Past Events
& Exhibitions

The focus of this one-day science symposium is on the explosion of knowledge about past and present DNA, and includes discussions about possible directions and applications for future research. The event includes experts in ancient DNA, de-extinction, human origins, population genetics, forensic science, ethics, business, future synthetic life, and the personal genome.

This symposium will explore the divide between the large number of women who pursue advanced degrees in related scientific fields and their representation in leadership positions in biotech firms. Scientists, industry and venture capital leaders, and academics will also consider new research, experimentation, and promising models that may help industry, universities, government, and private capital improve the current system.

Each year, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University hosts a conference that explores the role of gender in a significant aspect of the human experience. “Who Decides? Gender, Medicine, and the Public’s Health” was the conference in 2014.

Two notable scholars will look back at Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and consider whether movement toward equality has persisted or stalled since the book was published in 1963. What has changed in roles at home and at work? How has law figured in the balance? Do we have new mystiques today?

Radcliffe’s annual science symposium will focus on “smart clothes” and the science of designing materials that improve and protect lives. Experts in biology, design, engineering, materials science, medicine, and nanotechnology will address a variety of topics, including digital fabrication, soldier-related technologies, smart materials and biology, wearable technology, and the future of innovative substances.

"Take Note" brings together scholars from literature, history, media studies, information science, and computer science to explore the past and future roles of note-taking across the university. Panelists will discuss the history of note-taking in different disciplines as well as the potential of emerging digital annotation tools.

Activists, journalists, and academics from different fields and disciplines will examine and analyze recent events in countries affected by the democratizing efforts often described as “Arab Spring” and compare women’s experiences of these events with those of women in other moments of democratic change around the world, including Eastern Europe, South Africa, and Latin America.

The 2011 science symposium takes a cross-disciplinary approach to the topic of climate and policy. Atmospheric and environmental scientists, engineers, archaeologists, and scholars of public health, economics, and government come together to address and debate topics fundamental to our understanding of the science of climate change and the policies that result. These issues will be considered in relation to the recent UN Climate Change Conferences and the worldwide economic downturn. 

“Why Books?” brought together speakers from a variety of disciplines—from literature and history to sociology and computer science—to probe the form and function of the book in a rapidly changing media ecology. Although cultural commentators today speak of “the book” as if it were a well-defined term, its boundaries have been and remain shifting and porous; therefore, one aim of this conference was to expose the complexities and internal contradictions of the “before” against which the digital-era “after” is defined.