[bioundgrd] FW: ESG Spring 2022 undergraduate seminars

Mon Jan 24 11:57:40 EST 2022

Begin forwarded message:

From: Graham Gordon Ramsay <ramsay at mit.edu<mailto:ramsay at mit.edu>>
Subject: ESG Spring 2022 undergraduate seminars
Date: January 24, 2022 at 11:02:16 AM EST

______________________

[cid:image001.png at 01D81119.954F81E0] [cid:image002.jpg at 01D81119.954F81E0]

UNDERGRADUATE SEMINARS SPRING 2022
ESG sponsors a series of innovative and interactive seminars on topics not commonly found elsewhere at MIT.  Seminars are pass/fail and open to all MIT undergraduates. For additional information visit the ESG site (esg.mit.edu<http://esg.mit.edu/>) or e-mail esglizards at mit.edu<mailto:esglizards at mit.edu>.

 ES.010 Chemistry of Sports: Understanding How Exercise Affects Your Body
The purpose of this seminar is to study the chemistry and biology of sport and the effect of exercise and nutrition on athletic performance and physical fitness. We will be able to use our own bodies to measure how exercise affects the body, through observations recorded in a training journal. We will look at nutrition and supplements (both legal and prohibited) to understand their impact on athletic performance; the effect of diet and exercise on anatomic and metabolic systems; the various biochemical reactions triggered by exercise; the role of endorphins, changes in blood chemistry and ways of stimulating long-term changes in your metabolism and even changes to our genetic programming. We will examine our own unique body chemistry and study how genetics, age and body type play a role in these physical and molecular changes that science is only beginning to understand. Finally, we will also examine the chemistry of sports equipment including swimming, cycling, and running equipment and its effect on athletic performance.  The COVID restrictions have changed the way that we work and play. We will approach this seminar as way to educate ourselves in working out in the new normal. We will look at how the sports industry has adapted to COVID and see what lessons we can learn to apply to our own lives.  Instructors: Patti Christie and Steve Lyons; Meets T 3-5pm, 6 units
ES.S92 Authenticity
Explores the question of how to live an authentic life, through works of western and eastern philosophy and contemporary psychology. Topics include emotions, anger, honesty, forgiveness, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, kindness and cruelty and compassion. Taught inside a secure Massachusetts correctional facility with a mix of MIT students and incarcerated students. Limited to 12. Instructor: Lee Perlman; Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-11:00 am, 6 units
ES.S20 The Kalman Filter: Spacecraft Tracker, Heart Restarter, Moneymaker, and more!
Kalman filters are a widespread technology used in econometrics, medicine, particle detection, seismology, computer vision, space exploration, shipping, and dozens more fields. Shouldn’t you know how they work?  In this seminar, students will learn how Kalman filters are built and how to use them successfully in real-world applications. Kalman filter calculations will be covered in mathematical detail. Example problems and demonstrations will be pulled from Kalman filter applications in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). Students will cover background material in probability and state-space representations, Bayesian and variance minimization derivations of the Kalman filter, and performance-affecting approximations and generalizations. Semester projects will demonstrate Kalman filter performance improvements with various datasets. Instructors: Joseph Griffin, Jeremy Orloff; Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 7-8 pm, 6 units
ES.S40 Pod Power! Making Sound Into Stories
Have you ever wondered how radio and podcast producers make their shows? With a little technology and a little instruction, anyone can do it. In this hands-on, ears-on seminar you’ll learn how to create a podcast episode, from capturing high-quality sound to writing a script, recording narration, editing digital tape, sound designing and scoring, and publishing the final MP3 file for the world to hear. Join us to explore this endlessly challenging craft. There’s no better way to improve your storytelling and communications skills.  Instructor: Wade Roush; Meets Wednesdays 3-5 pm, 6 units
ES.S70 Radical Product Thinking: How to build world-changing products while embracing responsibility
Today’s mantras of innovation are iterate quickly, fail fast and learn fast, move fast and break things. We’ve been taught that innovation requires launching something in the market and iterating to reach the nirvana of product-market-fit. Unfortunately, for every successful company that was built by over-relying on iteration, there’s a vast graveyard of failures. When we iterate without a clear vision or strategy, our products become bloated, fragmented, and driven by irrelevant metrics. They catch “product diseases” that often kill innovation. In the process, we also create collateral damage in society in the form of digital pollution. In this seminar with the author of Radical Product Thinking, you’ll gain a refreshing perspective on the shortcomings of how we build products and businesses today. We’ll challenge today’s mantras of innovation and learn how each of us can build successful, world-changing products in a repeatable manner. We’ll have thought-provoking discussions on how we’re creating digital pollution and how we can embrace the responsibility that comes with the superpower of building successful products. By the end of this seminar, you’ll have gained practical tools to develop a vision for the change you want to bring about in the world and translate that systematically into reality. Instructor: Radhika Dutt; Meets Fridays 3-5 pm, 6 units
ES.S71 The Varieties of Human Experience (with Apologies to William James)
An introduction to the study of life, as lived, focusing on those experiences that make us truly human: creativity and dreaming, altruism and conscience, beauty and love, consciousness and spirituality. We will address these questions in an interdisciplinary way, embracing the fields of genetics, evolution, molecular biology, ethology, paleoanthropology, neurobiology, neurodevelopment, network theory, complexity and systems theory, integrated information theory, and computational neuroscience. In the process, we will become acquainted with the tools of modern neuroscience, as well as the importance of experiments of Nature, and the role of clinical neuroscience and psychiatry. Finally, we will explore how such neurobiological phenomena might be instantiated in computer architectures. Instructor: Charles Kaufmann; Meets Mondays 3-5 pm, 6 units
THE EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE INSTITUTE @MIT
Spring 2022

All Prison classes this semester will be taught remotely with incarcerated students in New England Correctional Facilities.
PRISON CLASSES

ES.92 Authenticity 6 Units P/D/F
Tuesday/Thursday  9:30-11:00 AM  Instructor: Lee Perlman
Explores the question of how to live an authentic life, through works of western and eastern philosophy and contemporary psychology. Topics include emotions, anger, honesty, forgiveness, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, kindness and cruelty and compassion. Limited to 12.

ES.9112 Philosophy of Love  12 Units CI-H
Mondays, Fridays. 2-3:30 pm. Instructor:  Lee Perlman
We’ll explore the nature of love through works of philosophy, literature, film, poetry, and individual experience. We’ll investigate the distinctions between eros (desiring or appreciative love), philia (mutuality), and agape (love as pure giving). Students discuss ideas of love as a feeling, an action, a species of 'knowing someone,' or a way to give or take. Authors include Plato, Peck, Buber, Rumi, and Aristotle.  Limited to 12.

ES.S90 Emotional Intelligence  for Teams   6 Units P/D/F
Time: W/F 9-10:15 AM   Instructor:  Jane Abbott
What if you felt more at ease around other people?  More confidence when you work with a team, or less anxiety?  How would life be different if you had more skills and strategies to be effective when you collaborate?  Would it help you to be able to speak up more boldly, or to listen more fully to others?  To better understand what motivates people, or to be more persuasive?  This course offers insight, knowledge, and practice with the tools that underlie interpersonal success.

ES.S91 Community: The Ethics of Public Life 6 Units P/D/F
Fridays 9:00-10:30. Instructor:  Thea Keith-Lucas
What do we owe each other? How do our assumptions about community shape our personal relationships and our political beliefs? In this course, we will draw on philosophy, economics, psychology and other social sciences to understand the social contract – the written and unwritten rules that shape our communities. We will begin by looking at how friendships work and move outward to national and global communities.

CAMPUS CLASS

ES.S92 Measuring Success in the Criminal Justice System
W/F  9:30-11:00. 6 Units P/D/F
This project-based course is conducted by the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office.  Students will learn the life cycle of criminal justice procedure through meeting all the significant players in the process.  They will then work with the D.A.'s office to achieve actionable answers to questions such as: [1] How can we better collect and analyze our data to meet our racial justice goals? [2] When making data assessments, whose determination of race or ethnicity should control the input? [3] What are ways we can track and better report on recidivism to evaluate policies that are intended to decrease recidivism?  [4] Can we track recidivism without making a citizen feel constantly watched?  [5] How can we study and prevent generational harm starting today? [6] How can we evaluate and improve our diversion and conviction integrity programs and make sure that every community has equal access?

Please direct inquiries on TEJI seminar to lperlman at mit.edu<mailto:lperlman at mit.edu>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20220124/9233411c/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 4735 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20220124/9233411c/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 631443 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20220124/9233411c/attachment-0001.jpg>