In an article for Inside Higher Ed, Colleen Flaherty highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Kathleen Thelen, which examines the gender gap in publication rates for political science journals. “Beyond a general gender gap, Teele and Thelen also found that women remain underrepresented in terms of co-authorship,” writes Flaherty.
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Vipin Narang writes that President Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea legitimized North Korea’s status as one of the world’s nuclear powers. “North Korea’s nuclear power is politically complete, thanks to the legitimacy that comes from a handshake with an American president,” argues Narang.
In an article published by Salon, Prof. Heather Paxson examines the American artisanal cheese industry. Paxson writes that, “food-making traditions in the United States are often animated by personal narratives of innovation rather than, as in Europe, adherence to customary tradition.”
In this PBS NewsHour segment, Prof. Alan Lightman discusses his views on science and spirituality. “I’m still a scientist. I still believe that the world is made of atoms and molecules and nothing more. But I also believe in the power and validity of the spiritual experience.”
Profs. David Kaiser and Peter Fisher discuss the 95 percent of the universe that is made up of “two mysterious ingredients,” dark matter and dark energy, on NOVA Wonder. “[W]e know that dark matter and dark energy are in the grips of this cosmic competition,” said Kasier, “and which side, so to speak, has been winning has itself changed over time.”
Bloomberg’s Noah Smith profiles Prof. Parag Pathak, who was recently awarded the John Bates Clark medal for his work using economic theory to improve the allocation of students to New York City public schools. “Pathak isn’t just a theorist,” writes Smith, “in keeping with economics’ age of data, he also does a lot of empirical work.”
In this 5-minute read for Fast Company, Prof. Kieran Setiya discusses the common “sense of repetition and futility” that comes in middle age. “We should not give up on our worthwhile goals,” writes Setiya. “But we should meditate, too, on the value of the process. It is no accident that the young and the old are generally more satisfied with life than those in middle age.”
Writing for The Atlantic, MIT lecturer Amy Carleton describes the focus on public policy, as well as engineering and product design, at this year’s “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck” hackathon. “What emerged [at the inaugural hackathon] was an awareness that the challenges surrounding breastfeeding were not just technical and equipment-based,” explains Carleton.
The Economist explores the basics of free trade, its benefits and downsides, with Prof. John Van Reenen. “With free trade, you come into more contact with foreign companies, new ideas, new people and so on,” explains Van Reenen. “That’s mutually beneficial. And it is a political force for cooperation.”
Prof. Parag Pathak, winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, speaks to The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Hackman about his research on school choice. “What I sometimes find frustrating in conversations about student achievement is they often get sidetracked from the issue of school quality,” Pathak says. “Our job as researchers is exploring the nuances and subtleties.”
CBS Evening News correspondent Jim Axelrod spoke with Dean Melissa Nobles about the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice law clinic at Northeastern. Nobles is a faculty collaborator with the clinic, which investigates lynching deaths in the U.S. "We are now beginning to change the narrative such that the families who have had that violence visited upon them now can talk about it and it be understood,” said Nobles.
Brian Marquard of The Boston Globe writes about the life of Prof. Morris Halle, who passed away on April 2. Prof. Halle, who helped found MIT’s linguistics program, was “considered one of the field’s most influential scholars,” writes Marquard.
Prof. Junot Díaz contributed this essay to The New Yorker, which details his personal experience with childhood abuse and its long-lasting impact on him. “No one can hide forever. Eventually what used to hold back the truth doesn’t work anymore. You run out of escapes, you run out of exits, you run out of gambits, you run out of luck. Eventually the past finds you.”
Sean Illing of Vox speaks with Prof. Sherry Turkle about her insights on how the digital world is impacting our human relationships. “I’m not anti-technology,” said Turkle. “I’m pro-relationships and pro-conversations and pro-communities and pro-politics. I want people to be media-savvy and to use it to their best advantage.”
Research led by Prof. Amy Finkelstein found that just 4% of “bankruptcy filings by non-elderly adults” were associated with medical expenses. “Medical bankruptcy…wasn’t nearly as common as anticipated,” writes Alex Kingsbury for The Boston Globe. “Public policy aimed at fighting it might not have the anticipated results, either.”