On view October 1 -- December 11, 2025This exhibition draws on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (The River of Gold in the History of Aleppo), was published between 1924 and 1926.Ink, Stone, and Silver Light presents three modes of documentation—manuscript, built form, and photography—through which Aleppo’s urban memory has been recorded and preserved. Featuring figures such as Michel Écochard and Yasser Tabbaa alongside al-Ghazzi, the exhibition traces overlapping efforts to capture the spirit of a city shaped by commerce, craft, and coexistence. At a time when Syria again confronts upheaval and displacement, these archival fragments offer models for preserving the past while envisioning futures rooted in dignity, knowledge, and place.

Jumpstart your postdoc experience! Plan Your Postdoc (PYP) is a signature program for early stage postdoctoral scholars who have joined MIT for less than a year. Participants attend four 1 to 1.5 hour lectures/planning sessions, panels, and interactive workshops to kickstart their career developmentJoin us for the final PYP event which is open to ALL postdocs: Spend time learning how to effectively communicate in tense or misaligned settings. Learn a specific de-escalation technique, discuss techniques you have found helpful to re-align goals, and practice communication skills using case studies in a closed environment with your postdoc peers.This event is only open to MIT Postdocs. Registration is required for this event. Please register here.

"Geographic Variation in Healthcare Utilization: The Role of Physicians" | Amy Finkelstein (MIT)

Ten minutes for your mind@2:50 every day at 2:50 pm in multiple time zones:Europa@2:50, EET, Athens, Helsinki (UTC+2) (7:50 am EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88298032734Atlantica@2:50, EST, New York, Toronto (UTC-4) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85349851047Pacifica@2:50, PST, Los Angeles, Vancouver (UTC=7) (5:50 pm EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85743543699Almost everything works better again if you unplug it for a bit, including your mind. Stop by and unplug. Get the benefits of mindfulness without the fuss.@2:50 meets at the same time every single day for ten minutes of quiet together.No pre-requisite, no registration needed.Visit the website to view all @2:50 time zones each day.at250.org or at250.mit.edu

Speaker: Lior Alon (MIT)Title: Periodic Hypersurfaces, Lighthouse Measures, and Lee–Yang PolynomialsAbstract: There is a hierarchy of regularity for continuous ℤ𝑛 -periodic functions in ℝ𝑛 , 𝐶0 ⊃ 𝐶1 ⊃ ⋯ ⊃ 𝐶∞ ⊃ analytic ⊃ trigonomet- ric polynomial, and the decay of the Fourier coefficients pre- cisely reflects this regularity. In particular, the support supp(f̂) is finite if and only if 𝑓 is a trigonometric polynomial. Periodic hypersurfaces in ℝ𝑛 exhibit a similar regularity hierarchy, but there is no analogous Fourier description.In this talk, I will present a joint work with Mario Kummer in which we provide a sufficient Fourier-criterion for a 𝐶1+𝜖 peri- odic hypersurface Σ ⊂ ℝ𝑛 to be the zero set of a trigonomet- ric polynomial of the form 𝑝(𝑒2𝜋𝑖𝑥1, … , 𝑒2𝜋𝑖𝑥𝑛 ) with 𝑝 Lee–Yang polynomial.The criterion can be stated using a recent notion introduced by Yves Meyer: a periodic and positive Radon measure 𝑚 on ℝ𝑛 is a lighthouse measure if supp(𝑚) has zero Lebesgue measure and supp(m̂) is contained in a proper double cone.Our proof relies on the classification of one-dimensional Fourier quasicrystals. No field specific background is assumed. This work is based on collaborations with Alex Cohen, Pavel Kurasov,and Cynthia Vinzant.

"Rebuild or Relocate? Recovery after Natural Disasters" | Shifrah Aron-Dine (UC Berkeley) (joint with Macro)