of note

Color the nighttime sky on May 19
MIT students, faculty and staff are invited to come light up the Cambridge sky during the second performance of UP: The Umbrella Project on Sunday, May 19, at 7:45 p.m. at Jack Barry Field. A collaboration between the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and internationa ...

Scratch Day is May 18!
This Saturday, May 18, is Scratch Day, a worldwide network of events where people come together to celebrate Scratch, the kids' programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab. More than 150 Scratch Day events are planned in more than 40 countries. The Media Lab will be hosting a Scratch Day event fr ...

SSRC Seminar: Guiding Our Veterans Home, Our National Challenge
On Wednesday, May 15, from 4:30–5:30 p.m. in E25-111, Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Dr. Loree Sutton will present "Guiding Our Veterans Home, Our National Challenge.""As a nation, we send our sons and daughters to collectively act on our behalf. Embracing their needs and harnessing their strengths following deploy ...

The Lab as Observational Art
Two films will be screened and dicussed on Wednesday, May 15 at 6 p.m. in the Chipman Room (6-104). Pablo Correa, editor of El Espectador in Colombia and a fellow in the the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program, will present "These Eyes Follow the Moon," which was filmed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic ...

The Future of Strategic Natural Resources: A Bazaar of Ideas
An opening exhibit and reception for "The Future of Strategic Natural Resources: A Bazaar of Ideas" will be held on Thursday, May 9, from 7:30-10 p.m. in Lobby 13. Freshmen from MIT's Terrascope learning community will present prototypes, models and demonstrations of the technologies and ideas they have ...

This week at the MIT Museum
The following events all take place at the MIT Museum (N51). Admission is free.The Political Life Of CheeseMay 8 – 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.Heather Paxson, Class of '57 Career Development Associate Professor of Anthropology at MIT, will speak and sign copies of her book, "The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food ...

Exploring Careers Across MIT
Interested in learning more about career paths at MIT but don’t know where to start? Join your colleagues on Tuesday, May 7 for Careers Across MIT, to be held between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. in Morss Hall at Walker Memorial (50-140). This unique event offers employees a chance to network with representativ ...

Understanding the cost of software complexity
Daniel J. Sturtevant, MIT Ph.D. and MIT System Design and Management alumnus, will deliver a webinar entitled "Technical Debt in Large Systems: Understanding the cost of software complexity" on Monday, May 6 at noon. The event is free and open to all.According to Sturtevant, many modern systems are so la ...

Examining New Orleans 'After Katrina'
An opening reception for the exhibit "After Katrina: MIT’s Department of Urban Studies + Planning Takes On Big Questions About Rebuilding" will take place at the MIT Compton Gallery (10-150) on Thursday, May 9 from 4 - 6 p.m. The free commemorative exhibition will run through September 15 and is sponso ...

2013 MIT IDEAS Global Challenge Awards Celebration
The MIT IDEAS Global Challenge Awards Celebration will take place on Thursday, May 2 in 34-101. A reception will begin at 6 p.m. and the awards ceremony will get underway at 7 p.m.Since its founding in 2001, the IDEAS Global Challenge has been a launch point for entrepreneurs and sustainable impact. It h ...

MIT IDEAS Global Challenge Community Choice Vote
You can help select the three teams that will gain $1500 each to aid their enterprises as part of this year's MIT IDEAS Global Challenge through the Community Choice Vote.The 42 teams participating in the challenge are working with communities around the world to develop innovative solutions for their ne ...

Celebrating fellow MIT community members
The MIT community will gather together at the MIT Awards Convocation on Thursday, April 25, at 4 p.m. in 10-250. At the event, the Institute community will celebrate the contributions of more than 50 students, faculty, and staff from across MIT. A gala reception will immediately follow in Lobby 10. Compr ...

The Research University in the Digital Age
Lawrence S. Bacow will speak on “The Research University in the Digital Age” on Monday, April 22 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Dining Room 5 at the MIT Faculty Club. The event is open to the MIT community.Online learning is changing undergraduate education. Many predict that the lecture will cease to e ...

MIT hosts the New England Regional Steel Bridge Competition
Student teams from 14 colleges and universities will participate in the New England Regional Steel Bridge Competition this Saturday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Johnson Athletic Center. The competition is hosted by MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and sponsored and ru ...

The First Three Years of the LHC: The Discovery of the Higgs Boson
This presentation and panel discussion will detail what the MIT Physics Department has discovered with their international colleagues at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. It is open to the public and will be held today, April 17 at 5 p.m. in 34-101. A poster session will follow.Th ...

Annual Cambridge Science Festival is April 12-21
The annual Cambridge Science Festival (CSF), the first of its kind in the United States, is a celebration showcasing Cambridge as an internationally recognized leader in science, technology, engineering and math.New for 2013, guests can explore the Artisan’s Asylum’s DIY Festival and Open House; t ...

Campus Preview Weekend is April 11-14
More than 1000 admitted students and their families will be on campus April 11-14 for Campus Preview Weekend (CPW), the annual event sponsored by the Office of Admissions to give "prefrosh" a taste of life at MIT.In one jam-packed weekend, participants will enjoy more than 600 events put on by the MIT c ...

Writer Peter Matthiessen to receive Thoreau Award at MIT
Peter Matthiessen, a three-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and nonfiction writer, will be at MIT receive the Thoreau Award for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing, presented by Pen New England. Previous recipients include Gary Snyder (2012), E.O. Wilson (2011) and Gretel Ehrlich (201 ...

Celebrate the restoration of MIT's Great Dome
Join us in Barker Library's reading room on Wednesday, April 10, from 2-4 p.m. for a community open house celebrating the historic restoration of MIT’s Great Dome, and the opening of the reading room as a 24-hour facility.The event is free and there will be remarks by MIT President L. Rafael Reif. Refr ...

Kelly Essay Prize, Kelly-Douglas Traveling Fellowship accepting applications
The annual Kelly Essay Prize and Kelly-Douglas Traveling Fellowships are accepting applications until noon on Tuesday, April 16. All forms of non-fiction prose are now eligible for the $800 Kelly Essay Prize. MIT undergraduates may submit a 12- to 20-page essay in any of the following genres: research p ...

'Game Development for Software Engineers' offered
In a first of its kind offering for those outside MIT, the MIT Game Lab has opened registration for "Game Development for Software Engineers", a five-day course taking place Aug. 5-9 on the MIT campus. Registration is open now and will close in early summer.Participants will conceive and develop prototyp ...

CAST Marathon Concert
Friday, April 5, 20137 p.m. | Kresge Auditorium48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MAReserve a seatGeneral admission: $20Non-MIT students: $10MIT students, faculty, and staff: FreeCash only at the doorThe four-hour CAST Marathon Concert, following up on 2011’s popular FAST Forward New Music Marathon, f ...

MIT hosts global French history summit
This week, MIT will be the site of the 59th meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, the largest annual global conference devoted to the history of France. The four-day event will feature 110 panels and more than 500 participants from around the world, from April 4-7. The conference’s th ...

Media Lab Conversations Series: Kickstarter's Yancey Strickler
Yancey Strickler, co-founder and head of communications for the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, will speak today, Wednesday, April 3, from 4:30-6 p.m. as part of the MIT Media Lab Conversations Series.Prior to Kickstarter, Strickler was a music journalist whose writing appeared in The Village Voice, N ...

Suspended City: L'Aquila After the Earthquake of 2009
On April 6, 2009, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the medieval city of L’Aquila in central Italy. Three hundred people lost their lives and 70,000 were left homeless by the catastrophe, and eighty percent of the historic center of the city was destroyed or damaged.Government response in the months th ...

Information for June 2013 degree candidates
Investiture of Doctoral Hoods: Thursday, June 6, 11:30 am Commencement: Friday, June 7, 10 am Please be sure to review the Registrar's information for graduating students, and let your family and friends know that they can find the most current Commencement details online. Regalia and tickets Everything ...

Submissions now accepted for the Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes
The annual Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes has begun accepting writing by students in various categories for its cash awards. Students can submit essays, poems, plays, fiction, science fiction, science writing for the public and scientific and engineering writing for professionals. The deadline for submissio ...

Byron and Ziporyn: Concerto for Clarinet
MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Alumni Wind EnsembleFrederick Harris, Jr., music director; Kenneth Amis, assistant conductorDon Byron, guest composerEvan Ziporyn, guest soloist, clarinet Saturday, March 16, 20138:00 PM | Kresge Auditorium (W16)48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MAReserve a seat Free in advanc ...