Seminars—Spring 2008
February 5
Jeanne Guillemin, senior fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program
Topic: Biological Warfare
February 7
4-5pm at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (Fellows only)
Conversation with Harvard naturalist, entomologist, sociobiologist E.O. Wilson
February 12
Nancy Hopkins, MIT professor of biology and leader for gender equity in science
Topic: the perils of being a woman in science
February 14-18
Annual meeting of the AAAS in Boston
(no seminar February 14)
Nancy Kanwisher, MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research
Topic: brain imaging using functional MRI
February 18–20
Knight Fellowships' 25th Anniversary Symposium
Topic: The Future of Science Journalism
(no seminar February 19)
February 21
No Seminar
February 26
At Harvard Medical School
(fellows only)
February 28
David Joe Willis, research scientist at MIT's department of aeronautics and astronautics
Topic: Bat flight and micro aerial vehicles
March 4
Noam Chomsky, MIT linguist and political activist
Topic: Linguistics and the rest of the world
March 6
Paul Schechter, MIT astrophysicist
Topic: An introduction to the universe
March 11
Farish Jenkins, Harvard paleontologist
Topic: Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb
March 13
At Whitehead Institute, Fellows Only
David Page, director, Whitehead Institute
Topic: The incredible shrinking Y chromosome and its palindromic sequences
Rudolf Jaenisch, Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute
Topic: Stem cells, pluripotency and nuclear reprogramming.
March 18
Rebecca Saxe, MIT assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience
Topic: Mind reading, how we know what others think and feel
March 20
Edward Lau, superintendent of The MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory
Topic: introduction to the atom and tour of the reactor
(Knight Fellows only)
March 24–28
MIT Spring Break
April 1
Robert Langer, MIT institute professor, chemical engineering
Topic: biomedical research at the interface of biotechnology and materials science, including implantable drug delivery systems and tissue engineering
April 3
Charles Marshall, Harvard professor of biology and geology
Topic: the nature and causes of evolutionary innovation and extinction
April 8
John Sterman, director, MIT System Dynamics Group, Sloan School
Topic: Understanding and Overcoming Public Complacency on Climate Change: What the media can do
April 10
No seminar
Fellows attend 5:30 panel at MIT Museum on "Climate Change: Science, Advocacy and the Media"
April 15
NOTE: SCHEDULE CHANGE
Re-Entry discussion
(Fellows only)
April 17
Claude Canizares, MIT Professor of Physics, and Associate Director for MIT of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Topic: The Chandra space telecope and tour of the control center
(Fellows only)
April 22
No seminar
Patriots' Day holiday
April 24
No seminar
April 29
Note, schedule change
Amy Smith, MIT Instructor, MacArthur fellow
Topic: appropriate technology for developing countries.
May 1
Peter Doshi, STS doctoral student
Topic: Selling pandemic flu through media hype.
May 6
Allan Adams, research scientist at MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics
Topic: String theory
May 8
Phillip Sharp, MIT Institute professor, Nobel laureate
Topic: RNA interference
May 12
Note, Knight Graduation has moved to May 13
May 13
3:00pm: Knight Graduation Ceremony with President Hockfield
Natasha Schüll, assistant professor in MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Topic: Neuromarketing
May 15
4:00pm–7:00pm
Knight Fellows present "Nuggets from the classroom"
