Come learn what's happening at MIT.nano and share your ideas!Since opening our doors in 2018, MIT.nano has grown from an impressive but empty building to an active laboratory supporting research from more than 250 MIT PI laboratories drawn from nearly 50 MIT departments, labs, and centers and welcoming hundreds of trained users into our spaces. On April 17, the MIT.nano staff will share with the MIT community what's been accomplished—and what comes next—including:Recent equipment installations;Equipment and design projects underway to integrate even more capabilities;MIT.nano programming and seminars;Your questions, ideas, and feedback.Join us afterward for an ice cream social in the MIT.nano East Lobby!SPACE IS LIMITED — PLEASE RSVPCan't join us in person? This event will also be webcast. Email your questions ahead of time to mitnano@mit.edu so we can be sure to answer them!

Speaker: Egor Shelukhin (University of Montreal)Title: Non-orderability and the contact Hofer metricAbstract: We discuss a recent joint work with Jakob Hedicke which relates contact non-orderability, the existence of positive contractible loops in the contactomoprhism group, and shortening in the contact Hofer metric. Together with considerations of contact open books, this shows that contact boundaries one-stabilizations of Weinstein manifolds, including the standard tight S1 x S2, are non-orderable.

Speaker: Tang-Kai LeeTitle: Uniqueness problems in mean curvature flow

Colloquium on the Brain and Cognition with Ivan Soltesz, PhD, Stanford UniversityDate: Thursday, April 17, 2025Time: 4:00pmLocation: 46-3002, Singleton Auditorium (Third floor of MIT Building 46)Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/91469352101Organization and Control of Hippocampal CircuitsWhen animals are in an off-line, non-locomotor behavioral state, neuronal activity in the hippocampus is thought to be largely disengaged from the present setting to enable cognitive mechanisms such as memory consolidation and planning. But how does the brain re-engage with the present surroundings during this behavioral state and permit access to current sensory information or promote new memory formation? I will present recent results that indicate that dentate spikes may support associative memory during non-locomotor behavior, extending the repertoire of cognitive processes beyond the classical “off-line” functions. In the second part of the talk, I will show new evidence that suggests that a rarely studied part of the hippocampus, the Fasciola cinereum, may play surprisingly significant roles as a novel site of seizure onset and target for interventions in temporal lobe epilepsy in both mice and humans.Ivan Soltesz Ph.D. is the James R. Doty Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurosciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. He established his laboratory at UC Irvine in 1995, where he served as department Chair from 2006 until his return to Stanford in 2015. He is interested in the nature of inhibition in the CNS. His lab employs experimental and theoretical techniques to explore the synaptic and cellular organization of GABAergic circuits in the hippocampus under normal and pathological conditions.

Recreational swims provide a fun and engaging way for children and parents to practice new skills, stay active, and enjoy quality time together in the pool with the MIT community.No Z Center (MIT Recreation - Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) membership is required to participate.A parent or caregiver must accompany children in the water. Per Z Center policy, each adult may supervise up to two children at a time.Children must be at least 6 months old to join. If younger, they must be able to hold their head up comfortably. Registration is here. Only for MIT Spouses and Partners Connect members.

Ryan Gilmour (University of Münster)Talk Title: TBAhttps://www.uni-muenster.de/Chemie.oc/gilmour/

Speaker: Mehtaab S. Sawhney (Columbia University)Title: Quasipolynomial Bounds for the Corners TheoremAbstract:We prove quasipolynomial bounds for the corners theorem for general abelian groups. The proof draws on a number of themes in additive combinatorics, including recent work of Kelley-Meka on 3-term arithmetic progressions, work on almost periodicity, and work of Conlon, Fox, and Zhao on densification. Based on joint work with Michael Jaber, Yang P Liu, Shachar Lovett and Anthony Ostuni.

Preparing for a research talk, investor pitch, or interview? Eager to polish your three-minute thesis video, podcast, or public talk? In this NEW, six-session workshop series, learn to refine your speaking and presentation skills across a range of contexts. Whether your audience is intimate or enormous, expert or novice, we will help you find strategies to capture and keep their attention. Each interactive session will invite you to implement tips on tailoring your content, delivery, and visual aids to develop your confidence, clarity, and charisma. At the end of six meetings, you will have solid advice and experience with introducing yourself and your topic, tailoring your talk to diverse audiences, structuring your content, streamlining your flow, practicing effectively, and fielding questions.Session 1: Tue, April 1, 4:00-5:30 p.m. First Impressions Session 2: Thu, April 3, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Engage Your Audience Session 3: Tue, April 8, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Structure Your Presentation Session 4: Thu, April 10, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Tell Your Story Session 5: Tue, April 15, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Enhance Your Presentation Session 6: Thu, April 17, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Finish Strong: Conclusions and Q&A

"The Dynamics of Verification when Searching for Quality" | Jonathan Libgober (USC)

Mikkel Sølvsten (Aarhus University)

Time: 3:30 PMLocation: Cambridge, MA

Speaker: Melody Chan (Brown)Title: Moduli spaces in tropical geometryAbstract:I intend to give a true introduction, accessible to beginning graduate students, to the topics in the title: what is tropical geometry? What is a moduli space? And how can one be used to study the other? Then I’ll discuss some aspects of joint work with Francis Brown, Søren Galatius, and Sam Payne, in which we identify a Hopf algebraic structure on the weight 0 subspace of the compactly supported cohomology of the moduli space of abelian varieties and deduce a number of consequences.*Pre-colloquium reception at 4:00 pm in 553 Lake Hall.

Interasian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialismpresented by DR. CHIE IKEYA Associate Professor of History and Director, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers UniversityChallenging the Eurocentrism of postcolonial studies that remains preoccupied with Eurasian encounters and the European management of race, sex, and desire, this talk uncovers an obscured history of intimacy and estrangement between indigenous people and Asian migrants.

Chie Ikeya will discuss her research in transnational histories of Asian mobility and intimacy in the era of European colonial empires and her recent book, InterAsian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialism (Cornell University Press, 2024). Challenging the Eurocentrism of postcolonial studies that remains preoccupied with Eurasian encounters and the European management of race, sex, and desire, Ikeya uncovers an obscured history of intimacy and estrangement between indigenous people and Asian migrants. She will discuss how profoundly these “South-South,” interAsian interactions shaped modern understandings of identity and belonging that continue to vex Southeast Asian nations today.

The 21st Annual Operations Simulation Competition (OpsSimCom) 2025 is a student-led event where you can compete with students from around the country to see who can run the most profitable factory.Play for a prize pool totaling $2,500 - no travel required!Play an online simulation against teams from around the world to manage a factory: make investments, cut costs, borrow money, forecast demand, find bottlenecks, fulfill orders and satisfy customers! We've witnessed the best teams from around the world pit their wits against each other in what the game creator has called "possibly the most challenging assignment I've ever created." OpsSimCom will use a simulator specially designed for the competition, and no prior experience with the simulation is required. Even if you have played this game in class, this will not be a repeat of what you have seen before.Competition begins at 5PM EST on Wednesday April 16th and runs till Friday April 18th 5pm ETWebsite: OpsSimCom 2025 - Operations Management Club | MIT Sloan School of ManagementFAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MT9Hdx-jIP002QK_0J2aDX6MGG02lB0uQg8MGGp335U/editWebinar: April 14th @ 12PM ESThttps://mit.zoom.us/j/91412776156Registration Deadline: April 15th @ 11:59PM ESTTeam Prizes:First: $ 1,500Second: $750Third: $250Important Note: Prize money is awarded to people individually, not as a group, and is considered taxable income.Rules:All participants must be currently enrolled university studentsThe competition is entirely online, no travel is required.There is a limit of up to 4 students per team (and as low as 1 person per team)No limits on the number of teams per schoolNo help can be taken from professors or others outside of the teamEach person can only be on one teamTwo teams are not allowed to interact/help each otherRegistration:Each team must purchase 1 ticket on the eventbrite page to be confirmedQuestions?Reach out to opssimcom@mit.edu

Speaker: Vijay Srinivasan (MIT)Title: Abelian-by-finite families IAbstract:Reference:$\bullet$ Lawrence and Venkatesh, Diophantine problems and $p$-adic period mappings, second half of Section 6.

The MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing welcome Arvind Narayanan, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, to discuss his latest book, AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference, co-authored with Sayash Kapoor.The presentation will be followed by a discussion with Daron Acemoglu, MIT Institute Professor and Co-Director of the Shaping the Future of Work Initiative, followed by audience Q&A. Please note that registration does not guarantee you a seat. Seats are first-come, first-served.

Join us for an inspiring evening with scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur Robert Langer, as he discusses his early influences, his groundbreaking advancements in health and medicine, and the latest discoveries in drug delivery research.The conversation will also explore the future of innovation in today's research ecosystem. Langer will be joined by MIT Museum Director Michael John Gorman.Robert Langer is one of nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,600 articles, which have been cited over 442,000 times; his h-index of 330 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 6th highest of any individual in any field. His patents have licensed or sub-licensed to over 400 companies; he is cofounder of a number of companies including Moderna. Dr. Langer served as Chairman of the FDA's Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Alison Clarke Presented with the Morningside Academy for Design and the HTC Forum Part of the MIT Spring 2025 Architecture Lecture Series.This lecture will be held in person in 3-133 and streamed online.Lectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on Youtube.