[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events - November 10, 2019
gmoke
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Nov 10 11:53:23 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, November 11
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10am Transit of Mercury - Live Viewing
11:45am Mike Catanzaro, former Special Assistant to President Trump for Domestic Energy and Environmental Policy (2017-2018)
12pm Extinction Rebellion Welcome Call
12:15pm Sin, Science and Seismic Shocks: The Jamaica Earthquake of 1692 and the Science of Disaster
3pm The Biggest Little Farm
4pm The Limits and Possibilities of Israeli Science
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Tuesday, November 12
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8:30am Moral Support Rally for Coastal Zone Management
11am On the Basis of Sex: Disparities in Nutrition, Research and Healthcare
11am Special Lecture - Atlantic to Pacific – deep sea coral insights into the deglaciation
11am Bentshmarking Your Energy Use
12pm Black Skinhead: Kanye, Conspiracism and the Winding Road to 2020
12pm Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall
12pm Torture as a method of criminal prosecution: Democratization, Criminal Justice Reform, and the Mexican Drug War
12:30pm Veteran's Health: Caring for Those Who Served
2:30pm Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in Europe and the World
4pm Human Magnetoreception: Tests of Magnetite-Based Transduction
4pm AgConnect: The Future of Protein
4:30pm How can we make fast fashion sustainable?
4:30pm Emile Bustani Seminar: "Women Leaders as Conveyors of Change in Saudi Arabia”
5:15pm Engineering, Politics, and Dams: John R. Freeman and San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Water Supply
6pm FORUM: A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas
6pm Distributing Power Through Renewable Transformation for Climate Resilience
6pm Everyday Decisions and Environmental Challenges
6pm Above the Free Walls: Documentary Film of Graffiti Alley in Cambridge Screening & Discussion
6:30pm "After Migration": In Defense of Using Beauty to Illustrate the Journeys of Those Who Have Suffered
7pm The Mutual Admiration Society
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Wednesday, November 13
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8:30am MassForward: Advancing Democratic Innovation and Electoral Reform in Massachusetts
9am Climate is Everybody's Business: Follow-Up Meeting
10am Fukushima and the Law
12pm Solar Geoengineering Research Program Seminar
12pm Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: An Economic Perspective
12pm Confronting Child Poverty: Using Machine Learning to Evaluate IMF Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
12pm Killer Robots Killing the Rule of Law?
4pm Negotiation Engineering
4pm Dresselhaus Lecture: Paul McEuen on Cell-sized Sensors and Robots
4pm Understanding the Neural Basis of Social Attachment
4pm Breaking My Silence: Amplifying Our Voices as “Others”
4:30pm Poland in the Global Wave of Populism
5pm EPP Seminar: Climate and Urbanization
5:30pm B A S E L I N E | 4 LOCATIONS | EVERY 5 YEARS | UNTIL 2050
5:30pm Faith in American Public Life: Melissa Rogers Book Talk
5:30pm Housing as History: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Orchard Gardens
5:30pm We Are America: Expanding Understandings of What it Means to be American
6pm Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum
6pm 2019 Prather Lecture: Paleovirology: Ghosts and Gifts of Ancient Viruses
6pm Transformation, Crisis, and Reinvention
6pm MIT Solve Challenge Design Workshop
6pm Meet Author and Sustainable Fashion Champion - Elizabeth Cline!
6:30pm Heading for Extinction (and What to Do about It)
6:30pm Vaccination Controversies Then and Now: Boston in 1721 and 1901
7pm Dictionary of the Undoing
7pm Maria Baldwin's Worlds: A Story of Black New England and the Fight for Racial Justice
7pm Newcomers: Gentrification and its Discontents
7pm Bio-mimicry and nature-inspired design
8pm We Need Each Other: Dismantling Oppression and Building Climate and Ecological Justice
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Thursday, November 14 - Friday, November 15
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Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fall Conference: Exploring Cultural Activism in Palestine/Israel
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Thursday, November 14
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9am Symposium on Climate Change
10am Mass Power Forward Lobby Day
11:45am Deliberation Improves Collective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
12pm Disasters, Resilience, and the Environment
12pm Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City
12pm Unprecedented Natural Disasters in a Time of Climate Change: A Governors Roundtable
12pm Controversy over Chernobyl Health Consequences: A Case of Slow Science or Undone Science?
12pm DATA SCIENCE ECOSYSTEMS WITH AI TO IMPROVE SOCIAL RESEARCH
12pm BUILDING SUSTAINABLE CONSERVATION ECONOMIES WITH KEITH VINCENT (CEO, WILDERNESS HOLDINGS)
1:30pm Babson College 2019 Rocket Pitch
3pm How to Change the World: Monitoring and evaluation deep dive
3pm Defense Inno: The Role of Universities
3:30pm Algorithmic Fairness in Predicting Opioid Use Disorder using Machine Learning
3:30pm Driving and the Built Environment: Is Transit-Oriented Development Effective in Shanghai?
4:30pm The United States and Middle East: The Long View
4:30pm Schools for Conflict or for Peace in Afghanistan: Jihad literacy, community-based education, and the shifting goals of US foreign policy in the region
5pm Eric Klopfer, “Design Based Research on Participatory Simulations”
5:30pm Discussion of Make, Think, Imagine
5:30pm The Intellectual Legacy of Primo Levi
5:30pm All the Time in the World: An Artist’s Awakening with Ayahuasca
6pm Erosion: Essays of Undoing
6pm The Universe Speaks in Numbers
6pm FORUM: Everyday Environmentalism
6pm Climate Change Town Hall
6:30pm Cambridge Clean Heating and Cooling Public Workshop
6:30pm Intersectionality forum
7pm Deep Sea Corals and Their Climate Secrets
7pm Hong Kong crisis: democracy protests, media coverage and US involvement: A forum presented by United for Justice with Peace
7pm What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son, and a Journey of Transformation
7pm Managed Retreat: Film Screening with Nathan Kensinger
7pm Exercise is Medicine: How Physical Activity Boosts Health and Slows Aging
7pm Heading for Extinction (and what to do about it)
7:30pm The World Before Your Feet
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Friday, November 15 – Sunday, November 17
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2019 Physicians for Human Rights National Student Conference
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Friday, November 15
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7:30am EBC Climate Change Matchmaking Forum
12pm Adapting to flooding risks in a changing climate
12pm Ancient Roman Concrete: On Sustainable Cement
12pm On-Demand Transit and Mobility Solutions
12pm Measurements and modeling of groundwater-quality changes in areas of natural gas development by hydraulic fracturing
12pm Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
12pm Beyond the Headlines: Energy Security in the EU
12:30pm OEB Special Seminar: "Unnatural Histories: Towards an Integrative Understanding of Adaptation to Anthropogenic Change”
1pm The Inaugural Social Justice Hackathon
3pm Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World
6pm "Bending the Arc" Documentary Screening
6pm Racism as a Systemic Problem in American Society
7pm We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump
7pm Extinction Rebellion Listening Circle (in person)
7pm Support E5 at Dinner 5 for e5
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Saturday, November 16
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8:30am Advanced Sustainable House of Worship Workshop
9am Empowering Future Leaders: The Steps to a Successful Political Campaign
9am NonViolent Direct Action training
12pm Climate Resilience 101 for Municipalities
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Sunday, November 17
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2pm Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley Somerville Town Hall
5pm The Aging Brain
6pm Facing the Climate Crisis with Grit and Grace
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Monday, November 18 - Tuesday, November 19
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Massachusetts Digital Government
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Monday, November 18
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11:45am A Climate Solution Where All Sides Win
12pm Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium - Jacky Austermann (Columbia)
12:10pm Closing the Book on Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock
12:15pm Race and Biopolitics in 21st-Century America
12:30pm Unmapped Urbanism
1pm Clean Peak Standard & Energy Storage Forum
3pm xTalk: Eric Klopfer & Meredith Thompson on VR Learning Games
4:30pm The Tragedy of the Last Mile: Economic Solutions to Congestion in Broadband Networks
5:30pm The New Cybersecurity of the Mind
5:30pm John Herbst and Sergei Erofeev: The Putin Exodus: The New Russian Brain Drain
6pm This Land Is Their Land
6pm A Conversation with Ash Carter
6pm ACT Fall 2019 Lecture Series: The Inexplicable Wonder of Precipitous Events -- Jenna Sutela
6pm Author Discussion: Imagining Judeo-Christian America--Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy
6:30pm The Human Genomic Revolution: Past, Present, and Future
7pm Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age
7pm Extinction Rebellion Online Listening Circle
7:30pm Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture: Loung Ung, Author of "First They Killed My Father”
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Tuesday, November 19
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8:30am The Future of Food & Its Global Impact
12pm Prison Changes People, Education Changes Prison
1pm Strategic Conversations: Deep Engagement to Build Broader Support for Immigrants
1pm Futures Without Carbon Workshop: Roadmap to 2050
3:45pm Taming the Tech Giants
5pm Boston Sustainability Dinner Series - Fall Dinner
5:30pm Film Screening: A Way Out
5:30pm Beantown Throwdown 2019
6pm The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal & Architecture in the Gilded Age New York
6pm Why Trust Science?
6pm Swiss Touch in Space Exploration
6:30pm Extinction Rebellion New Member Orientation
6:30pm Making Digital Tangible: The Battle Against the Pixel Empire
7pm Listening Partnerships for climate activists: tools for sustaining and renewing ourselves
7pm FLP Open Meeting: Inclusive Entrepreneurship & Healthy Food Access with CommonWealth Kitchen
7pm Sunrise Boston Community Team Meeting
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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
City Agriculture - November 7, 2019
https://cityag.blogspot.com/2019/11/city-agriculture-november-7-2019.html
Geometry Links - November 8, 2019
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com/2019/11/geometry-links-november-8-2019.html
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Monday, November 11
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Transit of Mercury - Live Viewing
Monday, November 11
10:00am to 1:00pm
MIT, Building W20: Stratton Student Center, Outside Steps, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
To mark the rare occasion of Mercury’s transit of the sun, EAPS and the MIT Wallace Observatory will host a simultaneous event including in-person viewing through telescopes at MIT and live broadcasting of Mercury passing in front of the Sun from the Wallace Observatory. Mercury will pass directly in front of the sun on November 11 and will be observable through telescopes with solar filters as a small black dot crossing the face of the sun. The next transit of mercury won't be seen again until 2032!
On-Campus Viewing (EAPS)
St ratton Student Center Steps | Senior Lecturer Amanda Bosh
Tweets by @amanda_s_bosh
MIT Wallace Observatory Live Broadcast (Online)
Livestream Link TBA | Observatory Manager Tim Brothers
This event is also sponsored by MIT-TESS, observe at mit, and AstroGazers.
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Mike Catanzaro, former Special Assistant to President Trump for Domestic Energy and Environmental Policy (2017-2018)
Monday, November 11
11:45AM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
HKS Energy Policy Seminar
Hear from Mike Catanzaro, former Special Assistant to President Trump for Domestic Energy and Environmental Policy (2017-2018), about his perspective on the future of U.S. energy and climate policy. Catanzaro is a partner at CGCN Group and a Senior Associate at the CSIS Energy and National Security Program.
Throughout his career, Michael Catanzaro has served in several senior energy and environmental policy positions in the federal government, including the House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, the EPA, and the White House. From 2017-2018, Catanzaro served as special assistant to the president for domestic energy and environmental policy at the White House National Economic Council. In that role, he helped craft energy and environmental policy at multiple agencies and advised the president on the administration’s major policy decisions in that space. He previously served on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign as a top adviser on energy and environmental policy. He was associate director for policy in the White House Council on Environmental Quality and associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under former President George W. Bush. He also served as a senior adviser to then-Speaker John Boehner on energy and environmental policy. Now in the private sector, Catanzaro is a partner at CGCN Group, a policy consulting and public affairs firm based in Washington, D.C. Catanzaro received his B.A. from Fordham University in political science and philosophy and an M.A. in government from John Hopkins University.
Contact Name: Amanda Sardonis
asardonis at hks.harvard.edu
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Extinction Rebellion Welcome Call
Monday, November 11
12pm
Webinar
RSVP at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/28cec6a15c8c632edc2040ba88984b7b
If you are new to XR or would just like to learn more about how it works, please to this online orientation session via Zoom. We will cover the following:
Where did XR come from? What is civil disobedience & direct action?
What is the extinction rebellion about? What do we want?
What are our principles and values? What brings us together?
How are we organized? What are working groups & affinity groups?
The session will run for 60 minutes.
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Sin, Science and Seismic Shocks: The Jamaica Earthquake of 1692 and the Science of Disaster
Monday, November 11
12:15PM TO 2:00PM
Harvard,CGIS S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Louis Gerdelan, Department of History.
Sandwich lunches are provided. Please RSVP to via the online form by Wednesday at 5PM the week before.
sts at hks.harvard.edu
STS Circle at Harvard
http://sts.hks.harvard.edu/events/sts_circle/
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The Biggest Little Farm
WHEN Monday, Nov. 11, 2019, 3 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film, Social Sciences, Special Events
SPONSOR Harvard Divinity School gratefully acknowledges the support of the Susan Shallcross Swartz Endowment for Christian Studies for this event. Partners for the event are the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School; Harvard University Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies; and the Constellation Project.
CONTACT Gretchen Legler, glegler at hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS Monday Matinees, "The Politics of the Unseen: Exploring the Moral Imagination" presents The Biggest Little Farm, directed by John Chester and starring John and Molly Chester, follows two dreamers and a dog on an odyssey to bring harmony to both their lives and the land. John and Molly Chester make a choice that takes them out of the city and onto 200 acres in the foothills of Ventura County, naively endeavoring to build one of the most diverse farms of its kind in complete coexistence with nature.
Following the film, Harvard Divinity School farmer Gretchen Legler converses with producer Laurie David. Dialogue with the audience will be encouraged. This is the third of a special film series that focuses on issues of social and racial justice; ethics of data collection and its impact on free elections; moral leadership; gun violence; and dreams of farming and caring for the land. Discussions will center around what role the moral imagination plays in addressing societal concerns, how each film contributes to our understanding of social change, and how we as community might engage more fully in movement building rooted in creativity and compassion. This event is free and open to the public. To register for the film series, please contact Gretchen Legler. Priority seating will be given to registered participants. Doors close promptly at 3:00 PM.
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The Limits and Possibilities of Israeli Science
Monday, November 11
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM EST
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, NRB Building, Room 935, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-limits-and-possibilities-of-israeli-science-registration-78871008309
Prof. Yair will discuss the intellectual styles of German and Israeli scientists.
In November 11th we are hosting Prof. Gadi Yair, the Louis and Ann Wolens Chair in Educational Research at Department of Sociology and Anthropology at HUJI.
Prof. Yair is currently a visiting scholar at MIT’s Israel Institute at Sloan School of Management. Prof. Yair is studying Israeli Scientists and their International counterparts (especially in Germany) from an anthropological view point.
Prof. Yair will discuss topics appearing in his coming new book (The Unruly Mind: An Invitation to Israeli Science, Nov. 2019, Hebrew, Kibbutz Meuchad). He will discuss the intellectual styles of German and Israeli scientists and will open up questions and reflections re: the limits and possibilities of Israeli science.
Light dinner will be served to those who register.
Looking forward to seeing you
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Tuesday, November 12
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Moral Support Rally for Coastal Zone Management
Tuesday, November 12
8:30 a.m.
251 Causeway Street, #800, Boston
On Tuesday, November 12, the Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) will decide whether or not to allow Enbridge to attempt construction of their fracked-gas compressor station in Weymouth.
To help CZM make the right decision, we will be hosting a moral support rally outside of their offices from 8:30-10:00am Tuesday morning. Please bring teddy bears, supportive signs, and/or any items of moral encouragement for CZM to make the right decision. We will be bringing a gold star in anticipation of them making the only acceptable choice for our neighborhoods, our health, and our climate.
While rain is expected on Tuesday feel free to wear comfortable clothing including snuggies, onesies, and cuddly animal costumes. We want to create a supportive environment for CZM and will not be targeting them as they are the last State agency with the opportunity to make the right decision.
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On the Basis of Sex: Disparities in Nutrition, Research and Healthcare
Tuesday, November 12
11am
Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Lecture Hall, Cambridge
Cambridge Neighbors, an aging-in-place community, and the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University present: On the Basis of Sex: Disparities in Nutrition, Research and Healthcare with Jessie Ellis, Ph.D. candidate.
Men and women are not the same when it comes to nutrition and managing chronic disease– a reality the medical and research community is finally recognizing. Learn how this affects you so you can better manage your health.
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Special Lecture - Atlantic to Pacific – deep sea coral insights into the deglaciation
Tuesday, November 12
11:00am to 12:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
Laura Robinson (Carlson Lecturer)
In this talk I will discuss advances and challenges in using deep-sea corals as well-dated archives of past ocean behaviour. U-series dating allows comparisons of the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans on the same timescales, whilst new developments continue to improve the reliability of geochemical proxies. I will bring together these approaches to examine changes in carbon and temperature of the deep ocean during the deglaciation.
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Bentshmarking Your Energy Use
Tuesday, November 12
11:00 AM Eastern time
Webinar
RSVP by email to jcan.intern at gmail.com
Making big reductions is difficult but also do-able. Maybe you’ve already been working at it, yasher koach! In order to gauge carbon reduction, one needs a measurement, and that’s where this carbon footprint calculation comes in. The “Bentshmark” exercise provides a congregation with a critical snapshot of the overall carbon pollution resulting from the facility’s electricity, heating, and cooling. As JCAN’s instructive webinars have shown, filling in blanks in the benchmarking tool is straightforward and should take at most a couple of hours.
Fred Davis is vice-president, pro tem, of JCAN. He has been professionally engaged since 1978 in the energy field: deeply in energy-efficient lighting, broadly in energy conservation and renewables. Davis is a Fellow in Hebrew College's Leaders in Adult Learning. Curator for Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) conference, Building Energy. Previous: Boards of NESEA, local and national Boards of the Illuminating Engineering Society, Co-Chair of JCRC Energy Committee, President of Urban Solar Energy Association, President of Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston.
Editorial Comment: Fred Davis is an old friend and a national if not world-class expert on energy efficient lighting. He has a LOT of experience to share.
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Black Skinhead: Kanye, Conspiracism and the Winding Road to 2020
Tuesday, November 12
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, Wexner 434AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Brandi Collins-Dexter is the Senior Campaign Director at Color Of Change, where she oversees the media, culture and economic justice team. She has led a number of successful and highly visible campaigns for corporate and government accountability and has also worked extensively with Silicon Valley companies on key corporate policy changes. Collins-Dexter has testified in front of congress on the issue of online privacy, and is a regular commentator in the media on racial justice and tech. While at the Shorenstein Center, Collins-Dexter will write a paper on the digital ecosystem and how it has forever altered the political, economic, sociological and psychological ways in which we engage offline.
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Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Tuesday, November 12
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
Northeastern University, Renaissance Park, Room 909, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/remembering-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-tickets-80561578851
Discussion with Tobias David, Chief of Staff to the Lord Mayor of Leipzig
The Boston Warburg Chapter will host a discussion with Tobias David, Chief of Staff to the Lord Mayor of Leipzig on “Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall: From German Unity to a New Beginning.”
Tobias David, born in 1973, grew up in Leipzig (former GDR/East Germany) and spent most of his school years under the conditions of the GDR dictatorship. Even as a teenager he was involved in opposition groups under the protection of the Catholic Church and became politically active early on. The Peaceful Revolution of 1989, driven by the peace and civil rights movement, had a lasting impact on his life. After studying political science and communication, he worked for many years as managing director of a communications agency. In 2004 he moved to the Saxon State Parliament as advisor to the Vice-President. Since 2008, he has been the closest strategic advisor to the Mayor of the City of Leipzig. The Peaceful Revolution of 1989 - which ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany - began in Leipzig. Today Leipzig is not only one of the largest cities in Germany but also the fastest growing German city.
This event is being held under the auspices of Deutschlandjahr USA 2018/2019 - the Year of German-American Friendship, a comprehensive and collaborative initiative funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe-Institut, and with support from the Federation of German Industries (BDI). For more information on the initiative and the more than 1,000 projects that will take place between October 2018 and November 2019, visit http://www.wunderbartogether.org
Please feel free to bring your own lunch to enjoy during the discussion
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Torture as a method of criminal prosecution: Democratization, Criminal Justice Reform, and the Mexican Drug War
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
SPEAKER(S) Beatriz Magaloni, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
COST Free and Open to the Public
CONTACT INFO drclas at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS A criminal trial is likely the most signicant interaction a citizen will ever have with the state; its conduct and adherence to norms of fairness bear directly on the quality of government, extent of democratic consolidation, and human rights. While theories of repression tend to focus on the political incentives to transgress against human rights, we examine a case in which the institutionalization of such violations follows an organizational logic rather than the political logic of regime survival or consolidation. We exploit a survey of the Mexican prison population and the implementation of reforms of the justice system to assess how reforms to criminal procedure reduce torture. We demonstrate that democratization produced a temporary decline in torture which then increased with the onset of the Drug War and militarization of security. Results show that democracy alone is insufficient to restrain torture unless it is accompanied by institutionalized protections.
LINK https://drclas.harvard.edu/event/title-tbd-0
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Veteran's Health: Caring for Those Who Served
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Medical School, Cannon Room, Building C, 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership
SPEAKER(S) John C. Bradley, Director for Mental Health & Chief of Psychiatry, VA Boston Healthcare System
Jonathan Florance, Medical Student, Harvard Medical School; former Detachment Commander
Janet Fraser Hale, Associate Dean for Interprofessional and Community Partnerships, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Colonel (Retired) in U.S. Army
Eric Goralnick, Medical Director, Emergency Preparedness and Access Center, Brigham Health; U.S. Navy Veteran
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Teresa Carter: teresa_carter at hms.harvard.edu
DETAILS This panel discussion will address Veteran's Health. topics will include: a. Homelessness and Veterans; b. Transitioning to the Civilian World; c. Suicide, Mental Health and Veterans.
LINK https://mfdp.med.harvard.edu/events/2019/veteran-health
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Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in Europe and the World
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, 2:30 – 4 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Adolphus Busch Hall at Cabot Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies
Harvard University, 27 Kirkland Street
SPEAKER(S) Justin Gest, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy, Government and International Affairs
Chair: Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University; CES Local Affiliate & Seminar Co-chair, Harvard University
CONTACT INFO Anna Popiel apopiel at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS Europe is at the center of countervailing trends in the governance of global migration.
On the one hand, many European countries are among the fastest aging societies in the world, highly dependent on immigration, and reliant on supranational arrangements to circulate and shift labor supply around the free mobility zone. On the other hand, Europe is also the epicenter of xenophobic Far Right populism which has compelled many countries to limit the entry of third country nationals, externalize their borders, and process asylum seekers offshore. How do these trends define the nature of immigration governance across European states? And how is this governance contextualized in the broader, global landscape of immigration regimes?
LINK https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2019/11/immigration-regimes-europe-world
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Human Magnetoreception: Tests of Magnetite-Based Transduction
Tuesday, November 12
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 46-3189, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Joseph L. Kirschvink, https://maglab.caltech.edu/, Caltech, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology
Although many migrating and homing organisms are sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field as illustrated in the attached figure, most humans are not consciously aware of the geomagnetic stimuli that we encounter in everyday life. Either we have lost the magnetosensory system shared by many of our not-too-distant animal ancestors, or a system still exists with detectable neural activity but lacks potent output to elicit perceptual awareness in us. With initial support from the Human Frontiers Science Program, we now have strong support for the existence of a subconscious human magnetic sensory system [1]. We have found some brief, ecologically-relevant rotations of Earth-strength magnetic fields that produce strong, specific, and repeatable decreases in EEG alpha band (8-13 Hz) power in the few seconds following magnetic stimulation. Similar brainwave changes are known to arise from visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli and are termed alpha event-related desynchronization (alpha-ERD). To date, our data show that: (1) the human geomagnetic compass response is polar in nature (can distinguish North from South), (2) can operate in total darkness, and (3) is not based on any form of electrical induction (and hence is not an electrical artifact). These results rule out both a quantum compass and an induction sensor as the transduction mechanisms, leaving a system based on biologically-precipitated nanocrystals of magnetite (Fe3O4) as the most likely. Humans are part of Earth’s Magnetic Biosphere.
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AgConnect: The Future of Protein
Tuesday, November 12
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST
LifeHub Boston, 610 Main Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/agconnect-the-future-of-protein-tickets-79260382939
Join LifeHub Boston for our third AgConnect Sustainability Series event, The Future of Protein. We'll be joined by our friends at J-WAFS at MIT to bring you a lively discussion on the future of protein and its impact on the future of sustainability in agriculture. Don't forget to bring your best to our Open Mic Nite, which is your time to pitch your passion project and get feedback from the community! This is your chance to network and get to know the Boston Innovation Ecosystem over a fun evening of drinks and discussion.
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How can we make fast fashion sustainable?
Tuesday, November 12
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM EST
Northeastern University Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex, 805 Columbus Avenue, Room 140, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-can-we-make-fast-fashion-sustainable-tickets-79799507475
How can we make fast fashion sustainable? Join us to find answers with The Conscious Closet author, Elizabeth Cline
The MS in Global Studies and International Relations program is delighted to host acclaimed author, Elizabeth L. Cline to discuss her latest book The Conscious Closet.
The Conscious Closet is not just a style guide. It is a manifesto and call to action to transform one of the most polluting industries on earth into a force for good, on both a micro level—our own closets—and macro level, by learning where and how our clothes are made, and how to connect to a global and impassioned community of stylish fashion revolutionaries for bigger systematic change.
The manufacture of clothing is one of the leading drivers of climate change, responsible for 8% of all carbon emissions, more than all international flights combined. Clothing is also one of the fastest-growing categories of waste to landfills, with one garbage truck of clothes dumped every two minutes in the U.S. For the sake of humanity and the environment, we need to be more mindful about our clothes. As Cline reveals, being more intentional about our clothing choices feels better and looks better, too.
Livestream: https://bluejeans.com/407604417
About Elizabeth L. Cline
Elizabeth L. Cline is a journalist, public speaker, and the author of Overdressed. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Yorker, among others. She is an expert on fashion industry waste, runs a clothing resale business, and is the director of research and reuse at Wearable Collections, one of New York City's largest used-clothing collectors. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Joseph D. Rowland, of the band Pallbearer, and their cat Lily.
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Emile Bustani Seminar: "Women Leaders as Conveyors of Change in Saudi Arabia"
Tuesday, November 12
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E51-335, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Hala Aldosari, Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow at MIT Center for International Studies, Former Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi Fellow
In Saudi Arabia, gender politics has been carefully constructed by the state to promote a specific national identity for women as citizens. In the recent years, and concurrent with the ascent of the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to power, women appointment in leadership positions have been significantly increased and widely promoted in local and international media as a symbol of change. The newly appointed women leaders emerge within a hyper-nationalist political environment that has shifted from a previously religious one. It commands an unconditional support to the new political leadership and its version for state feminism. The new state feminism will be explored as reflected by the public positions of the appointed women leaders on gender reforms. It invites caution in evaluating the influence of women leaders under authoritarianism. In fact, the appointments can be ineffective, if not detrimental, in advancing rights when women leaders reproduce the restrictive norms of the existing status quo, while other forms of organic feminism are severely repressed.
Hala Aldosari is a scholar and activist from Saudi Arabia, now based in the United States. Her research and writings explored the social determinants of women’s health, violence against women, legal reforms and the civil societies of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf States. She is currently the Robert E. Wihlem fellow at MIT Center for International Studies. She serves as an advisory board member for Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, the Gulf Center for Human Rights and the “Every Woman” global initiative to prevent violence against women and girls. She has previously worked as a medical scientist and a consultant for health research and policies in Saudi Arabia. In addition, she worked as visiting scholar in leading think tanks and universities. Her advocacy for women's rights has been recognized with various awards; including the 2018 Alison Des Forge award from human rights watch and the 2016 Freedom award from Freedom House. As an op-ed writer, her analysis was featured in prominent media outlets. In 2009, she became the inaugural fellow of the Washington Post, Khashoggi fellowship.
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Engineering, Politics, and Dams: John R. Freeman and San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Water Supply
Tuesday, November 12
5:15 PM – 7:30 PM
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.masshist.org/calendar/event?event=3030&fbclid=IwAR1JUFO2gk49F3eHny-2N0RgTHN4TBoeif_tbph8QL_0dl3fH8ILwbAXd6A
Donald C. Jackson, Lafayette College
Comment: Conevery Bolton Valencius, Boston College
San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Dam sparked one of America’s first great environmental controversies. This paper explores John R. Freeman’s work as a consulting engineer and his essential role in championing the city’s Sierra Nevada water supply. Freeman was among the most influential engineers of the Progressive Era and his technocratic vision underlay hydraulic projects throughout North America. For good or ill, Freeman’s vision has had a long and enduring legacy, not just for San Francisco but for dams and watersheds nationwide.
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FORUM: A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, 6 – 7:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) Anand Giridharadas, Author of Winners Take All, The True American, and India Calling; Editor-at-large, TIME
Aditi Kumar, Executive Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
COST Free
CONTACT INFO benjamin_hull at hks.harvard.edu
DETAILS Join Belfer Center Executive Director Aditi Kumar in conversation with Anand Giridharadas on his new New York Times bestseller Winners Take All, which addresses the perils of philanthropy and policy in the hands of the global elite.
LINK https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/conversation-anand-giridharadas
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Distributing Power Through Renewable Transformation for Climate Resilience
Tuesday, November 12
6:00pm to 7:30pm
Northeastern, Renaissance Park, 909, 9th floor, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
RSVP at https://cssh.northeastern.edu/internationalcenter/event/distributing-power-through-renewable-transformation-for-climate-resilience/
Talk by Jennie Stephens, Dean’s Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy, Director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University.
Each academic year, the Northeastern University’s Center for International Affairs and World Cultures, the Northeastern Humanities Center, and the Department of Political Science host a lecture series focused on “Contemporary Issues in Security and Resilience” (formerly “Controversial Issues in Security and Resilience”).
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Everyday Decisions and Environmental Challenges
Tuesday, November 12
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Dorchester
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/everyday-decisions-and-environmental-challenges-tickets-74350730035
Tatiana Schlossberg, author of Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have, and other panelists discuss the environmental impact inherent in our everyday choices. David Cash, dean of the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts Boston, moderates.
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Above the Free Walls: Documentary Film of Graffiti Alley in Cambridge Screening & Discussion
Tuesday, November 12
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/documentary-film-of-graffiti-alley-in-cambridge-screening-discussion-tickets-74899334927
A feature-length documentary exploring the legal graffiti art movement along the Graffiti Alley in Central Sq, Cambridge, MA.
Above the Free Walls is a feature-length documentary exploring the legal graffiti art movement along the Modica Way, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Please join us for a preliminary test screening of the documentary –– to provide feedback and commentary on it thus far. Director Weiying Olivia Huang will be present to discuss the making of the film and the legal graffiti movement in the community. State Senator Patricia D. Jehlen will provide opening remarks and join the discussion.
The documentary featuring interviews with numerous graffiti artists, reflecting on the complexity and depth of their world, along with street arts, public arts, graffiti arts, personal in-depth interviews. Developed a voice that spoke to a new generation of the legal graffiti world in public art. In doing so, they changed their view of graffiti itself, seeing it essentially as an art form of ephemeral creations.
This program is supported in part by a grant from Cambridge Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
View Trailer here : https://youtu.be/4T4PTH62RD0
More information: https://abovethefreewalls.yolasite.com/
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"After Migration": In Defense of Using Beauty to Illustrate the Journeys of Those Who Have Suffered
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Film, Lecture, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Art Museums
COST Free admission, but seating is limited.
DETAILS Join us for a film screening of "After Migration: Calabria" (2020) and discussion with Walé Oyéjidé, who produced and co-directed the film, and Harvard professor Teju Cole.
Walé Oyéjidé, Esq., is a fashion designer whose work featured prominently in the Marvel studios blockbuster "Black Panther."
Free admission, but seating is limited. Tickets will be distributed beginning at 5:30pm at the Broadway entrance. One ticket per person.
LINK https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/visit/calendar/after-migration-in-defense-of-using-beauty-to-illustrate-the-journeys-of-those-who-have-suffered
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The Mutual Admiration Society
Tuesday, November 12
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
A group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights
Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking “Are Women Human?” Women’s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers’s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human. Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity. A celebration of feminism and female friendship, The Mutual Admiration Society offers crucial insight into Dorothy L. Sayers and her world.
About the Author: Mo Moulton is currently a lecturer in the history department of the University of Birmingham. They earned their PhD in history from Brown University in 2010 and taught in the History & Literature program at Harvard University for six years. Their previous book, Ireland and the Irish in Interwar England, was named a 2014 “Book of the Year” by History Today and was the runner-up for the Royal History Society’s 2015 Whitfield Prize for first book in British or Irish history. Moulton regularly writes for outlets such as The Atlantic, Public Books, Disclaimer Magazine, and the Toast. They live in London, UK.
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Wednesday, November 13
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MassForward: Advancing Democratic Innovation and Electoral Reform in Massachusetts
Wednesday, November 13
8:30 to 10:30 a.m.
The Edgerley Center for Civic Leadership at the Boston Foundation, 75 Arlington Street, 3rd Floor, Boston
RSVP at https://www.tfaforms.com/4762270
Low voter turnout. Non-competitive elections. Officeholders who don’t necessarily reflect the diversity of the communities they represent. The critiques of current election policies are easy to cite, but how serious are they? And what are the solutions?
Please join the Boston Foundation for a forum exploring new research by MassINC and the Tisch College of Civic Life that examines the extent of our challenges and their roots, and presents a comprehensive set of reforms and innovations to fortify democracy at the state and local levels. The opening presentation will be followed by a conversation with a panel of leaders who offer a wide-range of perspectives on workable solutions to these pressing challenges.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
Paul S. Grogan, President & CEO, The Boston Foundation
Presentation of Report
Peter Levine, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs & Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University
Panel Discussion
Jay R. Kaufman, Retired State Representative (D), 15th Middlesex District, Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Founder & President, Beacon Leadership Collaborative
Beth Lindstrom, Former Executive Director, Massachusetts Republican Party
Keith Mahoney, Vice President, Communications & Public Affairs, The Boston Foundation (Moderator)
Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, PhD, Interim Director, Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy; Interim Director, Gender, Leadership, and Public Policy Graduate Certificate Program at UMass Boston
Pavel Payano, Councilor-at Large, City of Lawrence
Closing Remarks
Juana Matias, Chief Operating Officer, MassINC
For additional information, please contact Michelle Hinkle at 617-338-4268
or michelle.hinkle at tbf.org
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Climate is Everybody's Business: Follow-Up Meeting
Wednesday, November 13
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM EST
The Village Works, 202 Washington Street, Room 001, Brookline
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-is-everybodys-business-follow-up-meeting-tickets-71705520141
Come to this quick meeting to discuss your progress and learn from your peers in the Climate Is Everybody's Business pilot program!
Following our initial Climate is Everybody's Business workshop, we will be hosting a quick follow-up meeting. We hope to use this time to share our progress, discuss barriers we have faced, and collaborate on solutions to becoming more environmentally sustainable organizations.
This pilot program aims to create a unique networking opportunity for participants to learn from each other. Use this opportunity to get to know your fellow Brookline organization leaders and empower one another to make positive change in our community.
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Fukushima and the Law
WHEN Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, 10 – 11:30 a.m.
WHERE Harvard, Fainsod Room, Littauer 324, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Science, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) Julius Weitzdörfer, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom
CONTACT INFO Jacob Carozza jacob_carozza at hks.harvard.edu 617-495-4219
DETAILS Although in September 2019 the Tokyo District Court cleared three former TEPCO executives of criminal charges, the legal fallout from the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear accident is colossal. With over 85 billion dollars of damages awarded to 2.9 million claimants (as of 18 October), it marks the largest liability case in global legal history. In addition to a tsunami of suits brought by evacuees and affected companies in civil courts, hundreds of administrative injunctions were sought against other reactors across Japan. Transnationally, arbitrators from Tokyo to New York hear cases ranging from multi-million dollar trade disputes over cancelled uranium contracts to a pending 5.1 billion dollar investment arbitration over profits lost due to the German nuclear phaseout.
In contrast to the fundamental regulatory reforms and ambitious procedural solutions adopted in Japan, legislative changes have been limited elsewhere and the adoption of new, binding and enforceable international nuclear law remains strikingly absent. Across jurisdictions and areas of nuclear law, and based on the collaboration of 19 international experts, this talk examines what legal lessons from Fukushima have been learned, providing an overview of Julius Weitzdörfer’s forthcoming book "Fukushima and the Law" (Cambridge University Press, co-edited with Kristian Lauta).
LINK https://www.belfercenter.org/event/fukushima-and-law
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Solar Geoengineering Research Program Seminar
Wednesday, November 13
12:00PM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, HUCE Seminar Room 440, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Frank Keutsch, Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard, will give a talk.
Contact Name:
Amy Chang
acchang at seas.harvard.edu
Solar Geoengineering Research Program Seminar
https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/event/seminar-frank-keutsch
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Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: An Economic Perspective
Wednesday, November 13
12:00pm
Harvard, CGIS South, S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Moderator: Fernando Bizzarro, PhD student, Government Department, Harvard University; Graduate Student Associate, DRCLAS
Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues will discuss the current state of the Brazilian Amazon as well as explore relevant policy changes over the last two decades. He will also focus on the efficacy of alternative policies from an economic perspective.
Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues is an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Toronto since 2013. He obtained his PhD degree in Economics at Yale University in 2012. After that, he became a post-doc fellow at Harvard University for one year. Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues’ research agenda lies at the intersection of Environmental Economics and Industrial Organization, with an emphasis on Structural Dynamic Models (i.e., on models in which economic agents are forward looking). His research focuses on problems related to tropical deforestation, especially on the Amazon rainforest, and on the performance of existing and yet-to-be-implemented conservation policies. Evaluating yet-to-be-implemented policies necessarily involves counterfactual analysis based on economic behavioral models. Eduardo’s second research area is dedicated to the questions of when, and under what conditions, counterfactual predictions are identified in structural dynamic models (which have been extensively used in applied work).
Fernando Bizzarro is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard and a Graduate Student Associate to DRCLAS. A political scientist from Brazil, he researches the nature, causes, and consequences of democracy and political parties in Latin America.
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Confronting Child Poverty: Using Machine Learning to Evaluate IMF Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Wednesday, November 13
12:00 - 1:30 pm
BU, Pardee Center, 67 Bay State Road, Boston
Adel Daoud, a Docent/Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and a Bell Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Which children are most vulnerable when their nation imposes austerity programs? The answer likely depends on features of both nations and households, but previous research tends to focus on either the macro political-economic level or the micro family level. Using a sample of nearly 2 million children in 67 nations, a new study examines the effects on child poverty of economic shocks following the implementation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs around the year 2000. The study uses machine learning to capture non-linear interactions between characteristics of nations and families, finding that children's average probability of falling into poverty increased by 14 percentage points due to IMF programs. Contrary to previous analyses that emphasize the vulnerability of low-income families, the study finds that children of the middle-class face at least as high a risk of poverty as a result of economic shocks.
Join the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future for a lunch seminar titled "Confronting Child Poverty: Using Machine Learning to Evaluate IMF Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," featuring Adel Daoud, a Docent/Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and a Bell Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Lunch will be provided beginning at 11:30 am. This event is free and open to the public.
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Killer Robots Killing the Rule of Law?
Wednesday, November 13
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, Building E40-496 (Pye Room), 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Mary Ellen O'Connell, University of Notre Dame
Abstract
Law exists to control the use of force and violence in creating the conditions for flourishing communities—including the international community. But developments since the Cold War have so weakened commitment to law, it may have little constraining effect in a world awash with AI killing machines.
Bio
Mary Ellen O'Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution—Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. Her work is in the areas of international law on the use of force, international dispute resolution, and international legal theory. She is the author or editor of numerous books and articles on these subjects, including: The Art of Law in the International Community (Cambridge University Press, May 2019); Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors (with Tams and Tladi, Cambridge University Press, July 2019); What is War? An Investigation in the Wake of 9/11 (Martinus Nijhof/Brill, 2012); and The Power and Purpose of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2008).
In 2018, Professor O’Connell was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a Fulbright Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. In April 2018, she presented the Fifth Annual Justice Stephen Breyer International Law Lecture at the Brookings Institution, Autonomous Weapons and International Law. From 2010-2012, she was a vice president of the American Society of International Law and from 2005 to 2010 chaired the International Law Association Committee on the Use of Force. Professor O’Connell served as a Title X professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense in Germany and was also an associate attorney in private practice with the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. She holds an MSc from LSE, an LLB and PhD from Cambridge, and a JD from Columbia.
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Negotiation Engineering
Wednesday, November 13
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 1-13, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Abstract: Prof. Ambuhl will introduce the concept of Negotiation Engineering - a solution-oriented approach to negotiation problems developed at ETH Zurich that uses quantitative methods in a heuristic way to find an adequate solution. He will exemplify the possibilities and limitations of the concept through two case studies: the land-transport agreement between Switzerland and the European Union and the talks on nuclear issues between Iran and the 5 Permanent Members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1).
Bio: Dr. Michael Ambuhl is professor at the Chair of Negotation and Conflict Management at ETH Zurich and former Head of the ETH Department of Management, Technology, and Economics. He received his PhD in 1980 from ETH in Applied Mathematics, followed by a position as senior assistant/lecturer at the University of Zurich. He started his diplomatic career in 1982 at the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1999 he was appointed Ambassador and later became Swiss Chief Negotiator of bilateral negotiations with the EU. From 2005 to 2013, he worked as State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry and later in the Finance Ministry. During this time, he negotiated Swiss-US tax agreements and facilitated the dialogue between the P5+1 and Iran, as well as the negotiations of the Armenia-Turkey Protocols.
Michael Ambuhl’s teaching and research focuses on the theoretical background of negotiation engineering, different technical and applied negotiation schools of thought, and mediation and conflict management. He specializes in the application of negotiation studies, based on his mathematical background and more than 30 years of experience as a Swiss diplomat and negotiator.
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Dresselhaus Lecture: Paul McEuen on Cell-sized Sensors and Robots
Wednesday, November 13
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 10-250, Huntington Hall, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-dresselhaus-lecture-paul-mceuen-cell-sized-sensors-and-robots-tickets-77110143515
MIT.nano is pleased to announce that Paul McEuen, the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science at Cornell University and director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, will deliver the inaugural Mildred S. Dresselhaus Lecture at MIT.
McEuen's research explores the electronic, optical, and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials. In this talk, he will take a look at some of the approaches being explored to create miniature machines, focusing on a Cornell effort to combine microelectronics, optics, paper arts, and 2D materials to create a new generation of cell-sized smart, active sensors and microbots that are powered and communicate by light.
The Dresselhaus Lecture Series is named in honor of Mildred "Millie" Dresselhaus, a beloved MIT professor whose research helped unlock the mysteries of carbon, the most fundamental of organic elements—earning her the nickname “queen of carbon science.” This annual event recognizes a significant figure in science and engineering from anywhere in the world whose leadership and impact echo Millie’s life, accomplishments, and values.
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Understanding the Neural Basis of Social Attachment
Wednesday, November 13
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 46-3002, Singleton Auditorium, 3rd floor, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Devanand Manoli, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neuroscience, Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco
Abstract: Social attachments play a central role in most, if not all, levels of human interaction, from parent-child attachment, friendship and social affiliation, to enduring partnerships with mates. Devastating conditions such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia often manifest with a collapse of inter-personal interactions. It has been difficult to study social attachment because traditional genetic lab model animals do not exhibit adult social attachment behaviors. Thus, the analysis of social attachment has been resistant to genetic and neurobiological approaches. Prairie voles, in contrast, display social attachment as adults, such that mating partners form an enduring pair bond and display complex attachment behaviors, such as social monogamy, bi-parental care, and stress responses when social bonds are disrupted. In humans and many species, the peptide hormones oxytocin and vasopressin facilitate social behaviors, and in prairie voles, also facilitate the formation of pair bonds between mates. We use targeted molecular genetics in voles to generate prairie voles with mutations in genes associated with pair bonding, as well as with psychiatric disorders such as ASD to understand how these genes function in the circuits mediating social attachment behaviors.
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Breaking My Silence: Amplifying Our Voices as “Others”
WHEN Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Poetry/Prose, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Neal Hovelmeier, 2019–2020 Robert G. James Fellow, Radcliffe Institute; research associate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa), author
COST Free
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS A year after his decision to come out made him a target of public outcry — including death threats — and forced him to resign from his job at a top Zimbabwean school, Neal Hovelmeier shares his insights about how people living on the margins of society struggle to use their voices against the forces that seek to silence them.
Register online.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2019-neal-hovelmeier-fellow-presentation
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Poland in the Global Wave of Populism
WHEN Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Adolphus Busch Hall at Cabot Way, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies
SPEAKER(S) Anna Grzymala-Busse, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; CES Senior Fellow, Harvard University
Bart Bonikowski, Associate Professor of Sociology & CES Resident Faculty, Harvard University
CONTACT INFO Anna Popiel apopiel at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS Anna Grzymala-Busse will address Poland as part of the wave of populism and how it differs from other cases, while Bart Bonikowski will serve as discussant and Grzegorz Ekiert as chair.
This lecture series was established in 1983 through a generous gift from the estate of August Zaleski's widow, Ewelina Zaleska, to "organize lectures on modern Polish history from the year 1795 to the present time."
The lectures remain independent of any other courses or professorships and are known as "The August Zaleski Lectures in Modern Polish History.”
LINK https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2019/11/zaleski-anna-grzymala-busse
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EPP Seminar: Climate and Urbanization
Wednesday, November 13
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT, Building 9-451, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Please RSVP: https://forms.gle/k6F3ZKjgg36TNY1LA
Patricia Romerro-Lankao
Urban areas can play a key role in the transformations that are required in humankind’s ways of understanding and responding to climate and sustainability challenges. Fulfilling this role, however, will require bringing together urban planners, social and physical scientists, business leaders, engineers, and others representing diverse knowledge and power domains. Such an undertaking creates its own set of seemingly intractable complications. This presentation begins with a brief description of the current state of an interdisciplinary understanding of how climate and urbanization contribute to intra- and interurban inequalities in risk. It will then examine across global to local scales, how urban areas, as places with unique social, institutional and environmental histories, shape risk. It will close with some remarks on how urban actors might enhance the capacity of urban populations to mitigate risk and adapt in fair and sustainable ways.
Dr. Patricia “Paty” Romero-Lankao joined NREL’s Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center in 2018 as a senior research scientist in joint appointment with the University of Chicago’s Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, where she is a research fellow. From a behavioral science perspective, she examines the interactions among people, mobility, the built environment, and energy systems, as well as their resilience to disruptive events. Previously, she worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where she examined crucial intersections between urbanization and risks associated with food, energy, and water systems along with related governance and the capacity of these systems to adapt to and mitigate climate risks.
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B A S E L I N E | 4 LOCATIONS | EVERY 5 YEARS | UNTIL 2050
Wednesday, November 13
5:30 PM
Harvard, BioLabs Lecture Hall (Room 1080), 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge
JOHN D. SUTTER, National Geographic Explorer & CNN Climate Analyst
in conversation with
NAOMI ORESKES, Professor, History of Science; Affiliated Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences
DANIEL SCHRAG, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology; Professor, Environmental Science & Engineering
John D. Sutter is a National Geographic Explorer and CNN climate analyst. His writing, journalism, and documentary work have won the prestigious Livingston Award, the IRE Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Peabody Award and received two EMMY nominations, one for new approaches to documentary film and the other for environmental reporting. At CNN, where Sutter was a senior investigative reporter, producer, and columnist for a decade, he created and directed several award-winning projects, including "Two Degrees," "Vanishing" and "Change the List." He is a former Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a former summer fellow at UNIONDOCS and is a visiting instructor at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. With support from the National Geographic Society and UNIONDOCS, he is directing BASELINE, a pioneering documentary series that aims to tell the story of the climate crisis beyond a lifetime.
Questions? huce at environment.harvard.edu or 617.495.0368
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Faith in American Public Life: Melissa Rogers Book Talk
WHEN Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Education, Humanities, Lecture, Religion, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Religious Literacy Project at the Harvard Divinity School
SPEAKER(S) Melissa Rogers, Visiting Professor, author
Cornell Brooks, Professor
E.J. Dionne, Professor
Diane L. Moore, Lecturer
COST None
TICKET WEB LINK None
CONTACT INFO Reem Atassi, ratassi at hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS E.J. Dionne will moderate a discussion with Rogers, former special assistant to President Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2013-2017), Cornell Brooks and Diane L. Moore. Panelists will discuss current controversies and the continuing search for common ground regarding faith in American public life and religious freedom.
LINK www.melissarogersbook.com
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Housing as History: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Orchard Gardens
Wednesday, November 13
5:30pm to 7:00pm
Blackstone Community Center, 50 W. Brookline Street, Boston
By the 1980s the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury was facing significant challenges. Absentee landlords had allowed property to deteriorate, left units vacant, or had used arson to raze buildings and make insurance claims. Facing what many considered insurmountable obstacles, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was formed to create a comprehensive plan for “development without displacement.” The first non-governmental organization in America to be granted eminent domain authority, they began purchasing vacant land, protecting affordable housing and creating a community land trust. Meanwhile, the nearby housing project Orchard Park became notorious for crime and drugs. The Orchard Park Tenants Association lobbied for years for improvements and by the mid-1990s began to see a path forward partnering with the police and using community organizing to reduce crime and linking the redevelopment to the new federal HOPE VI program which was meant to revitalize the worst housing projects in America. HOPE VI was in part modeled on the redevelopment of Columbia Point and encouraged partnerships with private developers and a mixture of incomes among the residents. Through community action and smart development, Orchard Park was redeveloped as Orchard Gardens and became a safe, stable neighborhood.
This discussion will be led by Karilyn Crockett, Lecturer of Public Policy and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Tony Hernandez, Director of Operations and Stewardship, Dudley Neighbors, Inc.; Valerie Shelley, President, Orchard Gardens Resident Association (Boston Housing Authority)
This program is made possible by the generosity of Mass Humanities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
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We Are America: Expanding Understandings of What it Means to be American
Wednesday, November 13
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM EST
Harvard Graduate School Of Education, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-are-america-expanding-understandings-of-what-it-means-to-be-american-tickets-77418222989
A conversation and workshop about expanding and deepening what it means to be American
Join us for a conversation and workshop led by the high school founders of the We Are America Project, Re-Imagining Migration Co-founder Adam Strom, and the We Are America founder and teacher Jessica Lander HGSE’15
The We Are America Project is working with teachers and young people across the country to define what it means to be American — and to spark a new national conversation about American identity today led by the next generation.
During the 2018-2019 school year, teacher Jessica Lander (HGSE'15) and students in her Seminar on American Diversity strove to answer the question: What does it mean to be American? In trying to tie together large historical movements and individual histories they wrote and edited two books of personal stories "We Are America" and "We Are America Too." Their hope was to start a different type of conversation about identity.
This summer they launched the national We Are America Project. The goal is to help spark a new national conversation around what it means to be American, led by the next generation.
Over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, Lander and her former students are working to support 36 teachers in 23 states across our country, who in turn are working with more than 1300 students to help define what being American means to them.
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Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum
Wednesday, November 13
6:00 PM
Harvard Science Center, Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.harvard.com/event/lee_smolin1/
Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Cabot Science Library welcome author and influential physicist LEE SMOLIN for a discussion of his new book, Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum.
About Einstein's Unfinished Revolution
Quantum physics is the golden child of modern science. It is the basis of our understanding of atoms, radiation, and so much else, from elementary particles and basic forces to the behavior of materials. But for a century it has also been the problem child of science: it has been plagued by intense disagreements between its inventors, strange paradoxes, and implications that seem like the stuff of fantasy. Whether it's Schrödinger's cat—a creature that is simultaneously dead and alive—or a belief that the world does not exist independently of our observations of it, quantum theory challenges our fundamental assumptions about reality.
In Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin provocatively argues that the problems which have bedeviled quantum physics since its inception are unsolved and unsolvable, for the simple reason that the theory is incomplete. There is more to quantum physics, waiting to be discovered. Our task—if we are to have simple answers to our simple questions about the universe we live in—must be to go beyond quantum mechanics to a description of the world on an atomic scale that makes sense.
In this vibrant and accessible book, Smolin takes us on a journey through the basics of quantum physics, introducing the stories of the experiments and figures that have transformed our understanding of the universe, before wrestling with the puzzles and conundrums that the quantum world presents. Along the way, he illuminates the existing theories that might solve these problems, guiding us towards a vision of the quantum that embraces common sense realism.
If we are to have any hope of completing the revolution that Einstein began nearly a century ago, we must go beyond quantum mechanics to find a theory that will give us a complete description of nature. In Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, Lee Smolin brings us a step closer to resolving one of the greatest scientific controversies of our age.
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2019 Prather Lecture: Paleovirology: Ghosts and Gifts of Ancient Viruses
Wednesday, November 13
6:00PM
Harvard, Geo Museum Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Harmit Malik, Professor, University of Washington
https://oeb.harvard.edu/oeb-seminars
Contact Name: Christian Flynn
cflynn at fas.harvard.edu
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Transformation, Crisis, and Reinvention
Wednesday, November 13
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
700 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transformation-crisis-and-reinvention-tickets-75321694215?aff=efbeventtix&fbclid=IwAR3-giMWSBw8OWpxvx7HyAtj9S7JgoZHB7_BeuZpVKueKH_HViJTG7WY6bE
Join us for a conversation on history and change in the American landscape featuring Ronald Grim, exhibition curator and catalog editor, and Alex Krieger, author of City on a Hill.
EXHIBITION OPENING AND CATALOG RELEASE
America Transformed: Mapping the 19th Century
Part 2, Homesteads to Modern Cities
BOOK LAUNCH
City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
6:00 Refreshments
6:30 Panel Discussion and Q&A Session
7:30 Book Signing
This event will be at the Central Branch of the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA
info at leventhalmap.org | 617.859.2387
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MIT Solve Challenge Design Workshop
Wednesday, November 13
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
MIT, Building 10-105, Bush Room, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mit-solve-challenge-design-workshop-registration-80377058947
MIT Solve identifies and supports social innovators with the best solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges -- whether it's urban farmers in Lagos, ethical plastic recyclers in Bangalore, or storytelling to improve care for Alzheimer’s patients.
Join Solve for an interactive and inspirational Challenge Design Workshop here at MIT! You'll join fellow undergraduate and graduate students from MIT and the greater-Boston area to identify where innovative technology and business approaches can be the most catalytic in creating social and environmental change.
This workshop will focus on designing Solve's 2020 Global Challenges in health, learning, economic prosperity and, sustainability.
Your perspective and expertise will help formulate specific, actionable challenge questions that will be posed by MIT Solve to innovators around the world. In turn, those innovators will develop and submit technology-driven solutions on Solve’s open innovation platform (YOU could be one of them!) The best solutions will be invited to partner with the global network of organizations that are members of the Solve community.
This event is FREE, food will be served, and only open to students in the Greater Boston Area!
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Meet Author and Sustainable Fashion Champion - Elizabeth Cline!
Wednesday, November 13
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Simmons University, 300 Fenway, Boston
RSVP at https://bit.ly/2JvgBcG You will get specific location details when you register on the form.
PLEASE - while there is no charge for this event, be considerate and only reserve a spot if you are committed to coming . We have a limited amount of tickets for this event!
Elizabeth Cline is one of the world’s leading go-to experts on fast fashion, labor rights, and sustainability. Her seminal book, "Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion" (2012), is a founding book of the global ethical and sustainable fashion movement.
She is here in Boston for a handful of engagements to discuss sustainable fashion and her new book, "The Conscious Closet".
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Heading for Extinction (and What to Do about It)
Wednesday, November 13
6:30 p.m.
Encuentro5, 9 Hamilton Place, Boston
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/xr-talk-encuentro5-nov-2019/
We are in the midst of an unprecedented climate crisis and ecological breakdown that threatens the continuation of life as we know it: record atmospheric carbon levels, global temperature rise, deforestation, plastic pollution, mass extinction of species... Join us to hear the latest information on the state of our planet, and learn how to become part of a global movement of social transformation for a livable future.
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Vaccination Controversies Then and Now: Boston in 1721 and 1901
Wednesday, November 13
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Old North Church, 193 Salem Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/old-north-speaker-series-david-jones-vaccination-controversies-then-now-tickets-63073720195
Speaker: David Jones, MD, PhD
Presented in partnership with the Paul M. Russell, MD Musem of Medical History and Innovation at MGH
Lecture: 6:30 - 7:30 pm
Community Conversation: 7:30 - 8:30 pm (refreshments served)
Immunization is one of the oldest and most effective medical technologies now in use. However, immunization has sparked fierce controversy throughout its history and remains controversial today. This talk will explore the public protests in Boston triggered by the inoculation against smallpox in 1721 and by compulsory vaccination against smallpox in 1901. In each case, opponents of the practice justified their resistance with a mix of arguments that spanned medical theory, religious faith, public safety, and individual rights. The controversy that began in Boston in 1901 reached the Supreme Court in 1905; the resultant ruling, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, still governs public health power today. These historical vignettes provide valuable perspective on modern vaccination controversies and suggest possible ways to move forward.
Afterwards, join us for a reception and Community Conversation with the speaker and Tegan Kehoe, Education and Exhibition Specialist for the Museum of Medical History and Innovation at MGH, for an intimate, open-minded discussion of the current vaccination/anti-vaccination debate in our society.
Trained in psychiatry and history of science, David Jones is the Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine at Harvard University. His research has focused on the causes and meanings of health inequalities (Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600) and the history of decision making in cardiac therapeutics (Broken Hearts: The Tangled History of Cardiac Care). He is currently at work on three other histories, of the evolution of coronary artery surgery, of heart disease and cardiac therapeutics in India, and of the threat of air pollution to health. His teaching at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School explores the history of medicine, medical ethics, and social medicine.
Tegan Kehoe is the Exhibit and Education Specialist at the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital. She edits the Medical Museums Association column in Watermark, the Quarterly Journal of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences. Her book in progress, Exploring Healthcare Through 50 Historic Treasures, is under contract with the American Association for State and Local History Press (Rowman & Littlefield). Her monthly e-newsletter, Links and Things from Tegan, includes recommendations of books, blogs, podcasts, and more on culture, history, civics and museums.
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Dictionary of the Undoing
Wednesday, November 13
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
John Freeman in conversation with Krysten Hill
For John Freeman—literary critic, essayist, editor, poet, “one of the preeminent book people of our time” (Dave Eggers)—it is the rare moment when words are not enough. But in the wake of the election of 2016, words felt useless, even indulgent. Action was the only reasonable response. He took to the streets in protest, and the sense of community and collective conviction felt right. But the assaults continued—on citizens’ rights and long-held compacts, on the core principles of our culture and civilization, and on our language itself. Words seemed to be losing the meanings they once had and Freeman was compelled to return to their defense. The result is his
Dictionary of the Undoing.
From A to Z, “Agitate” to “Zygote,” Freeman assembled the words that felt most essential, most potent, and began to build a case for their renewed power and authority, each word building on the last. The message that emerged was not to retreat behind books, but to emphatically engage in the public sphere, to redefine what it means to be a literary citizen.
With an afterword by Valeria Luiselli, Dictionary of the Undoing is a necessary, resounding cri de coeur in defense of language, meaning, and our ability to imagine, describe, and build a better world.
John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing. His books include How to Read a Novelist and The Tyranny of E-mail, as well as Tales of Two Americas, an anthology of new writing about inequality in the U.S. today. Maps, his debut collection of poems, was published in 2017. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, andThe New York Times. The former editor of Granta and one-time president of the National Book Critics Circle, he is currently Artist-in-Residence at New York University.
Krysten Hill received her MFA in poetry from UMass Boston where she currently teaches. Her work can be found in apt, B O D Y, Boiler Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Word Riot, Muzzle, PANK, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Winter Tangerine Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2016 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award. Her chapbook, How Her Spirit Got Out, received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
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Maria Baldwin's Worlds: A Story of Black New England and the Fight for Racial Justice
Wednesday, November 13
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Maria Baldwin (1856--1922) held a special place in the racially divided society of her time, as a highly respected educator at a largely white New England school and an activist who carried on the radical spirit of the Boston area's internationally renowned abolitionists from a generation earlier.
African American sociologist Adelaide Cromwell called Baldwin "the lone symbol of Negro progress in education in the greater Boston area" during her lifetime. Baldwin used her respectable position to fight alongside more radical activists like William Monroe Trotter for full citizenship for fellow members of the black community. And, in her professional and personal life, she negotiated and challenged dominant white ideas about black womanhood. In Maria Baldwin's Worlds, Kathleen Weiler reveals both Baldwin's victories and what fellow activist W. E. B. Du Bois called her "quiet courage" in everyday life, in the context of the wider black freedom struggle in New England.
Kathleen Weiler is professor emeritus of education at Tufts University. The author of Country Schoolwomen: Teaching in Rural California, 1850-1950; Women Teaching for Change; and Democracy and Schooling in California: The Legacy of Helen Heffernan and Corinne Seeds, Weiler’s work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe. She makes her home in Cambridge.
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Newcomers: Gentrification and its Discontents
Wednesday, November 13
7:00pm
Trident Books Cafe, 338 Newbury Street, Boston
About the Book
Newcomers is an even-handed journalistic account of gentrification from the 1950s to the present that combines intimate accounts of developers, community organizers, and public officials with detailed explorations of policy decisions. Gentrification, Schuerman argues, is not primarily a cause of urban ills, but a symptom of something larger: the transition from a manufacturing economy to an information-based one. Real estate developers and marketers were quick to take advantage of the phenomenon, while local and national leaders failed to treat it seriously—even when a handful of activists attempted to warn the nation as far back as the 1970s of the dangers of “reinvestment.” Newcomers reinvigorates the debate over urban change with objectivity, grace, and wit. It will leave readers with a deeper appreciation of the roots of gentrification, the misunderstandings that have accompanied its rise, and the urgency needed to address residential displacement today.
About the Author
Matthew L. Schuerman was born and raised in Chicago and has spent most of his life in cities since then. His coverage of urban issues has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, and The Village Voice, as well as on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” He is currently a senior editor at WNYC public radio in New York, where his projects have won numerous honors, including a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and received a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Newcomers is his first book.
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Bio-mimicry and nature-inspired design
Wednesday, November 13
7 - 9pm
Harvard Medical School, Armenise Auditorium (in Goldenson Hall),200 Longwood Avenue, Boston
More information at http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/seminar-series/
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We Need Each Other: Dismantling Oppression and Building Climate and Ecological Justice
Wednesday, November 13
8PM
Webinar
RSVP at https://zoom.us/j/860379501
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Thursday, November 14 - Friday, November 15
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Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fall Conference: Exploring Cultural Activism in Palestine/Israel
WHEN Thursday, November 14 - Friday, November 15
WHERE Harvard Divinity School, Room 119, 60 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Comedy, Conferences, Education, Ethics, Film, Humanities, Lecture, Religion, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) RCPI Fellows:
Rebecca Pierce
Tom Mehager
Rami Younis
Gregory Khalil
Noam Shouster
COST None
TICKET WEB LINK https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2i6NLaklCUpufNr
CONTACT INFO Reem Atassi, ratassi at hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS The Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative will host their first Fall Conference on the theme of "Exploring Cultural Activism in Palestine/Israel" feature the RCPI Fellows and Guests who are practitioners in the field. Filmmakers, cultural activists, and a comedian will explore topics of Documenting Social Struggle; Visualizing Colonialism; Countering Cultural Erasure; and Shifting Evangelical Engagement.
LINK https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/programs/religion-conflict-and-peace-initiative
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Thursday, November 14
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Symposium on Climate Change
Thursday, November14
9:00AM TO 5:00PM
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, NRB 350, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston
The 2019 Symposium of the Consortium for Space Genetics will be dedicated to Earth because, after all, Earth is in Space. Its focus will be climate change and the potential of genetic technologies to halt or reverse it, ameliorate the consequences of it, and prepare the living world for the extreme conditions that will arise because of it. Indeed, many of the leaders who have spearheaded humanity’s exploration of Space are now diverting their attention to Earth. Please join us. It will be an important melding of minds. Registration is required.
Speakers include:
Dava Newman: Former Deputy Administrator of NASA, Obama Administration; Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT
Joanna Haigh: Atmospheric physicist; Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College, London
Rebecca Henderson: Expert on the intersection of climate change and business; Professor, Harvard Business School
Christopher Mason: Geneticist of the NASA Twin Study; Professor, Weill Cornell Medical College
Adam Steltzner: Lead engineer, Mars Science Laboratory EDL (Entry, Descent, Landing); Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA
George Church: Geneticist, biotechnologist, genetic engineer, synthetic biologist; Professor, Harvard Medical School
Mike Cahill: Award-winning film director, writer, and producer; Another Earth (2011), I Origins (2014), and the upcoming Bliss (2020)
https://spacegenetics.hms.harvard.edu/2019-symposium-space-genetic
Contact Name: Ting Wu
twu at genetics.med.harvard.edu
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Mass Power Forward Lobby Day
Thursday, November 14
10am - 4pm
Massachusetts State House, Room 437, Boston
RSVP to Cabell Eames at cabell at betterfutureproject.org
Join us for Mass Power Forward Lobby Day on November 14th! We will be meeting in room 437 at 10 AM. Lobbying will begin in the afternoon. As you know, Senator Pacheco is a climate champion in the Senate and he needs our help. On November 14th, the Senate will hold Formal Session at 11 AM where the Senator will hold the floor to put a spotlight on his fellow senators that signed a New Years Resolution in January of this year that stated they agreed to pass bold climate legislation in 2019. We need to pack the Session and show our support. Formal Session will be from 11-1 and afterward we will head back to room 437 to prepare to lobby on our Mass Power Forward bills. More details will be released closer to the date. In the meantime, send questions and comments to cabell at betterfutureproject.org
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Deliberation Improves Collective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
Thursday, November 14
11:45AM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, Wexner-434b Conference Room, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Abstract: Citizen participation in decision-making has been widely lauded as a method for improving outcomes in international development and environmental management, among other areas. Advocates of participatory decision-making claim that participation leads to both better decisions and more pro-social behavior. Yet despite widespread support for participation in both rhetoric and donor funding, empirical evidence for the positive effects of participation remains mixed. Existing work provides little guidance to policy-makers, for whom the most pressing question is: how should participatory institutions be designed to maximize social benefits? Complex variation in program design that complicates our ability to isolate the effects of particular aspects of participation in observational data. Experimental work can be an important complement in this regard. I illustrate this with a discussion of a behavioral lab experiment in Nairobi, Kenya, in which participants were randomly assigned to different forms of collective decision making. I find that deliberative argumentation – but not majority voting – improves collective outcomes, mostly through better decision making. Evidence for behavior change is weaker, but there may be a positive effect mediated by preference change. Future work will expand the forms of participation understudy and seek to replicate the research in a field setting. This is the first step in a long-term research agenda that moves beyond the question of whether participation in decision making is desirable, toward a more nuanced understanding of which forms of participation improve which outcomes under what conditions.
Tara Grillos is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University and a member of the university's Building Sustainable Communities cluster. She received a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado's Institute of Behavioral Science. Her research focuses on human decision-making and behavior in the context of sustainable development.
Contact Name: Leah Knowles
leah_knowles at hks.harvard.edu
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/deliberation-improves-collective-decision-making-experimental-evidence-kenya
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Disasters, Resilience, and the Environment
Thursday, November 14
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Multi-Purpose Room, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford
Keely Maxwelll, General Anthropologist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Earthquakes, extreme weather, oil spills, biosecurity incidents, and industrial accidents are some of the many types of disasters that pose risks to human health and environment. Communities experiencing ongoing social and environmental vulnerabilities may be at greater risks of harm from disasters. Resilience to disasters is heralded as a way for communities to reduce these risks and recover quickly if a natural or anthropogenic disaster does strike. Yet what does resilience look like on the ground? How can communities tell if measures they are taking are actually reducing vulnerability and improving resilience? This talk discusses the connections among disasters, resilience, society, and the environment, including the role that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plays.
Dr. Keely Maxwell is a General Anthropologist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development. An environmental anthropologist and ecologist by training, she first came to EPA as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. She is the principal investigator for two research projects: community resilience to disasters, and the social science of environmental cleanups. She also served as a chapter lead for the Built Environment, Urban Systems, and Cities chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Dr. Maxwell has a Ph.D. and M.F.S. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
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Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City
Thursday, November 14
12 pm to 1:00 pm
Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/latinomayors
As recently as the early 1960s, Latinos were almost totally excluded from city politics. This makes the rise of Latino mayors in the past three decades a remarkable American story—one that explains ethnic succession, changing urban demography, and political contexts.
Join the Initiative on Cities for a book talk with Marion Orr, the co-editor of Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City. The book features case studies of eleven Latino mayors in six American cities: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Denver, Hartford, Miami, and Providence.
Marion Orr is the Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Brown University. He specializes in urban politics, race and ethnic politics, and African-American politics and is the author of several books, including Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore and The Color of School Reform: Race, Politics and the Challenge of Urban Education.
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Unprecedented Natural Disasters in a Time of Climate Change: A Governors Roundtable
Thursday, November 14
Noon-1pm ET
Live webcast
http://ForumHSPH.org
An on-demand video will be posted after the event.
Ways to Watch
ForumHSPH.org
The Forum Facebook page
Harvard Chan YouTube
Hammered by unprecedented natural disasters, parts of the United States have coped with raging wildfires, catastrophic hurricanes, dangerous heat levels, blizzards and floods. In addition, climate change has introduced new risks and exacerbated existing problems, according to the National Climate Assessment.
This Forum event will convene a dynamic panel of former governors, who will share their unique insights into the challenges of leadership and natural disasters. What does it take to prepare, respond and rebuild? What roles do the public, local and state officials and emergency responders play? What is the intersection between economies and disasters? And what climate change considerations need to be understood?
Moderator: Tim McLaughlin, Reuters Correspondent
Expert Participants:
Steven L. Beshear, 61st Governor of Kentucky
Christine Gregoire, 22nd Governor of Washington
Jay Nixon, Governor of Missouri (2009-2017)
Peter Shumlin, 81st Governor of Vermont and
Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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Controversy over Chernobyl Health Consequences: A Case of Slow Science or Undone Science?
Thursday, November 14
12:00PM TO 1:30PM
Harvard, Science Center 469, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Kate Brown, MIT
More information at https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/event/history-science-seminars-kate-brown
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DATA SCIENCE ECOSYSTEMS WITH AI TO IMPROVE SOCIAL RESEARCH
WHEN Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS South S020, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Information Technology, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR This event is co-sponsored by:
Harvard Data Science Initiative
Institute for Applied Computational Science
Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Center for Geographic Analysis
SPEAKER(S) Alex Liu, Chief data scientist, IBM & director, RMDS Lab
COST Free, RSVP required
TICKET WEB LINK https://gis.harvard.edu/event/data-science-ecosystems-ai-improve-social-research
CONTACT INFO contact at cga.harvard.edu
DETAILS More and more organizations are embracing data science, but the success ratios of data science projects have been low — at the 30 percent level for years per surveys conducted by Gartner and others. To attack this problem and help mitigating risks of other associated issues such as the high turnover ratio of data scientists, an ecosystem approach with AI is emerging. In this talk, Alex Liu as one of the pioneers and a lead developer of this approach will start from defining the data science ecosystem approach and discuss the needs for expert guided AI assistance to social research. He will present a few implementation methods with some open source tools, and introduce a few success cases by utilizing IBM Watson studio, including a city open data ecosystem and a weather data ecosystem.
LINK https://gis.harvard.edu/event/data-science-ecosystems-ai-improve-social-research
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BUILDING SUSTAINABLE CONSERVATION ECONOMIES WITH KEITH VINCENT (CEO, WILDERNESS HOLDINGS)
Thursday, November 14
12:00pm to 2:00pm
Harvard, Center for African Studies Seminar Room, 1280 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor, Cambridge
Space is limited, so please RSVP Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-sustainable-conservation-economies-with-keith-vincent-tickets-78972267177
Wilderness Holdings CEO, Keith Vincent, grew up in Zimbabwe and fell in love with wildlife at a young age. Keith started out a career as a wildlife guide and now leads one of the continents foremost ecotourism operators. Keith has been with Wilderness Safaris for 26 years, and there are few people better placed to share the stories and learnings of creating a successful and sustainable business model in Africa. Wilderness Safaris currently conserves approximately 2,3 million hectares (over 5.6 million acres) of wildlife areas across six African countries, employs over 2 000 people and has positively impacted the lives of over 10 000 children. In his presentation, Keith will share insight into Wilderness Safaris’ business model and how the company hopes to increase its positive impact into the future.
A light lunch will be provided.
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Babson College 2019 Rocket Pitch
Thursday, November 14
1:30 PM – 4:30 PM EST
Babson College, Olin Hall, 231 Forest Street, Babson Park, Wellesley
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-rocket-pitch-tickets-71822965423
Join Babson College for its 20th annual Rocket Pitch, which will also be this year’s kickoff event for Babson’s Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration! Come hear the nation’s top entrepreneurship students and alumni pitch their new ventures - in three minutes or less!
Rocket Pitch is an annual event where student and alumni entrepreneurs from Babson, Olin, and Wellesley colleges are invited to pitch their business ideas to a large audience of students, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers.
Each entrepreneur is given three minutes and three PowerPoint slides to quickly and succinctly deliver the critical differentiating elements of their business ideas. Pitches happen in rapid succession in multiple rooms. Presenters are given live feedback from audience members immediately after their pitch.
Rocket Pitch’s unique, fast-paced format generates a lot of excitement—be sure to join us for one of Babson College’s most electrifying events!
Tentative Agenda:
1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Registration
2:00 p.m. – 2:20 p.m. Opening Remarks and Special Presentation
2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Presentations
4:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Event End
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How to Change the World: Monitoring and evaluation deep dive
Thursday, November 14
3:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 4-265, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
Each week MIT Solve is inviting social impact leaders to speak in our First Year Discovery class, "How to Change the World: Experiences from Social Entrepreneurs." But it is so much more than a class! Join us for this free event with free refreshments open to the public to be inspired by incredible leaders. No RSVP needed!
This week, we'll have Eleanor Murphy from Acumen and Pooja Wagh from MIT Solve!
Eleanor Murphy is the Director of Philanthropy and Engagement, where she focuses on building relationships with individuals and families who support Acumen’s mission of tackling poverty in new, innovative ways. She works across the Business Development team to develop engagement opportunities for our partner community and foster fundraising efforts globally. Before joining Acumen she spent ten years in financial services working with wealth advisors and institutions on building investment strategies to meet client needs. Eleanor received a Master’s degree in Humanitarian Studies through NOHA and holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Boston University.
Pooja Wagh is the Lead of Solve's Health pillar and Director of Results Measurement for Solve. She develops and nurtures relationships with Solve's health-focused members, advisors, and Solvers, and works with them to drive forward promising, innovative solutions to intractable challenges in the health and wellness space. She is also responsible for defining Solve's strategic direction for the Health pillar and measuring the impact of Solve's partnerships on the ability of Solvers to affect change. Prior to joining Solve, Pooja was a Program Manager at Innovations for Poverty Action, where she managed a portfolio of rigorous research projects aiming to improve the access and quality of financial services in underserved areas around the world. She previously worked as a consultant at IBM Global Business Services, where she provided technology consulting services to pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods companies. Pooja holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelors in electrical engineering from MIT.
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Defense Inno: The Role of Universities
Thursday, November 14
3:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Venture Café Cambridge, 1 Broadway, 5th Floor, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/defense-inno-the-role-of-universities-tickets-69999423159
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Algorithmic Fairness in Predicting Opioid Use Disorder using Machine Learning
Thursday, November 14
3:30pm to 4:30pm
Northeastern, 909 Renaissance Park, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston
Angela Kilby, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics
CSSH Faculty Works-in-Progress Colloquium Series
Presented by the CSSH Dean’s Office and the Northeastern Humanities Center
For more information, please contact Gaby Fiorenza at g.fiorenza at northeastern.edu
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Driving and the Built Environment: Is Transit-Oriented Development Effective in Shanghai?
Thursday, November 14
3:30pm to 4:45pm
Harvard, Pierce 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
A Harvard-China Project Research Seminar with Faan Chen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-China Project, Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University
Abstract: The rapid growth of cities such as Shanghai in China has presented many transportation, land use and climate change challenges for local government officials, planning and transit practitioners and property developers. These challenges include traffic congestion, energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to global warming. As one of the more visible urban forms of smart growth, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) has been actively promoted as a model for urban development in areas around transit stations to solve such challenges. The vast majority of studies of TOD have been conducted in North American and European cities, while research of TOD is still in its infancy in most developing countries, including China, where residential and transport choices are likely to be more constrained and travel-related attitudes quite different from those in the developed world. Using the data collected from more than 8000 residents living in TOD and non-TOD neighborhoods in the city of Shanghai, this study aims to partly fill the gaps by investigating the causal relationship between the built environment and travel behavior in the Chinese context, and specifically to examine whether altering the built environment can actually lead to meaningful changes in travel behavior, e.g., less Vehicle Kilometers Traveled (VKT) and GHG emissions.
Faan Chen is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard-China Project, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University. He received his PhD in Transportation Engineering at Tongji University in 2018. From Sep. 2016 to Aug. 2017, he was enrolled in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a visiting PhD candidate sponsored by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).
His research interest lies in contributing to a deeper understanding of human mobility and travel decision-making; specifically the areas of data-driven transport modeling and mobility, the built environment and travel behavior profiling, and urban computing and complexity. His current research focuses on developing and applying data-driven approaches in the domain of urban environment and transportation. Aiming to provide a better understanding of how the urban transportation systems and the built environment could benefit urban lives.
In addition to the work analyzing urban mobility he has also been a part of collaborative researches concerning road safety, with which he is trying connecting the climate change. These researches involve Asia, Europe, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
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The United States and Middle East: The Long View
Thursday, November 14
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Steven Simon, Professor in the Practice of International Relations at Colby College
Steven Simon is Professor in the Practice of International Relations at Colby College. He served as the National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism in the Clinton White House and for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama White House and in senior positions at the U.S. Department of State. Outside of government, he was a principal and senior advisor to Good Harbor LLC in Abu Dhabi and director of the Middle East office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Manama. Prior to this, he managed security-related projects at the RAND Corporation and was the Hasib Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has taught at Princeton, Dartmouth and Amherst and held fellowships at Brown, Oxford and the American Academy in Berlin.
He is the co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror (Random House, 2004), winner of the Arthur C. Ross Award for best book in international relations and of The Next Attack (Henry Holt, 2006), a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize, and one of the “best books of the year” in the Washington Post and Financial Times, which focused on the U.S. response to 9/11. He also co-authored Iraq at the Crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change (Oxford, 2003); Building a Successful Palestinian State and The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State (RAND 2005); The Sixth Crisis (Oxford, 2010); The Pragmatic Superpower: The United States and the Middle East in the Cold War (W.W. Norton, 2016); Our Separate Ways (Public Affairs, 2016); and The Long Goodbye: The United States and the Middle East from the Islamic Revolution to the Arab Spring (Penguin/ Random House, forthcoming).
Mr. Simon has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politico, New York Review of Books, Survival, and Haaretz, and has appeared on the PBS NewsHour.
Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Speaker Series
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Schools for Conflict or for Peace in Afghanistan: Jihad literacy, community-based education, and the shifting goals of US foreign policy in the region
WHEN Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel 262, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR CMES/WCFIA Middle East Seminar
SPEAKER(S) Dana Burde, Associate Professor and Director, International Education Program, International Education & Politics, New York University; Research Fellow, Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP); Editor in Chief, Journal on Education in Emergencies
COST Free and Open to the Public
CONTACT INFO elizabethflanagan at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS Dana Burde's book, "Schools for Conflict or for Peace in Afghanistan", recently won the $100,000 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Her research focuses on the effects of conflict on education, the efforts of humanitarian organizations to mitigate these effects, and the relationship between education and political violence or peace. She is particularly interested in research that can be used to inform policy and that has the potential to help state and non-state actors create positive social change. She uses diverse research methods including qualitative case studies and complex field experiments (also known as randomized controlled trials) that rely on both large-scale surveys and in-depth, qualitative interviews.
CMES events are open to the public (no registration required) and off the record. Please note that events may be filmed and photographed by CMES.
LINK https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/schools-conflict-or-peace-afghanistan-jihad-literacy-community-based-education-and
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Eric Klopfer, “Design Based Research on Participatory Simulations”
Thursday, November 14
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT, Building E15, Tables opposite room 320, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
An important part of the work done at the The Education Arcade is based on a process of Design Based Research (DBR). In DBR, we design products that are meant to fill real classroom needs and then iteratively test and refine them. Eric Klopfer and The Education Arcade are currently working on a set of “Participatory Simulations”: mobile collaborative systems-based games.
During this talk, attendees will have a chance to play a couple of these games and participate in a design discussion with one of the games that is currently in progress.
Professor Klopfer, currently Head of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, is Director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade at MIT. He is also a co-faculty director for MIT’s J-WEL World Education Lab.
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Discussion of Make, Think, Imagine
Thursday, November 14, 2019
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
CIC, 245 Main Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Science-Book-Club-for-the-Curious/events/263342992/
A discussion of "Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilization" by Lord John Browne. The room opens at 5:30pm and discussion starts at 5:45pm.
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The Intellectual Legacy of Primo Levi
WHEN Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Adolphus Busch Hall at Cabot Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies
Harvard University, 27 Kirkland Street
SPEAKER(S) Millicent Marcus, Professor of Italian, Yale University
David Ward, Professor of Italian Studies, Wellesley College
Charles Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History, Harvard University; CES Resident Faculty & Director (1994-2001), Harvard University
CONTACT INFO Anna Popiel apopiel at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS The 2019 Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture will focus on the figure and the intellectual legacy of Primo Levi. Following the discussion, all guests are invited to join the reception in the CES Atrium.
Primo Levi (1919-1987) is considered one of the greatest witnesses of the Jewish extermination and one of the most authoritative voices of the literature of the 20th century. As a chemist, Levi used the scientist's microscope lenses to investigate the darker sides of human action.
His works have been translated into more than 40 languages throughout the world, and he was also a poet, translator, artist, anthropologist, linguist, and ethologist.
LINK https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2019/11/salvemini-harvard-levi
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All the Time in the World: An Artist’s Awakening with Ayahuasca
WHEN Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT CSWR, 617.495.4476
DETAILS Join artist and author Rachel Sussman as she shares her physical, intellectual, and spiritual journey around the world and through time-space. She will discuss her epic 10-year project, "The Oldest Living Things in the World," newer mind-expanding works incubated at NASA and SETI, and, for the first time, will be sharing her personal journey of spiritual awakening and transformation through her relationship with ayahuasca.
Artist and author Rachel Sussman is a Guggenheim and MacDowell Colony Fellow, and two-time TED speaker. Her critically acclaimed, decade-long project "The Oldest Living Things in the World" combines art, science, and philosophy into a traveling exhibition and New York Times bestselling book. For the past five years she has been deepening her investigations of personal and cosmic time, being, and consciousness, fostered by a spiritual awakening ignited by shamanic medicine practices.
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Erosion: Essays of Undoing
Thursday, November 14
6:00 PM (Doors at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.harvard.com/event/terry_tempest_williams2/
Cost: $6 - $28.75 (book included) - On Sale Now
Harvard Book Store welcomes renowned writer and conservationist TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS for a discussion of her latest book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing.
About Erosion
Terry Tempest Williams is one of our most impassioned defenders of public lands. A naturalist, fervent activist, and stirring writer, she has spoken to us and for us in books like The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion: What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming.
She looks at the current state of American politics: the dire social and environmental implications of recent choices to gut Bears Ears National Monument, sacred lands to Native People of the American Southwest, and undermine the Endangered Species Act. She testifies that climate change is not an abstraction, citing the drought outside her door and at times, within herself. Images of extraction and contamination haunt her: “oil rigs lighting up the horizon; trucks hauling nuclear waste on dirt roads now crisscrossing the desert like an exposed nervous system.” But beautiful moments of relief and refuge, solace and spirituality come―in her conversations with Navajo elders, art, and, always, in the land itself. She asks, urgently: “Is Earth not enough? Can the desert be a prayer?”
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The Universe Speaks in Numbers
Thursday, November 14
6:00pm
Northeastern, Snell, 108, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Renowned physicist and writer, Graham Farmelo. Dr. Farmelo will lead a discussion with one of the world’s leading theoreticians Nima Arkani-Hamed, exploring the relationship between mathematics and fundamental physics and helping us understand “Nature from Newton to the string theory and beyond.” The event will include a book signing.
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FORUM: Everyday Environmentalism
WHEN Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, 6 – 7:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) Tatiana Schlossberg, Author, "Inconspicuous Consumption"; reporter, The New York Times
Bob Cohn, IOP Fall 2019 Resident Fellow; [resident of The Atlantic (2014-2019)
COST free - no ticket required
DETAILS Journalist and Author of "Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have," Tatiana Schlossberg discusses the consumers’ need for convenience and the impact on climate change with IOP Resident Fellow Bob Cohn.
LINK https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/everyday-environmentalism
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Climate Change Town Hall
Thursday, November 14
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Citywide Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-change-town-hall-tickets-79346500519
Join State Representative Marjorie Decker and experts in the field of climate change and renewable technology to discuss the impacts of climate change and what is being done to mitigate its effects.
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Cambridge Clean Heating and Cooling Public Workshop
Thursday, November 14
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Citywide Senior Center Arts & Crafts Room, 806 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cambridge-clean-heating-and-cooling-public-workshop-registration-78221361197
This workshop supports residents interested in learning about installing energy-saving and clean home heating and cooling technologies.
The City of Cambridge has launched a new initiative to make it easy for residents to switch to cleaner heating and cooling technologies. Air source heat pumps and solar hot water systems are an efficient and cost-effective way to make your home comfortable year-round. These technologies not only help save you money on energy costs, but also help Cambridge decrease its overall carbon footprint, benefiting your neighbors and our city.
The City is working with Boston-based EnergySage to help residents request, receive, and compare air source heat pump and/or solar hot water quotes from local, reputable contractors. An Energy Advisor will be available to provide independent support every step of the way.
At this workshop, you'll have a chance to learn more about the technologies, meet an installer, and get your questions answered!
If you'd like to visit the program website in advance of the meeting, go to CambridgeCleanHeat.org
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Intersectionality forum
Thursday, November 14
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Temple Israel of Boston, 477 Longwood Ave, Boston
RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/490057775176106/
Jewish tradition is clear that we have a social responsibility to all those who are vulnerable and in need. And the Torah and post-Biblical texts make clear that the Earth is sacred. In the face of the current devastation of the planet and the climate, and the serious and deleterious effect on all already existing social issues and questions of justice, it is clear that we need to join these two ancient Jewish values together. To this end, hear a panel of speakers focus on the relationship between the climate and three pressing issues--immigration, labor rights, and ...--with ample time for audience participation and broader discussion.
There will be opportunities for activists in all areas to learn about things they can do, and highlight current efforts to support.
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Deep Sea Corals and Their Climate Secrets
Thursday, November 14
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Simons Theatre New England Aquarium, Aquarium Wharf, Boston
RSVP at http://support.neaq.org/site/Calendar?id=108125&view=Detail
Laura F. Robinson, Ph.D., Professor of Geochemistry, University of Bristol
This is the ninth annual John H. Carlson Lecture presented by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lorenz Center and the New England Aquarium.
Deep in the oceans we find beautiful, abundant fields of corals. They live without light and yet they still rely on the sun for energy. As they grow, they take up chemicals from the seawater in which they live. The exact composition of these chemicals can reveal information on water temperature, circulation rates, and the amount of carbon or nutrients in the water in the past. This information is extremely valuable to climate scientists who are seeking to understand the important coupling between the atmosphere and the oceans. By using the chemistry of fossil coral skeletons from tens of thousands of years ago we have the potential to examine the way in which the oceans changed as the planet moved from a cold glacial state to the warm period that we have been living in for the last ten thousand years. In this talk, we will explore the underwater mountains that form the habitats for these corals and consider how and why corals can survive in such inhospitable locations, as well as looking at evidence on how they are being impacted by current human activities. Furthermore, we will head further back in time to explore the history of the oceans during rapid climate transitions.
About the Speaker
Laura Robinson is a geochemist, oceanographer, and deep-sea explorer whose research focuses on understanding the climate history of the oceans. Her first degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge opened her eyes to the power of interdisciplinary research. After earning a Ph.D. in Geochemistry at the University of Oxford, she moved to the California Institute of Technology, where she first learned about the existence of corals that live far below the sea surface. Since then, she has lead research teams at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Bristol using deep-submergence tools to map, image, and collect deep-sea corals from across the global oceans. She and her team use geochemical analyses to extract information on how these coals survive at great depths, and to reconstruct information on the history of the oceans. This information is used to understand the interactions between the deep sea and rapid changes in global climate.
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Hong Kong crisis: democracy protests, media coverage and US involvement: A forum presented by United for Justice with Peace
Thursday, November 14
7 pm
Friends meeting, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge (near Harvard Square)
$5 donation requested
The crisis in Hong Kong has riveted world attention for months and violence in the streets continues. The movement is a complex mixture: nonviolent protesters and youth worried about their future and wanting more democracy, others promoting Hong Kong (capitalist) independence, and those collaborating with US organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy.
The forum will address a number of questions: What is the situation in Hong Kong and is the reporting of US mainstream media fair and accurate? Will the Hong Kong government stop the violence? Will there be dialogue and negotiations? What will China do? What is US policy and what may the future hold for Hong Kong? The panelists will suggest a framework for better understanding and address the question, what is the role of the US
Left.
Speakers:
Duncan McFarland: board member of United for Justice with Peace and coordinator of the China Study Group at the Center for Marxist Education. Duncan has visited China and Hong Kong multiple times from 1981 to 2017
Reese Erlich: over 40 years experience as a freelance foreign correspondent for NPR and CBS radio, and author of five books on US policy. Reese has reported numerous times from China and Hong Kong, and analyzed the protests in his Progressive Magazine column Foreign Correspondent
https://progressive.org/dispatches/foreign-correspondent-us-role-hong-kong-protests-erlich-190826/
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What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son, and a Journey of Transformation
Thursday, November 14
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
A mother’s memoir of her transgender child’s odyssey, and her journey outside the boundaries of the faith and culture that shaped her.
From the age of two-and-a-half, Jacob, born “Em,” adamantly told his family he was a boy. While his mother Mimi struggled to understand and come to terms with the fact that her child may be transgender, she experienced a sense of déjà vu—the journey to uncover the source of her child’s inner turmoil unearthed ghosts from Mimi’s past and her own struggle to live an authentic life.
Mimi was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, every aspect of her life dictated by ancient rules and her role as a woman largely preordained from cradle to grave. As a young woman, Mimi wrestled with the demands of her faith and eventually made the painful decision to leave her religious community and the strict gender roles it upheld.
Having risen from the ashes of her former life, Mimi was prepared to help her son forge a new one — at a time when there was little consensus on how best to help young transgender children. Dual narratives of faith and motherhood weave together to form a heartfelt portrait of an unforgettable family. Brimming with love and courage, What We Will Become is a powerful testament to how painful events from the past can be redeemed to give us hope for the future.
Mimi Lemay is an international advocate for transgender youth and the author of the viral essay “A Letter to My Son Jacob on His 5th Birthday.” Lemay and her family meet regularly with legislators, business leaders, educators, and clergy to share their vision of a more equitable world. She is a member of the Parents for Transgender Equality National Council at Human Rights Campaign and holds a master’s in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
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Managed Retreat: Film Screening with Nathan Kensinger
Thursday, November 14
7-8:30pm
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/managed-retreat-a-film-screening-panel-discussion-with-nathan-kensinger-tickets-78310728497
SSL welcomes filmmaker Nathan Kensinger for two screenings of his documentary about the first cases of 'managed retreat' in New York City in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. These events are free and open to the public.
On Campus: SSL Director Rebecca Herst will join Nathan for a conversation about the film and broader themes connected to managed retreat. This screening will take place in McCormack, 1st floor, Room 0213.
Downtown: In the evening, the screening of this short film, will be paired with a panel discussion with local Boston leaders focused on the intersections between climate displacement and economic displacement. Representatives from Harborkeepers, City Life/Vida Urbana and GreenRoots will share the work they are doing in the face of the Boston housing crisis and how they see climate change impacting their communities now and in the future. This screening and panel discussion is co-sponsored by Corporate Accountability.
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Exercise is Medicine: How Physical Activity Boosts Health and Slows Aging
Thursday, November 14
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-author-judy-foreman-tickets-74892761265
Aging, despite its dismal reputation, is actually one of the great mysteries of the universe. Why don't we just reproduce, then exit fast, like salmon? Could aging just be one big evolutionary accident? Is senescence, the gradual falling apart of our bodies, at least partially avoidable? Can we extend the healthy lifespan and reduce the lingering, debilitating effects of senescence?
In this book, investigative health journalist Judy Foreman suggests that we actually can, and the key element is exercise, through its myriad effects on dozens of molecules in the brain, the muscles, and other organs. It's no secret, of course, that exercise is good for you and that exercise can extend longevity. What Foreman uncovers through extensive research into evolutionary biology, exercise physiology, and the new field of geroscience is exactly why exercise is so powerful - the mechanisms now being discovered that account for the vast and varied effects of exercise all over the body. Though Foreman also delves into pills designed to combat aging and so-called exercise "mimetics," or pills that purport to produce the effects of exercise without the sweat, her resounding conclusion is that exercise itself is by far the most effective, and safest, strategy for promoting a long, healthy life. In addition to providing a fascinating look at the science of exercise's effects on the body, Foreman also provides answers to the most commonly asked practical questions about exercise.
About the Author: Judy Foreman is a nationally syndicated health columnist who has won more than 50 journalism awards and whose columns have appeared regularly in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Baltimore Sun, and other national and international outlets. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College, served in the Peace Corps in Brazil for three years, and received a Master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 2000 to 2001, she was a Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. She has been a Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She has also been the host of a weekly, call-in radio show on Healthtalk.com. She has won more than 50 journalism awards, including a George Foster Peabody award for co-writing a video documentary about a young woman dying of breast cancer, and she is author of A Nation in Pain: Healing our Biggest Health Problem (Oxford, 2014) and The Global Pain Crisis: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2017).
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Heading for Extinction (and what to do about it)
Thursday, November 14
7 p.m.
Calvary Church, 300 Mass Avenue, Arlington
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/hfe-11-14-19/
Over 11,000 scientists just signed a letter declaring a climate emergency.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented climate crisis and ecological breakdown that threatens the continuation of life as we know it: record atmospheric carbon levels, global temperature rise, deforestation, plastic pollution, mass extinction of species... Join us to hear the latest information on the state of our planet, and learn how to become part of a global movement of social transformation for a livable future.
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The World Before Your Feet
Thursday, November 14
7:30pm to 9:30pm
MIT, Simmons Hall (W79), Multipurpose Room (MPR) 229 Vassar Street, Cambridge
The World Before Your Feet is a critically acclaimed 2018 American documentary film directed by filmmaker Jeremy Workman about Matt Green’s mission to walk every street of New York City, a journey of over 8000 miles. Join us for a screening of the film, followed by a question and answer session with the subject of the documentary, Matt Green.
Hosted by Simmons Residential Scholar Garnette Cadogan. Sponsored by a generous contribution from the William R ‘56 & Betsy P Leitch Endowment.
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Friday, November 15 – Sunday, November 17
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2019 Physicians for Human Rights National Student Conference
Friday, November 15, 6:00 PM – Sunday, November 17, 12:00 PM EST
Tosteson Medical Education Center, 260 Longwood Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-physicians-for-human-rights-national-student-conference-tickets-70354194289
Cost: $20 – $35
The Harvard Medical School PHR Chapter is proud to present the 2019 National Student Conference — Foreign Bodies: Fear of the (Un)Known.
About this Event
The Physicians for Human Rights Conference will be held at Harvard Medical School in 2019. We are excited to bring together experts in human rights and invite you to a weekend of:
Talks about human trafficking, sexual violence, and more
A panel discussion with leaders from several Boston-based asylum clinics
Breakout sessions and workshops on effective advocacy and LGBTQ curriculum
A screening of "Birth on the Border", a documentary short that explores legal border crossing from Mexico into the U.S. for the purpose of childbirth
A poster session for students to present original research in the field of human rights.
Schedule:
The conference will run from the evening of Friday, November 15th to noon of Sunday, November 17th. An abbreviated schedule is located below. For complete details, please visit our website at: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/hmsphr/event/2019-phr-national-student-conference
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Friday, November 15
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EBC Climate Change Matchmaking Forum
Friday, November 15
Registration: 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Program: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc., 249 Vanderbilt Avenue, Norwood
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/ebc-climate-change-matchmaking-forum-2/
Cost: $25 - $100
This EBC Climate Change Matchmaking Program will provide an opportunity for small, medium and large companies to learn about each other’s climate related services, technologies, projects, and equipment, as they seek future private sector and government contracts in the areas of adaptation and resiliency. Learn first-hand about the services or equipment provided by companies involved in addressing climate issues in New England and beyond. This EBC matchmaking program will be especially useful for companies interested in getting their team together for future climate projects.
This EBC matchmaking forum will provide each presenting company with the opportunity to make a brief (5 minute) presentation of their services. After six presentations there will be a networking break followed by more presentations and networking time. This is a “must attend” event to help all firms develop their strategic alliances for government procurements and other future bidding opportunities.
This year’s program hosts a matchmaking session during which attendees will be able to directly interface with each other regarding strategic relationship and partnering opportunities.
Each attendee will receive a detailed handout of all participating companies with contact information and services/equipment provided.
SHOWCASING: Finally, this EBC program will provide an opportunity for companies to showcase their services or equipment with a tabletop display.
Does your company provide consulting, legal or financial services for adaptation & resilience projects?
Is your company in the process of developing/planning adaptation or resilience projects that can be presented?
Does your company produce or sell equipment for adaptation and resilience projects?
If your answer is yes to any of these questions, plan to participate in this EBC Climate Change Matchmaking Forum scheduled for Friday morning, November 15, 2019.
There are four ways to participate:
PRESENT – Register to present your company’s services (5 minute presentation) and matchmaking service.
SHOWCASE – Register to showcase your company with a tabletop display (this registration includes one complimentary staff person).
ATTEND – Register to attend and listen (or register an attendee as an additional staff member at your company’s showcasing table).
SPONSOR – Register to sponsor and gain recognition as a Climate Leader
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Adapting to flooding risks in a changing climate
Friday, November 15
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Robinson Hall Room 253, 200 College Avenue, Medford
Vivek Srikrishnan, Penn State University
More information at https://engineering.tufts.edu/cee/news-events/seminars
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Ancient Roman Concrete: On Sustainable Cement
Friday, November 15
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 6-104, Chipman Room, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
Admir Masic, Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, DMSE Faculty Fellow in Archaeological Materials, CMRAE Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology
Production of concrete, the most widely used building material in the modern world, is associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, modern concrete is highly prone to degradation within a century. Consequences of these processes motivate the exploration of more durable solutions. Ancient Roman concrete has proven durability over millennia, a characteristic associated with an intrinsic self-healing mechanism. This talk weaves together history, ancient materials technologies, and modern science and engineering, to describe how we can harness remarkable properties of ancient Roman concrete in designing sustainable modern solutions.
Each year, DMSE hosts a Faculty Fellow in Archaeological Materials, an outstanding scholar in the field who works with students and researchers, bringing new ideas and collaborations to the department.
Archaeological Materials Seminar
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On-Demand Transit and Mobility Solutions
Friday, November 15
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building W20: Stratton Student Center, 306, 84 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge
At this talk Omer Granot, VP of Growth at VIA will be speaking to the transportation students on some more technical subjects as well as Via’s business model and their view for the future. Via is a ride-hailing service provider that operates on-demand ridesharing directly in six cities (Chicago, NYC and DC in the US) and works indirectly with a number of transit agencies and government organizations to provide on-demand transit (LA Metro, Transport for London, etc).
Light refreshments will be provided.
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Measurements and modeling of groundwater-quality changes in areas of natural gas development by hydraulic fracturing
Friday, November 15
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 48-316,Ralph M Parsons Laboratory, 15 Vassar Street
James Saiers, Yale University
Environmental Science Seminar Series
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Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
Friday, November 15
12:00PM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Colette L. Heald, MIT, will give a talk.
Contact Name: Maryann Sargent
mracine at fas.harvard.edu
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Beyond the Headlines: Energy Security in the EU
Friday, November 15
12:00pm to 2:00pm
BU, 121 Bay State Road, Boston
Join us as our Beyond the Headlines series continues with a discussion entitled "Energy Security in the EU: Challenges From the East." Panelists include Hoyt Brayan Yee, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. State Department; and Carol R. Saivetz, Senior Advisor, MIT Security Studies Program. Research Associate, DavisCenter for Russian and Eurasian Studiesand Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. The discussion will be moderated by Pardee School Professor of the Practice of International Relations Amb. Vesko Garcevic.</
A light lunch will be provided at 11:45 a.m. RSVP by email to events PS at bu.edu
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OEB Special Seminar: "Unnatural Histories: Towards an Integrative Understanding of Adaptation to Anthropogenic Change”
WHEN Friday, Nov. 15, 2019, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Geological Museum Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
SPEAKER(S) Shane Campbell-Staton, Assistant Professor, UCLA Institute for Society & Genetics
COST Free and open to the public
LINK https://oeb.harvard.edu/event/oeb-special-seminar-shane-campbell-staton
Abstract: Human activity has become a near-ubiquitous force of evolutionary change throughout the Tree of Life. Understanding the cascading consequences of this change across multiple levels of biological hierarchy has revealed important insights into the vast footprint of our species across the planet. Further, Anthropogenic evolution has offered a fascinating testing ground to explore long-standing questions across ecology and evolution as the process plays out in real time. Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton will present his current and ongoing research into adaptive response of wild populations to anthropogenic stressors. He will discuss his work exploring repeated physiological adaptation of Carribean lizards to urban environments and the consequences of poaching-mediated selection on tusk morphology in the African elephant. Lastly, Dr. Campbell-Staton will share his current and ongoing efforts to use contemporary evolution and science fiction to engage diverse audiences in the scientific process in formal and informal settings.
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The Inaugural Social Justice Hackathon
Friday, November 15
1:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Gutman Conference Center, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-inaugural-social-justice-hackathon-tickets-79398389721
The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice invites all students and activists across the greater Boston area to register for the inaugural Social Justice Hackathon on November 15th from 1pm-7pm in the Gutman Conference Center. The Hackathon will bring interdisciplinary groups of students together to create advocacy strategies and solutions for pre-determined issues with advocacy organizations. Issues for the Hackathon range from ending bail bonds and fees in Louisiana, to creating a reparations strategy in New Jersey, to building a Democracy hub in Michigan, to protecting the DED status of Liberian immigrants in Washington, DC.
The evening portion will consist of a dinner, poetry, a performance by the Kuumba singers of Harvard College, and a closing panel of revolutionaries and activists in social justice work. We invite all students to register by visiting https://trotter.hks.harvard.edu/hackathon. If you have any questions, please contact Devon Crawford at devoncrawford at hks.harvard.edu.
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Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World
Friday, November 15
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics welcome ARTHUR ISAK APPLBAUM—Adams Professor of Democratic Values at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government—for a discussion of his new book, Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World.
About Legitimacy
What makes a government legitimate? The dominant view is that public officials have the right to rule us, even if they are unfair or unfit, as long as they gain power through procedures traceable to the consent of the governed. In this rigorous and timely study, Arthur Isak Applbaum argues that adherence to procedure is not enough: even a properly chosen government does not rule legitimately if it fails to protect basic rights, to treat its citizens as political equals, or to act coherently.
How are we to reconcile every person’s entitlement to freedom with the necessity of coercive law? Applbaum’s answer is that a government legitimately governs its citizens only if the government is a free group agent constituted by free citizens. To be a such a group agent, a government must uphold three principles. The liberty principle, requiring that the basic rights of citizens be secured, is necessary to protect against inhumanity, a tyranny in practice. The equality principle, requiring that citizens have equal say in selecting who governs, is necessary to protect against despotism, a tyranny in title. The agency principle, requiring that a government’s actions reflect its decisions and its decisions reflect its reasons, is necessary to protect against wantonism, a tyranny of unreason.
Today, Applbaum writes, the greatest threat to the established democracies is neither inhumanity nor despotism but wantonism, the domination of citizens by incoherent, inconstant, and incontinent rulers. A government that cannot govern itself cannot legitimately govern others.
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"Bending the Arc" Documentary Screening
Friday, November 15
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Broad Institute - Auditorium, 415 Main Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bending-the-arc-documentary-screening-tickets-79099222905
As a collaboration between Partners in Health Engage and Broad Institute, this event is a free screening of Bending the Arc. Bending the Arc is a documentary about a team of young people—Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl—whose charitable medical work 30 years ago ignited a global health movement. Their goal was simple but daring: to make high quality health care available to everyone, even in the world’s poorest countries. Fighting entrenched diseases, political and bureaucratic machinery, and the existing charity and medical establishments, these crusaders took their fight from the village to the world stage, to ensure that health care is a right for all, and that geography should not determine destiny.
Light reception to precede the event.
This event is free and open to the public - RSVP is encouraged but not required.
Questions? Email Alison.Smith at childrens.harvard.edu
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Racism as a Systemic Problem in American Society
Friday, November 15
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
Simmons University, School of Management Building - Room 501, 300 The Fenway, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presentation-and-book-signing-registration-74137957627
Workshops and discussion about Racism as a Systemic Problem in American society and the impact on social work practices. 2.0 CEC Available
About this Event
Racism is a systemic problem imbedded in American society and it impacts the work of social workers both directly and indirectly. Hear from the authors. This presentation will assist practitioners to better identify and understand the psychological, social, and societal influences that promote systemic racism and that mitigate effective clinical and/or organizational work done by social workers.
Book Available for purchase and signing:
"Systemic Racism in America: Scaffolding as social construction" (2018).
Come early to purchase book: 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Learning Objectives
Understand the historical context and support for systemic racism
Understand the various dimensions of systemic racism and their interrelationships
Be able to apply scaffolding components of systemic racism in analyzing a clinical case
Be able to apply scaffolding components of systemic racism in analyzing the context of professional practice
Authors & Presenters
Johnnie Hamilton-Mason, Ph.D., LICSW, Professor, Simmons University School of Social Work
Nancy Wewiorski, Ph.D., LICSW, Health Services Researcher, Department of Veterans Affairs
Robbie Tourse, Ph.D., LICSW, Retired Associate Professor and Director of Field Education, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work
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We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump
Friday, November 15
7:00 PM (Doors at 6:30)
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.harvard.com/event/leah_greenburg_and_ezra_levin/
Cost: $8 - $28.75 (book included) - On Sale Now
Harvard Book Store welcomes LEAH GREENBURG and EZRA LEVIN—former congressional staffers and co-directors of the grassroots organizing movement Indivisible—for a discussion of their new co-authored book, We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump. They will be joined in conversation by MARSHALL GANZ, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
About We Are Indivisible
Shortly after Trump’s election, two outraged former congressional staffers wrote and posted a tactical guide to resisting the Trump agenda. This Google Doc entitled “Indivisible” was meant to be read by friends and family. No one could have predicted what happened next. It went viral, sparking the creation of thousands of local Indivisible groups in red, blue, and purple states, mobilizing millions of people and evolving into a defining movement of the Trump Era. From crowding town halls to killing TrumpCare to rallying around candidates to build the Blue Wave, Indivisibles powered the fight against Trump—and pushed the limits of what was politically possible.
In We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump, the (still-married!) co-executive directors of Indivisible tell the story of the movement. They offer a behind-the-scenes look at how change comes to Washington, whether Washington wants it or not. And they explain how we’ll win the coming fight for the future of American democracy. We Are Indivisible isn’t a book of platitudes about hope; it’s a steely-eyed guide to people power—how to find it, how to build it, and how to use it to usher in the post-Trump era.
Please note: All proceeds to the author go to Indivisible's Save Democracy Fund.
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Extinction Rebellion Listening Circle (in person)
Friday, November 15
7 p.m.
First Parish Church, Parlor Room, 1446 Mass Avenue, Harvard Square, Cambridge
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/listening-circle-Nov15/
Gather with fellow human beings to connect about the changing climate and its emotional toll. In our fast-paced, responsibility-driven lives, there is often little space to reflect and process the impact of this profound unfolding ecological crisis.
Join with others and fight the temptation to dissociate and wallow in isolation. Together let us find our voice, our power and our common nature. All are welcome.
In this format, you (and all participants) are given protected time to speak whatever is on your heart and mind, without commentary from others. All feelings and perspectives are welcome. Often there are 4-12 participants and one or two facilitators. Will end by 9pm. If easy, bring snacks to share at the end. Donations invited to cover room costs
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Support E5 at Dinner 5 for e5
Friday, November 15
7:00 p.m.
Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/751682845265057
Cost: Dinner costs (sliding scale): $50.00, $25.00, and $15.00; Cost per
table(8 seats) $360(10% discount)
Join us on Friday evening, November 15, 2019, at the Old South Church
(Mary Norton Room) to honor five of Boston's changemakers! We
will also celebrate our late friend and comrade Cristina Martine, a grassroots activist, sociologist, and theorist.
This year's honorees will be announced on November 1 (there is still
time to send in your suggestions <mailto:info at encuentro5.org>). Past
honorees include Patrick Bond, Banijeneh "Op" Browne, Avi Chomsky, Lily
Huang, Robin Jacks, Dorotea Manuela, Sergio Reyes, Karen Schneiderman,
Paul Shannon, and Aaron Tanaka.
In this moment of urgent global concern, national political turmoil, and
grave local inequalities, institutions like /encuentro5 - /anchoring
organizations for grassroots politics and mobilization are too easily
taken for granted. But we keep our doors open for grassroots
organizations, especially over the last couple of years groups like XR -
Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement, and a broad range of
pro-immigrant and antiwar forces.
In honoring our five nominees, you will be supporting them, the work
that both they and e5 do, and the movements operating out of our space.
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Saturday, November 16
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Advanced Sustainable House of Worship Workshop
Saturday, November 16
8:30 AM to 1:00 PM EST
St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, 18 Springdale Avenue, Dover, MA 02030
RSVP at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07egmkp67b0668e840&oseq=&c=c85f0f80-1b7a-11e3-af41-d4ae529a826e&ch=c89b2e20-1b7a-11e3-afb8-d4ae529a826e
Cost: $20
Did you know that up to 40% of the energy used to heat or cool a building is lost through small, hard to find gaps around windows and doors, places where pipes and wires enter, or where the walls meet the foundation.
In this workshop, building science experts will teach you how to track down these areas of waste and seal them. You will gain hands on experience with blower door equipment and infrared scanning, then work in groups to turn the findings into a plan to make the building more energy efficient.
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Empowering Future Leaders: The Steps to a Successful Political Campaign
Saturday, November 16
9:00 AM – 10:45 AM EST
Tufts, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, 7th Floor Cabot, Medford
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/empowering-future-leaders-the-steps-to-a-successful-political-campaign-tickets-78111819555
The 2019 Conference on Gender and International Affairs and Fletcher LEADS are excited to host the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (https://mwpc.org/). Come learn about the ins and outs of organizing a successful political campaign. By hearing from an accomplished panel of local political leaders, workshop participants will learn skills such as how to craft a message, build a strong network, fundraise, leverage social media and address opposition. These skills can be used whether whether running for a seat in local politics or launching a bid to become the next leader of a country. Although the focus of the workshop will be on female-led campaigns, people of all gender identities are welcome to attend and will learn how to be supportive allies.
Important Details
A light breakfast will be served.
Advanced registration is required to reserve your spot. Due to space limitations, we cannot guarantee admission to day-of registrants.
By registering, you commit to attending the event. With the exception of emergencies, no-shows will not be able to attend future LEADS events this year.
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NonViolent Direct Action training
Saturday, November 16
9 a.m.
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/2019-11-16-nvda-training/
Learn how to take part in XR actions at this NVDA training series! You will learn how to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and have the opportunity to form an affinity group, which is your creative team and support system for Extinction Rebellion actions. Bring people who you would like to form an affinity group with! You can also make one with fellow rebels that you meet while you're here.
Event logistics
Time: Saturday November 16. We are planning for 9am until 3pm but it has not been confirmed. Please arrive at 8:50am to give yourself time to settle before the training begins, and please plan to stay the entire time.
Location: 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. Please sign up so you can get the details of where to go.
Beforehand
We recommend that you attend an 'Heading for Extinction' talk and an XR orientation before you attend our NVDA training. You can find these events on our calendar. We recommend these because understanding the climate science and more about XR will help you figure out how you'd like to be involved.
If you cannot attend these events, you are still welcome to attend the training. Instead of the in-person events, you may want to watch a version of the Heading for Extinction talk online (e.g. here).
What to bring
wear comfortable clothes
your own plate, cup, and cutlery to minimize waste. We will provide snacks and drinks during a short break -- no disposable plastic water bottles please!
if you have them, people who you would like to form an affinity group with. Don't worry if you can't, there will be amazing fellow rebels for you to build community with at the training!
This training is free. If you would like to and can bring a contribution, we will collect cash donations to cover our costs at the end of the session.
Preparation for Civil Disobedience. Honoring the movements we stand on. Building community for action.
Contact action.care.xrmass at gmail.com with questions.
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Climate Resilience 101 for Municipalities
Saturday, November 16
12:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST
Dedham Historical Society, 612 High Street, Dedham
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-resilience-101-for-municipalities-registration-73961110673
Charles River Watershed Association cordially invites you to attend: Climate Resilience 101 for Municipalities
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
State Senator Michael Rush
Presenters
Emily Norton, Executive Director
Pallavi Mande, Director of Watershed Resilience
Julie Wood, Deputy Director
Small Group Discussions and Next Steps
Complimentary vegetarian lunch provided
This is part of a series of briefings CRWA is offering for municipal elected officials to discuss what is coming in terms of weather-related threats to their communities, and to share ideas about concrete actions that can be taken to reduce these impacts.
Local governments are on the front lines when it comes to dealing with climate change.
From flooding to drought to heat waves and extreme storms, climate change is bringing significant weather-related challenges to communities in the Charles River watershed.
According to the National Climate Assessment released in November 2018, these impacts will only grow over time.
Local decisions made about land use, development and stormwater management can alleviate or compound these impacts.
While local officials make decisions within their borders, decisions made by upstream communities have significant and costly impacts on downstream communities.
The Baker Administration is offering Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) and Action Grants to help communities invest in climate resilience – we want to ensure municipal leaders have the data you need to apply this funding most effectively.
CRWA has a long history helping our watershed communities make decisions to protect and restore the river by investing in nature-based solutions; these tools also build community resilience to climate change. Community leaders in the Charles River watershed will be invited to continue a watershed-focused resilience conversation beyond this initial informational session.
RSVP by Thursday, November 14. Questions? Contact Nishaila Porter at nporter at crwa.org or (781) 788-0007 x247.
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Sunday, November 17
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Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley Somerville Town Hall
Sunday, November 17
2:00pm
Address Provided Upon RSVP, East Somerville
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/congresswoman-ayanna-pressley-somerville-town-hall-registration-79537174831
Congresswoman Pressley deeply believes that in order to build lasting and sustainable solutions, we must bring the voices of those most impacted by the issues to the decision making tables. She believes that we must be intentional about creating spaces to lift unheard voices and unheard narratives -- which is exactly why Congresswoman Pressley is excited to hear directly from friends and neighbors across the 7th Congressional District.
We are thrilled to invite you to our Somerville Town Hall! This event will be an opportunity to highlight the things that make you proud to call Somerville home as well as a chance to elevate and discuss the issues that impact your life.
Join Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Sunday, November 17 to make your voice heard and to learn more about the Congresswoman’s federal priorities. You can submit a question to the Congresswoman in advance of the event here: https://forms.gle/Poo2JWX3NSs8zdYHA
We welcome all guest of all abilities. Contact Erina Colombo at erina.colombo at mail.house.gov to discuss the accessibility and adaptations necessary to fully participate in this event.
Questions? Please email Erina at erina.colombo at mail.house.gov
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The Aging Brain
Sunday, November 17
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
MIT 3rd Floor Conference Room, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Neuroscience-for-Society/events/265466757/
What is changing with age? What are the healthy practices and available technologies? Let’s find out.
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Facing the Climate Crisis with Grit and Grace
Sunday, November 17
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
One Fayette Park, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Biodiversity-for-a-Livable-Climate/events/265934060/
Apocalypse. Ecocide. Armageddon. Annihilation. No wonder we feel frightened and overwhelmed by the enormity of climate change. And no wonder those of us who have been working for decades on these issues feel frustrated at the continued apathy, complacency, and inadequacy of the response in our wider culture and government.
Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee, PhD, is a Climate Chaplain and Coach who helps communities wrap their minds around the grief, fear, rage, and overwhelm associated with climate change, such that they can move toward a place of Grounded Focus. Using tools from secular and faith traditions as well as ethics, social psychology, and project management, she outlines strategies to build a Resilience Mindset. This mindset provides a foundation that enables us to process the enormity of this challenge as we participate in sustained practices of healing and strategic engagement.
Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee holds a Ph.D. in social and ecological ethics from the Boston University School of Theology. In addition to her work as a climate chaplain and coach, she is certified in permaculture design and teaches and publishes about the intersections of ecofeminism, climate ethics, grief, and nature connection. She previously did graduate research on Alzheimer’s Disease and preventive research on ovarian cancer. She received a B.Sc. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.A. in molecular biology from Harvard University, and an M.Div. from the Boston University School of Theology. She lives in central Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters, and enjoys gardening, canoeing, learning about medicinal and edible wild plants, and rewriting old hymns to make them more inclusive.
Tallessyn will be joined today by her daughter Telynia Jeansun Grenfell-Lee. Telynia is in her final year of high school at the Macomber Center for Self-Directed Learning in Framingham, MA. She has experienced a wide variety of educational contexts, including a Massachusetts public school; a community-oriented private school; both a democratic school and an international school in Basel, Switzerland; and most recently, the self-directed homeschooling center where she now attends part-time. Telynia cares deeply about social justice and is considering a career path that combines urban climate resilience with photography/videography and writing.
What to bring
An item of food or drink to share, tending to the healthy and organic.
Important to know
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is a small non-profit so a $10 donation is requested.
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Monday, November 18 - Tuesday, November 19
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Massachusetts Digital Government
Monday, November 18 - Tuesday, November 19
Westin Boston Waterfront, 425 Summer Street, Boston
RSVP at https://events.govtech.com/Massachusetts-Digital-Government-Summit.html
Government Technology's passion is helping spread best practices and spurring innovation in the public sector. The Massachusetts Digital Government Summit is designed to do just that. The summit has an advisory board that gathers public sector and private sector leaders to create an agenda that is relevant and actionable to the state and local government organizations attending the summit. Participants tell us they use the inspirational keynotes, leadership discussions, networking breaks, and timely topics discussed in the numerous breakout sessions to help advance the goals of their organizations and their own career paths.
Topics Include:
Securing the Commonwealth – A Framework for Success
AI and Government
Residents and Citizens Unite
Project Planning/IT Governance
Business Continuity and the Cloud
Building the Human Firewall
5G & Connected Communities
Collaborative Communications
Navigating the Technology Procurement Process
State/Municipal Collaboration Roundtable
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Monday, November 18
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A Climate Solution Where All Sides Win
Monday, November 18
11:45AM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Ted Halstead, Climate Leadership Council. Lunch is provided.
Contact Name: Julie Gardella
julie_gardella at hks.harvard.edu
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium - Jacky Austermann (Columbia)
Monday, November 18
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
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Closing the Book on Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock
Monday, November 18
12:10PM
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Lecture Hall, 300 Centre Street, Boston
Peter Del Tredici, Senior Research Scientist Emeritus, Arnold Arboretum
All talks are free and open to everyone. Watch live on the Arboretum’s YouTube channel if you are unable to attend in person. The streaming video is entitled “AA Research Talks Live” and is visible only when a live stream is scheduled or in progress.
Arnold Arboretum Research Talk
https://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/research/research-talks/
arbweb at arnarb.harvard.edu
617-524-1718
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Race and Biopolitics in 21st-Century America
Monday, November 18
12:15PM TO 2:00PM
Harvard, CGIS S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Anne Pollock, King’s College, London.
Sandwich lunches are provided. Please RSVP to via the online form by Wednesday at 5PM the week before.
sts at hks.harvard.edu
STS Circle at Harvard
http://sts.hks.harvard.edu/events/sts_circle/
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Unmapped Urbanism
Monday, November 18
12:30pm to 2:00pm
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
What happens in places unmapped or otherwise ignored by the state? Governments play a critical role in shaping who lives where, and how, but equally vital to the life of cities is what happens outside official control – in the areas and activities that governments call the “informal sector.” Through a closer examination of the two case studies of Tondo, Manila (Philippines) and Little Manila, Los Angeles (US) in the 1970s and 80s, it becomes clear that this sort of extralegality does not simply exist at the edges of the formal city. Rather, informality is a constantly negotiated legal non-status, and it is anything but peripheral to the everyday workings of cities around the world.
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Clean Peak Standard & Energy Storage Forum
Monday, November 18
1:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Mintz, 1 Financial Center, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/clean-peak-standard-energy-storage-forum-tickets-70801698787
$125 – $175
Join us for an afternoon discussion of regulatory opportunities and policy goals associated with the latest storage technologies, followed by real-world applications that monetize storage solutions and deliver on policy imperatives.
Featuring Kaitlin Kelly and Will Lauwers, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources; Andrew Belden, Eversource; and Ian Springsteel, National Grid.
Become a new SEBANE member and receive one free ticket to this event! Contact info at sebane.org for more information.
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xTalk: Eric Klopfer & Meredith Thompson on VR Learning Games
Monday, November 18
3:00pm to 4:00pm
MIT, Building 5-134, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Authenticity, interactivity, and collaboration: Designing for Success in VR Learning Games
Virtual reality (VR) is becoming more accessible, however hardware cost, technology management, and lack of quality educational experiences still hamper widespread adoption in schools. As the interest and potential is high, it is an appropriate time to understand how to design effective affordable educational approaches in VR. The Collaborative Learning Environments in VR (CLEVR) project seeks to address those needs by creating Cellverse, a game that helps students learn cellular biology through virtual reality. Through design based research, we have documented the benefits of developing authentic experiences that leverage the interactivity of VR. Additionally, we have found that collaboration is both a beneficial skill and a strategy to make VR more feasible in current classrooms.
Eric Klopfer is Professor and Director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade at MIT. He is the Head of the department of Comparative Media Studies and Writing. He is also a co-faculty advisor for MIT’s J-WEL World Education Lab. His work uses a Design Based Research methodology to span the educational technology ecosystem, from design and development of new technologies to professional development and implementation. Much of Klopfer’s research has focused on computer games and simulations for building understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He is the co-author of the books, “Adventures in Modeling”, “The More We Know”, and the recently released “Resonant Games”, as well as author of “Augmented Learning.” His lab has produced software (from casual mobile games to the MMO The Radix Endeavor) and platforms (including StarLogo Nova and Taleblazer) used by millions of people, as well as online courses that have reached hundreds of thousands. His work has been funded by federal agencies including NIH, NSF and the Department of Education, as well as the Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Tata Trusts. Klopfer is also the co-founder and past President of the non-profit Learning Games Network (www.learninggamesnetwork.org).
Meredith Thompson is a research scientist at the Teaching Systems Lab (TSL) and the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP). Her research interests are in the use of games and simulations in helping students learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics topics and the use of games and simulations in developing playful approaches to teacher education. Meredith is also the co-PI on an education research project funded by the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative. She and professor Eric Klopfer are working on Collaborative Learning Environments in Virtual Reality (CLEVR) to determine when VR might enable more effective learning and when VR is most useful in different types of learning experiences.
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The Tragedy of the Last Mile: Economic Solutions to Congestion in Broadband Networks
Monday, November 18
4:30pm to 5:45pm
Harvard Littauer, Hansen-Mason Room, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Joint with Harvard: Aviv Nevo (University of Pennsylvania)
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The New Cybersecurity of the Mind
WHEN Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, 5:30 – 6:45 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Rubenstein 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Science, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
SPEAKER(S) Vivek Krishnamurthy, Carr Center Senior Fellow & Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
DETAILS Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century is a new talk series organized and facilitated by Mathias Risse, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Administration. Drawing inspiration from the title of Max Tegmark’s book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, the series draws upon a range of scholars, technology leaders, and public interest technologists to address the ethical aspects of the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on society and human life.
Vivek Krishnamurthy, Carr Center Senior Fellow & Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), will give a talk titled, "The New Cybersecurity of the Mind."
A light dinner will be served.
LINK https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/event/towards-life-30-ethics-and-technology-21st-century-new-cybersecurity-mind
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John Herbst and Sergei Erofeev: The Putin Exodus: The New Russian Brain Drain
Monday, November 18
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EST
Tufts, Cabot 702, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/john-herbst-and-sergei-erofeev-the-putin-exodus-the-new-russian-brain-drain-registration-70518461617
Please join the Russia and Eurasia Program at The Fletcher School for a conversation with Ambassador John Herbst and Dr. Sergei Erofeev about their new report The Putin Exodus: The New Russian Brain Drain (2019). Attendance is by registration only on Eventbrite.
Human capital is fleeing Russia. Since President Vladimir Putin’s ascent to the presidency, between 1.6 and 2 million Russians – out of a total population of 145 million – have left for Western democracies. This emigration sped up with Putin’s return as president in 2012, followed by a weakening economy and growing repressions. It soon began to look like a politically driven brain drain, causing increasing concern among Russian and international observers. In this pioneering study, the Council’s Eurasia Center offers a clear analysis of the Putin Exodus and its implications for Russia and the West. The study examines the patterns and drivers of Russian emigration to the West since 2000 based on the findings from focused interviews and surveys with new Russian émigrés in four key cities in the United States and Europe.
John Herbst is the director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. Ambassador Herbst served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State, retiring at the rank of career minister. He was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. Prior to his ambassadorship in Ukraine, he was the U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2000 to 2003. Ambassador Herbst previously served as U.S. consul general in Jerusalem; principal deputy to the ambassador-at-large for the Newly Independent States; director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs; director of regional affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia. He most recently served as director of the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defense University. He has received two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Ambassador Herbst’s writings on stability operations, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Russia are widely published.
Sergei Erofeev is currently a lecturer at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He has been involved in the internationalization of universities in Russia since the early 1990s. Previously, Dr. Erofeev has served as a vice-rector for international affairs at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the dean of international programs at the European University at Saint Petersburg, and the director of the Center for Sociology of Culture at Kazan Federal University in Russia. He has also been a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the University of Washington. Prior to his career in academia, Dr. Erofeev was a concert pianist and has worked in the area of the sociology of the arts.
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This Land Is Their Land
Monday, November 18
6 PM - 7 PM (There will be a pre-talk reception at 5:30)
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/519078755319516/
David Silverman explores the history of the Wampanoag people to reveal the distortions of the Thanksgiving Myth, a persisting story that promotes the idea that Native people willingly ceded their country to the English to give rise to a white, Christian, democratic nation. Silverman traces how the Wampanoags have lived and told a different history over the past four centuries.
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A Conversation with Ash Carter
Monday, November 18
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Dorchester
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-conversation-with-ash-carter-tickets-74725799879
Kennedy Library Forum | A Conversation with Ash Carter
Ash Carter, former Secretary of Defense and director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, discusses his distinguished career and new book, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon.
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ACT Fall 2019 Lecture Series: The Inexplicable Wonder of Precipitous Events -- Jenna Sutela
Monday, November 18
6:00pm to 7:30pm
MIT, Building E15, The Cube, E15-001, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
As an artistic research program, ACT is perennially concerned with emerging modes of expression that explore evolving forms of knowledge production. In this context, the program’s Fall 2019 Lecture Series asks, “What is art if not an event?”
Philosopher Alain Badiou describes an event as a multiplication of conditions which may not always make sense according to the perceived rules of the ‘situation,’ and which, in coming into being, must provoke, out of a dynamic intervention, something new as that which cannot easily be assigned. The works of the four artists in the Fall 2019 ACT Lecture Series raise some of these same issues in terms of how one might consider the conditions of events in relation to the questions their individual projects explore. Each artist, in different ways, addresses how it is that art functions as an event.
Currently, Sutela is producing a performance art piece, Extremophile, which considers the idea of embodied cognition on a planetary scale, presenting a zoom from outer space to inside our gut. Understanding oneself as interconnected with wider environments marks a profound shift in subjectivity, one beyond anthropocentrism and individualism.
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Author Discussion: Imagining Judeo-Christian America--Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy
WHEN Monday, November18, 2019, 6 – 7:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT CSWR, 617.495.4476
DETAILS Please join us as K. Healan Gaston, HDS Lecturer in American Religious History and Ethics, discusses her recent publication.
E.J. Dionne (HDS) and Mark Silk (Trinity College) will serve as respondents.
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The Human Genomic Revolution: Past, Present, and Future
Monday, November 18
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Lecture Hall, Cambridge
RSVP at https://cambridgepl.libcal.com/event/5904583
Over 15 years ago, the scientific community celebrated the sequencing of the first human genome. It’s time to ask how this monumental effort has transformed biomedical science, from basic research to the understanding and treatment of disease. Eric Lander, Broad Institute president and founding director and one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, will survey the impact — what we’ve learned, and what lies ahead.
Presented as part of Horizons: Exploring Breakthroughs in Science & Technology and Their Impact on Society, a lecture series of the STEAM Initiative at the Cambridge Public Library.
Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) will be livestreaming this event on their facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/cctvcambridge/), and when the archived video is available, we will be posting it on the Library's Horizon's series page.
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Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age
Monday, November 18
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning author LIZABETH COHEN—Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies at Harvard University—for a discussion of her new book, Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age.
About Saving America's Cities
In twenty-first-century America, some cities are flourishing and others are struggling, but they all must contend with deteriorating infrastructure, economic inequality, and unaffordable housing. Cities have limited tools to address these problems, and many must rely on the private market to support the public good.
It wasn’t always this way. For almost three decades after World War II, even as national policies promoted suburban sprawl, the federal government underwrote renewal efforts for cities that had suffered during the Great Depression and the war and were now bleeding residents into the suburbs. In Saving America’s Cities, the prizewinning historian Lizabeth Cohen follows the career of Edward J. Logue, whose shifting approach to the urban crisis tracked the changing balance between government-funded public programs and private interests that would culminate in the neoliberal rush to privatize efforts to solve entrenched social problems. A Yale-trained lawyer, rival of Robert Moses, and sometime critic of Jane Jacobs, Logue saw renewing cities as an extension of the liberal New Deal. He worked to revive a declining New Haven, became the architect of the “New Boston” of the 1960s, and, later, led New York State’s Urban Development Corporation, which built entire new towns, including Roosevelt Island in New York City.
Logue’s era of urban renewal has a complicated legacy: Neighborhoods were demolished and residents dislocated, but there were also genuine successes and progressive goals. Saving America’s Cities is a dramatic story of heartbreak and destruction but also of human idealism and resourcefulness, opening up possibilities for our own time.
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Extinction Rebellion Online Listening Circle
Monday, November 18
7 p.m.
Webinar
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/online-listening-circle-2019-11-18/
Join us as we explore the effects of the climate crisis on our hearts and minds. Doing this with the support of others offers respite from a culture that often prefers to ignore our current predicament entirely.
We'll take turns speaking and listening without interrupting, advising, or criticizing. The intention of this space is to explore our emotional relationship to this evolving emergency, rather than to intellectualize it or brainstorm solutions.
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Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture: Loung Ung, Author of "First They Killed My Father"
Monday, November 18
7:30 pm to 9:00 pm
BU, Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
RSVP at http://www.bu.edu/jewishstudies/
American-Cambodian human rights activist Loung Ung will conclude the lecture series on the theme "Writing from a Place of Survival" on Monday, November 18. Ms. Ung survived the “killing fields” of the Khmer Rouge as a child soldier for the Pol Pot regime. Her book, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” (2000), was made into a harrowing film, directed by Angelina Jolie (2017).
Contact Name Theresa Cooney
Phone 617-353-8096
Contact Email ewcjs at bu.edu
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Tuesday, November 19
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The Future of Food & Its Global Impact
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
8:30 am - 11:30am
BU, Photonics Center, 8 St. Marys Street, 9th Floor, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future-of-food-its-global-impact-tickets-74699515261
Speakers Dr. Benjamin Siegel (CAS); Dr. Lindsey Locks (SPH & SAR); Dr. Magaly Koch (CAS); Chef Michael Leviton (MET); Dr. Richard S. Deese (Pardee & CGS); Dr. Sarah Phillips (CAS)
This panel discussion will feature Boston University experts and faculty members who study food, climate change, groundwater resources, environmental change, global health, and environmental history. The discussion will explore what can be done to curb the effects of climate change - which require collective action on a global scale - and how we can feed the world's growing population more sustainably, while minimizing the effects on human health.
Contact Name Pamela DeCoste
Phone 6173858729
Contact Email global at bu.edu
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Prison Changes People, Education Changes Prison
Tuesday, November 19
12 pm-1:30 pm
Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road, Boston
Register: bit.ly/prison-ed
Lunch provided
There are 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Research has shown that education is one of the most effective ways to decrease crime and the financial and societal costs of incarceration. Incarcerated people who participated in education programs were less likely to return to prison than those who did not and were also better positioned to successfully re-enter society and make positive impacts on their families and communities.
This seminar will explore the transformative power of education and feature faculty, students, and advocates who have experiences on all sides of a range of prison education programs. Speakers will share their perspectives on the importance of educating the incarcerated, the experience of receiving an education as a formerly incarcerated individual, and the opportunities for university students to get involved.
Moderated by: Spencer Piston, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Speakers:
Mary Ellen Mastrorilli, Faculty Director of Boston University Prison Education Program, Associate Professor of the Practice, Criminal Justice; Chair, Applied Social Sciences
Andre De Quadros, Professor of Music, Music Education, Affiliate faculty, African Studies Center, Center for the Study of Asia, Global Health Initiative, and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies & Civilizations
Allegra Martinez, BU Prison Education Program student
Andrew Cannon, BU PhD candidate, Mechanical Engineering
Maco L. Faniel, National Program Manager, Petey Greene Program
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Strategic Conversations: Deep Engagement to Build Broader Support for Immigrants
Tuesday, November 19
1:00 to 2:00 PM EST
Webinar
RSVP at https://www.ilctr.org/promoting-immigrants/upcomingwebinar/
Many of the deep divisions in America stem from misinformation, particularly about immigrants. Much of what an immigrant is today is constructed out of myths versus reality. Letting loose facts on the American public is insufficient in changing minds, however. Instead, sustained conversations, deep canvassing, positive framing and tapping into tested core beliefs are proven and effective ways to improve public opinion about immigrants.
Join experts in deep canvassing, messaging, demographic change and conflict resolution for the free webinar Strategic Conversations: Deep Engagement to Build Broader Support for Immigrants on Tuesday, November 19 from 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST.
This webinar is for any member of the public, including educators, students, volunteers, immigrant- and refugee-serving professionals, researchers, law enforcement, local leaders and the media. It is free-of-charge, but you must register to participate.
You will learn:
Understanding the populations with misinformed views of immigrants
The tested core beliefs that can positively reinforce your messages
Strategies for conversations, canvassing and messaging that uplift public opinion on immigrants and immigration and pivot toward solutions and an alternative vision.
Presenters (more to come):
Rachel Brown, Author, Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech, Founder, Over Zero
Justin Gest, PhD, Author, The White Working Class: What Everyone Needs to Know, Assistant Professor, George Mason University
Mohammed Naeem, Associate, More in Common
Kimberly Serrano, Messaging Research Project Manager, California Immigrant Policy Center
Denzil Mohammed, Director, The ILC Public Education Institute
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Futures Without Carbon Workshop: Roadmap to 2050
Tuesday, November 19
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
USCG Sector Boston, 427 Commercial Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/futures-without-carbon-workshop-roadmap-to-2050-tickets-77901139405
EEA is hosting a half-day workshop/IAC meeting to solicit stakeholder input into the 80x50 Study.
The 80x50 Study is a project exploring how Massachusetts can achieve its Global Warming Solutions Act mandate of at least 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050. This workshop will gather stakeholder perspectives to help understand potential future uncertainties and construct plausible scenarios to help EEA model potential futures. This will also serve as the November Public Meeting of the Implementation Advisory Committee.
RSVP in advance (by 11/14). Please note that while the meeting space can accommodate a large group, this will be a focused workshop and we ask that attendees plan to participate actively and join for the entire workshop (1-5pm).
Please contact Claire Miziolek, 80x50 Study Manager, at claire.miziolek at mass.gov with any questions.
Logistic note: this event will be held at the US Coast Guard Boston Base at 427 Commercial St in Boston's North End. While there is limited parking available in proximity, attendees are strongly encouraged to carpool or take public transportation (North Station and Haymarket are the closest T stops). Government issued ID will be required to enter the base--please contact Claire with any questions or concerns. When arriving, all registered attendees should walk down the driveway to the check-in station outside and show ID to enter. The meeting will be in the building to the left.
More information on the study can be found at: https://www.mass.gov/2050Roadmap
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Taming the Tech Giants
Tuesday, November 19
3:45pm to 5:15pm
Northeastern, Egan Research Center, Raytheon Amphitheater, 120 Forsyth Street, Boston
Join us for our third event in the Fall 2019 Economic Policy Forum as we hear from Jason Furman and his view of the tech industry.
Jason Furman is the former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama and lead author of the report to the UK government on “Unlocking Digital Competition.” Furman teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
The Economic Policy Forum Fall 2019: Capitalism, Competition, and (In)equality
Discussions with prominent policymakers and thinkers on critical economic questions
More information at https://cssh.northeastern.edu/economics/the-economic-policy-forum-2/
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Boston Sustainability Dinner Series - Fall Dinner
Tuesday, November 19
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
Central Wharf Company, 160 Milk Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boston-sustainability-dinner-series-fall-dinner-tickets-74343155379
Cost: $65
Boston Sustainability Dinner Series! Fall dinner and optional pre-dinner discussion on transportation
The Sustainability Dinner Series continues with our fall dinner, an all-vegetarian spread in the private room at Central Wharf.
5-6: Optional discussion on transportation (see below for details)
6-6:45 Wine, connecting
6:45 Sit for dinner; rotate seatmates between courses
What is the dinner's culture and format?
The intent is to build a lively mutual aid society for those working to improve the environmental performance of organizations. This isn't a forum for sales pitches, but for human connection and collegial exchange.
Dinners have robust vegetarian options, good public transit access, rotating seatmates with each course, and camaraderie with other organizational sustainability professionals.
Short personal introductions will be done early in the evening. Otherwise no formal agenda.
Chatham House Rules may be invoked by anyone at any time.
Optional discussion?
Over the years, some dinner guests have expressed a wish to dig deeper into specific topics, but have been reluctant to change the format of the dinner to do so. As an experiment, we're carving out an hour ahead of the dinner for a lightly-facilitated roundtable on a timely subject.
November's dinner features a brief update on the Transportation Climate Initiative and an opportunity for guests to share (and debate) what's working in their own transportation decarbonization efforts.
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Film Screening: A Way Out
Tuesday, November 19
5:30pm to 7:00pm
MIT, Building 32-141, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Mindfulness is a psychological process of being present and relating to others and the environment with compassion. Can mindfulness also help us completely reboot the way we address social and environmental sustainability? The Way Out provides a riveting and personal exploration of the issue of sustainability as well as the value of mindfulness for rewiring the way we think about complex global challenges. An integrative discussion of sustainability and mindfulness will follow the film.
Discussants
Susy Jones, Senior Sustainability Project Manager, MIT Office of Sustainability
Zan Barry, Senior Program Manager in Community Wellness at MIT Medical,who has provided mindfulness programs at MIT for over 16 years.
Watch trailer of The Way Out at https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/blog/2019/9/19/the-way-out-an-urgent-film-about-the-climate-crisis
Co-Sponsored with the MIT Office of Sustainability and Community Wellness at MIT Medical.
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Beantown Throwdown 2019
Tuesday, November 19
5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
LogMeIn, 333 Summer Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.mitforumcambridge.org/event/beantown-throwdown-2019/
Cost: $25 Members, $45 Non-Members, $10 Students
Home to over 60 colleges and universities, Boston has launched some of the most creative and inventive student-founded startups in the world. The Beantown Throwdown is all about celebrating and showcasing them!
Hosted at LogMeIn's Boston Headquarters, the #BeantownThrowdown will feature student teams representing a cross-section of local colleges and universities who will pitch their startups for recognition, as voted by the audience, as the winner of this annual event.
In a fun, collaborative environment, this program will also include a panel with unbridled insights from area entrepreneurs and investors.
Speakers
The event will open with a 20 minute panel discussion on entrepreneurial opportunities in the Boston area led by Boston Globe Innovation Economy columnist and Innovation Leader co-founder and editor, Scott Kirsner.
Last year's student team winning presenter, Rachel Pardue, Co-Founder & CEO, Lou, will join the panel.
Kiki Mills, Managing Director, Drive by DraftKings
Lily Lyman, Investor, Underscore VC
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The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal & Architecture in the Gilded Age New York
Tuesday, November 19
6:00pm
Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston
The Grandest Madison Square Garden tells the non-fiction story of the fabulous 1890 “palace of pleasure” designed by Stanford White and the nude sculpture of the virgin goddess Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, set on the Garden’s and America’s tallest tower. While revealing much new information, dispelling long-held myths, and proposing controversial new theories, the book conveys a sense of on-scene immediacy and excitement as this remarkable amalgamation of architecture, art, and spectacle rises amid the Gilded Age.
Dr. Hinman will be reading from the book’s prologue, which places the reader vividly at the 1891 dedication of the tower and the sculpture that topped it, while annotating the story with illustrated “footnotes” that dramatically link the Garden with Boston’s heritage, from the first collaboration of White and Saint-Gaudens on Trinity Church, to architectural borrowings from the Boston Public Library, and to their various professional and private connections with the city of Boston itself.
Suzanne Hinman holds a Ph.D. in American art history and has been a curator, gallerist, museum director, professor, and an art model. She owned an art gallery in Santa Fe and then served as director of galleries at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the world's largest art school. Her interest in the artists and architects of the American Gilded Age and the famed Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire grew while associate director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. The author continues to reside near Cornish as an independent scholar.
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Why Trust Science?
Tuesday, November 19
6:00 PM
Harvard Science Center, Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Cabot Science Library welcome acclaimed author and Harvard professor NAOMI ORESKES for a discussion of her latest book, Why Trust Science?.
About Why Trust Science?
Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don't? In this landmark book, Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength―and the greatest reason we can trust it.
Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late nineteenth century to today, Oreskes explains that, contrary to popular belief, there is no single scientific method. Rather, the trustworthiness of scientific claims derives from the social process by which they are rigorously vetted. This process is not perfect―nothing ever is when humans are involved―but she draws vital lessons from cases where scientists got it wrong. Oreskes shows how consensus is a crucial indicator of when a scientific matter has been settled, and when the knowledge produced is likely to be trustworthy.
Based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University, this timely and provocative book features critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo.
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Swiss Touch in Space Exploration
Tuesday, November 19
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
Museum of Science, 1 Museum Of Science Driveway, Cahners Theater, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/swiss-touch-in-space-exploration-tickets-79135970819
With 2019 Nobel winner Didier Queloz, learn how a meticulous pursuit for precision led to the discovery of the first exoplanet.
During the great space race, Switzerland was the only foreign country to provide Apollo missions with a scientific experiment. Since then, this small watchmaking country has become a discreet but key player in space research and industry, providing know-how in materials and precision mechanics for rockets, satellites and planetary rovers. In 1995, Switzerland pioneered the field of exoplanetology with the discovery of 51 Pegasi B by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, thanks to the unprecedented accuracy of their observations.
swissnex Boston and Swiss Touch invite you for an exploration of outer space, where careful measurements can uncover entire worlds orbiting light-years away. Our evening reception will feature a first keynote from 2019 Nobel prize winner Didier Queloz (University of Geneva) about the impact of his discovery followed by Willy Benz (University of Bern) who will present the Swiss-led ESA satellite CHEOPS(CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite), that aims to precisely measure the diameter of extrasolar planets.
Didier Queloz and Willy Benz will be joined on stage by a panel of local experts of space exploration and alternative cosmologies, including:
Kim Arcand, Visualization Lead, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory at CfA
George Ricker, Senior Research Scientist, TESS PI, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Prathima Muniyappa, MIT Media Lab, Space Enabled, Alternative and Indigenous Cosmologies
The evening will come to a close with a networking reception.
Program
6.00pm Doors open
6.30pm Introductions
6.40pm Keynote by Didier Queloz, Nobel Prize
7.00pm Keynote by Willy Benz
7.20pm Panel discussion
7.45pm Q&A
8.00pm Networking reception
9.00pm Doors close
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Extinction Rebellion New Member Orientation
Tuesday, November 19
6:30 p.m.
Cambridge Public Library, Central Square Branch, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/new-member-orientation-11-19/
If you are new to XR or would just like to learn more about how it works, please come to our next new member orientation session. We will cover the following:
Where did XR come from? What is civil disobedience & direct action?
What is the extinction rebellion about? What do we want?
What are our principles and values? What brings us together?
How are we organized? What are working groups & affinity groups?
Come out and meet some of our local XRebels and learn how you can get involved!
The session will run for around 90 minutes.
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Making Digital Tangible: The Battle Against the Pixel Empire
Tuesday, November 19
6:30 PM to 9:00 PM (EST)
IBM, 1 Rogers Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-digital-tangible-the-battle-against-the-pixel-empire-tickets-77570689019
Today's mainstream Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research primarily addresses functional concerns – the needs of users, practical applications, and usability evaluation. Tangible Bits and Radical Atoms are driven by vision and carried out with an artistic approach. While today's technologies will become obsolete in one year, and today's applications will be replaced in 10 years, true visions – we believe – can last longer than 100 years.
Tangible Bits seeks to realize seamless interfaces between humans, digital information, and the physical environment by giving physical form to digital information and computation, making bits directly manipulatable and perceptible both in the foreground and background of our consciousness (peripheral awareness). Our goal is to invent new design media for artistic expression as well as for scientific analysis, taking advantage of the richness of human senses and skills we develop throughout our lifetime interacting with the physical world, as well as the computational reflection enabled by real-time sensing and digital feedback.
Radical Atoms leaps beyond Tangible Bits by assuming a hypothetical generation of materials that can change form and properties dynamically, becoming as reconfigurable as pixels on a screen. Radical Atoms is the future material that can transform its shape, conform to constraints, and inform the users of their affordances. Radical Atoms is a vision for the future of Human- Material Interaction, in which all digital information has a physical manifestation, thus enabling us to interact directly with it.
I will present the trajectory of our vision-driven design research from Tangible Bits towards Radical Atoms, illustrated through a variety of interaction design projects that have been presented and exhibited in Media Arts, Design, and Science communities. These emphasize that the design for engaging and inspiring tangible interactions requires the rigor of both scientific and artistic review, encapsulated by my motto, “Be Artistic and Analytic. Be Poetic and Pragmatic.”
BIO: Hiroshi Ishii is the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory. After joining the Media Lab in October 1995, he founded the Tangible Media Group to make digital tangible by giving physical form to digital information and computation. Here, he pursues his visions of Tangible Bits (1997) and Radical Atoms (2012) that will transcend the Painted Bits of GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), the current dominant paradigm of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction).
He is recognized as a founder of “Tangible User Interfaces (TUI),” a new research genre-based on the CHI ’97 “Tangible Bits” paper presented with Brygg Ullmer in Atlanta, Georgia, which led to the spinoff ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) from 2007. In addition to academic conferences, “Tangible Bits” was exhibited at the NTT ICC (2000) in Tokyo, Japan, at the Ars Electronica Center (2001-2003) in Linz, Austria, and many other international arts & design venues. For his Tangible Bits work, he was awarded tenure from MIT in 2001 and elected to the CHI Academy in 2006.
Read more about Hiroshi Ishii at https://tangible.media.mit.edu/person/hiroshi-ishii/
SCHEDULE
6:30 - 7:00 Networking over food and beverages
7:00 - 8:30 Meeting
8:30 - 9:00 CHI Dessert and more networking!
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Listening Partnerships for climate activists: tools for sustaining and renewing ourselves
Tuesday, November 19
7 p.m.
Small Planet Institute, 12 Eliot Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://xrmass.org/action/listening-partnerships-climate-activists-tools-sus/
Come learn one of the most effective, free, readily-available skills you can develop for ongoing mental and emotional health. Building “listening partnerships” into your life can help you:
Roll constructively with the emotional challenges of climate activism (e.g., fear, despair, overwhelm)
Gain energy to act from a more grounded place
Become a better listener in all the relationships in your life
Heal from personal and societal hurts
Connect to a worldwide network of people who practice listening partnerships
In the introductory session you'll be introduced to the basic theory and be invited to experience the method with several of the people present. If you're drawn to it, you can sign up for a 6-week class that will start mid-January. (Coming to the intro session does not obligate you to sign up for the class.)
Led by John Bell, a leader in the Buddhist climate justice community, whose joy has been fueled for decades by the practice of listening partnerships. Questions? Contact jbellminder at gmail.com
Listening Partnerships for climate activists: tools for sustaining and renewing ourselves
Note: another introductory session be held Thurs. Dec. 12th, 7-9pm, at the same location
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FLP Open Meeting: Inclusive Entrepreneurship & Healthy Food Access with CommonWealth Kitchen
WHEN Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CGIS Knafel, K354, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Food Literacy Project
SPEAKER(S) Ismail Samad, Director of Manufacturing Business Operations at CommonWealth Kitchen
COST FREE
TICKET WEB LINK https://secure.touchnet.net/C20832_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=51&CATID=61&SINGLESTORE=true
CONTACT INFO foodliteracy at harvard.edu
DETAILS CommonWealth Kitchen is Boston's only nonprofit food business incubator and food manufacturing social enterprise. Home to over 55 delicious and diverse companies, CommonWealth Kitchen provides shared commercial kitchens combined with robust business and technical support to help aspiring entrepreneurs build great food companies, create jobs, improve healthy food access, and strengthen our regional food economy. Director of Manufacturing Business Operations, Ismail Samad, joins us to tell CommonWealth Kitchen's story.
LINK https://secure.touchnet.net/C20832_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=51&CATID=61&SINGLESTORE=true
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Sunrise Boston Community Team Meeting
Tuesday, November 19
7 PM – 9 PM
Harvard, Smith Campus Center, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/2569004379980753/
The community team plans social events for Sunrise Boston members to have fun, get to know each other, and prevent burnout. If you're interested in planning events with us, come join us at this meeting, where we will brainstorm future events!
We will meet in Harvard's Smith Campus Center, which is open to the public and wheelchair-accessible. Right before the meeting, we'll post our exact location within the building.
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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, November 20 - Thursday, November 21
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24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action
https://www.24hoursofreality.org/
You’ve seen the headlines. You know the climate crisis is devastating the Earth. You want to know what we can do. What you can do.
You’re not alone – and we think it’s time for answers.
So on November 20–21, we’re presenting 24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action, a global conversation on the truth of the climate crisis and how we solve it.
For one full day, Climate Reality Leader volunteers trained by former Vice President Al Gore will hold public presentations and conversations on our changing climate in schools, community centers, workplaces, and more across all 50 US states and countries worldwide.
It’s a chance for friends, neighbors, and colleagues to hear the truth of what’s happening to our planet. A chance to learn how we’ll overcome this existential threat together. A chance to turn truth into real action and bold solutions. Now, while we still have time.
There are many ways to get involved, from hosting a free presentation to joining a Truth in Action event in your community. Sign up at https://www.24hoursofreality.org/ to learn how you can be part of this historic event on November 20–21.
After all, it’s your planet at stake. Your future on the line. If the world is talking about how we’ll solve this crisis, you need to be part of the conversation.
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Wednesday, November 20
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Boston Sustainability Breakfast
Wednesday, November 20
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM EST
Pret A Manger, 101 Arch Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boston-sustainability-breakfast-tickets-72997402195
Join us every month for Net Impact Boston's informal breakfast meetup of sustainability professionals for networking, discussion, and moral support. It's important to remind ourselves that we are not the only ones out there in the business world trying to do good! Feel free to drop by Pret a Manger any time between 7:30 and 8:30 AM.
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Climate Adaptation
Wednesday, November 20
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Almunae Hall, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford
Ann Rappaport, Senior Lecturer, Tufts UEP, with UEP alumni.
UEP's Colloquium series brings together students, faculty, affiliates, alumni, and friends to share, learn, and inspire. Colloquia are typically held on a bi-weekly basis during the fall semester and about once a month in the Spring semester. A light lunch will be provided.
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We Have to Get This Right: The Future of Work and Labor -- Talk by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka
Wednesday, November 20
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building E51-315, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
RSVP at https://sloangroups.mit.edu/leadershipandhumancapital/rsvp_boot?id=623164
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will share findings from the AFL-CIO's new report on the future of work and unions. With 12.5 million members and 55 unions, the AFL-CIO is America's largest labor federation. Advanced registration is required for this free event, and food will be provided.
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The Pentagon, Greenhouse Gases & Climate Change
Wednesday, November 20
12:00 - 1:30 pm (Lunch will be provided beginning at 11:30 am)
BU, Pardee Center, 67 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at http://www.bu.edu/pardee/2019/11/05/upcoming-seminar-the-pentagon-greenhouse-gases-climate-change/#RSVP
The U.S. Department of Defense is a large fuel user -- in any one year, larger than many of the world's countries combined. This raises several questions. What are the trends in DOD greenhouse gas emissions? What explains those trends? And how does the Pentagon think about its fuel use and climate change? The Pentagon (and some academics) believe that climate change will lead to greater conflict and perhaps even war. Are they right? Is climate change-caused war likely?
Join the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future for a lunch seminar exploring these questions and more titled "The Pentagon, Greenhouse Gases & Climate Change," featuring Neta C. Crawford, Professor and Chair of the BU Department of Political Science and a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow. The seminar is the first event in the "20 Years of War" research series, a two-year collaboration with the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University to expand the Costs of War project, which Prof. Crawford co-founded and co-directs.
This event is free and open to the public.
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Blowback and Escalation Risks from the US Weaponization of Finance
Wednesday, November 20
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, Building E40-496 (Pye Room), 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Cynthia Roberts, Hunter College
The only material domain where the United States still reigns indisputably supreme is in financial power, which rests on the dominance of the US dollar and the centrality of the American economic and financial system to international commerce. Despite its declining share of the world economy, the US has successfully leveraged its structural financial power to assert its dominance in new disruptive ways, such as by treating global access to the American financial system as a set of proprietary nodes. With such clever retooling, the number of foreign actors that Washington has cut off because of proscribed extraterritorial conduct, even if none of that activity touches the United States directly, has been on an annual upward trend since 2001. This seminar will address two concerns arising from the US weaponization of finance: (1) how aggressive use of financial coercion and punishment is incentivizing opponents, such as China, and even US allies, to search for alternative instruments and evasions to limit their vulnerability and increase their autonomy; and (2) how the threat or use of financial swords as a powerful alternative to military engagement can create under-explored risks of escalation. It draws on recent publications and work in progress.
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Linking Solar Geoengineering and Emissions Abatement Policies: Strategically Resolving an International Climate Policy Dilemma
Wednesday, November 20
12:00PM TO 1:35PM
Harvard, HUCE Seminar Room 440, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Jesse Reynolds, UCLA School of Law
Solar geoengineering may be able to significantly reduce climate-change risks, but raises sharp controversy. The leading cause of controversy is the concern that its research, development, or use might inappropriately displace efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. A possible response would be to strategically link the international policies of abatement and solar geoengineering. I expand on this idea, including by disaggregating states based on relevant characteristics, considering the processes of developing linkages, and the incentives that various policy linkages could foster. I explore various potential linkage mechanisms and identify one that could effectively reduce abatement displacement (if not increase abatement), appears feasible, and would be consistent with widely-held norms.
Contact Name: Amy Chang
acchang at seas.harvard.edu
Solar Geoengineering Research Program Seminar
https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/event/seminar-jesse-reynolds-0
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Elections and Public Confidence: Getting It Right
Wednesday, November 20
12:30 pm
Tufts, 205 Cabot Hall, 70 Packard Avenue, Medford
Policy Talk by Josh Benaloh, Senior Cryptographer, Microsoft Research
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Better Buses, Better Cities
Wednesday, November 20
1:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern Time
Webinar
RSVP at https://nextcity.org/events/rsvp/steven-higashide-on-better-buses-better-cities
Cost: Donation
Steven Higashide
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Housing as History: New Directions for Boston’s Subsidized Housing: Learning from the Past
Wednesday, November 20
5:30pm to 7:00pm
1154 Boylston Street, Boston
As neighborhoods across Boston face enormous development pressure, there is a risk that low-income residents will be forced out of the city. Social disruption due to gentrification, shifting government policies and programs, and the challenges of climate change make the future of affordable housing in Boston precarious. In the past, Boston modeled creative and successful solutions to dire housing problems, and there is hope that the city can continue to deploy innovative policies that will brighten the future for all city residents. Our final panel in this series will look at the future of affordable housing in Boston, taking stock of past lessons learned.
This discussion will be led by William McGonagle, former Administrator, Boston Housing Authority; Soni Gupta, Director of Neighborhoods and Housing, The Boston Foundation; Lawrence Vale, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Sandra Henriquez, Executive Director, Detroit Housing Commission; former administrator and CEO, Boston Housing Authority; and moderator David Luberoff, Deputy Director, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
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TEDxCambridge Salon Series: A.I. Ethics & Civil Liberties
Wednesday, November 20
6:00PM – 7:30PM
WBUR CitySpace, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://www.tedxcambridge.com/salon/a-i-ethics-civil-liberties/
Cost: $30
Cansu Canca, TECHNO PHILOSOPHER
Cansu Canca is a philosopher and the founder and director of the AI Ethics Lab. She leads teams of computer scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars to provide ethics analysis and guidance to researchers and practitioners. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the National University of Singapore specializing in applied ethics. Her area of work is in the ethics of technology and population-level bioethics with an interest in policy questions. Prior to the AI Ethics Lab, she was a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, and a researcher at the Harvard Law School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Osaka University, and the World Health Organization.
Kade Crockford, PRIVACY ADVOCATE
Kade Crockford is the director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Kade writes, researches, organizes, lobbies, and advocates to ensure privacy and civil liberties law keeps pace with new technologies, with a focus on how systems of surveillance and control impact not just society in general, but also their primary targets: people of color, Muslims, immigrants, and dissidents. Kade’s writing on digital security, surveillance, and state power have appeared in outlets including The Nation, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, New Inquiry, and The Baffler.
Performance By Olivia Pérez Collellmir, MUSICIAN
Olivia is a pianist, bandleader, and composer from Barcelona, Spain. She started playing piano at the age of five and as a young scholar pianist toured and recorded for the National Radio of Spain. Olivia received a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music where she won the prestigious Chair Award and a Piano Achievement Award. Olivia is a faculty member in the Berklee piano department and regularly performs at The Beehive, Regattabar, Museum of Fine Arts, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Sonia Olla, DANCER
Sonia was born and raised in Barcelona where she earned a degree in Spanish Dance and Flamenco at the esteemed Instituto de Teatro y Danza. Hailed by The New York Times as “a furnace of earthy sensuality”, she has performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and choreographed Madonna’s worldwide 2015-16 Rebel Heart Tour. Sonia currently resides in New York and is a bailaora of international prestige who directors and choreographs her own shows.
Event Details.
Each salon features an artistic performance, two distinguished speakers, and a Q&A that provides audience members an opportunity to speak directly with some of the region’s brightest innovators and creative minds.
WBUR CitySpace
WBUR CitySpace is the new state-of-the-art multimedia venue for interviews, conversations, and performances located at 890 Commonwealth Avenue. It brings the stories you hear every day from WBUR and NPR to life. CitySpace is the region’s premier destination to be inspired, entertained, and educated.
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Climate Stories Project with Jason Davis
Wednesday, November 20
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Lecture Hall, Cambridge
Event image for Climate Stories Project with Jason Davis
Jason Davis, a Massachusetts-based musician, composer, and the director of Climate Stories Project, will present and perform two pieces for solo double bass which feature the recorded voices of people from around the world talking about their responses to the climate crisis. Jason will also discuss Climate Stories Project, an educational and artistic forum for sharing personal stories about climate change. You will learn how you can share your climate story and why it's so important to do so, and why your creativity is essential in confronting the climate crisis.
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The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation
Wednesday, November 20
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Simons Theatre New England Aquarium, Aquarium Wharf, Boston
RSVP at http://support.neaq.org/site/Calendar?id=108105&view=Detail
Dr. Alex Dehgan, CEO, Conservation X Labs
Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Alex Dehgan arrived in the country in 2006 to build the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Afghanistan Program, and preserve and protect Afghanistan’s unique and extraordinary environment, which had been decimated after decades of war.
The efforts of Dehgan, an evolutionary biologist and former diplomat working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, were central to the creation of the first Afghanistan National Park Program. In his book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation, Dehgan takes readers along with him and his team through some of the most dangerous places in postwar Afghanistan as they work to establish the country’s first national park, complete some of the first extensive wildlife surveys in 30 years, and act to stop the poaching of the country’s iconic endangered animals, including the snow leopard.
Dehgan will reflect on innovative approaches to advancing the environment and security in some of the most politically and ecologically fragile places in the world, while exploring connections between conservation and political stability. This talk will also consider the larger changes of the political landscape and evolving U.S. positions toward Afghanistan, while showing spectacular imagery from Afghanistan that never crosses our televisions or computers.
Doors open at 6 p.m., and there will be a cash bar from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
A book signing of The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation will be held in the lobby after after his presentation.
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Using Probabilistic Machines Learning towards Diagnosing Neurodegenerative Diseases
Wednesday, November 20
7 - 9pm
Harvard Medical School, Armenise Auditorium (in Goldenson Hall),200 Longwood Avenue,
Boston
More information at http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/seminar-series/
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Thursday, November 21
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Artist Talk: Metaphor, Meaning, Antarctica, and the Anthropocene (Oh my!)
Thursday, November 21
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Multi-purpose Room, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford
Georgie Friedman, Artist
Can visual and experiential metaphors in contemporary art encourage people to contemplate or connect with our planet and changing climate? As a part of the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, video installation artist Georgie Friedman will present highlights from the last decade of her art practice and share art and her experiences from her 2017 SMFA/Tufts Artist Traveling Fellowship to Antarctica. Friedman investigates our complex relationships with our changing planet, and her pieces focus on the hurricanes, blizzards, polar ice melt, and raising sea levels
utilizes video, sound, sculpture, existing architecture, and the physics of light, all in order to create new experiences for viewers.
Georgie Friedman earned her M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University ('08), and her B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz ('96).
The Geneva International Film Festival (Switzerland); The Cleveland Museum of Art (OH); Muratcentoventidue Artecontemporanea (Bari, Italy); Georgetown University (DC); Boston City Hall – exterior (MA); Burlington City Arts (VT); Union College (NY); Lesley University College of Art and Design (MA); deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum (MA); College of the Holy Cross (MA); Shelburne Museum (VT); Transylvania University (KY); and The Armory Center for the Arts (CA). Friedman's work has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, NPR, CBS News, The Atlantic, Orion Magazine, among many others. Currently she is Part-Time Faculty in the Art, Art History and Film Department at Boston College and a Visiting Lecturer in the Film/Video Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
She has traveled to five continents to film for her projects, and internationally. Her most recent solo exhibition, Georgie Friedman: She is currently based in Boston and has lived, worked and exhibited nationally/
Fragments of Antarctica, was on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from April – September 2019. She has been awarded Mass has created over fifteen short and long-term video-based public art pieces. In 2016 Friedman was an Artist-in-Residence with the City of Boston and created a site-specific, public art project: Altering the City, Video Landscape – Traces of Wind and Water in Dorchester, MA.
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Digital Equity and Climate Resilience
Thursday, November 21
4-5pm
UMass Boston, McCormack, 1st floor, Room 0213, Dorchester
SSL welcomes Greta Byrum, Co-Director of the Digital Equity Laboratory at the New School, a university center advancing digital equity through organizing, applied research, and policy strategy. As former director of the Resilient Communities program, Byrum led Resilient Networks NYC, a project supported by New York City's Economic Development Corporation. Resilient Networks provides training, tools, and equipment to community organizations in five Hurricane Sandy-impacted New York City neighborhoods so they can build storm-hardened local WiFi. This event is free and open to the public.
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What Makes a City Great for 8-yer-olds and 80-year-olds Alike
Thursday, November 21
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Fairmont Copley Plaza, 138 Saint James Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-keynote-with-gil-penalosa-tickets-76045256409
An Evening Keynote with Gil Penalosa, Founder of 8 80 Cities
Thriving cities are places that everyone can call home, regardless of age and ability. These cities prioritize the happiness, health, and overall well-being of its residents over car mobility.
Join us for an evening keynote and reception with Gil Penalosa, founder and chair of 8 80 Cities. Gil advises decisionmakers and communities around the world on how to create vibrant and healthy cities for all.
Engage your imagination in creating safer, healthier places to live, work, and play.
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Gene Editing as a Therapy for Human Blood Diseases
Thursday, November 21
6:30pm
Aeronaut, 14 Tyler Street, Somerville
More information at http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/science-by-the-pint/
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Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision
Thursday, November 21
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meet-author-brendan-mcquade-tickets-78654855791
The United States has poured over a billion dollars into a network of interagency intelligence centers called “fusion centers.” These centers were ostensibly set up to prevent terrorism, but politicians, the press, and policy advocates have criticized them for failing on this account. So why do these security systems persist? Pacifying the Homeland travels inside the secret world of intelligence fusion, looks beyond the apparent failure of fusion centers, and reveals a broader shift away from mass incarceration and toward a more surveillance- and police-intensive system of social regulation.
About the Author: Brendan McQuade is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Southern Maine.
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Thursday, November 21 – Friday, November 22
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Conference on New Media and Democracy
Thursday, November 21,5:00 PM – Friday, November 22, 7:30 PM EST
Tufts, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conference-on-new-media-and-democracy-registration-75895295873
A global, multi-sector conversation on the shifting landscape of public diplomacy, cybersecurity and civic engagement in the digital age
The Future of Democracy in the Age of Disinformation
Innovating Policy Solutions for a Networked World
Through keynote speakers and a series of interdisciplinary panels, the conference will address questions such as: How do state actors now use the internet as a tool to influence public opinion and shape the political terrain, often in malign ways? What are governments doing both to defend against information warfare from without, and control the flow of information from within? And what is the role of the private sector in advancing and ensuring the flow of news and information to a global audience?
Registration is required to attend. Please note registration will close November 18 at 5:00pm ET.
Join the conversation using #MurrowNewMedia19
View full agenda and conference details
Panels
US Information Strategy in the Cyber Era: Promoting US Interests andPreserving American Values
Balkanization of the Internet: The Growing Popularity of the Chinese Firewall
Can the Platforms Save Us? The Strengths and Limits of the Private Sector
Can the Government Save Us? Emerging Global Models of Regulation and Free Speech
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Friday, November 22
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Building Climate Resilience into Infrastructure
Friday, November 22,
7:15 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Forum - 8:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
University of Massachusetts Club, One Beacon Street, Boston
RVSP at https://climateadaptationforum.org/event/building-climate-resilience-into-infrastructure/
Cost: $15 - $45
The undeniable reality of climate change has forced planners of infrastructure projects to design for increased temperatures, wind and water in the near future and farther on. This forum presents speakers grappling with how to incorporate climate resilience into planning, financing and maintaining infrastructure systems.
Keynote Speaker Jesse Keenan is a social scientist and a member of the faculty at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Professor Keenan has written, consulted and spoken widely on climate adaptation as it affects the built environment. His remarks will frame the morning’s program by providing a compelling overview of the methodologies and criteria under development in the public and private sectors about how to evaluate public and private investments under the name of resiliency and adaptation.
Keynote Presentation: Evaluating Investments in the Name of Resilience
Jesse M. Keenan, Ph.D., J.D., LL.M., Faculty of Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Speakers:
Greta Byrum, Co-Director, Digital Equity Laboratory at The New School
Rob Evans, CFM, Manager, Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, Rivers Program
Mia Mansfield, Director of Climate Adaptation and Resilience, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
John Sullivan, Chief Engineer, Boston Water and Sewer Commission
Forum Co-Chairs
Lauren Miller, Principal, Climate Change Services, CDM Smith
Aaron Weieneth, AICP, Manager of Climate Change and Resilience, AECOM
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3rd Annual Massachusetts Food System Forum
Friday, November 22, 2019
9:30am - 4:00pm
College of the Holy Cross, Hogan Campus Center, 1 College Street, Worcester
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3rd-annual-ma-food-system-forum-registration-66681087929
Cost: $30
Early bird registration (through Oct 31) is $30 and includes a locally-sourced breakfast and lunch.
Hosted by the MA Food System Collaborative
Attend the 3rd Annual MA Food System Forum to learn new skills, celebrate successes, and collaborate across disciplines to increase equity and sustainability in the MA food system.
Morning Sessions
The day will begin with an optional networking breakfast at 9:00am. After an overview of the MA Food System Collaborative's work and selected food system topics, there will be the opportunity to attend breakout groups which will provide updates and brainstorm next steps around the Healthy Incentives Program, food waste, agricultural issues, and more.
Lunch
During the locally-sourced lunch, Massachusetts Representative Hannah Kane, co-chair of the Legislature’s Food System Caucus, will speak about her work and priorities around nutrition and agriculture legislation.
Keynote: Tensions and Trade-offs in Food System Work
Food system work requires some challenging balancing acts. Improving market opportunities for farmers while at the same time expanding access to healthy affordable food for low-income consumers. Promoting the local economy and protecting the environment while maintaining jobs and the tax base. It often feels like trade-offs are inevitable. Becca Jablonski, Assistant Professor and Food Systems Extension Economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University, will discuss her research around these trade-offs, and how communities can best work together to promote win-win scenarios.
Afternoon Sessions
In the afternoon, a panel of community groups will present on their work. The day will conclude with skill-building workshops and discussions on topics including advocacy, fundraising, communications, and the state budget process.
Email Brittany Peats with questions at brittany at mafoodsystem.org.
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Climate Adaptation Forum
November 22
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Being and the Screen: How the Digital Changes Perception
Friday, November 22
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes professor, author, and editor STÉPHANE VIAL and translator, editor, and former MIT Media Lab librarian PATSY BAUDOIN for a discussion of Stéphane's new book, Being and the Screen: How the Digital Changes Perception, translated from the French by Patsy.
About Being and the Screen
Digital technologies are not just tools; they are structures of perception. They determine the way in which the world appears to us. For nearly half a century, technology has provided us with perceptions coming from an unknown world. The digital beings that emerge from our screens and our interfaces disrupt the notion of what we experience as real, thereby leading us to relearn how to perceive.
In Being and the Screen, Stéphane Vial provides a philosophical analysis of technology in general, and of digital technologies in particular, that relies on the observation of experience (phenomenology) and the history of technology (epistemology). He explains that technology is no longer separate from ourselves— if it ever was. Rather, we are as much a part of the machine as the machine is part of us. Vial argues that the so-called difference between the real and the virtual does not exist and never has. We are living in a hybrid environment which is both digital and nondigital, online and offline. With this book, Vial endows philosophical meaning to what we experience daily in our digital age.
This book is published with the support of the University of Nîmes, France.
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Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style
Friday, November 22
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Suzanne McConnell
Author, editor and writing teacher Suzanne McConnell was a student of Kurt Vonnegut’s at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop during its heyday, the period from 1965-67, when Vonnegut, along with Nelson Algren and other notable authors were in residence. This was also the period when Vonnegut was writing his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five, and had a lot to say about the writing process. Vonnegut and McConnell became friends, and stayed in touch over the years. She has published short memoirs of him in The Brooklyn Rail and The Writer’s Digest, and led a panel at the 2014 AWP conference titled “Vonnegut’s Legacy: Writing about War and Other Debacles of the Human Condition.”
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Saturday, November 23
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TEDxBeaconStreet
Saturday, November 23
8:00 am – 7 pm
WGBH, 1 Guest Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tedxbeaconstreet-wgbh-tickets-78879999201
Join us for a day of ideas, innovations and stories with some of the most inspiring minds and speakers in the world. WGBH and TEDxBeaconStreet have teamed up to present inspiring and engaging talks in the state-of-the-art Yawkey Theatre at WGBH’s Brighton studios.
Come hear three idea tracks: Education, Innovation, and Science, moderated by WGBH News’ Kirk Carapezza, Kara Miller and Heather Goldstone.
Join us at the WGBH Studios in Brighton for exhilarating talks and stimulating conversations with speakers on some of the most pressing issues.
Speakers include Eliza Reid, First Lady of Iceland; Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics; Leonard Kleinrock, Father of the Internet; Principal Musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and others sharing the latest thinking on education, innovation and science. See list of all speakers here.
8:25am-11:45am
Education Track, hosted by WGBH’s Kirk Carapezza
12pm-4:45pm
Innovation Track, hosted by WGBH’s Kara Miller
4:45pm-7pm
Science Track, hosted by WGBH’s Heather Goldstone
Please RSVP for as many tracks as you would like to attend.
We request that you arrive 15 minutes early to allow time to check in before your track starts.
Help us to continue to produce free events by donating to WGBH when you RSVP.
Snacks will be available for purchase.
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Climate Crafts: A Zine-Making Workshop
Saturday, November 23
7 PM – 10 PM
Friends Meeting At Cambridge - Quakers, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge
Come make a zine with Sunrise Boston! This event is a collaboration between the crafts team and the climate impact team. Zines are small, handmade magazines, which were popularized during the Riot Grrl movement of the' 90s. We will be making pages of art and writing about all the feelings that climate change and climate activism bring up, as well as our visions of a better world.
We will provide craft supplies and snacks, and feel free to bring your own as well (especially scissors and glue sticks, if you have them). No prior artistic experience necessary.
The Friends Meeting is wheelchair-accessible, and is located about a 10-min walk from Harvard Square. We will be meeting in the Friends Room.
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Monday, November 25
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The Welfare Implications of Carbon Price Certainty
Monday, November 25
11:45AM TO 1:00PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Bldg, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Sarah Armitage and Joe Aldy, Harvard University. Lunch is provided.
Contact Name: Julie Gardella
julie_gardella at hks.harvard.edu
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The Way We Trust Today: Encryption as an Instrument of Decentralization
Monday, November 25
12:15PM TO 2:00PM
Harvard, CGIS S050, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Gili Vidan, History of Science/Harvard STS.
Sandwich lunches are provided. Please RSVP to via the online form by Wednesday at 5PM the week before.
sts at hks.harvard.edu
STS Circle at Harvard
http://sts.hks.harvard.edu/events/sts_circle/
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Building energy innovation systems in Latin America: Insights from Brazil, Chile, and Mexico
Monday, November 25
12:30pm - 1:45pm
Tufts, Location TBD
Zdenka Myslikova
Predoctoral Fellow, The Fletcher School
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Designing Sustainable Urban Development
Monday, November 25
7:00 PM
Robbins Library, 700 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington
Christoph Reinhart, Ph.D., Professor of Architecture, Director, Building Technology Program and Sustainable Design Lab, MIT. Dr. Reinhart is an international leader in urban design, especially recognized for architectural “daylighting”—the use of natural light to illuminate building interiors—and urban-level environmental building performance analysis. The design tools developed by the Reinhart lab are used by architects and urban planners in more than 90 countries.
Modern urban development requires a multi-dimensional design approach to encompass energy-efficient architecture, pedestrian-friendly access to shops, entertainment, work and schools, and vibrant outdoor spaces. Using sophisticated computer-modeling, the Sustainable Design Lab at MIT combines and analyzes many elements for optimal, healthy urban environments. In this presentation, Dr. Reinhart outlines such a model based on a neighborhood proposal in Boston.
More information at http://www.scienceforthepublic.org/energy-and-resources/designing-sustainable-urban-development
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Tuesday, November 26
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The Last Sacred Place of Poetry: Film Screening & Discussion (Central Square)
Tuesday, November 26
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Central Square Branch, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge
Join us for a screening of the documentary "The Last Sacred Place of Poetry" about the renowned independent Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square.The film explores the unique place in literary and Cambridge history that the Grolier Poetry Book Shop occupies from its one-room location in Harvard Square. Following the screening, director and producer Weiying Olivia Huang will discuss the making of the film with Patrick Sylvain who is a poet, writer, translator, and academic as they discuss the film and “the Grolier.”
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Resource
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Solar bills on Beacon Hill: The Climate Minute Podcast
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-cs87v-b6dbac
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Envision Cambridge citywide plan
https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/News/2019/5/~/media/A0547DC0640E4ABD86B519CA6FEEFF38.ashx
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Climate Resilience Workbook
https://sustainablebuildingsinitiative.org/toolkits/climate-resilience-guidelines/climate-resilience-workbook
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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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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
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
Boston Science Lectures: https://sites.google.com/view/bostonsciencelectures/home
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
Adam Gaffin’s Universal Hub: https://www.universalhub.com/
Extinction Rebellion: https://xrmass.org/action/
Sunrise Movement: https://www.facebook.com/SunriseBoston/events/
Mission-Based Massachusetts is an online discussion group for people who are interested in nonprofit, philanthropic, educational, community-based, grassroots, and other mission-based organizations in the Bay State. This is a moderated, flame-free email list that is open to anyone who is interested in the topic and willing to adhere to the principles of civil discourse. To subscribe email
mbm-SUBSCRIBE at missionbasedmassachusetts.net
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