Ethics Initiative
A series of free-spirited conversations between students and leading experts and faculty, that center on ethical issues, the societal responsibilities of scientists and engineers, and the complex problems we face in technology, education, engineering and science in today's modern world.
Ethics and the Environment (October 2009)
MIT ESI: Addressing Global Environmental Challenges
Speakers: Dara Entekhabi, Edward DeLong
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 6:00PM
Venue: Simmons Hall MPR (229 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA)
(Event is open to MIT Community Only)
Dara Entekhabi
Director, Earth System Initiative
Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Director, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering
Edward DeLong
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Division of Biological Engineering
Geoengineering: The Choices We Face
Speakers: Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm, Kerry A. Emanuel, Edward DeLong
Wednesday, October 7 at 6:30PM
Venue: MIT 5-217 (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA)
(Event is open to MIT Community Only)
Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm
Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies
Professor of Biology
Kerry A. Emanuel
Professor of Atmospheric Science
PAOC Director
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Edward DeLong
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Division of Biological Engineering
Ethics and Engineering
Arthur Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics
Speaker: Professor Troy Duster, New York University
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 at 4:00p-6:00p
Venue: E15, Bartos Theater, Lower Level (20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA)
The Arthur Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics. Funded by the family of MIT alumnus Arthur Miller (B.S., 1934; Ph.D., 1938), this lecture provides an opportunity to present issues of science and ethics to the larger MIT community
(Open to the general public)
Troy Duster is a Professor of Sociology at New York University. Having received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University and M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, Professor Duster's area of research and interest include, sociology of science; sociology of knowledge; deviance and control; sociology of law; race and ethnicity. His fellowships and honors include, 2002 Hatfield Scholars Award; American Sociological Association's DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award (5/2001); Social scientist to the National Advisory Commission for The Decade of Behavior - 2000-2001; Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science Ethical; Social Issues Panel, Genetic Therapy Germline Intervention.
Ethics and Engineering: A Plenary Session
Speakers: Louis L. Bucciarelli, Elliot Ring, David A. Mindell
Event rescheduled: new date TBA.
Venue: MIT 4-145 (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA)
(Event is open to the public)
Louis L. Bucciarelli received his B.S. from Cornell University (Mechanical Engineering, 1959) an M.Aero.E from the same institution (1960) and his Ph.D. from MIT (Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1966). He was Director of MIT's Technology Studies Program, and has been a Curator of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian, held various visiting appointments at the University of Sussex, at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (Ecole des Mines, Paris), at Delft Technical University, at Denmark's Institute of Technology, and Cambridge.
Elliot Ring '50 has held several positions in his long career as an engineer. Beginning with his work at Hybrid Rocket Development, General Electric; Propulsion Chief, Titan Missile, Martin Marietta; Chief Engineer, Martin Marietta, Orlando, Florida Division. He retired as Corp. Director of Engineering, Raytheon Co., Mass. His book Rocket Propellant and Pressurization Systems, Prentice Hall, 1964 is still considered a seminal work in the field.
David A. Mindell received his B.S. (Electrical Engineering, 1988) and his B.A. (Literature, 1988) from Yale University and his Ph.D. from MIT (History of Technology, 1996). He was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and a fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. Before coming to MIT he worked as a staff engineer in the Deep Submergence Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he is currently a visiting investigator.
Ethics and the Economy (December 2009)
Ecological Intelligence
A Talk by Daniel Goleman Introduced by Deborah Ancona
Respondent: Gregory Norris
Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 6PM
Venue: Building 4, Room 370 (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA)
(Event is open to public)
Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Goleman’s latest book is Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. The book argues that new information technologies will create “radical transparency,” allowing us to know the environmental, health, and social consequences of what we buy. As shoppers use point-of-purchase ecological comparisons to guide their purchases, market share will shift to support steady, incremental upgrades in how products are made – changing every thing for the better. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, was published in 2006. Social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence, can now be understood in terms of recent findings from neuroscience. Goleman’s book describes the many implications of this new science, including for altruism, parenting, love, health, learning and leadership.
Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Faculty Director of the MIT Leadership Center.Deborah's pioneering research into how successful teams operate has highlighted the critical importance of managing outside the team's boundary as well as inside it. This research has led directly to the concept of X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations. Her book, X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed was published by Harvard Business School Press in June, 2007.
Deborah's work has also focused on the concept of distributed leadership, and the development of research-based tools, practices, and teaching/coaching models that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level. This work was highlighted in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, February, 2007.
In addition to X-Teams, Deborah's studies of team performance have also been published in the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Sloan Management Review. Her previous book, Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (South-Western College Publishing, 1999, 2005) centers on the skills and processes needed in today's diverse and changing organization.
Deborah received her BA and MS in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in management from Columbia University. She has served as a consultant on leadership and innovation to premier companies such as AT&T, BP,Credit Suisse First Boston, HP, Merrill Lynch, Newscorp, and Vale.
Greg Norris founded and directs Sylvatica, an international life cycle assessment institute which consults onLCA to the UN, governments in the US and abroad, a variety of Fortune 500 companies, industrial associations, and smaller companies, and the non-profit sector. He is Visiting Professor with the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas, where he helps the ASC advance the availability of valid and transparent life cycle inventory data, and its application to spur innovation for sustainability. Norris has lead the development of the methods, modeling, and software to implement LCA within the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. He is Senior Fellow with GreenBlue, providing LCA guidance to their Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and through the SPC to Wal-Mart and the US EPA. Norris founded Earthster, an open source sustainable information platform, and New Earth, a global fund for community-driven sustainable development. Norris teaches LCA at Harvard, and is Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is an editor for the International Journal of LCA and the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Ethics and Medicine (February 2010)
Speakers: Sondra Crosby MD, Michael Grodin MD, Robert D. Truog MD
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 6PM
Sondra Crosby, MD, is an internist and former Co-Director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights at Boston Medical Center. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine.
Dr. Crosby’s clinical practice focuses on care of asylum seekers, asylees and refugees, and she has written over 200 affidavits documenting medical and psychological sequelae of torture. She has published scholarly papers in multiple peer-reviewed journals in the field of caring for survivors of torture and recently was awarded the 2008 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
Michael Alan Grodin, MD, is Professor of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights in the Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, where he has received 20 teaching awards including the Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Grodin is Professor of Socio-Medical Sciences and Community Medicine and Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Grodin is a Professor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences and Director of the Project on Medicine and the Holocaust at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies. He completed his B.S. degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his M.D. degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, his postdoctoral and fellowship training at UCLA and Harvard, and he has been on the faculty of Boston University for the past 30 years.
Robert Truog, MD, is Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesiology & Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Associate in Critical Care Medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston. Dr. Truog received his medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and is board certified in the practices of pediatrics, anesthesiology, and pediatric critical care medicine. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from Brown University and an honorary Master’s of Arts from Harvard University.
Dr. Truog practices pediatric critical care medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston, and served as Chief of the Division for ten years. His current major administrative roles include Director of Clinical Ethics in the Division of Medical Ethics and the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice at Children’s Hospital, and Chair of the Harvard Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee (ESCRO).
Ethics and Education (March 2010)
From Me to We: A New Look at Resilience and Well-Being
A Talk by Daniel Siegel
Friday, March 19th 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue
(Event is open to public. Registration Required)
Dan Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative. An award-winning educator, Dan Siegel is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is a Co-Investigator at the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development (cbd.ucla.edu) and is Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center (marc.ucla.edu).
Co-sponsored by Lesley University
Bio-Ethics (April 2010)
Please check this site regularly as more events will be added.
Event Co-sponsors:
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Ethics Initiative is supported through the generosity of the Hershey Family Foundation.
