On Tuesday, May 4, the Technology and Culture Forum will present the Ninth Annual J. Herbert Hollomon Memorial Symposium, "Creating the Consumer Culture." The event, sponsored by the Technology and Culture Forum, will take place at 4:30pm in Rm 6-120.
Speaking at the symposium will be Robert Frank, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics and Public Policy at Cornell University and author of Luxury Fever; Eric Almquist, vice president of Mercer Management Consulting; and Natasha Pearl, vice president and worldwide director for client information and relationship marketing at Sotheby's. MIT Professor Joshua Cohen, head of the Department of Political Science, will be the moderator.
The symposium is named for Dr. Hollomon, a leader in academe, industry and the federal government until his death in 1985 at the age of 66. He received the SB in physics (1940) and the ScD in metallurgy (1946) from MIT. During his career, he was president of the University of Oklahoma (1968-70), assistant secretary of commerce for science and technology (1962-67) and head of GE's General Engineering Laboratory (1960-67).
In 1970, Dr. Hollomon returned to MIT, where he founded the Center for Policy Alternatives, which identified major sociotechnical issues and the policies and practices surrounding them. In 1985 the center became part of the Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development.
A version of this article appeared in the April 28, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 43, Number 28).
