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
Oct 20, 2016•16 min
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 cele...
Sep 07, 2016•21 min
"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...
Aug 19, 2016•16 min
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
Aug 04, 2016•17 min
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 thi...
Jul 28, 2016•20 min
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:/...
Jun 27, 2016•14 min
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
Jun 15, 2016•21 min
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...
May 19, 2016•18 min
On March 28, 2006, a group of young men, disguised as movers and armed with phony work orders, arrived on the Caltech’s Pasadena campus. Within a few hours, the crew departed with the college’s two-ton Fleming Canon in tow. Eight days later, the canon reappeared 3,000 miles away, on MIT campus, with a massive MIT class ring on its barrel. The movers, it turns out, were MIT students who had just carried out perhaps the longest-distance MIT hack of all time. So, How does one borrow a cannon, drive...
Apr 28, 2016•42 min
Since the publication of Clay Christensen's The Innovators' Dilemma nearly two decades ago, Michael Tushman PhD '76 and his colleague Charles O'Reilly III have studied successful firms, large and small, that didn't exactly fit the new norm of disrutpive innovation. The result of this study is Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma. In this interview, Tushman discusses his new book, a well-researched corrective for Christensen's formula for success in business. Read more: http://b...
Mar 30, 2016•14 min
Robert Gordon PhD '67 calls his new book a revised version of his thesis for Professor Robert Solow, "47 years late." The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War upends the typical narrative about the wonders of twenty-first century American innovations. In this interview, Gordon shares his thoughts on American growth and shares some memories of his MIT years. Read more: http://bit.ly/21bLmTd Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2Je9zY4
Mar 04, 2016•16 min
On this episode of the Slice of MIT podcast, we bring you stories from alumni who found love at the Institute. Read more: http://bit.ly/20Q0TNF. Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2EdCuYv The interviews in this episode are part of the Reunions Access Memories Project. Music: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Feb 12, 2016•15 min
On this episode of the Slice of MIT podcast, we bring you stories from alumni who found love at the Institute. Read more: bit.ly/20Q0TNF. In this episode bonus clip, Megan Pasquina '08 tells the story of how she met her husband, Lincoln. The interview in this clip is part of the Reunions Access Memories Project. Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2q1DuL3
Feb 12, 2016•2 min
On this episode of the Slice of MIT podcast, we bring you stories from alumni who found love at the Institute. Read more: bit.ly/20Q0TNF. In this episode bonus clip, Tim Chambers '84 tells the story of how he met his wife, Robin. The interview in this clip is part of the Reunions Access Memories Project. Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2GuCDIR
Feb 12, 2016•1 min
Costa Rica is home to ten percent of the world's known species of butterflies, more than 800 species of birds, and 200 volcanoes. Listen in on the journey of the MIT Alumni Travel Program as they witnessed sloths, howled with howler monkeys, and met with an American Quaker who left prison to start a Costa Rican town. Read more: http://bit.ly/1ZT98mf. Transcript: https://bit.ly/2H6LLEV Music Credits: "Cuban Sandwich," "Carnivale Intrigue," "Cumbia No Frills," and "Pennsylvania Rose," Kevin MacLeo...
Jan 28, 2016•21 min
If you're a newly-manufactured or rebooted android, you'll want to pick up a copy of the latest book from Nic Kelman '94, How to Pass as Human: A Guide to Assimilation for Future Androids. The book, however, proves just as entertaining and informative for human readers. In his fourth novel, Kelman gives a delightful glimpse of the human world through an android's eyes. Kelman discusses the novel with a fellow human being in this latest MIT Alumni Books Podcast. Read more: http://bit.ly/1NRgN0N E...
Dec 14, 2015•16 min
The MIT community is more diverse than any time in Institute history. And diverse communities require mindful leadership. So, how can leaders be more effective in creating a more inclusive environment? Assistant Professor Renée Richardson Gosline says start by being mindful: recognize the biases that affect us all, and question our own heuristics. Read more: http://bit.ly/goslinepodcast Professor Gosline is the MIT Sloan Zenon Zannetos 1955 Career Development Assistant Professor of Marketing. He...
Dec 08, 2015•45 min
MIT has a long history with food, from nutrition science to environmental costs, and today food innovation projects at MIT run the gamut. MIT’s newest food initiative, Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab (JWAFS) is bringing together research across disciplines. Episode transcript: https://bit.ly/2q1Fi6G. Learn more about JWAFS and food projects at MIT in the Slice of MIT podcast, Food for Thought. This episode focuses on four things: an Institute-wide food and water security lab...
Nov 23, 2015•20 min
As a young boy growing up in Prague, Michael Gruenbaum '53 witnessed firsthand the Nazi occupation of Prague before his family was sent to Terezin, a concentration camp. Seventy years after liberation, Gruenbaum penned a memoir of his life at Terezin. Published in 2015, Somewhere There Is Still a Sun recounts Gruenbaum's ordeals in Terezin, along with some of his life after the war. "I suddenly feel some sort of strange obligation to live some sort of perfect life," Gruenbaum writes of his emerg...
Nov 17, 2015•17 min
Some scientists say that human beings are more bacteria than human, with bacteria cells found in and on our body outnumbering human cells 10 to 1. Others claim that the bacteria found on each one of us could fill up a half-gallon jug. Others still are unsure how much bacteria we’re covered in, but it’s a lot, and probably more than the average person is comfortable thinking about. Thankfully, Mark Smith PhD ’14 isn’t the average person. A microbiologist, Smith came to MIT to study this huge comm...
Oct 28, 2015•15 min
Robert Shiller SM '68, PhD '72 discusses his new book, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, co-authored with George Akerlof PhD '66. Recorded live at an MIT Alumni Association event at Fidelity Investments in Boston, Shiller talks with Nanette Byrnes, senior editor of business reports at MIT Technology Review. Read more: http://bit.ly/1lriadn Phishing for Phools, says Shiller, helps readers unpack the psychology of “phishing”--identifying what is at work when markets...
Oct 27, 2015•19 min
Hal Linder '58 paid $4,000 for his bachelor's degree in geology at MIT. In six decades following graduation, Linder got his money's worth, surveying and prospecting on all seven continents, eventually discovering a gold mine in California which produced over 1.2 million ounces. Linder chronicles his adventures above and below the earth's crust in a new book, Wild Places: The Adventures of an Exploration Geologist. Read more: http://bit.ly/1MuJS2H Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2JdwmmT
Oct 09, 2015•15 min
Good ideas never exist in a vacuum—they come from life experiences, world views, curiosity, hard work, and collective brain power. And when put to practice, the best ideas address real issues and solve real problems. Learn how a hacking ethos is leading to breakthroughs in medicine; how embracing new technologies will shape the camera of the future; how rethinking microbes could change the way we treat disease; and how crowd-sourcing is helping protect Earth from asteroids. Read more: http://bit...
Oct 02, 2015•19 min
The MIT Alumni Leadership Conference (ALC), Sept. 25‒26, is a time for alumni to reconnect and learn new skills while also recognizing the work of alumni volunteers. A spotlight event for ALC is the Leadership Awards Celebration honoring MIT’s most dedicated volunteers. In this Slice of MIT podcast, you’ll hear personal stories from this year’s four alumni winners of the Bronze Beaver award, the Association’s highest honor. Read more: http://bit.ly/1KxEiHj Transcript: https://bit.ly/2H7BiZU Musi...
Sep 21, 2015•16 min
Well over 1,000 patent applications are filed each day by tinkerers and corporations, and patent suits among science and tech researchers and firms are reaching unprecedented settlement amounts in the courts. In a new book, M. Henry Heines '67 explores the radical changes patent law in the U.S. underwent in 2013 and what today's scientist and engineer, whether tinkering in a garage or leading a startup, needs to know to protect one's intellectual property. Read more: http://bit.ly/1Ow9cWG Transc...
Aug 28, 2015•16 min
AnnMarie Thomas '01 talks about Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation (Maker Media, 2014). Read more: http://bit.ly/1N4dZz5 The book features interviews and reflections from MIT alumni and current and former faculty about their formative years becoming makers. Transcript: https://bit.ly/2H6XV0j
Aug 05, 2015•14 min
Eran Egozy, one of the faces behind acclaimed video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero, shares why Rock Band rocks and his secrets to career success. Read more: http://bit.ly/1U9fzjS Transcript: https://bit.ly/2Isk7ld
Jul 29, 2015•14 min
Jo Ivester '77 discusses her new book, The Outskirts of Hope, a memoir written in collaboration with her mother, about life in Mound Bayou, Mississippi in the 1960s. Read more: http://bit.ly/1MfFDaN Transcript: https://bit.ly/2JdmLfT
Jul 05, 2015•17 min
Data is everywhere—nearly anything can be represented by a number. In its simple form, data tells a story backed by numerical truth. But data is rarely simple or pure—and we have access to more data than any time in history. In this podcast, recorded at the 2015 South by Southwest Interactive festival, five MIT alumni discuss how their work and research are making sense of this never-ending wave, and how we can better understand data and use it to solve real-world problems (and develop amazing f...
Jun 24, 2015•20 min
What was it like to be a women at MIT then and now? In this Slice of MIT podcast, MIT alumnae share their memories of the Institute. Read more: http://bit.ly/1clWEBn Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2GuQXp6 Music: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
May 28, 2015•9 min
