Boston Globe reporter Noah Schaffer spotlights “Subject to Change,” a program on WMBR that explores the evolution of a single song. The show’s host, Patrick Bryant, “usually starts with the original before showing how the song changes when interpreted by jazz improvisers, pop crooners, bluegrass pickers, indie rockers, or how it sounds in foreign tongues or when sampled for a hip-hop track,” writes Schaffer. “A reggae version is seemingly inevitable.”
MIT has announced a new climate action plan aimed at helping the Institute tackle climate change, reports Kristina Chen for The Tech. The plan offers increased opportunities for student involvement and a new organizational structure. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, explains that MIT feels “that it’s our responsibility and duty to try to make a genuine difference, and to do that, we’re going to need the help of everyone in the community.”
In an editorial for Science, Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia, Prof. Emerita Nancy Hopkins and President Emerita Susan Hockfield underscore the importance of addressing the underrepresentation of women and minorities in tech transfer. “The discoveries women and minority researchers are making today have great potential as a force for good in the world,” they write, “but reaching that potential is only possible if paths to real-world applications are open to everybody.”
Lecturer Karilyn Crockett is joining the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as a research and program consultant, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “Crockett will help the chamber and the broader business community address economic and racial inequities and related barriers to opportunity, particularly in the areas of transportation, housing, education, and climate change,” Chesto writes.
Boston Globe reporter Anissa Gardizy writes that Apple has announced it will be leasing office space in Kendall Square. “Big tech companies have long wanted to be close to MIT,” writes Gardizy. “This area of Cambridge is home to offices for Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, and MIT’s new building is across the street from another under-construction building mostly occupied by Google.”
Prof. Emerita Nancy Hopkins speaks with Rebecca Sohn of STAT about the Boston Biotech Working Group’s goal of increasing the number of women leaders and entrepreneurs in biotech and her hopes for the future of women in biotech and the sciences. “You want people to feel that they are free to participate in all the things wherever it leads them,” says Hopkins. “So I think the goal is just that people who really want to do this [pursue biotech] don’t face any greater barrier than anybody else. That everybody has equal access and education to do as they want to.”
A group of MIT scientists has announced a new plan, called the Future Founders Initiative, aimed at addressing gender inequities in the biotech industry, reports Anissa Gardizy for The Boston Globe. “If we can’t advance discoveries at the same rate for women and men, that means there are drugs, therapies, devices, and diagnostics that are not getting to where they can actually benefit people,” says President Emerita Susan Hockfield. “If as a region we want to continue to lead the world, the best thing to do is not squander our resources.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin spotlights how the greater Boston area and New England in general have the “potential to become the Longevity Hub: a world-leading driver of innovation for aging populations.”
Lecturer Karilyn Crockett, the first chief of equity for the City of Boston, speaks with Dialynn Dwyer of Boston.com about her efforts aimed at improving equity in Boston. “A lot of what’s been going on has just been working in partnership internally with city departments and agencies, and then looking outside of the building to see — who are these other partners who are really willing to take on this big work of equity?” says Crockett. “It’s been an incredibly busy and productive time because there’s such an incredible appetite, and even hunger, for understanding what equity is … across the city.”
Nobull, a direct-to-consumer fitness brand co-founded by alumnus Marcus Wilson MBA ’04, is releasing a line of apparel designed by Boston teens, as part of an effort with Artists for Humanity to help connect under-resourced teens with opportunities in arts and design, reports Anissa Gardizy for The Boston Globe.
Boston Business Journal reporter Catherine Carlock spotlights how MIT has submitted plans for the second phase of the Volpe redevelopment in Kendall Square. “The second phase could house a combined 1,400 residential units; 1.7 million square feet of lab, research and office space; a 20,000-square-foot community center; 3.5 acres of open space and other retail, entertainment and cultural facilities,” writes Carlock.
Writing for The Boston Globe, AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin and Research Associate Luke Yoquinto explore how Greater Boston could serve as an innovation hub for aging populations. “By making groundbreaking creativity and inventiveness for older adults both seen and felt, Greater Boston and New England will be able to offer the world a new vision of old age,” they write.
Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan writes about how MIT has submitted design plans for the next phase of its proposal to transform the Volpe Transportation Center into a dynamic mixed-use development, including “eight office and residential towers on the 14-acre site north of Broadway.”
Writing for Cambridge Day, Marieke Van Damme, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Society, explores the life and work of alumna Lois Lilley Howe, a member of the Class of 1890. Howe was “a trailblazer, one of the first women to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s architectural program, the organizer of the only all-woman architectural firm in Boston in the early 20th century and the first woman elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects,” writes Van Damme.
Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto writes that MIT, Harvard, several research hospitals and life-sciences companies have selected a site for a new biologics manufacturing and innovation center. The project is aimed at expediting “discoveries for biotech treatments in university labs by allowing researchers to bypass the long waits that are common at contract manufacturers,” writesChesto.