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

Do you want to get a jumpstart on making a science podcast, or learn the skills to take your podcast to the next level? Cynthia Graber, co-host/co-founder of the popular, award-winning podcast Gastropod and audio instructor at the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing, will provide detailed, hands-on instruction in the recording, scripting, and editing necessary to make your podcast sing.About the InstructorCynthia Graber is co-host/co-founder of the internationally popular and acclaimed podcast Gastropod, about the science and history of food. She's also an award-winning print reporter and radio producer whose work has been featured in magazines and radio shows including Wired, Fast Company, The New Yorker, Studio 360, The World, and many others. She launched Gastropod with Nicola Twilley in 2014; the show covers everything from calories to CRISPR and pawpaws to pudding. They're regularly featured in "best of" lists and critic's picks, as well as recognized with awards. The Los Angeles Review of Books called Gastropod "one of the most intelligent food podcasts around," and WNYC compared the show to "a great cocktail — substantial, nuanced, and not over too fast." Cynthia spent 2012-2013 as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and is an instructor in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing, and she was recently a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia.

Authors can transform mountains of information into an engaging book by employing the craft of storytelling. In this masterclass, Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, the award-winning author of The Alchemy of Us, will share lessons including how to hook a reader, ways to develop a theme, how to nurture one's voice, and ways to build a structure to create your own book. She also will provide tips on ways to incorporate the human element into a book project by employing a range of sources -- from interviews to archival materials. Participants can expect in-class activities to punch-up their prose.About the InstructorAinissa Ramirez, PhD. is an award-winning scientist and science communicator. A graduate of Brown University, she earned her doctorate in materials science and engineering from Stanford. Ramirez began her career as a scientist at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey and later worked as an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Yale.Ramirez is passionate about getting the general public excited about science. She has appeared as a science expert on CBS, CNN, NPR, ESPN, The History Channel, and PBS. She has also written for Time, Forbes, The Atlantic, Science, Nature, and Scientific American. Her most recent book, The Alchemy of Us (MIT Press, 2020) was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and was selected as a top science book by both Smithsonian Magazine and Science Friday. Her expertise in communicating science to the public has also been lauded by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society, for which she was elected a Fellow.Currently, Ramirez is writing a series of nonfiction children's science books for MIT Kids Press/Candlewick and Charlesbridge. You can find out more about her at www.ainissaramirez.com.

Talk Title: Cognition as actionTalk Abstract:Every time you read a talk announcement, attempt to place a name, or wonder how else you could spend that precious hour, you're in some sense making a choice: a choice of what to think about. Drawing on this analogy, my research applies the tools of rational choice theory and quantitative behavioral science to model and measure the inner workings of the mind. Through case studies in decision making, memory recall, and planning, I will show how this approach can deepen our understanding of how the mind works, why it works that way, and what we can do to make it work better.This talk will NOT be live streamed.

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

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.

Meet other expecting and first time parents of infants under one year to connect, share information, and support each other. Bring your concerns, questions, and experiences to the group. And of course, your babies are welcome! This peer led group is organized by MS&PC members Kathrin and Maria.Contact Kathrin hauserkathrin1994@gmail.com or Maria maria.korompili24@gmail.com for more information.

Zoom Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/98426780032Speaker: Vicente Vivanco CepedaAffiliation: Tenenbaum (CoCoSci Lab)Title: Ensemble Physics: Perceiving the Mass of Groups of Objects is More Than the Sum of Its PartsAbstract: From playing with marbles, pouring cereal into a bowl, or watching leaves cascade through the air in autumn, humans frequently encounter collections of objects that behave as cohesive groups. Despite the improbability of perceiving and simulating each object individually, people intuitively and accurately predict the behavior of these ensembles. This ability suggests the existence of a perceptual mechanism that extracts ensemble-level properties, enabling judgments about a group’s physical characteristics without relying on detailed representations of its individual components. Research on ensemble perception has demonstrated that people can efficiently encode summary statistics like average size, motion, or emotion from groups of objects. However, it remains unclear whether this ability extends to intuitive physics, where physical properties are not directly observable but must be inferred from interactions in a scene. In this talk, I will present evidence that people do form ensemble representations of mass. Using tasks in which participants judge the mass of a single marble or a set of marbles falling onto an elastic cloth, we find that people judge the average mass of a group more accurately than the mass of an individual. Furthermore, we show that this ability is not merely the result of aggregating individual object properties but instead reflects a distinct perception of group-level properties. These findings suggest that people’s ability to reason about physical systems relies not only on tracking individual objects, but also on forming representations of groups as cohesive entities.

It's a good time to get creative and finish that project! The Fiber Crafts Group offers the space to craft online with friends. Meetings will be held via Zoom. Feel free to sign in at any time over the session, and stay for as long as you like. For a Zoom invite, please email Claudia James (nonnajames@gmail.com) or Olimpia Caceres-Brown (olimpia@mit.edu)

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 atrium by the staircase. 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 checking this calendar just before you head out. [As of Feb 28, 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.

In this masterclass we will examine why trust is declining, how people decide what to believe, and strategies to rebuild the critical connection between society and science. We'll share ideas for how to counteract this erosion and safeguard our democracy. Through interactive discussions and review of a variety of use cases, you'll discover how to create meaningful spaces for curiosity, conversation, and trust. Deb Roy is a professor of Media Arts and Science at MIT where he directs the MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC). As the Head of Translational Research at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou leads sociotechnical research at the intersection of dialogue, technology, and design.About the Instructors:Deb Roy is professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT where he directs the MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC). He leads research in designing human-AI systems that foster dialogue, listening, and deliberation in ways that build civic muscle. Roy is also co-founder and unpaid CEO of Cortico, a closely affiliated nonprofit collaborator of CCC that develops, operates and supports a conversation platform designed to surface underheard voices and perspectives and create scalable dialogue networks.Roy serves on the board of the Knight First Amendment Institute, the FRONTLINE advisory council, and is a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.Previously, Roy was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2021-22), and served as executive director of the MIT Media Lab (2019-2021), where CCC is based. He has served on the Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy and the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder.While on leave from MIT, Roy co-founded and was CEO of Bluefin Labs, a media analytics company that analyzed the interactions between television and social media at scale. Bluefin was acquired by Twitter in 2013, Twitter's largest acquisition to date. From 2013-2017 Roy served as Twitter's chief media scientist.Roy is the author of over 185 academic papers including a study of the spread of false news that was the cover story of Science magazine in 2018 and cited as one of the most influential academic publications of the year. His 2023 essay in The Atlantic describes his journey from studying social media to creating dialogue networks, and his 2024 Atlantic essay explores ways to tackle truth decay. Roy’s widely viewed TED talk Birth of a Word presents his pioneering research on his son’s language development that led to new ideas in media analytics.A native of Canada, Deb was born and raised in Winnipeg and spent large parts of his childhood in Calcutta. He received his Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Waterloo and PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.As the Head of Translational Research at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou leads sociotechnical research at the intersection of dialogue, technology, and design. By bringing deep expertise in participatory methods, qualitative analysis, and design research, she focuses on the design, prototyping, and advancement of social dialogue technologies and oversees the transfer of research methods, tools, and systems to practice and deployment.Dimitra also holds a tenured Assistant Professor's position (currently on leave) at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 - the European Union's flagship initiative for Research & Innovation - Dimitra was a Marie Curie Global Fellow (joint visiting appointment at MIT and the University of Zurich, Switzerland) from 2019 to mid-2022, focusing on studying vaccine misinformation.Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Digital Journalism, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, Media, War & Conflict, South European Society and Politics, and Critical Discourse Studies. She currently serves as an International Liaison for the Journalism Studies Division of the International Communication Association.

In this storytelling masterclass, two best-selling non-fiction authors from MIT, Seth Mnookin, director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at MIT, and Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism program, offer instruction in the craft and business of writing and selling a popular book. Topics will include finding the right agent, proposal drafting basics, techniques for researching and organizing your book, elements of style and story structure, along with tips on promotion and marketing, based on lessons both authors have learned from their own experiences and from their knowledge of the trade book industry.About the Instructors:Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist is director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT and publisher of the award-winning magazine, Undark. She is the author of six books, including The Poison Squad, a New York Times Notable Book, and the Poisoner’s Handbook, a New York Times best seller, both of which were developed as PBS documentaries. She is also co-editor of A Tactical Guide to Science Journalism, and a former guest editor of Best American Science and Nature Writing. She is currently under contract with Penguin Press for a book about female poisoners. She has written for publications including The New York Times, Wired, Scientific American, Time, Science as well as literary journals such as Tin House. She is a AAAS fellow and a lifetime associate of the National Academy of Sciences, in recognition of her work in science communication.Seth Mnookin is a longtime journalist and science writer and was a 2019-2020 Guggenheim Fellow. His most recent book, The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy, won the National Association of Science Writers "Science in Society" Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Feeding the Monster, about the Boston Red Sox, and Hard News, A Washington Post Best Book of the Year. He began his career as a music critic and has covered everything from rare diseases and the Iraq War to Stephen Colbert and Batman. Mnookin is also the director of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing and the chair of the Institute's Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department.

Take a well-deserved break and join us for a 30-minute yoga session with Sarah Johnson, Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Wellness, to reset your mind and body. Space is limited, so sign up now to secure your spot! After yoga, drop by for an open wellness event to explore the Wellness Wizard Certificate and enjoy free boba while you unwind with creative stations featuring coloring, Legos, origami, and more!

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 with the big mirror, right inside the Collier Memorial entrance to Stata. 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 checking this calendar just before you head out! [As of Feb 28, 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.

The Distinguished Fellowships team and MIT alumni will meet to share what kind of opportunities are available to MIT community members who are considering exploring domestic and international post-undergradaute programs.This CAPD event is open to MIT juniors, seniors, graduate students, and alumni.

Speaker: George Stepaniants (Caltech)Title: A Spectral Theory of Scalar Volterra EquationsAbstract:Volterra integral equations have been the subject of much study, from the perspective of both pure mathematics and applied science. Developments in analysis have yielded farranging existence, uniqueness, and spectral results for such equations. In applied science, Volterra equations are natural models for signal convolution or filtering, and they describe the evolution of a variety of partially-observed, time-dependent systems. In particular, the study of strain-stress dynamics in materials science has inspired closed-form solutions to special classes of Volterra equations with exponentially decaying memory, as well as certain Volterra equations involving fractional derivatives and Prony series. Only a limited number of these results have been proven rigorously, however, and their study in materials science has remained largely disjoint from the broader mathematical community.In this talk, we develop a spectral theory for scalar, linear Volterra equations, showing that a variety of disparate results in applied science (including the aforementioned results in viscoelasticity) are special cases of a more general theory. In particular, we derive analytic solutions for large classes of continuous or discrete-time linear Volterra equations, as well as fractional and delay differential equations.We show how our closed-form solutions can be realized numerically with rational approximation, study the analytical properties of these formulas, and test them on a wide array of problems relating to signal deconvolution, triangular matrix inversion, and interconversion of materials.

"Reorganizing Work: Technology Adaptation in a Bank" | Jorge Tamayo (HBS)

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: Eric Jovinelly (Brown University)Title: Free Curves in Singular VarietiesAbstract:Rational curves are intricately linked to the birational geometry of varieties containing them. Certain curves, called free curves, have the nicest deformation properties. However, it is unknown whether mildly singular Fano varieties contain free rational curves in their smooth locus. In this talk, we discuss free curves of higher genus. Using recent results about tangent bundles, we prove that any klt Fano variety has higher genus free curves. We then use the existence of such free curves to get some applications: we prove the existence of free rational curves in terminal Fano threefolds; obtain an optimal upper bound on the length of extremal rays in the Kleiman-Mori cone of any klt pair; and study the fundamental group of the smooth locus of a Fano variety. This is joint work with Brian Lehmann and Eric Riedl.

Speakers: Zhongkai Tao (University of California, Berkeley)Title: How to solve an undetermined PDE system?Abstract: I will discuss a new method to solve underdetermined PDE systems. The motivation comes from the constraint equation in general relativity, the scalar curvature equation in geometry, and the divergence equation in fluid mechanics. If time permits, I will discuss applications to the flexibility of initial data sets in general relativity. This talk is based on the joint work with Philip Isett, Yuchen Mao, and Sung-Jin Oh.

Speaker: Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, Boston UniversityHost: Mike LaubTitle: "Cooperation in native and synthetic biology" The Holt LectureThe Biology Colloquium is a weekly seminar held throughout the academic year — featuring distinguished speakers in many areas of the biological sciences from universities and institutions worldwide. More information on speakers, their affiliations, and titles of their talks will be added as available. Unless otherwise stated, the Colloquium will be held live in Stata 32-123 (Kirsch auditorium) Contact Margaret Cabral with questions.

Faculty are people too! This workshop will teach you how to build lasting connections and tap into the support and opportunities faculty have to offer

Guido Menzio New York University

Speaker: Michael Stoll (Universität Bayreuth)Title: Conjectural asymptotics of prime orders of points on elliptic curves over number fieldsAbstract:Define, for a positive integer $d$, $S(d)$ to be the set of all primes $p$ that occur as the order of a point $P \in E(K)$ on an elliptic curve $E$ defined over a number field $K$ of degree $d$. We discuss how some plausible conjectures on the sparsity of newforms with certain properties would allow us to deduce a fairly precise result on the asymptotic behavior of $\max S(d)$ as $d$ tends to infinity.This is joint work with Maarten Derickx.

The Center for International Studies at MIT presents“The New Famines of the Middle East and Horn of Africa: War economies and the normalization of starvation”Alex de WaalExecutive DirectorWorld Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityThis lecture locates the return of famines in geo-strategic, economic and normative changes that have their sharpest manifestation in a cluster of countries in the Middle East and Horn of Africa. The most severe and widespread starvation in the contemporary world has struck Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and most recently Gaza, with neighboring countries also afflicted. All these countries are located in the “Red Sea Arena,” a zone of contestation consisting of the littoral countries of the Red Sea and their immediate neighbors. The lecture posits that this cluster of calamities have a common explanatory thread, namely the lens of “new war economies”. The demise of the liberal Pax Americana and the rise of Middle Eastern middle powers and the BRICS has led to new rivalries, organized around access to dollar reserves and alternative currency arrangements backed by resources including gold, oil, land, and strategic real estate. The Gulf monarchies and Israel have strategies and instruments designed to finance current and anticipated conflicts. They seek key resources in Africa and control of strategic locations at the crossroads of maritime commerce. They wage economic warfare that render their adversaries ungovernable. Most damagingly, the new war economies are associated with illiberal norms, including reviving sovereign privileges, undermining liberal multilateral institutions, and adopting a permissive ethos of tolerating mass starvation.Tuesday, March 11, 20254:30-6:00pmE51-145Zoom Livestream availableThe Bustani Seminar series celebrates its 40th anniversary this year!Information on the Emile Bustani Middle East SeminarInformation on the Spring 2025 Bustani Seminar SeriesSponsored by the MIT Center for International StudiesFor more information or any questions, contact:Dayana Mercier | dayan379@mit.edu

Please note: This event will be offered as a Zoom webinar for those who can't make it in person. Zoom registration is here.A Conversation with Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, former CEO of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s electric grid operatorThe Russian assault on Ukraine’s electrical generating capacity and transmission grid as part of its full-scale war against Ukraine, is unprecedented in the history of warfare. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the former CEO of Ukraine’s electric grid operator Ukrenergo, will discuss the challenges of securing Ukraine’s energy system throughout the war, lessons for mitigating grid vulnerabilities, and prospects for rebuilding a more resilient energy system in Ukraine and Europe.The event will be moderated by Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs._________________________________________________Volodymyr Kudrytskyi served as the CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of the Ukrainian Transmission System Operator Ukrenergo from February 2020 until September 2024. Under his leadership, Ukraine’s electrical grid has undergone preparations for synchronization with the power system of Continental Europe ENTSO-E and emergency synchronization with ENTSO-E in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. From February 24, 2022, Mr. Kudrytskyi and his team at Ukrenergo managed the Ukrainian power grid through unprecedented Russian attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. Previously, Mr. Kudrytskyi held leadership roles in key Ukrainian energy sector companies, including Naftogaz and Ukrtransnafta. Mr. Kudrytskyi holds a degree in international finance from Kyiv National Economic University.Mariana Budjeryn is the author of Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023) and a winner of the 2024 William E. Colby Military Writers’ Award, the first female in the award’s 25-year history. Dr. Budjeryn is a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Sciences and a senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Join MIT Libraries for a closer look at selections from its Distinctive Collections - including artists’ books, zines, and art, alongside treasures from the Aga Khan Documentation Center - highlighting marginalized communities' contributions to art, science, and technology.Register 5-6 pm 6-7 pmThis event is presented as part of Artfinity: A celebration of creativity and community at MIT.

Join Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort for a discussion of their recent book Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text 1953-2023 (MIT Press, 2024).The discussion of computer-generated text has recently reached a fever pitch but largely omits the long history of work in this area--text generation, as it happens, was not invented yesterday in Silicon Valley. Output, thoughtfully selected, introduced, and edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort, aims to correct that omission by gathering seven decades of English-language texts produced by generation systems and software.Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is the author of Travesty Generator, a book of computational poetry that was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry, and several other poetry books. They direct the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Maryland.Nick Montfort is a poet and artist who uses computation as his medium. His MIT Press publications range from the New Media Reader (coedited) and Twisty Little Passages to, most recently, The Future and the second edition of Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities. He is Professor of Digital Media at MIT and Principal Investigator in the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen, Norway.Copies of Output will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Join us at MIT’s Koch Institute for a celebration of the winners of the 2025 Image Awards—and their spectacular images of life sciences and biomedical research from across the Institute.The reception will feature puzzles and a chance to mingle with the 2025 winning image creators.5:00 p.m. Doors open and Unveiling Images 5:30 p.m. Award ceremony and lightning talks with image creators in Luria Auditorium 7:00 p.m. Reception in the KI Public GalleriesRegister to join us in person (Luria Auditorium, 76-156) on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-image-awards-tickets-1237795964049?aff=SocialCan't attend in person? Register to attend the award ceremony on Zoom.

MIT Social & Ethical Responsibilities of Computing, and Women and Gender Services (WXGS) invites you to join us on March 11 for an illuminating session on the intersection of data ethics, visualization techniques, and human rights advocacy. "Visualizing Sex Work & Trafficking: Ethical Maps & Modeling" brings together leading experts examining methodological innovations in this sensitive research domain. This interdisciplinary dialogue seeks to advance more nuanced understandings of complex social phenomena through responsible data practices and human-centered design principles.This academic event explores the responsible use of data visualization and geospatial mapping to understand patterns of sex work and human trafficking while maintaining ethical standards.The event will feature presentations by two distinguished researchers:Dr. Kayse Lee Maass, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Principle Investigator & Director of the Operations Research & Social Justice Lab at Northeastern University, will share insights on ethical approaches to collecting sensitive data and innovative techniques for anonymizing location data while preserving analytical value.Dr. Elena Shih, Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, and author of Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab, and the Racial Wages of Rescue, along with her students, Shravya Sompalli and Arman Deendar will discuss participatory mapping methods that center the voices of affected communities and frameworks for differentiating between consensual sex work and human trafficking.Panel, and Q&A Session: Following the presentations, there will a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Alessandra Jungs de Almeida, Postdoctoral Associate in the MIT Women's and Gender Studies Program. The panel will be followed by an interactive Q & A segment that will provide opportunities to engage directly with the researchers, addressing methodological questions, ethical considerations, and potential applications of these approaches.

This yoga practice provides the opportunity to relax and de-stress as well as to stretch, strengthen, and balance your body. The practice begins with a meditative centering followed by warm-ups, a posture flow, and a restful final relaxation. We conclude with a closing and some time for connecting with your fellow yogis.The yoga postures are led at a moderate intensity. Lower intensity modifications are always offered and there is absolutely no obligation to do any posture. The goal is to make the class accessible to beginners as well as experienced practitioners. Listening to your body is the key to safety, especially in this online format.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.

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.

"Do you ever feel that life holds a deeper meaning beyond what you currently understand? The truth is profound—there are countless mysteries of existence, divinity, and the self that lie beyond our awareness. There is so much we don’t know, and even more that we don’t realize we don’t know."Join us on this exciting journey of Discover Your Self to explore the unknown territories of life and delve into the science of spirituality. This course, based on the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, will equip you with proven methods to achieve true inner joy and answer your deepest questions about life's higher principles. This Course explains Proven methods to attain the true inner joy of heart and gives answers to all the Inquiries about Higher Principles in life like the pathway for unlimited and everlasting happiness from the eyes of scriptures like Bhagavad Gita in a scientific perspective.Salient Features:Discover the Game of LifeDiscover Inner SelfDiscover The Ultimate GeniusDiscover Manual of LifeDiscover Lasting SolutionDiscover Sublime Joy Through SoundDiscover The Real Eternal LoveDiscover The Happy PlanetYou are invited to join us every Tuesday 6:00-7:00 pm. To your pleasure we have free delicious sattvik vegetarian dinner is available after every session.Event details:6:00 pm-6:10 pm: Mantra Meditation and kirtan6:10 pm-6:50 pm: : Session7:00pm : Dinner along with Q&A.Venue: MIT Room 56-180, 32 Vasaar Steeet, Cambridge MA Kindly RSVP here https://forms.gle/DEXUz6ig6dJZoU1k7Regards, MIT Vedic Vision Forum