MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed

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MIT Open Aggregated Podcast Feed episodes

  • Special Episode: Collaborating with Community Colleges

    MIT OpenCourseWare has been one of the pioneers of open education, leading the way by offering free materials from MIT courses as early as 2001, when no other institutions were pursuing comparably ambitious initiatives. But in subsequent years, there’s been an explosion of activity in open education, led by faculty members, instructional designers, and librarians at institutions throughout the United States and worldwide. In this episode, we hear from senior manager of MIT Open Education collaborations, Dr. Shira Segal, who talks about MIT’s efforts to team up with and learn from open education practitioners at the Maricopa County Community College District in Arizona, whose energetic promotion of open educational resources has saved students over $270 million in textbook costs, and College of the Canyons in California, a leader in the Zero Textbook Cost movement. We also hear excerpts from interviews with four instructors from those colleges, who talk about the potential benefits and unexpected challenges of using open educational resources in general, and about what they learned from their experiences in adapting OCW materials for use in their own classes.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    More on MIT OpenCourseWare’s collaboration with community colleges

    Maricopa County Community College District

    College of the Canyons

    Maricopa Community Colleges Save Students $270M in Textbooks

    OER and Zero Textbook Cost at College of the Canyons

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

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    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Jackson Maher, producer

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    0 min
  • Toxoplasma and the Human Host — Sebastian Lourido

    Sebastian Lourido is an associate professor of biology and a member of the Whitehead Institute. Sebastian studies human pathogens and seeks to unravel the genetic pathways that help parasites like Toxoplasma gondii exist in human cells. He hopes that his work will lead to new treatments for toxoplasmosis as well as drugs that could treat diseases caused by similar parasites.

    Show notes and transcript:

    https://news.mit.edu/podcast/podcast-curiosity-unbounded-episode-16-toxoplasma-and-human-host

    Join the mailing list or send us feedback:

    https://eepurl.com/ixPQPA

    0 min
  • Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer, "Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior" (MIT Press, 2025)
    In Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior (MIT Press, 2025), Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded in animal behavior science match those of the already powerful. How can animal behavior science escape this trap of naturalizing dominant culture?
    Drawing from decades of feminist, antiracist, queer, disability justice, and Marxist contributions—including those of biologists—Kamath and Packer break down persistent assumptions in the status quo of animal behavior science and offer a multitude of alternative approaches. Core concepts in animal behavior science and evolutionary biology—from sex categories and sexual selection to fitness, adaptation, biological determinism, and more—are carefully contextualized and critically reexamined. This unique collaboration between an animal behavior scientist and a feminist science studies scholar is an illuminating and hopeful read for anyone who is curious about how animals behave, and anyone who wants to break free from scientific approaches that perpetuate systems of oppression.
    Ambika Kamath is trained as a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She lives, works, and grows community in Oakland, California, on Ohlone land.
    Melina Packer is Assistant Professor of Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, on Ho-Chunk Nation land. She is the author of Toxic Sexual Politics: Toxicology, Environmental Poisons, and Queer Feminist Futures (NYU Press, 2025).
    Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University, on Mississauga Anishnaabeg land. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021).
    1 hr 12 min
  • Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative" (MIT Press, 2024)
    A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond.
    In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws on recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to provide an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space following the collapse of superpower détente in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late–Cold War US defense strategy and foreign relations.In contrast to existing narratives, Weapons in Space shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI's controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes the militarization of space in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently, Weapons in Space carries the legacy of SDI into the post–Cold War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space—and the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race.
    Our guest is Aaron Bateman, an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at GWU.
    Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).
    0 min
  • AI and Our Time at Work: Featuring MIT Neil Thompson and David Autor
    What does AI really mean for jobs, productivity, and the future of work?
    Recorded with a live audience at the MIT Museum!
    In this special live taping of the CSAIL Alliances Podcast, host Kara Miller explores big questions on AI and the future of work with two MIT researchers leading research on technology and labor—David Autor, MIT economist and coauthor of The Work of the Future, and Neil Thompson, Director of MIT FutureTech.
    Together, they unpack what the evidence actually says about AI and work—cutting through hype, fear, and speculation. The conversation explores how AI is reshaping tasks (not just jobs), why productivity gains have been uneven, and what history can teach us about today’s moment. From software development and medicine to insurance, law, and gig work, Autor and Thompson explain when AI acts as a powerful collaborator—and when full automation simply isn’t realistic or cost-effective.
    This episode offers a grounded, thoughtful look at how AI is actually being used today—and what that means for workers, organizations, and society going forward.
    Further reading:
    Joint research paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w33941
    Vox: Here’s a glimmer of hope about AI and jobs: https://www.vox.com/technology/470688/ai-jobs-chatgpt-bubble
    Episodes, listener discounts, meet the host, and more can be found here: https://csail.mit.edu/podcast
    Connect with CSAIL Alliances:
    On our site: cap.csail.mit.edu/about-us/meet-our-team
    On LinkedIn: linkedIn.com/mit-CSAIL
    #AIandWork #FutureOfJobs #ArtificialIntelligence #EconomicsOfAI #FutureOfWork #MITCSAIL #TechnologyAndLabor #AIResearch
    49 min
  • Dagmar Schafer, "Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property" (MIT Press, 2023)
    Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property (MIT Press, 2023) provides a framework for knowledge ownership that challenges the mechanisms of inequality in modern society.
    Scholars of science, technology, medicine, and law have all tended to emphasize knowledge as the sum of human understanding, and its ownership as possession by law. Breaking with traditional discourse on knowledge property as something that concerns mainly words and intellectual history, or science and law, Dagmar Schäfer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning propose technology as a central heuristic for studying the many implications of knowledge ownership.
    Toward this end, they focus on the notions of knowledge and ownership in courtrooms, workshops, policy, and research practices, while also shedding light on scholarship itself as a powerful tool for making explicit the politics inherent in knowledge practices and social order. The book presents case studies showing how diverse knowledge economies are created and how inequalities arise from them. Unlike scholars who have fragmented this discourse across the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and history, the editors highlight recent developments in the emerging field of the global history of knowledge—as science, as economy, and as culture. The case studies reveal how notions of knowing and owning emerge because they reciprocally produce and determine each other's limits and possibilities; that is, how we know inevitably affects how we can own what we know; and how we own always impacts how and what we are able to know.
    Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive.
    43 min
  • Enterprise IT Operating Models in the AI Era
    Alan Thorogood reads MIT CISR's December 2025 research briefing, which he co-authored with Stephanie Woerner. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_1201_EntITOperatingModels_ThorogoodWoerner.
    Abstract: Newer digital technologies such as artificial intelligence are blurring the lines between the IT function and business units, offering new approaches to the enterprise IT operating model. As part of these approaches, many top performers are increasing both speed and scale, relying on modularity and reuse architected by strong IT leadership. In this briefing, we examine the pressures on enterprise IT operating models and propose a framework to help enterprise leaders make strategic choices. We also examine the differences in platform use and innovation among the models.
    12 min
  • Sharon Sliwinski, "An Alphabet for Dreamers: How to See the World with Eyes Closed" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Borrowing from the traditional alphabet book genre for children, An Alphabet for Dreamers: How to See the World with Eyes Closed (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Sharon Sliwinski provides adult readers with a new grammar for dreams, or what neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro calls “oracles of the night.” In this book, Dr. Sliwinski restores dreaming to its proper place as an important worldmaking activity, one that offers a gateway to another way of seeing. Each of the short chapters engages a dream from the historical record—from both the recent and distant past—to show how these experiences can help make sense of profound social conflicts and transform our shared reality.Thinking alongside the dreams of powerful exemplars—from Harriet Tubman to contemporary Indigenous activist Abigail Echo-Hawk—readers come to understand how dream life is a crucial resource for generating new worlds and new ways of being. The book brings together urgent concerns from the domains of critical theory, visual culture, and mental health to show how dreaming serves as a vital source of knowledge and a critical mode of thinking.As with traditional alphabet books, illustrations provide an integral voice. Each chapter of the book is accompanied by an original watercolor painting by Melinda Josie that visually underscores the way dreams serve as a unique medium for processing our lived experience. Together, the images and text form a delicate dialogue, drawing attention to the details of the central scenes, extending the book’s special mode of thinking in painted form.By working alongside dreamers from the past and present, An Alphabet for Dreamers begins a new and much-needed conversation about the social and political importance of dream life.
    This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
    0 min
  • Why So Much Food is Lost: Inside Global Food Supply Chains

    Global food systems produce more than enough to feed the world—yet nearly one-third of all food is lost or wasted. Much of that loss happens far upstream, driven by perishability, cold chain failures, infrastructure gaps, climate pressures, and supply chain inefficiencies that span continents.

    In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Chris Mejía, founder and director of the MIT Emerging Market Economies Logistics Lab, along with Drs. David Hidalgo and Mauricio Gámez, researchers who model solutions for supply chain issues. They unpack why food supply chains are uniquely vulnerable to disruption, especially in emerging markets, and where the biggest opportunities exist to reduce loss. From circular economy models and food recovery strategies to AI-driven forecasting, optimization, and community-based distribution networks, the conversation explores how better logistics, smarter data, and cross-sector collaboration can help redesign food supply chains that are more resilient, sustainable, and equitable.

    0 min
  • Hungry for Learning: Wendy’s Will Croushorn
    On today’s episode, Wendy’s product manager Will Croushorn joins Sam to share how FreshAi, the fast-food restaurant’s voice-based AI ordering system, is reinventing the drive-through experience for millions of customers. From handling 200 billion ways to order a Dave’s Double burger to making fast food more accessible for guests in multiple languages, Will reveals how empathy and innovation will positively impact the future of convenience. Learn how his team turns speech data into insight, builds trust in automation, and can even hide a few Easter eggs in your next order. Read the episode transcript here. That's a wrap on Season 12!
    We'll back in January with a bonus episode.
    *Please take our listener survey: mitsmr.com/podcastsurvey
    It's short — we promise! — and all respondents will receive a free MIT SMR article collection, "Maximizing the Value of Generative AI."
    Guest bio:
    Will Croushorn is a product leader at Wendy’s and cocreator of its drive-through voice agent, FreshAi, which handles more than 150,000 orders each day across hundreds of stores throughout the U.S. Recognized by Fast Company as one of the “Next Big Things in Tech,” the artificial intelligence platform shows that AI can deliver measurable impact at enterprise scale. Croushorn’s career has been shaped by relentless curiosity: He started a school in northern Iraq, became fluent in Behdini Kurdish, and now advances vision and multimodal AI serve customers in entirely new ways.
    Me, Myself, and AI is a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and hosted by Sam Ransbotham. It is engineered by David Lishansky and produced by Allison Ryder.
    We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
    ME, MYSELF, AND AI® is a federally registered trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.
    0 min

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Episodes from podcasts from around MIT