
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Nuclear Abolitionism and the End of the Cold War
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, 12:15 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, One Brattle Square (Room 350), Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR International Security Program
SPEAKER(S) Stephanie Freeman, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program
CONTACT INFO susan_lynch at harvard.edu
DETAILS Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come, first served basis.
LINK https://www.belfercenter.org/event/nuclear-abolitionism-and-end-cold-war
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Team Human: How people, together, can rule the digital future
Thursday, February 7
2:00pm — 3:00pm
MIT Media Lab, E14, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
About Team Human
Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In 100 lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups.
Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.
Kate Darling
Dr. Kate Darling is a leading expert in Robot Ethics. She’s a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, where she investigates social robotics and conducts experimental studies on human-robot interaction. Kate explores the emotional connection between people and life-like machines, seeking to influence technology design and policy direction. Her writing and research anticipate difficult questions that lawmakers, engineers, and the wider public will need to address as human-robot relationships evolve in the coming decades.
Forever interested in how technology intersects with society, Kate has a background in law, economics, and intellectual property. She has researched economic incentives in copyright and patent systems; she has also taken a role as intellectual property expert at multiple academic and private institutions. She currently serves as intellectual property policy advisor to the director of the MIT Media Lab.
Her passion for technology and robots has led her to interdisciplinary fields. After co-teaching a robot ethics course at Harvard Law School with Professor Lawrence Lessig, Kate increasingly works at the intersection of law and robotics, with a focus on legal and social issues. She is a former Fellow and current Affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and a former fellow at the Yale Information Society Project; she is also an affiliate at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Kate’s work has been featured in Vogue, The New Yorker, the Guardian, BBC, NPR, PBS, The Boston Globe, Forbes, CBC, WIRED, Boston Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, Die Zeit, The Japan Times, and more. A contributing writer to Robohub and IEEE Spectrum, she speaks and holds workshops covering some of the more interesting developments in the world of robotics, and where we might find ourselves in the future.
Kate graduated from law school with honors and holds a doctorate of sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and an honorary doctorate of sciences from Middlebury College. In 2017, the American Bar Association honored her legal work with the Mark T. Banner award in Intellectual Property. She is the caretaker for several domestic robots, including her Pleos Yochai, Peter, and Mr. Spaghetti. She tweets as @grok_ about eating Cheerios for dinner.
Douglas Rushkoff
Named one of the world’s 10 most influential intellectuals by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an award-winning author, broadcaster, and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. The host of the popular Team Human podcast, Rushkoff has written twenty books, including the bestsellers Present Shock and Program or Be Programmed; written regular columns for Medium, CNN, Daily Beast, and the Guardian; and made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like and Merchants of Cool. Rushkoff coined such concepts as “viral media” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a professor of media theory and digital economics. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
All talks at the Media Lab, unless otherwise noted, are free and open to the public. No registration is required.
This talk will be webcast. Join the conversation on Twitter: #MLTalks
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Comparative Democracy Seminar -- Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Ash Center Foyer, Suite 200N (Second Floor), 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Maria Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Moderated by: Candelaria Garay, Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Democracy, HKS
COST Free
CONTACT INFO info at ash.harvard.edu
DETAILS Murillo will discuss her recent book "Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies," which focuses on the non-policy benefits that voters consider when deciding their vote. In addition to proposing policies, parties deliver non-policy benefits, such as competent economic management, constituency service, and patronage. This book provides a unified view of how politicians deliver broad portfolios of policy and non-policy benefits to their constituency. Non-policy resources also shape parties' ideological positions. The book shows which type of electoral offers parties target to either poorer or richer voters and their implications in terms of democratic responsiveness. The theory is tested using both qualitative and quantitative research to establish how linkages between parties and voters shape the delivery of non-policy benefits in Argentina and Chile in the 2000s.
LINK https://ash.harvard.edu/event/comparative-democracy-seminar-maria-v-murillo
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The Supreme Court's Threat to Civil Society
Thursday, February 7
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Harvard, Langdell North - 225 Vorenberg, 1545 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Annual Kissel Lecture in Ethics with Linda Greenhouse
Abstract: Greenhouse looks critically at recent decisions including Janus v. AFSCME; Masterpiece Cakeshop; Hobby Lobby; and the Little Sisters of the Poor Litigation, in which the Supreme Court empowered -- indeed, invited -- individuals to opt out of the rules by which the rest of us have agreed to be governed. Respecting claims of conscience is of course an essential element of civil society. But honoring such claims selectively, while failing to give weight to the foreseeable burdens on third parties, can accelerate the descent into the tribalism with which American society is threatened today.
Linda Greenhouse is the Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law and Knight Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at Yale Law School. She assumed this position in 2009 after a 40-year career at the New York Times, including 30 years covering the United States Supreme Court. At Yale, she is a member of the faculty of the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic and teaches other Supreme Court-related courses. She writes a bi-weekly op-ed column on the Supreme Court and law for the New York Times web site as a contributing columnist. In her extracurricular life, she is president of the American Philosophical Society and serves on several nonprofit boards. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College, Harvard, and earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School.
She received numerous journalism awards for her reporting, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 (beat reporting); the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association in 2002 for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics”; and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Kennedy School in 2004. Her newest book, published in October 2017 by Harvard University Press, is a brief memoir, Just a Journalist. Other books include The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right (with Michael J. Graetz), The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press); a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun; and Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (with Reva B. Siegel).
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Using Social Media for Activism
Thursday, February 7
6:00pm
Cambridge Community Television, 438 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP by contacting Keaton Fox at 617-661-6900 or email keaton at cctvcambridge.org
Cost: $35
Activists are increasingly using the power of social media to raise awareness about particular issues and to raise funding for their cause.
Activists are increasingly using the power of social media to raise awareness about particular issues and to raise funding for their cause. In this workshop, you will explore several case studies of effective social media campaigns employed by activists and will discuss the future trends in social media activism. Basic knowledge of or involvement with social media platforms is strongly recommended.
1 session - Thursday - February 7th - 6-9pm - with Patricia Egessa
All regular classes have two rates: one for Access Members and one for non-members. Advance registration is required and is accepted on a first-come basis. Early registration is advised since courses may fill up or be canceled due to low enrollment. Members with sufficient voucher balance may register over the phone (617) 661-6900; all others must provide full payment at the time of registration. Schedules are subject to change.
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Team Human
Thursday, February 7
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes digital theorist, award–winning author, and podcast host DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF for a discussion of his latest book, Team Human.
About Team Human
Team Human is a manifesto―a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together―not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as a way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups.
Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity―together―we can make the world a better place to be human.
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Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation
Thursday, February 7
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hbs-professor-gary-pisano-tickets-54174557560
"Creative Construction "debunks the widely held myth that large companies cannot innovate, only small nimble startups can. Pisano's remarkable research conducted over three decades, and his extraordinary on-the ground experience with big companies (including Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, etc.) and fast-growing ones that have moved beyond the start-up stage, provides new thinking about how the scale of bigger companies can be leveraged for advantage in innovation. He argues that if large enterprises seem incapable of transformative innovation, it is because we design them and run them that way.
Gary Pisano is one of the world's leading researchers in the fields of innovation, strategy, manufacturing, and competitiveness. He is the Harry E. Figgie Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for faculty development at Harvard Business School. He speaks widely at industry conferences and to senior executive audiences and his work has been featured in The New York Times, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, and many more publications.
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Friday, February 8
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Under Fire
Friday, February 8
11:00 - 12:00 (Doors 10:30am)
Northeastern Crossing, 1175 Tremont Street, Roxbury
RSVP at http://bit.ly/2Ecpcz5
White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, Author of The Presidency in Black and White and 2017 NABJ Journalist of the Year — April Ryan, will come to Northeastern's campus and speak with the crowd in February.
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Towards a holistic understanding of the interactions between biochemical and physical processes above the Amazonian rain forest
Friday, February 8
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Harvard, Pierce 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Jordi Vila, Wageningen University
The dry season in the Amazonian rain forest is characterized by shallow cumulus,
which perturbs both radiation and turbulence above the tropical forest. These
disturbances lead to continuous changes in the partitioning of the available energy in evapotranspiration and sensible heat flux at the surface. The non-steady state of the radiative and turbulent conditions also influence the emission and subsequent transport of biogenic volatile organic compounds. In turn, the spatiotemporal variations in the surface fluxes of the energy, water and atmospheric compounds modify the atmospheric boundary layer dynamics, and therefore thus the diurnal cycle of shallow cumulus. More specifically, turbulent thermals may change in intensity and vertical extent, and changes in aerosol composition will lead to differences in the distribution of the aerosol properties that may influence the cloud condensation nuclei. Both effects impact the cloud microphysics and dynamics.
In this seminar, I present and discuss recent results that reproduce a representative day in the Amazonian rain forest during the dry season. Guided and constrained by the complete observational set gathered during the GOAMAZON campaign, we have designed a suite of numerical experiments performed by the Dutch Atmospheric Large Eddy Simulation (DALES). Our main aim is to study the interaction of the biochemical and physical processes that occur on sub-hourly and sub-kilometre scales. The numerical experiments explicitly simulate the coupling between the surface and the atmospheric boundary layer. Here, we focus on processes that affect photosynthesis, such as cloud shading, the impact of the partitioning of direct and diffuse radiation in and above the canopy, and the effects of the wind on the energy and moisture fluxes. I will close the seminar by discussing experiments that include gas-phase chemistry to study the diurnal variability of reactive compounds on the Amazonian tropical forest.
Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
Contact: Kelvin Bates
Email: kelvin_bates at fas.harvard.edu
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Black-Box Medicine: Legal and Ethical Issues: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
WHEN Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (2036), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Health Sciences, Law
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in collaboration with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
SPEAKER(S) I. Glenn Cohen, Faculty Director and James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
Ziad Obermeyer, Acting Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eftx4yys37087222&oseq=&c=&ch=
DETAILS Black-box medicine — the use of opaque computational models to make care decisions — has the potential to shape health care by improving and aiding many medical tasks. For example, IBM Watson for Oncology is a machine-learning system that intends to help clinicians quickly identify essential information in patients’ medical records and explore treatment options for 13 types of cancer. However, it has only recently emerged that the recommendations Watson for Oncology gave for cancer treatments were “often incorrect” and that IBM kept this defect secret for over a year. What are the ethical and legal issues of black-box medicine? When do algorithms operate like a “black box“? How can we ensure that artificial intelligence technologies deliver what they promise?
LINK http://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/events/details/black-box-medicine-legal-and-ethical-issues
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How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration
Friday, February 8
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning psychologist and Boston College professor ELLEN WINNER for a discussion of her new book, How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration.
About How Art Works
There is no end of talk and of wondering about 'art' and 'the arts.' This book examines a number of questions about the arts (broadly defined to include all of the arts). Some of these questions come from philosophy. Examples include:
What makes something art?
Can anything be art?
Do we experience "real" emotions from the arts?
Why do we seek out and even cherish sorrow and fear from art when we go out of our way to avoid these very emotions in real life?
How do we decide what is good art? Do aesthetic judgments have any objective truth value?
Why do we devalue fakes even if we—indeed, even the experts—can't tell them apart from originals?
Does fiction enhance our empathy and understanding of others? Is art-making therapeutic?
Others are "common sense" questions that laypersons wonder about. Examples include:
Does learning to play music raise a child's IQ?
Is modern art something my kid could do?
Is talent a matter of nature or nurture?
This book examines puzzles about the arts wherever their provenance—as long as there is empirical research using the methods of social science (interviews, experimentation, data collection, statistical analysis) that can shed light on these questions. The examined research reveals how ordinary people think about these questions, and why they think the way they do—an inquiry referred to as intuitive aesthetics. The book shows how psychological research on the arts has shed light on and often offered surprising answers to such questions.
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Smallholder Farming: Strategies for Sustainability and Resilience
Friday, February 8
3:00pm to 4:30pm
MIT, Building 6-120 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
Join J-WAFS for a panel featuring research presentations by graduate students and senior scholars
Smallholder farmers around the world face numerous risks to their agricultural productivity. The challenges they encounter can vary by region, and can include soil nutrient levels and fertilizer access; water supply, pricing and financing; and supply chain issues, among others. Many of these issues affect farmers in the Global South in particular. Climate change poses a further threat, and is expected to make the livelihoods of these individuals and communities even more precarious.
Researchers at MIT are developing a variety of solutions to these challenges, applying strategies in engineering, soil science, and economics and finance while ensuring the cultural appropriateness of these innovations. Join J-WAFSto learn about a few of the solutions being developed here. These strategies—affordable soil sensors, novel business models, and even a redesigned tractor—could provide avenues for sustainability and resilience for smallholder farmers around the world.
Presenters:
Guillermo Fabian Diaz Lankenau, PhD candidate, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Guillermo is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He works in the Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab on farm mechanization for emerging markets. He has worked at John Deere and interned at NASA and the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. He will speak about the origin and merits of the most common farm tractor design and share the drawbacks that could be addressed in future designs to make it more suitable for use by smallholder farmers.
Sorin Grama, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Martin Trust Center, and instructor, MIT D-Lab
Sorin co-founded and served as CEO and CTO of Promethean Power Systems, a manufacturer of thermal energy storage systems for refrigeration and cold-storage applications. Sorin is also one of the founders of Greentown Labs, a grassroots effort which has grown to become the nation’s largest cleantech incubator. He is trained as an electrical engineer, holds an MS in Engineering and Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently co-teaches an undergraduate two product design course at MIT D-Lab (D-Lab: Design and Design for Scale). At this event, Sorin will speak about how technical and business model innovations can help Indian dairy farmers produce more milk and generate more income.
Nidhi Sharma, MS candidate, Integrated Design & Management Program
Nidhi is a graduate fellow at Integrated Design & Management program at MIT. She identifies herself as an electronics engineer and entrepreneur and is highly interested in the commercialization of technology that can help people live better. She began her entrepreneurial journey in India as founder of Ukhaad Electronics, a venture that runs workshops and training to introduce colleges and schools in India to STEM subjects. Also a Tata Fellow, she is working to develop soil moisture sensors that can serve as a wireless, low-cost strategy for Indian farmers to perform precision agriculture.
Presenter TBD
A research initiative of the MIT D-Lab is assessing opportunities for the use of digital payments for smallholder farmers in resource-constrained settings. This project, begun in 2018 through a partnership with USAID’s Feed the Future Program (D2FTF) seeks to better understand the role that digital services can play in the financial inclusion of smallholder farmers in Senegal and Guatemala.
For more information, including a list of presenters and their research projects, visit our website at https://jwafs.mit.edu/events/2019SmallholderFarming
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Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways to Make Lasting Change
Friday, February 8
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
The personal is not only political, it's also economic and sexual: as a society, we're encouraged to view economics as objective science far removed from us--when in reality it has concrete and far-reaching effects on our everyday lives.
In Screwnomics, Rickey Gard Diamond shares personal stories, cartoons, and easy-to-understand economic definitions in her quest to explain the unspoken assumptions of 300 years of EconoMansplaining--the economic theory that women should always work for less, or better for free. It unpacks economic definitions, turns a men-only history on its head, and highlights female experiences and solutions. encouraging female readers to think about their own economic memoir and confront our system's hyper-masculine identity.
In the past fifty years, the US has witnessed a major shift in economic theory, and yet few women can identify or talk about its influence in their own lives. Accessible and inspiring, Screwnomics offers female readers hope for a better, more inclusive future--and the tools to make that hope a reality.
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The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation
Friday February 8
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Narayan Helen Liebenson
In her long-awaited debut, a beloved master teacher shows us how to move from the “constant squeeze” of suffering to a direct experience of enoughness. The magnanimous heart is a heart of balance and buoyancy, of generosity and inclusivity. It allows us to approach each moment exactly as it is - fresh and alive, free from agendas and shoulds, receiving all that arises. It has the capacity to hold anything and everything, transforming even vulnerability and grief into workable assets.
Narayan Helen Liebenson is a guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and has been teaching there since its inception in 1985. Narayan is also a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where she offers residential retreats. She leads retreats as well in other parts of the country and the world.
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Monday, February 11
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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 at 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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Positive Eco-Ethics in a Human-dominated World
Monday, February 11
6 to 7:30
Come to the front door of the water treatment plant at 250 Fresh Pond Parkway, Cambridge
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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Speaker Series: Justin Tinsley
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 at law.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join HPOD for a lunchtime talk on social inclusion and the human right of belonging.
LINK http://hpod.law.harvard.edu/events/event/social-inclusion-and-the-human-right-of-belonging
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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
LINK https://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/calendar/upcoming
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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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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
https://www.masshist.org/2012/calendar/seminars/environmental-history
Contact Name: Alex Buckley
abuckley at masshist.org
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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
RSVP at http://www.hbsab.org/s/1738/cc/index2.aspx?sid=1738&pgid=62056&gid=8&cid=129826&ecid=129826&post_id=0&authkey=t0lFV2RG6m5uMXH3D4zdEBaidU761c99s7i6KI3YJlSGC2NDmxgVGg%3d%3d
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 at 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
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/how-worker-owned-coops-enhance-the-solidarity-economy-tickets-54428598403
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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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!
RSVP at https://mit.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=950&p=1&utm_source=MIT+Energy+Conference+Discount&utm_campaign=MIT+Energy+Conference+Discount&utm_medium=email
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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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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.
https://somervilleyogurtmakingcoop.wordpress.com
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ
Solar map of Cambridge, MA
http://www.mapdwell.com/en/cambridge
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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 at 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 at 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.
More information about the Act-MA
mailing list