Speaker: Dennis Shen (University of Southern California)Abstract: One dominant approach to evaluate the causal effect of a treatment is through panel data analysis, whereby the behaviors of multiple units are observed over time. The information across time and units motivates two general approaches: (i) horizontal regression (i.e., unconfoundedness), which exploits time series patterns, and (ii) vertical regression (e.g., synthetic controls), which exploits cross-sectional patterns. Conventional wisdom often considers the two approaches to be different. We establish this position to be partly false for estimation but generally true for inference. In the absence of any assumptions, we show that both approaches yield algebraically equivalent point estimates for several standard estimators. However, the source of randomness assumed by each approach leads to a distinct estimand and quantification of uncertainty even for the same point estimate. This emphasizes that researchers should carefully consider where the randomness stems from in their data, as it has direct implications for the accuracy of inference.Biography: Dennis Shen is an assistant professor in the Data Sciences and Operations Department at the USC Marshall School of Business. Before joining USC, he was a FODSI postdoctoral fellow at the Simons Institute at UC Berkeley. He also served as a technical consultant for Uber Technologies and TauRx Therapeutics. He has received several recognition for his work, including the INFORMS George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award (2nd to his esteemed colleague, Somya) and MIT George Sprowls PhD Thesis Award in Artificial Intelligence & Decision-making.

All members of the MIT community are welcome to join us in the MIT Chapel for a Christian worship service commemorating Good Friday. The service will center around the story of the passion and death of Jesus Christ accompanied by prayer and music. Hosted by the Lutheran Ministry at MIT and other MIT Christian chaplains.

A 50 minute, (usually) student-led tour of MIT D-Lab, D-Lab prototypes, and our workshop! Hear about the 23-year history of D-Lab, our founding director Amy Smith, our 12+ MIT classes, research groups, humanitarian innovation program and more! Not free at tour time? Stop by anytime to look around or email d-lab-tours@mit.edu.

Presented by the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study Solo Recital SeriesProgramTBDLivestream: https://mta.mit.edu/viewlisten/live-killian-hallAbout the PerformersOlivia Beniston is a fourth-year undergraduate studying Chemical-Biological Engineering. She has studied piano with Eileen Huang in the Emerson Scholar Program for the past four years, and has performed works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Debussy and Ravel. In addition to her studies, she played piano for the MIT Symphony Orchestra and is active in the Chamber Music Society.Olivia began studying piano at age 8 with Jill Telesco and continued studying with her throughout middle school and high school. She was also highly involved with music in her high school, performing violin with their Symphonic and Chamber Orchestras and serving as the school’s concert accompanist all four years. She has competed and won prizes at the Young Musicians Festival, The Schubert Club of Fairfield, the Crescendo Competition, and has performed at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. She furthered her devotion to music at the Royal Conservatory of Music, receiving top marks in her level 10 performance, history, and harmony and counterpoint exams.At MIT, Olivia is the co-president of MIT Student Events Board, a mentor for the AIChE ChemE Cube Competition Team, and a researcher at the Furst Lab in the Department of Chemical Engineering. In her free time, Olivia enjoys completing puzzle books and exploring Boston.About the Emerson/Harris Program for Private StudySupport for private musical study is available for students through the Emerson/Harris Program (E/HP), which offers merit-based financial awards for outstanding achievement on instruments or voice in classical, jazz, or world music. Each academic year, the program awards Scholarships and Fellowships to nearly seventy students who commit to a full year’s study and participate in the musical life of MIT.Auditions for the program are held at the beginning of each academic year. Private teacher selections, made in consultation with the E/HP jury heads, may include instructors from MIT staff and throughout Greater Boston. The Emerson/Harris Program is funded by the late Mr. Cherry L. Emerson, Jr. (SM, 1941), in response to an appeal from AssociateProvost Ellen T. Harris (Class of 1949 Professor Emeritus of Music). The Emerson/Harris Masterclass Series is supported, in part, by the Robert L. Malster (1956) Fund.This project is presented as part of Artfinity, an Institute-sponsored event celebrating creativity and community at MIT. Artfinity is organized by the Office of the Arts.

Date: Friday, April 18, 2025 Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm Location: Simons Center Conference room 46-6011 + Zoom (https://mit.zoom.us/j/99385139351)Speaker: Dr. Lukas Vogelsang Affiliation: Pawan Sinha Lab, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MITTalk title: Temporal processing in autistic and non-autistic individuals Abstract: Every developing nervous system confronts its own version of what William James famously described as “one great blooming, buzzing confusion”. Transforming sensory experience into a sensorium of meaningful entities and their inter-relationships lies at the core of perceptual organization. In this talk, I argue that a powerful key to understanding this process may lie in the temporal structure of the sensory environment. I will describe experiments aimed at behaviorally assessing temporal processing in both typical and atypical development, including in autistic individuals. Collectively, these investigations may illuminate temporal processing mechanisms and can help advance our understanding of sensory processing in autism.

Your Humble Monument: 3D Capture and StorytellingParticipants in this workshop will learn best practices and tools for a range of 3d capture techniques, from photogrammetry to Gaussian splatting, that they will use to capture an object or place of meaning to them. They will then augment this digital twin with a recorded story of their own.If you sign up for this workshop, please bring:LaptopCharged phone with several gigs of spaceSmall object of personal meaning to you! This could be anything: a memento, a stuffed animal, a plant, etc. Conversely, you may select a site of personal significance as long as it is within a few minutes walk of the workshop location.Workshop is lead by Nadav Assor from the Humble Monuments team.