Slice of MIT

On a campus with a wealth of acronyms, one is on everyone’s lips this time of year—IAP. The Independent Activities Period (IAP) provides members of the MIT community “with a unique opportunity to organize, sponsor and participate in a wide variety of activities.” This means that each year more than 600 non-credit IAP activities give students, staff, alumni, and faculty a chance to learn and do just about anything.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2jdmyvr

Transcript: https://bit.ly/2JdtNRC

Music: "The Builder" "Lewis and Dekald" "Sheep May Safely Graze" and "Fretless"

All songs by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Dean Karlan PhD '02, Professor of Economics at Yale University, discusses his new book, Failing in the Field (Princeton, 2016), an exploration into the most common pitfalls of field research in which both researchers share some of their costly errors in conducting randomized controlled trials in the developing world.

Read more about Failing in the Field: http://bit.ly/2iZUIpT

Eric Jay Dolin PhD '95 is the author of a dozen books, most recently Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse. In it, he chronicles tales of the 701 extant lighthouses in America, from Boston Light to the farthest reaches of Alaska. Listen to an audio interview with Dolin about the inspiration for this book and his development as a writer dating to MIT.

Read more about Brilliant Beacons: http://bit.ly/2esLf5Z

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2q1jt7r

When MIT was founded in 1861, the Institute originally filled Boston’s newly developed Back Bay neighborhood. In the decades that followed, the departments and students increased, and in 1916, MIT crossed the Charles River for a new campus in Cambridge.

Since its move to Cambridge, the Institute continued to establish itself as one of the world’s top universities and its alumni and faculty have tackled society’s most pressing challenges. Earlier this year, as part of MIT’s campus centennial celebration, the Institute hosted the symposium, “Beyond 2016: MIT’s Frontiers of the Future.” (http://mit2016.mit.edu/)

In this Slice of MIT podcast, you’ll hear a selection of the faculty presentations that took place at the symposium. Learn how solar power is creating more drinkable water in rural India; how texting is helping transform Kenya’s financial system; how cities can help solve climate change; and how mucus is solving global health problems.

Transcript: https://bit.ly/2q38auq

Featuring (in chronological order):

Assistant Professor Amos Winter SM ’05, PhD ’10

Department of Mechanical Engineering; Director, Global Engineering and Research Lab

Associate Dean Yasheng Huang

MIT Sloan Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Associate Professor Tavneet Suri

MIT Sloan School of Management

Professor Katharina Ribbeck

Department of Biological Engineering

Assistant Professor Heidi Williams

Department of Economics

Professor John Fernandez ’85

Director, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

More information on the symposium: http://bit.ly/2bGJ5OK

Watch the Beyond 2016 symposium: http://bit.ly/2c2EUNP

Music: “Inspired," Call to Adventure,” “Cut and Run,” “Space Fighter Loop,” “Backed Vibes Clean,” and “Floating Cities”

All songs by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

"How did this gaudy jewel come to be?" asks John Shelton Reed '64 of barbecue, the closest rival, in his mind, that America has to Europe's wines and cheeses in terms of cuisine. In his second book on the subject, Reed offers 51 recipes that, for him, exemplify American Southern barbecue. In this interview, Reed offers his take on "chefs" who cook barbecue, why North Carolina sauce is the most authentic, and how a poli-sci major from MIT turned sociologist at UNC came to the topic of barbecue in the first place.

Read more about Barbecue: http://bit.ly/2fzm4TH

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2uNhRmG

Myra Strober PhD '69, Emerita Professor of Education and Emerita Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business(by courtesy)at Stanford University, shares recollections, advice, and thoughts on women in work in this interview. Strober's new book, Sharing the Work: What My Family and Career Taught Me about Breaking Through (and Holding the Door Open for Others), was published in spring 2016. Read more: http://bit.ly/2bc3q0u

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2q6HmK7

MIT Projects That are Making a Better World: Highlights from Tech Day 2016 talks on Education and Health of the Planet Initiatives.

Episode transcript: https://bit.ly/2GyxT5j.

Can our brains show us when we’re ready to learn? That’s the question that professor John Gabrieli ’87 posed to the audience at the Tech Day program in June as he joined members of the MIT faculty to talk about problems in education and the environment that are being addressed here in Cambridge and around the globe.

In this Slice of MIT podcast, hear audio from several talks given by alumni faculty at Tech Day, which focused on two of the themes from the MIT Campaign for a Better World, a $5 billion comprehensive fundraising initiative that launched in May. The first is teaching learning and living, and the second, the health of the planet.

AeroAstro Professor Karen Willcox ’96, PhD ’00, an innovator in education, discusses her fly-by-wire project, an app which uses digital technology to help students and teachers similar to the way the system works in an airplane.

Professor John Gabrieli ’87 use his understanding of the brain to figure out how learning works.

Professor John Fernández ’85 talked fabout the drastic rise in urban development and its impact on the use of resources and energy throughout the world.

Professor Elsa Olivetti PhD ’07, says making the world a better place starts with a better understanding of the ordinary materials that are used and thrown out daily.

Learn more: http://slice.mit.edu/2016/07/29/listen-making-a-better-world-through-education-and-environmental-research/.

Music:

"Pamgaea"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"Out of the Skies Under the Earth"

Chris Zabriskie

What creates a community? At MIT it can be courses, clubs, and classes, but also where students live. Nearly 6,000 students live in some form of MIT housing, with each different living group building its own unique community. From roller coasters at East Campus to aged milk at Random Hall, living groups at MIT are full of stories and shared memories. We recently invited students and alumni to share some favorite memories from their community at MIT. Hear what they had to say.

Transcript: https://bit.ly/2uK5Fmn

Music:

"Life of Riley" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Chillin Hard" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Hep Cats" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In his new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, Fred Kaplan SM '78, PhD '83, recounts some of the U.S. government’s first simulated tests on hacking its own infrastructure with off-the-shelf hardware, its first successful incursions into foreign cyber terrain, and the “new tension in American life between individual liberty and national security.”

Learn more about Dark Territory: http://bit.ly/23dSErU

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2uIP3vw

In her new book Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos, Priyamvada Natarajan ’91, SM ’11 tells the stories of Einstein’s troubles with gravity, an expanding universe, and dark matter. For Natarajan, a professor of physics at Yale University, Einstein is just one of a cast of characters in 20th century astronomy and cosmology whose struggles are at times amusing and at other times most inspiring. Read more: http://bit.ly/23YS3ct

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2GsVlod