Do you think yoga is only for young, slender, super-flexible people? Think again!Yoga for Every Body with Catherine provides a gentle yoga experience in the Kripalu tradition. It offers a safe introduction for beginners of all ages, shapes, and sizes, as well as an opportunity for more experienced practitioners to share a gentle, mindful practice.Catherine hopes that this will give everyone an opportunity to turn down the “noise” of daily living and tune in to your own body, mind, and spirit.Registration is required on our wellness class website. If you do not already have an account on this website, you'll need to create one. This is fee-based class and open to the entire MIT community.

Join us on Monday evenings for Argentine tango classes with outstanding instructors Fernanda Ghi, Guillermo Merlo and Mia Dalglish (read their bios on the link). Whether you are completely new to tango, or already have some experience, you will find a friendly environment in which to learn new things and improve your technique. You don't have to bring a partner, since the classes involve rotations with all participants.More info on website: https://sites.google.com/site/mittangoclub/products-services/2025-spring-series?authuser=0

Yang Sheng "Life Nourishing" Qigong is an extremely powerful tool for bringing out one's natural human potential and optimal fitness. Physical health and mental well being are a direct result of the practice.The core of our training is 'Zhan Zhuang' (Standing Meditation). It is designed to activate 'Zheng Qi' (True or Proper Qi). The effects of this training are rapid with deep therapeutic results producing a unified and balanced 'mind, body, and breath.'Registration is required on our wellness class website. If you do not already have an account on this website, you'll need to create one. This is fee-based class and open to the entire MIT community.

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.

Presented by Bridget Brasher Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Linguistics and PhilosophyAbstract: Prior to arguing against the existence of void in Physics IV.6–9, Aristotle offers an answer to what void is: place deprived of body. His refutations then target two different sorts of void, separated and inseparable voids. It is unsolved in Aristotelian scholarship what these two sorts of void are. This paper offers an interpretation. I find that the distinction between voids is philosophically rich and bears explanatory potential in a way unrecognized by studies on ancient void theory. Indeed, if my interpretation is correct, the distinction may be prescient, anticipating Newton’s own distinction between relative and absolute inertial frames two millennia later.Bio: Bridget Brasher is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. She completed my PhD at Princeton University in 2023. Her research concerns ancient Greek, Latin, and Indian physics and metaphysics. She is interested in how thinkers in these ancient traditions understood the physical world. Many of her current projects examine their perspectives on space and motion. She is also interested in to what extent these ancient traditions saw metaphysics and ethics as interconnected.Tuesday, March 4 - Bridget Brasher(MIT) “What Aristotle Thinks Void Is”Tuesday, March 18 - Christopher Foster(Library of Congress) “Fall of the Scribes, and the Rise of Literati in Han China”Wednesday, April 9 - Johann Noh(MIT, Korea University) “How East Asia Transformed Chinese Classical Literature and Book Culture: The Case of Korea”Tuesday, April 22 - Sasha Rickard(MIT, Boston College) “Hedonism, Ancient and Modern: A Discussion of Plato's Philebus”

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

Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton, Erykah Badu, Octavia E. Butler, Digable Planets, Janelle Monae, Flying Lotus, Grace Jones, Missy Elliott, and moreA new exhibit in Lewis Music Library celebrates the visionary contributions of Afrofuturist artists across various genres and mediums. From the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra and the psychedelic funk of Parliament-Funkadelic and George Clinton, to the neo-soul of Erykah Badu and the sci-fi narratives of Octavia E. Butler, these artists have pushed the boundaries of creativity and imagination.This event is presented as part of Artfinity: A celebration of creativity and community at MIT.

Are you new to MIT and MIT Spouses & Partners Connect? Want to learn about how to participate in our meetings and groups? Have questions about living, working, and/or parenting in Boston? Meet with Jennifer Recklet Tassi, the Program Manager, and Viktoriia Palesheva, the Program Assistant, and ask your questions about life at MIT and in Boston.If you'd like to attend, just send an email to spousesandpartners@mit.edu to let us know you're coming.

Hidden within MIT’s Distinctive Collections, many architectural elements from the earliest days of the Institute’s architecture program still survive as part of the Rotch Art Collection. Among the artworks that conservators salvaged was a set of striking windows of gypsum and stained-glass, dating to the late 18th- to 19th c. Ottoman Empire. This exhibition illuminates the life of these historic windows, tracing their refracted histories from Egypt to MIT, their ongoing conservation, and the cutting-edge research they still prompt.The Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130) is open Monday through Thursday, 10am - 4pm, excluding Institute holidays.

The first 2 sessions in March will be held on Zoom.Meet other expecting and first time parents of infants under one year to connect, share information, and support each other. Bring your concerns, questions, and experiences to the group. And of course, your babies are welcome! This peer led group is organized by MS&PC members Kathrin and Maria.Contact Kathrin hauserkathrin1994@gmail.com or Maria maria.korompili24@gmail.com for more information.

Zoom Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/99672193351Speaker: Cheng TangAffiliation: Jazayeri lab, 4th year PhD candidate (system neuroscience)Title: An explainable transformer circuit for compositional generalizationAbstract: Compositional generalization—the systematic combination of known elements into novel ensembles— is a hallmark of human cognition, enabling flexible problem-solving beyond rote memorization. While transformer models exhibit surprising proficiency in such tasks (Lake et al., 2023), the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this case study, we reverse-engineer how a transformer achieves compositional generalization at the circuit level, focusing on a function-primitive composition task. In this task, the model infers functions from teaching examples (e.g., interpreting “apple kiki → apple apple” to deduce that “kiki” means double) and generalizes them to new primitives (e.g., applying “kiki” to “tree” to produce “tree tree”). Our trained transformer achieves high test accuracy (~98%), demonstrating robust generalization.In the first half of the presentation, I will introduce the basics of transformer and provide an intuitive account on how attention operations perform information-routing between tokens with a slot-like data structure. Then I will present the human-interpretable algorithm implemented by the model, walk through the circuit discovery procedure, and highlight the correspondence between attention heads and the algorithm’s steps. Lastly, I will show causal perturbation experiments that validates the reverse-engineered circuit. This presentation aims to demystify the black-box impression of transformers to audience in neuroscience and invite discussion between model understanding and model control.

Speakers: Matt Charnley (Rutgers University)Title: Our PerspectiveAbstract: As interest in STEM fields has grown over the last few decades, enrollment in introductory STEM courses has substantially increased, resulting in either larger sections of these classes or more of them. With increased enrollment in these courses, ensuring consistency and quality across multiple sections has become a widespread challenge. Course coordination has been widely implemented as a structured approach to address this issue. In this talk, we will discuss the literature surrounding course coordination, how it works, and what benefits it can bring to courses and departments. I will also share initial results from a survey of course coordinators that I and several of my colleagues sent to coordinators in our STEM departments to get their understanding of their role as course coordinators, opinions on the role, as well as common challenges or great successes that they had.

Whitehead Institute Innovation Intiative Structure and function of the norepinephrine system Presented by Karel Svoboda, Director, Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics12:00 - 1:00 pm Whitehead Institute 455 Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142SCHEDULE 11:30 AM Lunch available - Lobby, 1st floor 12:00 PM Seminar - Audittorium, 1st floor 1:00 PM Dessert and coffee - Library, 2nd floorFor questions, email events@wi.mit.edu.

Want to get exercise mid-day but don’t want to go outside? Join the tunnel walk for a 30-minute walk led by a volunteer through MIT’s famous tunnel system. This walk may include stairs/inclines. Wear comfortable shoes. Free.Location details: Meet in the atrium by the staircase. Location photo below.Tunnel Walk Leaders will have a white flag they will raise at the meeting spot for you to find them.Prize Drawing: Attend a walk and scan a QR code from the walk leaders to be entered into a drawing for a getfit tote bag at the end of the getfit challenge. The more walks you attend, the more entries you get. Winner will be drawn and notified at the end of April. Winner does not need to be a getfit participant.Disclaimer: Tunnel walks are led by volunteers. In the rare occasion when a volunteer isn’t able to make it, we will do our best to notify participants. In the event we are unable to notify participants and a walk leader does not show up, we encourage you to walk as much as you feel comfortable doing so. We recommend checking this calendar just before you head out. [As of Feb 12, this calendar is defaulting to the year 1899. Click "today" to be brought to the current month.]Getfit is a 12-week fitness challenge for the entire MIT community. These tunnel walks are open to the entire MIT community and you do not need to be a current getfit participant to join.

The Stratton Lecture: The Epidemic of LonelinessDate: Tuesday March 4Time: 12:15pm - 1:45pmLocation: MIT Wong Auditorium (E51-115)Join us for the 2025 Stratton Lecture as we delve into the growing epidemic of loneliness in modern society. Despite unprecedented digital connectivity, many individuals feel isolated and disconnected, with profound impacts on mental and physical health. We’ll explore the societal factors contributing to this phenomenon, the consequences for well-being, and strategies to rebuild authentic connections and stronger communities.Keynote Speaker: Professor Rebecca Saxe Remarks by: Professor Pattie Maes Remarks by: Zan BarryDiscussion Moderated by: Amy Brand, Director and Publisher of MIT PressThis event is co-sponsored by the MIT Retirees Association and MIT Press.A boxed lunch will be provided at the end of the event. If you have dietary restrictions, please let us know here.Rebecca Saxe is the John W. Jarve (1978) Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Associate Dean of Science at MIT. She studies the development and neural basis of human cognition, focusing on social cognition. Saxe obtained her Ph.D. from MIT and was a Harvard Junior Fellow before joining the MIT faculty in 2006. She has received the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim fellowship, the MIT Committed to Caring Award for graduate mentorship and is a member of American Academy of Arts and Science.Pattie Maes is the Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab where does research at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence. She is also an affiliated faculty member at MIT's center for Neuro-Biological Engineering. Maes pioneered the concept of Software Agents in the 90s and remains focused on the question of how software systems and novel devices might augment people and assist them with issues such as memory, learning, decision making and wellbeing.Susanna (Zan) Barry, PsyD: Manager of Programs, Community Wellness at MIT Health. Zan focuses on the health of the MIT community through programs and classes in sleep health, stress resilience, mindfulness, motivation, and meaning. Her background is in psychology and behavioral sleep medicine.Moderated by:Amy Brand, director and publisher of the MIT Press, one of the largest university presses in the world, and an important figure in open access publishing. The MIT Press is well known for its publications in emerging fields of scholarship and its pioneering use of technology. Brand’s career spans a wide array of experiences in academia and scholarly communications. She received her doctorate in cognitive science from MIT and has held a number of positions in scholarly communications, publishing, and open information access at MIT, Digital Science, and Harvard before returning to the press in 2015 to serve as director. She was executive producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Picture a Scientist, a 2020 selection of the Tribeca Film Festival that highlights gender inequality in science. Some of Dr. Brand’s awards include the Laya Wiesner Community Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award, and the Award for Meritorious Achievement issued by the Council of Science Editors.

MIT Free English Class is for international students, sholars, spouses. Twenty seven years ago we created a community to welcome the nations to MIT and assist with language and friendship. Join our Tuesday/Thursday conversation classes around tables inside W11-190.

"Supply Shocks and Emissions When Firms Can Adapt" | Silke Forbes (Tufts)

Speaker: Vincent Tournat (CNRS, Le Mans Université / Harvard)Title: Dynamics of multistable mechanical metamaterials: recent results on nonlinear waves, transition fronts and their interactionsAbstract:The class of flexible mechanical metamaterials, which encompasses architected materials composed of highly compliant parts connecting much stiffer and heavier parts, has recently been systematically explored thanks to emerging techniques for their realization and accurate lumped-parameter models describing their dynamics. Examples of such metamaterials include kirigami, origami, elastic lattices with various topologies composed of rotating mass units connected by thin, flexible hinges, or systems of coupled buckled beams… These metamaterials can undergo large deformations and are known to support a wide variety of nonlinear waves, such as vector solitons, breathers, cnoidal waves, among others. Interestingly, by designing these materials with multistable inclusions, such as elastically coupled bistable mechanical units, we can observe phenomena such as transition waves. The transition wave presents itself as a progressive front travelling through the material as the multistable units sequentially switch from one equilibrium state to another, eventually leading to a partial or full reconfiguration of the structure.In this talk, I will highlight the fundamentals and a selection of recent results on nonlinear waves in flexible mechanical metamaterials and in particular transition waves in multistable metamaterials. Through theoretical, numerical and experimental examples, I will discuss some salient properties of these nonlinear waves and their interactions. While in the case of zero damping we find the wave dynamics generally obey the nonlinear KleinGordon equations, the presence of a significant nonzero damping heavily influences the multistable response and permits transition fronts that result from nonlinear reactiondiffusion equations. This class of flexible metamaterials thus gives rise to the emergence of specific properties not necessarily found in other waves supported by discrete and/or nonlinear media, and which can be rationally harnessed, e.g., strong non-reciprocity, robustness of the wave profile, extreme amplitude-dependent behavior… These metamaterials and their dynamics can therefore be designed and implemented for applications involving the local or global reconfiguration of a medium, the manipulation of a mechanical memory, the control of waves in space and time, mechanical computing and more generally to be the vector for embedded material intelligence.