Time: 7:00-9:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 27th Location: Pfizer Hall at Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge (link to directions) Speakers: Emily Kerr Graphics: Aparna Nathan How do you know that your light will definitely turn on within seconds of your flicking the switch? Ready and reliable access to energy has dramatically changed how human beings live their lives. In this talk, we will discuss how humans have harnessed … Continue reading March 27 – Energy: Where We Get It and Where We Are Going

Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 13th Location: Pfizer Hall at Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge (link to directions) Speakers: Dana Boebinger Graphics: Olivia Foster Rhoades Have you wondered why you see a black and blue dress, but your friend insists that it is white and gold? Perception is the process by which the brain gathers and interprets information about the world that it receives through our senses. … Continue reading March 13 – Creating Perception: How the Brain Constructs the World

Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m., Wednesday, November 28th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Purvaja Kavattur, Moulshri Mohan, Nambi Ndugga Graphics: Lillian Horin What do Charles Darwin, climate change, and the birth control pill have in common? They have all significantly influenced sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) policies throughout history! Join us as we take you on a journey from … Continue reading November 28 – Sex, Science, and the State: The Role of Science in Sexual Reproductive Health and Policymaking

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, November 14th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Buse Aktaṣ and Julia Ebert Graphics: Elayne Fivenson From Roomba to Mars rovers, robots perform a wide range of tasks from cleaning your living room to exploring the solar system. And with every new model, we expect them to be able to accomplish more with less of … Continue reading November 14 – Brains and Bodies: How to Make Smart Robots

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, November 7th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Zhen Dai and Colleen Golja Graphics: Abby Knecht Solar geoengineering, the large-scale deliberate manipulation of Earth’s incoming radiation, is a contentious idea proposed as a tool to help fight the impacts of climate change. In this lecture we seek to highlight how the world is currently fighting … Continue reading November 7 – Fighting Back Against Climate Change: Altering Earth’s Atmosphere

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, October 24th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Udit Gupta and Lillian Pentecost Al-Enabled technology surrounds us in everyday life — from Face ID on an iPhoneX to Google searches and tailored advertisements sent from the cloud. This means AI is implemented everywhere — from smart phones to data centers all over the globe. How … Continue reading October 24 – Designing AI-Enabled Technology for Society

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, October 17th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Nicholas Deporzio, Nicolo Foppiani, and Zoe Zhu Gazing at the sky on a clear night, you might see the bright band of stars – that is the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in. Have you ever wondered about what the center of a galaxy really looks … Continue reading October 17 – A Star Trek: A Voyage to Discover Sources of Cosmic Signals in Our Universe

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, October 10th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Jess Kanwal, Matthew Smith, and Kyobi Skutt-Kakaria For at least 7,000 years, humans around the world have chosen to ingest plants and fungi containing psychedelic compounds. In the modern era, scientists are learning more about how psychedelics alter the function of our brains. In this lecture, we … Continue reading October 10 – Altered State of Mind: How psychedelics modify the brain, behavior, and perception

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, October 3rd Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Makda Gebre, Austin Manny, and Jason Nomburg Viral epidemics have killed millions of people over the course of human history. In this talk, we’ll discuss the history of viral epidemics and how we have addressed them over time, focusing on the flu outbreaks of the early and … Continue reading October 3 – The Past and Future of Viral Outbreaks

Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, September 26th Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions) Speakers: Samantha Giffen and Francesca Tomasi Extremophiles are tiny organisms that live in pockets of the Earth where nothing else can survive. From basking in hydrothermal sea vents, volcanic springs, or the Mariana trench, to being scattered across the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, extremophiles are able not … Continue reading September 26 – Extremophiles: Life on the Edge of our Planet