Time: 7:00 PMLocation: Springfield, MA

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.

Since returning to MIT on April 1, Vice President for Energy and Climate Evelyn Wang has been engaging with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners across our campus and beyond and listening to ideas for how MIT can best rise to the challenges of energy and climate.As a framework is coming into focus, Professor Wang would like to share her plans with the MIT campus community. She will also introduce a new seed grant program designed to spur and accelerate research projects.To ensure that as many members of our community as possible can take part, we are offering two in-person and one virtual sessions this semester.Please note that all of the sessions are identical, and so you only need to sign up for one.The sessions are as follows:Session 1: In-personMonday, October 20 3:00-4:30 pm Building 55 AtriumSession 2: VirtualWednesday, November 12 10:30 am-12:00 pm Link will be sent to registered attendeesSession 3: In-personTuesday, December 2 3:30-5:00 pm Building 55 AtriumRegistration is required.

Speaker: Victoria Popic (Broad Clinical Labs)In person or on Zoom at https://mit.zoom.us/j/93513735220

It's a good time to get creative and finish that project! The Fiber Crafts Group offers the space to craft online with friends. Meetings will be held via Zoom. Feel free to sign in at any time over the session, and stay for as long as you like. For a Zoom invite, please email Olimpia Caceres-Brown (olimpia@mit.edu)

Dr. Rebeccah Heinrichs from the Hudson Institute will speak at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar.Summary: In this seminar, Dr. Heinrichs will discuss the state of the global nuclear strategic balance, and changing patterns in force posture and nuclear strategy in the 21st century.

Faculty job interviews can take many forms—from phone and Zoom calls to multi-day campus visits. This workshop will help PhD students and postdocs understand what to expect and how to prepare for each stage of the interview process. We'll cover strategies for answering common interview questions, delivering an effective job talks, and engaging with search committees, faculty, and students. You'll also get tips for navigating informal conversations and campus dynamics. Whether you're on the job market now or planning ahead, this session will help you approach faculty interviews with greater confidence and clarity.This CAPD event is open to MIT PhD & postdoctoral scholars. Registration is required for this event. Please register here.

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: Calder Morton-Ferguson (Yale University)

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025 Location: 46-3002 (Singleton Auditorium)Speaker: Uri Hasson, Ph.D. Affiliation: Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Princeton UniversityHost: Dr. Ev FedorenkoTalk title: Cognitively Plausible Learning Agents: Modeling Learning in Naturalistic Developmental ContextsAbstract: Understanding how humans learn and think requires models that capture both the richness of real-world experience and the biological plausibility of the brain. Traditional computational models often generalize poorly beyond controlled laboratory conditions. At the same time, state-of-the-art deep learning systems—despite their success in naturalistic tasks—are developmentally implausible, data-hungry, and disconnected from human cognition. My lab aims to bridge this divide by developing cognitively plausible learning agents that are grounded in the natural experiences of children.To achieve this, we are building the First 1000 Days (1kD) dataset, a longitudinal, ultra-dense audiovisual record of children’s daily environments from birth to age three, offering unprecedented resolution on the developmental conditions that shape learning in individual children. Using the 1kD recordings, we are creating child-centered learning agents that learn in socially grounded, multimodal contexts, mirroring the development of infants. Finally, we are directly aligning these models with human neural data, comparing their internal representations to invasive electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings of natural language processing.Together, our research establishes a new paradigm for cognitive neuroscience: one that integrates developmental data, embodied learning agents, and neural alignment to deepen the understanding of the underlying processes that support human cognition. By studying cognition in dense, dynamic, and ecologically valid contexts where it naturally unfolds, we aim to uncover general principles of learning that are both biologically realistic and computationally powerful.

On Wednesday nights you are invited to come to The Table for peaceful Christian worship in the Chapel at 5:15 pm and dinner in the Main Dining Room of W11 at around 6:30 pm.We worship with beautiful songs, open conversation about the Scriptures, prayers and a simple sharing of communion around the altar. Then we enjoy dinner together and good company together. Whether you come every week or just drop by once in a while, there is a caring community for you at the Table.You are truly welcome to come as you are: undergrad, grad, or post-doc; sure of your faith or wondering what it is all about; gay, straight, bi, trans, questioning. Please join us for no-pressure worship and fellowship.Hosted by the Lutheran Epsicopal Ministry @ MIT. For more information, or to verify gathering times during holiday and vacation periods, please contact chaplains Andrew Heisen (heisen@mit.edu) and Kevin Vetiac (kvet246@mit.edu).Please note that we will not meet during the week of Thanksgiving nor between Christmas and New Year's Day. Please see our website (le-ministry.mit.edu) for updates on meeting times and locations as well as additional details.

Join Alex Pentland for a talk on his new MIT Press book Shared Wisdom: Cultural Evolution in the Age of AI, exploring how we can build a flourishing society by designing technology around human nature — rather than allowing technology to shape our society.In Shared Wisdom, Alex Pentland delves into the history of innovation, emphasizing the importance of understanding how technologies and cultural inventions impact human society. Humanity’s great leaps forward—the rise of civilizations, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution—were all propelled by cultural inventions that accelerated our rate of innovation and built collective wisdom. Solving current global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and failing social institutions will require similarly fundamental inventions.Copies of Shared Wisdom will be available for purchase and signing after the talk, courtesy of the MIT Press Bookstore.November 12 6pm - 7pm, followed by a book signing $5

Come join the MIT Women’s Chorale as we experience the joy of making music together! New singers from throughout the MIT community are welcome on Wednesdays evenings, beginning on September 10, from 7 to 9 pm in Building 4 as we practice for our December concert.The Chorale, a concert choir focused on music for treble voice, is led by our talented music director, Nhung Truong, who makes each rehearsal a pleasure.We ask that prospective singers contact us at mitwc@mit.edu to register with us and be placed on an e mail list to receive necessary information. Further details are available on our website.https://web.mit.edu/womensleague/womenschorale/

Time: 5:00 PMLocation: Cambridge, MA

A Little Choctaw Music: Chamber Music of Charles ShadleWednesday, November 12th, 2025 at 8pmThomas Tull Concert Hall, MIT Linde Music Building201 Amherst Street, Cambridge MA 02139This event is in-person only and will not be live-streamed.A Little Choctaw Music: Chamber Music of Charles Shadle gathers together several recent works by the MIT composer. The gifted young Choctaw guitarist, Alexander Lassa, will give the Boston premiere of a work he commissioned, Wheelock Variations. This monumental work for solo guitar is a series of variations on the Choctaw shaped-note hymn Vba Isht Taloa 139 (Choctaw Hymn 139), and celebrates the return of the historic Wheelock Church (the oldest house of worship in Oklahoma) to the Choctaw Nation. In addition to performances by pianist Shalun Li (A Tale of My Native Land No.4), and cellist Leo Eguchi (Iti Fabvssa), the concert will conclude with a performance of the lively and energetic A Little Choctaw Music, performed by the Jamaica Plain Saxophone Quartet.Seating PolicyAs seating in Thomas Tull Concert Hall is limited, we encourage you to reserve seats as soon as possible. Free tickets for MIT ID holders are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the door on the day of the event.Your registration through Eventbrite guarantees you a seat until the event start time. After the concert start time, we will release open seats to the standby list. If you were not able to register through Eventbrite, you may join the physical standby line in the Thomas Tull Concert Hall Lobby up to one hour before the concert start time.Don't miss a downbeat! Click here to subscribe to the Events Newsletter.