Boston supports a pretty impressive culture of lectures and lecture-like events (conferences, unconferences, forums, panel discussions, debates, symposia, festschrifts, workshops, poster sessions, mini-courses, roundtables, exhibitions, tech jams, demos, tours, etc.).  The intention of this list is both to present a selection of these events and convey a general sense of what the people doing the research are talking about right now.  The list is not remotely comprehensive and selection criteria are subjective. Courses, exhibits, and networking meetups with no special focus are not well handled. The activity level can fluctuate from one or two events in a given week to several dozen.

Blue boxes represent events advertised as child- friendly; yellow boxes, multi-day events.

I occasionally link to the speaker's lab.  Researchers often see these sites as the preferred medium of communication with the public.   They put a lot of work into them and many are remarkable.

There are two routes to this list: the website and the mailing list. The website carries events for the next month (roughly); the list, for the next week.   You can subscribe to the list here.  Please note that this landscape is highly volatile: Important details are often changed at the last minute.  Some events have limited seating and get sold out. Plus I make the occasional error (word of which I would be immensely grateful to receive).   All in all I strongly urge you to doublecheck the "Details" link before you head out.

Please let me know if I ought to be monitoring somebody not on my list of sources.

I would appreciate your mentioning this list to people with compatible interests.

-- Fred Hapgood

Last update: 24.1010

Selected Groups, Clubs, Societies, & Meetups
Selected New England Museums
DIY-focused organizations & resources

Thursday, May 24

10:30 - Noon.   "Early Explorers."   Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill St, Mattapan.   Details.   0

Noon.   "The Human Microbiome in Health and Disease."   Eric J. Alm.   Alm lab.   The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge.   Details.   4

2 - 3:30p.   "Homeschool Trailblazers."   Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill St, Mattapan.   Details.   0

7p.   "The Advent of Personalized Medicine."   John Quackenbush.   BU:  College of Arts & Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 502.   Details.   4

7p.   "The Secret Lives of Leatherbacks: Satellite Tracking the World’s Largest Sea Turtles."   Kara Dodge, Large Pelagics Research Center.   New England Aquarium, Harborside Learning Lab.   Details & Registration.   4

Friday, May 25

Noon.   "Genetics of Biological Clocks and Photoreception."   Nick Foulkes.   HMS:  New Research Bldg 350, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur.   Details.   5

Saturday, May 26

2p.   "Watch Out for Vulture Vomit and Other Adventures in Bird Watching."   Bill Thompson III.   An author's event.   Harvard Museum of Natural History.   Details.   6

Sunday, May 27

5p.   "The Best Monitor Speaker Shootout."   BU:  Life Science & Engineering Bldg, 24 Cummington St, 103.   Details.   7

Monday, May 28

8p.   "The Walking Death, Poison Apples, and Tangled Proteins."   Joe Mazzulli.   Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge.   Details.   8

May 29 - 31.   "Omics Evolution Summit."   Hyatt Harborside Hotel.   Details & Registration.   Brochure.   9 - 1

Tuesday, May 29

11a.   "Energy Research in Chemical Engineering."   Rakesh Agrawal.   Solar Energy Research Group.   MIT:  66-110.   Details.   9

Noon - 2p.   "D-Lab Open Hours."   MIT:  E34-104, 42 Carleton St.   Details.   9

12:30p.   "Making Large Volunteer-Driven Projects Sustainable. Lessons Learned from Drupal".   A Berkman Luncheon.   Dries Buytaert.   Webcast details.   Podcast details.   RSVP required for lunch.   Harvard Law School: Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Flr.   Details & RSVP.  9

12:30p.   "Developing Tomorrow's Vaccines: AIDS and Universal Influenza Prevention."   Gary J. Nabel.   Vaccine Research Center.   HMS:  Warren Alpert Bldg., 563, 200 Longwood Ave.   Details.   9

May 30 - June 1.   "Cognitive and Neural Systems."   A conference.   BU, 677 Beacon St.   Details.   0 - 1

May 30 - June 3.   "World Science Festival."   NYU Polytechnic Institute, MetroTech Plaza, 5 MetroTech Center, Brooklyn, NY.   Details & Tickets.   0 - 3

Wednesday, May 30

8a.   "Massachusetts Life Science Innovation Day: The Burden of Proof."   Harvard Club of Boston, 374 Commonwealth Avenue.   Details.   0

2p.   "Brain Abnormalities in PTSD: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging Studies."   Kisa Shin.   McLean Hospital:  de Marneffe Building 218.   Details.   0

6p.   "Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems."   John Palfrey and Urs Gasser.   The Interoperability Project.   Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West AB (2nd Floor).   Details & RSVP.   0

6 - 8p.   "An Architecture Walk And Talk."   On the subject of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and Museum Building.   Dennis De Witt.   Wtaerworks Museum.  Details.   0

7p.   "The Day the World Discovered the Sun. "   Mark Anderson.   A book event.   Harvard Coop, 3rd level.   Details.   0

7p.   "Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens."   Andrea Wulf.   Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre St.   Details & Registration.   0

7 - 9p.   "Climate Change: What We Know and Where We Go From Here."   A Science in the News seminar.   Harvard:  Mallinckrodt Building, Pfizer Auditorium, 2 Oxford St.   Details.   0

Thursday, May 31

8:30 - 10:30a.   "MassTLC Robotics Cluster Meetup."   iRobot, 8 Crosby Drive.   Details & Registration.   1

8:30 - 5p.   "The Future of Human Longevity: Medical Advances, Lifestyle Adjustments."   A conference.   HSPH:  677 Huntington Avenue, Room FXB-G12.   Details.   1

9:30 - 12:30p.   "Simulating Physics."   A workshop on a proprietary product.   Srikanth Vaidianathan, COMSOL, Inc.   Residence Inn Cambridge, The Doc Edgerton Room, 6 Cambridge Center, Cambridge.   Details & Registration.   1

Noon.   "Can We Detect Alzheimer's Disease a Decade Before Dementia?"   Reisa Sperling.   McLean:  Pierce Hall.   Details.   1

Noon.   "The Genetic Control of Aging."   Cynthia Kenyon.   Kenyon lab.   Bachground video.   Harvard:  Northwest Bldg, 52 Oxford St, Lecture Hall B-103.   Details.   1

6p.   "The Grand Diversity of Fishes: Form, Function, and Evolution."   George V. Lauder.   Harvard Museum of Natural History, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St.  Details.   1

8p.   "Cycles, Tides and Seasons."   Reception, Cyberarts exhibition.   Harbor Islands Pavilion.   Details.   1

June 3 - 8.   "Society for Information Display."   A symposium and exhibition.   Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.   Details.   3 - 8

June 5 -6.   "Simulating Physics."   A workshop on a proprietary product.   COMSOL, Inc., 1 New England Executive Park, Suite 350, Burlington.   Details & Registration.   5 - 6

Tuesday, June 5

5p.   "What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses."   Daniel Chamovitz.   Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave.   Details.   5

6p.   "The Last Venus Transit of the 21st Century."   A rooftop viewing.   Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St.   Details.   5

7p.   "Project: Blinky Pants."   Exploring wearable light art.   The first of two sessions.   10 Tyler St, Someville.   Details.   5

Wednesday, June 6

11 - 4p.   "World Oceans Day."   New England Aquarium, Central Wharf.   Details.   6

7 - 8:30p.   "The Rare Plants of Massachusetts."   Bryan Connolly.   Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge.   Details.   6

Friday, June 8

8:15 - 6:30p.   "Noise & Rhythm: Harnessing Complexity in Medicine and Robotics."   HMS:  Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, Amphitheater, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur.   Details & Registration.   8

June 9 - 10.   "High Impact Weather."   Museum of Science, Gordon Current Science & Technology Center.   Details.   9 - 0

Saturday, June 9

10a.   "Nature Walk in Concord."   Charles Davis.   location TBA.   Details & Registration.   9

Tuesday, June 12

6p.   "Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems."   An author's event.   John Palfrey.   BPL:  Central library, Abbey Rm, 700 Boylston St.   Details.   2

6:30p.   "Autonomous Underwater Robotics for Commercial, Scientific and Defense Applications."   David P. Kelly, President, CEO, Bluefin Robotics.   Bluefin Robotics, 553 South St, Quincy.   Details.   2

7p.   "Beyond the Gene: Epigenetics Revealed."   Mary Gehring.   BU:  College of Arts and Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 502.   Details.   2

Thursday, June 14

6 - 9p.   "Can Games Save Education?"   A panel discussion.  Microsoft (New England Research and Development Center), One Memorial Drive.   Details & Registration.   4

Saturday, June 16

11a.   "Discovering Nature in your Own Backyard."   Loree Griffin Burns.   Harvard Museum of Natural History.   Details.   6

Wednesday, June 20

6:30 - 9p.   "Linux on Small Hardware."   MIT:  E-51, Rm 315.   Details.   0

Thursday, June 21

7p.   "Democracy is a Design Problem: How changes in design change the outcome of elections."   Dana Chisnell.   MIT:  E51-315.   Details.   1

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