A celebration of creativity and community at MITArtfinity is a new festival of the arts at MIT featuring 80 free performing and visual arts events, celebrating creativity and community at the Institute. Artfinity launches with the opening of the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building on February 15, 2025, continues with a concentration of events February 28-March 16, and culminates with the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts public lecture by 2025 recipient artist and designer Es Devlin on May 1, 2025, and a concert by Grammy-winning rapper and Visiting Professor Lupe Fiasco on May 2, 2025. Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to creativity, community, and the intersection of art, science and technology. We invite you to join us in this celebration, explore the diverse events, and experience the innovative spirit that defines the arts at MIT.About the Artists Artfinity features the innovative work of MIT faculty, students, staff, and alumni, alongside guest artists from the Greater Boston area and beyond.About the Activities & Events All 80 events are open to the public, including dozens of concerts and performances plus an array of visual arts such as projections, films, installations, exhibitions, and augmented reality experiences, as well as lectures and workshops for attendees to participate in. With a wide range of visual and performing arts events open to all, Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to the arts and the intersection of art, science, and technology.About the Presenters Artfinity is an institute-sponsored event organized by the Office of the Arts at MIT with faculty leads Institute Professor of Music Marcus Thompson and Professor of Art, Culture and Technology Azra Akšamija. Departments, labs, centers, and student groups across MIT are presenting partners.Visit arts.mit.edu for more information about the arts at MIT.

Writing Together Online offers structured time to help you spring into writing and stay focused this semester. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects. For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends.Register for Spring 2025 Writing Challenge 1Choose those sessions that you want to attend during Challenge 1: February 10th through March 21stMondays 9:00–10:30amTuesdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amWednesdays 9:00–10:30amThursdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amFridays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amMIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a raffle of three $25 Amazon gift cards. The raffle will take place on Friday, March 21st. The more you participate, the more times you will be entered into the raffle of prizes.For more information and to register, check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with peers and friends.The funding support for this program comes from the Office of Graduate Education

Writing Together Online offers structured time to help you spring into writing and stay focused this semester. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects. For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends.Register for Spring 2025 Writing Challenge 1Choose those sessions that you want to attend during Challenge 1: February 10th through March 21stMondays 9:00–10:30amTuesdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amWednesdays 9:00–10:30amThursdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amFridays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amMIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a raffle of three $25 Amazon gift cards. The raffle will take place on Friday, March 21st. The more you participate, the more times you will be entered into the raffle of prizes.For more information and to register, check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with peers and friends.The funding support for this program comes from the Office of Graduate Education

All kids from newborn age to 3.5 years old are welcome! You can bring siblings as well.It's a chance for kids to have fun while parents can chat, share parenting tips, and socialize.Please register if you plan to attend the group. Contact Maria at mwiegandl@udd.cl if you have any questions.This group is sponsored by the Executive Committees of Westgate and the Graduate Tower at Site 4, and MIT Spouses & Partners Connect, a dedicated network for the significant others of MIT students, postdocs, staff and faculty who have relocated to the Boston area.

Hidden within MIT’s Distinctive Collections, many architectural elements from the earliest days of the Institute’s architecture program still survive as part of the Rotch Art Collection. Among the artworks that conservators salvaged was a set of striking windows of gypsum and stained-glass, dating to the late 18th- to 19th c. Ottoman Empire. This exhibition illuminates the life of these historic windows, tracing their refracted histories from Egypt to MIT, their ongoing conservation, and the cutting-edge research they still prompt.The Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130) is open Monday through Thursday, 10am - 4pm, excluding Institute holidays.

Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton, Erykah Badu, Octavia E. Butler, Digable Planets, Janelle Monae, Flying Lotus, Grace Jones, Missy Elliott, and moreA new exhibit in Lewis Music Library celebrates the visionary contributions of Afrofuturist artists across various genres and mediums. From the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra and the psychedelic funk of Parliament-Funkadelic and George Clinton, to the neo-soul of Erykah Badu and the sci-fi narratives of Octavia E. Butler, these artists have pushed the boundaries of creativity and imagination.This event is presented as part of Artfinity: A celebration of creativity and community at MIT.

Harvard Davis Center and MIT WGS Presents: “Russia’s Pursuit of Repopulation: Abortion, Large Families, and Propaganda”The lecture will take place at HarvardSix months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, in August 2022, the Russian President Vladimir Putin revived the Soviet title of "Mother Heroine" for mothers with ten or more children. Originally the Soviet government had introduced this title as a part of its postwar pronatalist Family Law adopted in 1944. Putin has been committed to increasing fertility in Russia for over a decade and has gradually restricted women’s access to abortion. With this background in mind, it may not seem surprising that he added one more measure from the post-WWII pronatalist toolkit when the “special military operation” threatened to accelerate the decrease in Russia’s population.However, the revival of the Mother Heroine award signifies a slight, but important shift. In general, postsocialist pronatalism carefully adapted the pronatalist ideas from the Soviet period, embracing some elements, while rejecting others. One of the rejected measures was the postwar Soviet policy of “one-parent pronatalism,” which made the father’s role in childrearing optional. Instead, postsocialist pronatalism has promoted “two-parent pronatalism,” which encouraged fathers to play an essential role in childrearing. This position manifested in the 2008 introduction of the “Parental Glory” title rather than reviving “Motherhood Glory” or “Mother Heroine.” The 2022 revival of Mother Heroine was a shift away from this earlier decision. How should we interpret this shift? Through a comparative analysis of the 1944 pronatalist Family Law and Putin’s pronatalist measures, this talk attempts to identify both constant and shifting choices as well as forces that affect the politics of reproduction today. In addition to policymakers, the talk will address the roles of women, doctors, and the Russian Orthodox Church.Mie Nakachi is a historian of the former Soviet Union. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and teaches at Hokusei Gakuen University in Japan. Her specialty areas are population policy, women, family, gender, and reproductive health. She is the author of Replacing the Dead: The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union (OUP, 2021) and co-editor of Reproductive States: Global Perspectives on the Invention and Implementation of Population Policy (OUP, 2016). She is currently conducting research on the history of Soviet demographic studies from Ukrainian beginnings through the 1970s.SponsorshipDepartment of Women's and Gender Studies, MITAccessibilityThe Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact us at 617-495-4037 or daviscenter@fas.harvard.edu in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance if possible. Please note that the Davis Center will make every effort to secure services but that services are subject to availability.

Want to get exercise mid-day but don’t want to go outside? Join the tunnel walk for a 30-minute walk led by a volunteer through MIT’s famous tunnel system. This walk may include stairs/inclines. Wear comfortable shoes. Free.Location details: Meet in the lobby under the “Belonging + Community” banner. Location photo below.Tunnel Walk Leaders will have a white flag they will raise at the meeting spot for you to find them.Prize Drawing: Attend a walk and scan a QR code from the walk leaders to be entered into a drawing for a getfit tote bag at the end of the getfit challenge. The more walks you attend, the more entries you get. Winner will be drawn and notified at the end of April. Winner does not need to be a getfit participant.Disclaimer: Tunnel walks are led by volunteers. In the rare occasion when a volunteer isn’t able to make it, we will do our best to notify participants. In the event we are unable to notify participants and a walk leader does not show up, we encourage you to walk as much as you feel comfortable doing so. We recommend you check this calendar just before you head out! [As of Feb 26, this calendar is defaulting to the year 1899. Click "today" to be brought to the current month.]Getfit is a 12-week fitness challenge for the entire MIT community. These tunnel walks are open to the entire MIT community and you do not need to be a current getfit participant to join.

MIT Free English Class is for international students, sholars, spouses. Twenty seven years ago we created a community to welcome the nations to MIT and assist with language and friendship. Join our Tuesday/Thursday conversation classes around tables inside W11-190.

Heiman lab I "Investigating the Roles of Scn4b in Huntington's Disease Pathogenesis"

Topic: Regression coefficient estimation from remote sensing maps.

Ten minutes for your mind@2:50 every day at 2:50 pm in multiple time zones:Europa@2:50, EET, Athens, Helsinki (UTC+2) (7:50 am EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88298032734Atlantica@2:50, EST, New York, Toronto (UTC-4) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85349851047Pacifica@2:50, PST, Los Angeles, Vancouver (UTC=7) (5:50 pm EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85743543699Almost everything works better again if you unplug it for a bit, including your mind. Stop by and unplug. Get the benefits of mindfulness without the fuss.@2:50 meets at the same time every single day for ten minutes of quiet together.No pre-requisite, no registration needed.Visit the website to view all @2:50 time zones each day.at250.org or at250.mit.edu

Speaker: Charles Doran (University of Alberta)Title: Fibration and Degeneration in Calabi-Yau GeometryAbstract: At String-Math 2015 in Sanya, I gave evidence for a new geometric duality that conjecturally connects mirror pairs of Calabi-Yau manifolds with extra structure: fibrations on one side and degenerations on the other. The “DHT mirror symmetry” conjecture unifies mirror constructions for the Calabi-Yau and Fano/Landau-Ginzburg cases. I will review the status of the DHT conjecture in several settings and describe proven implications in Hodge theory, geometry, and physics.

Talk Title: Neuroscience, behavior, and what's in-betweenAbstract: I'll present an overview of a forthcoming book about how we can link neuroscience to cognition and behavior. Drawing on several little-known results in early computer science, I'll describe how patterns in behavior can rigorously imply the existence of particular unobserved states and structures. This provides a foundation for linking behavioral regularities to what must be present in neural implementations. The resulting states are often re-describable in abstract terms more familiar to cognitive science, like "sets", "numbers", "stacks", etc. I'll highlight the implementation of "stacks", commonly used for grammars, and show how to characterize the space of possible neural implementations, including with subsystems/circuits operating in serial and parallel. The approach provides a set of concrete hypotheses, a guide for neural data analysis, and points towards a method for understanding structure in modern AI systems, including LLMs. I'll conclude by suggesting a Marr-like framework in which the bridges between levels can be made rigorous, connecting behavior, high-level theorizing, and neural implementation.Bio: I completed my PhD from MIT BCS in 2011. I was a postdoc and a faculty member at the University of Rochester until 2018, and then moved to psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley. My lab works on language, numerical cognition, and spanning cognition and computation.Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89002014229?pwd=bzZuZGh6cVhOSjJ6TlNZVHgrRnNaQT09Followed by a reception with food and drink in 3rd floor atrium

Peter Hull (Brown University)

Recreational swims provide a fun and engaging way for children and parents to practice new skills, stay active, and enjoy quality time together in the pool with the MIT community.No Z Center (MIT Recreation - Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) membership is required to participate.A parent or caregiver must accompany children in the water. Per Z Center policy, each adult may supervise up to two children at a time.Children must be at least 6 months old to join. If younger, they must be able to hold their head up comfortably. Registration is here. Only for MIT Spouses and Partners Connect members.

Coordination and Policy | Stephen Morris (MIT)

Writing about numbers is an indispensable skill for communicators across the disciplines. Whether sharing your experimental results, supporting a stance or policy recommendation with quantitative evidence, or conveying financial information in a report, your job as a writer is to present this data clearly and effectively in straightforward pose.Sound like a communication tool you want to sharpen or add to your writer’s toolbox? Then why not join the MIT Writing and Communication Center (WCC) at its new workshop, “Writing about Numbers: Communicating Quantitative Information Clearly,” . Led by WCC Lecturer and communication specialist Chris Featherman, PhD, this interactive, hands-on workshop will help you do the following:Establish the context for quantitative dataDesign paragraphs for communicating numbersReport numbers in the text and relate them back to the main topicDescribe and summarize patterns in your quantitative dataPresent numbers without jargon to non-specialist audiences

Speaker: Dor Minzer (MIT)Title: On Approximability of Satisfiable CSPs and FriendsAbstract: Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs in short) are among the most important computational problems studied in Theoretical Computer Science. This talk will focus on a recent line of study addressing the complexity of approximating satisfiable instances of CSPs, and connections of this study to multi-player parallel repetition theorems, property testing and combinatorics.Based mostly on joint works with Amey Bhangale, Subhash Khot and Yang P. Liu.

If you ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day, this workshop is for you! Come practice essential strategies for prioritizing your to-do list and to boosting your productivity.

Speaker: Kenta Suzuki (MIT)Title: The $S$-unit equationAbstract:Reference:$\bullet$ Lawrence and Venkatesh, Diophantine problems and $p$-adic period mappings, Section 4.

The Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society is partnering with MIT Women+ In Chemistry, Havrard Women in Chemistry, Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry, Women Chemists Committee, and the Young Chemists Committee for this special event, Celebrating Women's Careers in Chemistry.Join us to explore possible careers in Chemistry, and an evening of networking. Attendees will have limited opportunities for poster presentations.https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-march-celebrating-womens-careers-in-chemistry-event-tickets-1228440210739?aff=oddtdtcreatorCareer Panel: 5:00PM - 6:00PMPoster Session and Networking: 6:00PM - 9:00PM

Iyengar yoga is Hatha yoga as taught by BKS Iyengar and develops strength, coordination, and flexibility of the body and mind. Participants learn how to use their embodiment as an anchor - a way to find peace and inner strength during busy and difficult times.Every class is different with a unique sequence based on the theme of the class and the needs of the students. Using physical alignment as a starting point, Iyengar yoga encourages the spread of intelligence throughout the body, the growth of self awareness and asana as a form of meditation.As a Certified Iyengar Teacher (CIYT) who has studied with renown teachers Patricia Walden and Jarvis Chen for over 16 years, Ashley uses individual pose modifications, props, and hands-on adjustments to support participants of all body types, ages and abilities.Iyengar yoga is truly for everyone - stiff bodies welcome!Registration is required on our wellness class website. If you do not already have an account on this website, you'll need to create one. This is fee-based class and open to the entire MIT community.

Join Us for an Effects Potluck @ the Voxel Lab!Calling all sonic explorers! Bring your instruments, pedals, synths, and any noise-making gear to our Effects Potluck—an evening of sound experimentation, creative play, and unexpected collaborations. Whether you're a pedal hoarder, a modular synth wizard, or just curious about sonic mayhem, this is your chance to plug in, tweak, and explore in a fun, open-ended jam session.No rules, no setlist—just a table full of effects and an open floor for creativity. Come make some noise!Thursday, March 6th, 5:30pm The Voxel Lab, E38-391Bring a gadget, bring a friend, and let's jam! RSVP HERE

The MIT wrestling club holds practices in the du Pont Wrestling Room on weeknights 5:30-7pm. All levels of experience welcome! Whether you're looking to learn how to grapple or just want to get in a good workout, wrestling practice is a good time to learn technique, get in some live goes, and have fun with a great group of people.Current schedule is: structured practice MTRF, open mats W, and technique sessions 9-10:30am on Saturday. For more information, contact wrestling-officers@mit.edu.

Are you considering 1 or more gap years before medical school but not sure if this is the right choice for you or what opportunities are available? Come to this panel to hear from MIT alumni/current medical students about their reasons for taking one or more gap years, the experiences they pursued during their gap year(s), how they found those experiences, and more!This CAPD event is open to MIT undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and alumni.

Rebecca Choi Presented with the HTC Forum Part of the MIT Spring 2025 Architecture Lecture Series.This lecture will be held in person in Long Lounge, 7-429 and streamed online.Lectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on Youtube.

"All We Imagine As Light" Film ScreeningFollowed by a Q&A w/ special guests March 6th @ 6pm | Bartos Theatre MIT *Doors open at 5:30pm RSVPCentering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—and a newly retired coworker Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on prosaic moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is pursued by a courtly doctor; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside resort with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actors with an unforced expressivity and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. More info

Boston Chapter of IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM7:00 PM, Thursday, 6 March 2025MIT Room 32-G449 (Kiva) and online via ZoomHow Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) let governments and business share sensitive data while protecting privacySimson GarfinkelPlease register in advance for this seminar even if you plan to attend in person athttps://acm-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/6917379974134/WN_jwgTYmklQSu6Thc23XOMtQAfter registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.Indicate on the registration form if you plan to attend in person. This will help us determine whether the room is close to reaching capacity. We plan to serve light refreshments (probably pizza) before the talk startimng at around 6:30 pm. Letting us know you will come in person will help us determine how much pizza to order.We may make some auxiliary material such as slides and access to the recording available after the seminar to people who have registered.Abstract:Tax returns and financial filings, health records, education records, and crime data are just some of detailed and highly sensitive data that governments have about people.Businesses also have huge archives of sensitive data, including consumer purchases, cellphone mobility traces, and video surveillance. Today a tiny fraction of these data are released as “open data” or sold as “de-identified data.” The rest are locked up, unable to benefit society or promote new economic activity. Worse, much of that allegedly de-identified data can actually be re-identified, as happened when journalists at The Pillar used de-identified data to identify Catholic priests who were going to gay bars and using hookup apps.Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) use advanced mathematics and computational techniques to let organizations analyze and publish sensitive data while protecting the privacy of individuals and sensitive data from organizations. These techniques have existed for decades and are increasingly being deployed by governments and businesses. PETs are not without controversy. When the US Census Bureau adopted a PET called “differential privacy” for the 2020 Census, more than 4000 academics signed an open letter voicing their opposition: they were concerned that differential privacy would do such a good job protecting privacy that the resulting data would be useless for academic research.This talk presents the case for PETs, explains popular PETs for a non-technical audience, and discusses the specific controversy of deploying differential privacy for the 2020 US Census.This is discussed in more detail in his latest book Differential Privacy .Bio:Simson Garfinkel is the Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer of BasisTech in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was previously a program scientist at AI2050, part of Schmidt Futures. He has held several roles across government, including a Senior Data Scientist at the Department of Homeland Security, the US Census Bureau's Senior Computer Scientist for Confidentiality and Data Access and a computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. From 2006 to 2015, he was an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In addition to his research, Garfinkel is a journalist, an entrepreneur and an inventor; his work is generally concerned with computer security, privacy and information technology.Simson is the author or co-author of 16 books, and the author of more than a thousand articles. He is a contributing writer for Technology Review and has written as a freelancer for many publications including Wired magazine, The Boston Globe, Privacy Journal, and CSO Magazine. His work for CSO Magazine earned him five regional and national journalism awards, including the Jesse H. Neal Business Journalism Awards in 2003 and 2004. He is also the editor of The Forensics Wiki.Directions to 32-G449 - MIT Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA: Please use the main entrance to the Stata Center at 32 Vassar Street (the entrance closest to Main street) as those doors will be unlocked. Upon entering, proceed to the elevators which will be on the right after passing a large set of stairs and a MITAC kiosk. Take the elevator to 4th floor and turn right, following the hall to an open area; 32-G449 will be on the left. Location of Stata on campus mapThis joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be hybrid (in person and online).Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at https://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at https://mailman-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.

The “doom-and-gloom” of dominant climate change narratives contributes to climate despair and passivity. Is there a better way to face our very real climate challenges?Join us as we discuss how centering cherished places and values offers a path to reframe climate discourse and promote a positive vision that lays the groundwork for sustained and targeted action.Register