A celebration of creativity and community at MITArtfinity is a new festival of the arts at MIT featuring 80 free performing and visual arts events, celebrating creativity and community at the Institute. Artfinity launches with the opening of the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building on February 15, 2025, continues with a concentration of events February 28-March 16, and culminates with the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts public lecture by 2025 recipient artist and designer Es Devlin on May 1, 2025, and a concert by Grammy-winning rapper and Visiting Professor Lupe Fiasco on May 2, 2025. Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to creativity, community, and the intersection of art, science and technology. We invite you to join us in this celebration, explore the diverse events, and experience the innovative spirit that defines the arts at MIT.About the Artists Artfinity features the innovative work of MIT faculty, students, staff, and alumni, alongside guest artists from the Greater Boston area and beyond.About the Activities & Events All 80 events are open to the public, including dozens of concerts and performances plus an array of visual arts such as projections, films, installations, exhibitions, and augmented reality experiences, as well as lectures and workshops for attendees to participate in. With a wide range of visual and performing arts events open to all, Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to the arts and the intersection of art, science, and technology.About the Presenters Artfinity is an institute-sponsored event organized by the Office of the Arts at MIT with faculty leads Institute Professor of Music Marcus Thompson and Professor of Art, Culture and Technology Azra Akšamija. Departments, labs, centers, and student groups across MIT are presenting partners.Visit arts.mit.edu for more information about the arts at MIT.

Writing Together Online offers structured time to help you spring into writing and stay focused this semester. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects. For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends.Register for Spring 2025 Writing Challenge 1Choose those sessions that you want to attend during Challenge 1: February 10th through March 21stMondays 9:00–10:30amTuesdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amWednesdays 9:00–10:30amThursdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amFridays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amMIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a raffle of three $25 Amazon gift cards. The raffle will take place on Friday, March 21st. The more you participate, the more times you will be entered into the raffle of prizes.For more information and to register, check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with peers and friends.The funding support for this program comes from the Office of Graduate Education

Writing Together Online offers structured time to help you spring into writing and stay focused this semester. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects. For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends.Register for Spring 2025 Writing Challenge 1Choose those sessions that you want to attend during Challenge 1: February 10th through March 21stMondays 9:00–10:30amTuesdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amWednesdays 9:00–10:30amThursdays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amFridays 8–9:30am and 9:30–11amMIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a raffle of three $25 Amazon gift cards. The raffle will take place on Friday, March 21st. The more you participate, the more times you will be entered into the raffle of prizes.For more information and to register, check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with peers and friends.The funding support for this program comes from the Office of Graduate Education

Zoom Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96031648583Speaker: James A MichaelovAffiliation: Computational Psycholinguistics Laboratory (Roger Levy)Title: What can the fields of psycholinguistics and natural language processing learn from each other?Abstract: While the idea that language comprehension involves prediction has been around since at least the 1960s, advances in natural language processing technology have made it more viable than ever to model this computationally. As language models have increased in size and power, performing better at an ever-wider array of natural language tasks, their predictions also increasingly appear to correlate with the N400, a neural signal of processing difficulty thought to reflect the extent to which a given word is expected based on its preceding context. In fact, the predictions of contemporary large language models can not only be used to model the effects of certain types of stimuli on the amplitude of the N400 response, but can in fact predict single-trial N400 amplitude better than traditional metrics such as cloze probability. With these results in mind, I will discuss how language models can be used to study human language processing, both as a deflationary tool and to support positive claims about the extent to which humans may use language statistics as the basis of prediction, bringing language in line with other cognitive domains. Finally, I will discuss how the close correlation between the predictions of language models and N400 amplitude means that we can use previous psycholinguistic research to identify possible unexpected patterns of behavior in state-of-the-art large language models.

Grow your network, explore leadership opportunities, and celebrate your communities with MIT ERGs!MIT has a variety of resources that can help foster a sense of belonging for new and existing employees. One of the best resources for this is our Employee Resource Group community. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are employee-led groups formed around common interests, common bonds, or similar backgrounds. ERG members help create a positive work environment at MIT by actively contributing to the Institute’s mission, values, and efforts specific to inclusion.You have an opportunity to learn more about ERGs: meet the people who help fellow employees thrive at the Employee Welcome Wagon virtual information session on February 25 at 12 pm.The list of active ERGs:African, Black, American, Caribbean (ABAC) ERGAsian Pacific American (APA) ERGDisabilities ERG​​​​​​​Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender, Queer (LBGTQ) ERG​​​​​​​Millennials ERGVeterans and Military ERGWe are committed to making this event fully accessible to everyone who wants to attend. Please let us know if there is anything you need to participate fully in this event by e-mailing vulfp@mit.edu.REGISTER HERE: http://web.mit.edu/training/course.html?course=CTD21064c (Under the “Get Oriented at MIT” section on Atlas Course Catalog)