Inspiring People: Stories of Innovation and Service

SLICE 325 is a nonprofit using immersive education, food literacy, and sustainability to empower all communities with a focus on those historically underserved. Led by SLICE 325's founder Shemecka McNeil, you'll learn how SLICE 325 combines hands-on cooking, virtual reality, and environmental education to address chronic disease, food insecurity, and digital inequity. Their approach uses scalable, evidence-based strategies that merge cultural knowledge with health outcomes and climate resilience.We'll explore how SLICE 325's initiatives like VR classrooms for older adults, culturally inclusive cookbooks for managing diabetes and hypertension, and no-power-needed storm survival guides are educational, transformative, and accessible. With a proven track record of community-driven impact, SLICE 325 offers a replicable model for anyone seeking to invest in innovative, culturally grounded, and inclusive approaches to learning, wellness, and sustainability across all communities.Shemecka McNeil has a deep understanding of the relationship between food and health. Growing up in a family with a long history of preventable health conditions, she developed a passion for promoting good health through a nutritious diet. With over a decade of experience in the health sector, Shemecka speaks about the importance of healthy eating for overall well-being. She founded SLICE 325, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating low-income individuals and families on how to create healthy meals using affordable ingredients.Shemecka's expertise extends beyond health education; she is also a trained chef, healthcare professional, farmer, subject matter expert, immersive learning educator, and author. Her varied skill set allows her to approach health and nutrition from a variety of angles, making her a resource for anyone seeking to improve their eating habits and overall health.As the Executive Director of SLICE 325, Shemecka is committed to making a difference in the lives of others, one meal at a time. She believes that every family is unique and that there are countless creative ways to prepare healthy meals that are both delicious and affordable.Shemecka's dedication to promoting health and wellness has earned her recognition as a PSA Grower and a Paul Harris Award from Rotarians. She is an inspiration to those around her and a true advocate for healthy living.To learn more, go to:https://slice325.org/https://www.youtube.com/@SLICE325/videoshttps://www.spatial.io/s/SLICE-325-2025-6838356d7096556e2726a879 https://www.linkedin.com/in/shemecka-mcneil-els-sme-gap-a83941198/https://www.instagram.com/slice325/

Sport in Mind describes itself as "the leading mental health sports charity in England and Wales." Its mission is to transform people's mental health through sport and physical activity, working in partnership with the National Health Service and sports governing bodies, and harnessing the power of sport to inspire, educate, and promote good mental health.Our speaker, Craig Adams, is Sport in Mind's head of partnerships. After spending eighteen years working in big tech in both the US and Asia, Craig was introduced to Sport in Mind's founders via a common friend. Being a huge sports fan, and participating in a number of sports, whilst also having his own mental health story, the opportunity to marry up passions with helping others was for him the perfect fit.Outside of work Craig enjoys exploring new countries and cultures, is obsessed with golf and the Liverpool football club, and enjoys experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.To learn more, go to:https://www.sportinmind.org/ https://www.sportinmind.org/strategy-and-impact

What makes for a good life? Is it the simple, predictable pleasures we call happiness? Or can happiness lead to complacency and regret? Is the answer a deep sense of meaning and purpose? Or can a life of purpose invite narrow or misplaced loyalties?Shige Oishi is the Marshall Field IV Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2021, he also received the Outstanding Achievement Award for Advancing Cultural Psychology from Society for Personality and Social Psychology. The Psychological Review paper on a psychologically rich life he co-authored with Erin Westgate received the 2022 Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize. His research has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times.To learn more, go to:https://psychology.uchicago.edu/directory/Shigehiro-Oishi

CARS works with over 10,000 nonprofits and raises over $60 million a year in fundraising through turn-key vehicle and real estate donation programs.Our speaker is Howard Pearl, the Chief Executive Officer of Charitable Adult Rides & Services (CARS), a national leader in vehicle donation programs for nonprofits. Howard Pearl has over three decades of executive experience and a Harvard Business School education, and has worked with organizations like Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Company, and Revlon to implement transformative strategies.To learn more, go to: https://careasy.org/home

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is one of the most pressing threats to our oceans, devastating marine ecosystems and wildlife while undermining the livelihoods of sustainable fishers. For over two decades, WildAid has partnered with local leaders worldwide to improve marine protection and enforcement. WildAid CEO Meaghan Brosnan and Skylight Head Namrata Kolla explore how cutting-edge AI technology is transforming the fight against IUU fishing. Learn how Skylight’s AI-powered vessel detection platform is helping governments take decisive action—like the recent seizure of six illegal longliners in Panama—and discover what’s next for the future of ocean protection.Meaghan Brosnan is a global expert in marine enforcement with more than two decades of experience combating illegal fishing and supporting communities in sustainably managing marine protected areas. A retired U.S. Coast Guard Commander, she spent two decades in service, including four years at sea enforcing fisheries law. Meaghan joined WildAid in 2017 as Marine Program Director and became CEO in 2024, following the organization's receipt of Prince William's Earthshot Prize in the ""Revive Our Oceans"" category. Namrata Kolla (Nam) leads the Skylight program at Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI). She has held various positions in the conservation space for over ten years, including as Data Scientist for the Mayor of Seattle, as Research Consultant for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in various roles at The Nature Conservancy. She has a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Washington, with a focus on the application of data science to improve public service.Learn about WildAid's marine program: https://marine.wildaid.org/ More about Skylight's technology: https://allenai.org/skylightMongabay's coverage of Panama's momentous seizure: https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/panama-conducts-large-illegal-fishing-bust-in-protected-pacific-waters/

Our foster care system is in need of complete reform in order for children in care to have a more humane experience.Rob Scheer knows that the first step is for our community to realize there is a problem. There are far too many people who have little to no knowledge of the struggles children in foster care face. These children are truly invisible in our society. Not only must we raise awareness of their plight, but we must come together to alleviate their suffering. We must ensure that the basic needs of children are being met as they enter into care. Despite the frightening and chaotic transition they are experiencing, these children deserve to have a sense of dignity as they are moved to another home.We must also realize that we are simply graduating foster children from the foster system to the prison system. We are not providing these children with the educational and life skills required to launch a successful future. If this is correct, we must realize the responsibility that each and every one of us holds to take care of these children and ensure that they have an equal opportunity for success in adulthood.Rob Scheer, is the founder and CEO of Comfort Cases, an international nonprofit dedicated to bringing dignity and hope to youth in foster care. His and the organization's mission is clear: to eliminate the heartbreaking and dehumanizing practice of children being handed a trash bag to carry their belongings when entering the foster care system.Since founding Comfort Cases in 2013, Rob and his team have distributed over 260,000 backpacks and duffle bags filled with essential and comforting items to youth in every U.S. state, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and The Bahamas.Rob's passion for this mission is deeply personal. He was once one of those children—a youth in foster care who was given a trash bag. His personal journey runs from experiencing foster care to homelessness to becoming a successful businessman, advocate, and father of five children, all of whom came from that same system."To learn more, about Comfort Cases or make a donation, go to:https://comfortcases.org/ You can also visit their social media pages:Instagram: @comfortcases @Rob_scheerFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/comfortcases TikTok: @comfort_cases @robscheer.comfortcasesX / Twitter: @comfortcases @RobScheer6To listen to the podcast, "Fostering Change," please visit YouTube or any of your favorite podcast channels, or on their website: https://comfortcases.org/podcasts/

"Rural is Resilient: Rebuilding the Appalachian Economy from the Ground Up" is a presentation by Coalfield Development that explores how community-driven innovation, workforce development, and social enterprise are transforming central Appalachia. Once a region known for powering the nation through coal and industry (yet often left behind in terms of reinvestment and opportunity), Appalachia now faces deep economic, environmental, and health disparities. Coalfield Development reverse-engineers solutions to these challenges by empowering people who have been cast aside, revitalizing places that have been left behind, and building long-term prosperity.This presentation outlines Coalfield’s workforce development model, which integrates on-the-job training, personal development, and business incubation. Through training and employment initiatives like PATH and WRAPS, social enterprise development, and partnerships with organizations replicating their approach across the region, Coalfield has created over 1,000 jobs, supported 91 new businesses, and attracted more than $178 million in new investment. By turning abandoned mine lands and buildings once considered liabilities into assets to serve their communities, and equipping individuals with the tools to secure gainful, stable employment in a variety of industries, Coalfield is proving that rural communities can, and are, rebuilding the Appalachian economy from the ground up.Our speaker, Jacob Israel Hannah, began work as Coalfield Development’s new CEO in January of 2024. Previously, Jacob held the role of Chief Conservation Officer at Coalfield Development with over five years in the organization. With three generations of coal mining in his family, and as a 5th generation West Virginian, Jacob integrates an empathetic and grounded approach to the strategy of triple-bottom line sustainability; balancing People, Planet, and Prosperity in harmony with each other with a lens towards a fair and just transition. Jacob’s work intersects the through line of environmental considerations with social wellbeing and economic development. This primarily revolves around bringing renewable energy to underserved and coal-impacted communities, reclaiming abandoned mine lands, supporting a regional network of upcycling and reuse, and remediating brownfields and protecting water systems, all while centering this work around the people of Appalachia.To learn more, go to: https://coalfield-development.org/

What do you know about stuttering? If you aren't someone who stutters, do you know the things you should do when you meet a person who does? Today you'll hear from someone who can explain from his own experiences what stuttering is, the characteristics of one who stutters, and common myths about stuttering. Our speaker, Jeff Olevson, is the current president of the Sunnyvale Rotary Club and has been a Rotarian for almost twelve years. Outside of Rotary, Jeff has been involved with the National Stuttering Association (NSA) for over twenty-four years. The NSA is the largest self-help group in the country for people who stutter. Locally, Jeff is the co-leader of the San Jose Chapter of the NSA (a monthly support group for people who stutter) and is also the Regional Chapter Coordinator (RCC) of the Southwest. Members of the chapter share experiences about their stuttering journeys and seek support to guide them along the way. Jeff has a passion for sharing the NSA and helping others better understand stuttering.To learn more, go to:https://www.westutter.org/

Desalination is a critical tool for addressing water scarcity, yet conventional renewable-powered desalination systems rely heavily on energy storage, increasing cost and complexity. In this talk, our speakers will present a novel control strategy—flow-commanded current control—for enabling direct-drive photovoltaic electrodialysis (PV-ED) with little to no energy storage. Their approach maximizes real-time energy utilization, achieving high water production efficiency while reducing and eliminating the need for energy storage. Findings from a six-month field deployment of a fully autonomous, community-scale PV-ED system in New Mexico demonstrated 94% energy utilization while reducing energy storage requirements by over 99% compared to typical PV desalination systems. These results highlight the potential of PV-ED to provide cost-effective, decentralized water treatment for resource-constrained communities and its broader implications for sustainable desalination at scale.Jon Bessette is a PhD candidate within the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT. His research is focused on the development of desalination and water treatment systems for resource-constrained environments: from off-grid communities in India to agriculture in the Middle East. Bessette earned a BS from the SUNY University at Buffalo (2020) in mechanical engineering with a minor in studio art, and an MS (2022) from MIT in mechanical engineering. Bessette is a former Fulbright scholar (2017), Critical Language Scholar (2019), Marshall Scholar finalist (2020), and NSF GRFP recipient (2020). He received the International Desalination Association Innovation Award (2023) for his work in batteryless photovoltaic desalination, is a part of the inaugural Morningside Academy for Design at MIT (2022), and is a J-WAFS Rasikbhai L. Meswani Fellow for Water Solutions (2024). To learn more:Organizationshttps://gear.mit.edu - The Global Engineering & Research Centerhttps://kira.eco - A company spinout commercializing this workhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-024-00314-6 - The associated journal articlePresshttps://news.mit.edu/2024/solar-powered-desalination-system-requires-no-extra-batteries-1008 - MIT News Articlehttps://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/desalination-system-adjusts-itself-to-work-with-renewable-power/ - arstechnica articlePeoplehttps://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/awinter@mit.edu - Amos Winter faculty profilehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanbessette/ - connect with Jon here!https://mit-mad-ii-8mhpe.ondigitalocean.app/community/people/jonathan-bessette - Morningside Academy for Design profile for Jonhttps://jwafs.mit.edu/people/jonathan-bessette - J-WAFS profile for Jon

This talk will describe how the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT is creating technologies that are global by design. This entails spotting and quantifying meritorious problems, leveraging engineering science to create high-performance, low-cost solutions, and engaging a wide network of stakeholders that are positioned to catalyze adoption and dissemination.The following research projects will be highlighted: 1) Time-variant photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis (PV-ED) desalination systems that continually vary pumping and salt extraction power to match available solar power. Compared to industry standard grid-powered reverse osmosis, GEAR Center’s PV-ED systems are at price parity and reduce water wastage by 75%. 2) Ultra-low pressure, low-cost drip irrigation emitters that were realized by characterizing fluid-structure parametric design relationships. GEAR Center’s emitters cut pumping power by up to 69%, reduce the cost of solar-powered irrigation by up to 40%, and require 58% less plastic than current products. 3) High-performance, low-cost plastic prosthetic feet created by predictively and quantitatively connecting their mechanical design to biomechanical performance. GEAR Center’s feet facilitate near-able-bodied biomechanics and perform as well or better than industry-standard carbon fiber feet that cost up to 100X as much.Amos Winter is the Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT. His research focuses on machine and product design for developing and emerging markets. Prof. Winter earned a BS from Tufts University (2003) and an MS (2005) and PhD (2011) from MIT, all in mechanical engineering. He received the 2010 Tufts University Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2012 ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal, was named one of the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35) for 2013, and received the MIT Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award and an NSF CAREER award in 2017. Prof. Winter is the principal inventor of the Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) developing-world wheelchair, which was a winner of a 2010 R&D 100 award, was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s top innovations in 2011, received a Patents for Humanity award from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2015, and was the subject of “Engineering Reverse Innovations”, winner of the 2015 McKinsey Award for the best article of the year in Harvard Business Review. To learn more, go to:GEAR Center's website: https://www.gear.mit.edu/ GEAR Center's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitgearlab/?hl=en

This week is the first week of the Rotary year, and we'll hear from Rushton Hurley, the incoming president for '25-'26 and also the charter president from '15-'16.The program is about a third the length of our typical offerings, but Hurley hopes that the focus on what you experience in Rotary that is meaningful to you - your Rotary story - is one that makes you happier personally and more effective professionally. He also hopes you will share your story in the coming months with others wanting and/or needing opportunities to serve others.For the last two decades and change, Hurley has run Next Vista for Learning, a company focused on fostering and highlighting creative approaches to teaching and learning. He is also the Director of Innovation for Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo - both jobs he loves, and that he does better because of his experiences with Rotary.To learn more about the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, go to:https://rotary.cool

Sparked by an idea of a club member last year after a storm that knocked down a tree on almost every street, the Rotary Club of Natomas decided to assemble personal hygiene and outdoor survival items to be given to people in our neighborhood who were experiencing homelessness and living outdoors. Because of weather conditions, we wanted to put the items (52 total) into something that could withstand water and was versatile. We decided to use a bucket..and the Bucket of Hope was born! Our speaker, Pam Hunter, is the broker/owner of Adult Insurance Solutions, LLC, a boutique health insurance consulting agency specializing in Medicare-eligible individuals. The agency is now serving clients in thirteen states and is entering its 18th year. Pam’s only Rotarian regret is that she only joined in 2021 and not sooner. She currently serves as her club's president.To learn more, go to the Facebook page for the Rotary Club of Natomas: https://www.facebook.com/NatomasRotary/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/UZ7TZcjLhUk

Today, 343 million people are facing acute hunger—more than double the number from just a few years ago. This dramatic rise is driven by a combination of conflict, increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters, and a global cost-of-living crisis. In the face of these growing humanitarian challenges, the World Food Program is turning to innovation to maximize its impact and reach those most in need.Through the WFP Innovation Accelerator, WFP identifies, supports, and scales high-impact solutions that have the potential to disrupt hunger and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. In this talk, Bernhard Kowatsch will explore how innovation can play a transformative role in tackling global hunger and building a more food-secure future.Bernhard Kowatsch, is the Head of the United Nations (UN) World Food Program (WFP) Innovation Accelerator, which he created in 2015. The Accelerator sources, nurtures, and scales start-ups and nonprofits working to achieve Zero Hunger, and has run 22 accelerator programmes for external partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Humanitarian Grand Challenge, Adaptation Fund and other UN Agencies, with more planned.Prior to starting the Accelerator, Bernhard co-founded the award-winning ShareTheMeal app that crowdsources funding for WFP and has delivered over 264 million meals for hungry children worldwide. His previous experience includes creating WFP’s Business Innovation Unit and working as a Project Leader at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).To learn more, go to: https://innovation.wfp.org/

UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) has translated the science of a meaningful life to audiences around the world for over two decades, reaching a million people a month through its articles, podcast, and online tools. Today, GGSC is bringing that science directly to the workplace to address the challenges of the multitudes of people who suffer unnecessarily at work. You'll hear about why kind workplaces are more successful, how gratitude can be a game-changer at work, and how you can engage with GGSC to improve your own workplace.Our speaker, Kia Afcari, is the director of Greater Good Workplaces at GGSC. He has over twenty years of experience helping leaders, teams, and organizations with collaborative change and has served as a consultant to a wide variety of organizations, including tech, biotech, and fintech companies, health care organizations, universities, NGOs, UN agencies, and nonprofits. Kia grounds his work in the science of well-being, prosociality, and contemplative practices and uses creative methods like "instant dance parties" and Boal-informed theater techniques to achieve results. He is a certified executive coach, an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator, Zenger Folkman 360 Extraordinary Leader Facilitator, and Core Strengths Facilitator.Kia's TEDx talk on How We Can Reshape Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Together has over 77,000 views, and for his work supporting major culture change efforts at scale, Kia was awarded Chief Learning Officer Magazine's Silver Award for Innovation for his accomplishments in helping shift the organizational culture of UC Berkeley's 8,000 staff.To learn more:Why Kind Workplaces Are More Successful free webinar: https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/what_we_do/event/why_kind_workplaces_are_more_successful Bring a Greater Good speaker or workshop to your organization: https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/what_we_do/speaking To learn more about the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, go to:https://rotary.cool

The Rotarian eClub Fellowship is a springboard for eClubs and online Rotary clubs to connect, communicate and collaborate by sharing best practice and discussing ideas to develop Rotary in the future.Our speaker, Martin Brocklebank, introduces himself this way: I have been a Rotarian for too many years to count. Ten years ago I was instrumental in creating the third eClub in the UK. I have been a District Officer for Membership, Public Imager and Youth over a 12 year period - I now focus on the eClub of Innovation as secretary and the Rotarian eClub Fellowship as the chairman. I live with my wife Trish in Norwich just outside a National Heritage Parkland called the Norfolk Broads - which is a network of beautiful rivers and lakes.To learn more about the eClub Fellowship, go to:https://rotarianeclubfellowship.org

Heartbeats of Hope is the 2025 International Project for Interact District 5170, focused on making a meaningful impact in Vietnam. This year, Interact District 5170 is partnering with the VinaCapital Foundation’s Heartbeat Vietnam initiative to help provide life-saving heart surgeries for children born with congenital heart defects. High school students from Interact clubs across the San Francisco Bay Area are working together on fundraising efforts, to support medical treatment that can transform the lives of these young children. Through their collective efforts, these students are not only raising funds but also raising awareness about the critical need for healthcare access in underserved communities. By collaborating with Heartbeat Vietnam, Interact District 5170 hopes to bring hope and healing to children in need, creating a lasting impact in the lives of both the recipients and the students involved.Our speaker, Chloe Nguyen, is a graduating senior at Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy. She currently serves as the International Project Coordinator for Interact District 5170, collaborating with over 20 individuals as part of the Daydream District Council 2025. Chloe is the founder of the Heartbeats of Hope Initiative, which aims to bring positive humanitarian change through healthcare. With a deep passion for the medical field, she plans to pursue a career in nursing and eventually specialize as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA).To learn more about Heartbeats of Hope, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGyDqNupJ3w

This episode refers to a number of visuals that are in the video version which can be seen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3fbnO3K6fxKt9pfaTp8mYn or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/24FR5Knwvfs We believe the message is an important one, even if you do not watch the video, and hope that you will enjoy this and every episode of our series.Dr. Matthew O'Connor, was awarded his master’s degree in neuroscience from Northwestern Medical in 1999 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Baylor College of Medicine in 2005. His doctoral and postdoctoral research includes work at Baylor College of Medicine and UC Berkeley on telomeres and muscle stem cells in aging. He is the former VP of Research at SENS Research Foundation (now Lifespan Research Institute), where he oversaw a broad swath of research projects spanning many aspects of rejuvenation biotechnology, from which he authored many papers and patents. Dr. O'Connor co-founded Cyclarity Therapeutics in 2019 to develop drugs targeting molecular toxins that accumulate with age in various cells and tissues. Their first drug product targets oxidized cholesterol in cardiovascular disease.Cyclarity Therapeutics is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical startup committed to developing drugs to prevent and treat age-related diseases by addressing root causes - the buildup of toxic molecules that accumulate in the body over time. Their current target is atherosclerosis, the culprit behind most cardiovascular disease and stroke deaths worldwide. The company's first product, UDP-003, is a novel therapeutic which is able to bind and extract oxidized cholesterol from cells and tissues to restore their function. This therapeutic has the potential to not only prevent the accumulation of atherosclerotic plaque, but also to reduce plaque which has already accumulated - an ability never before achieved with drug treatment. It also has applications in a range of additional age-related conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, age-related macular degeneration, and liver disease. Cyclarity recently launched its first-in-human Phase 1 Clinical Trial in Australia.Cyclarity has also developed a computational platform for the design of specialized molecules to bind any target of interest. This platform was used to design UDP-003. The company incorporates AI and ML with the goal of automating the process of designing molecules for a range of uses, including anesthesia reversal in surgery, nanoplastic removal, and nutritional modifications for food products. The goal is to use this technology to design molecules to help people across various industries, from medicine to food to the environment, and beyond.To learn more, go to: https://cyclaritytx.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyclarity/https://m.facebook.com/Cyclarity/

This episode refers to a number of visuals that are in the video version which can be seen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3fbnO3K6fxKt9pfaTp8mYn or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ml1lSxKQix8When we look to science fiction, there are many examples of impossibly smart materials. The T-1000 from Terminator 2 comes to mind, being able to have a body that can heal and reshape at will. Or, much friendlier, the "nanobots" from Big Hero 6, a large collective of small robots that can create any shape at will.In real life, embryonic tissue is the closest thing to these fantastical materials. It can change its shape, create complex structures, and even change its internal strength, able to melt and flow like a liquid. In a collaboration of roboticists and embryo physicists, the speaker and his co-authors made a collective of robots that embeds these principles, hopefully representing the first step toward uncovering the physics that could govern these sci-fi robotic materials.Our speaker, Dr Matthew Devlin, is a mechanical engineer from UC Santa Barbara who has recently published a paper called "Material-like robotic collectives with spatiotemporal control of strength and shape" in the journal Science. A small team made up of robotics engineers and embryo physicists were able to distill some of the key principles of embryonic tissue and demonstrate them in robots. He believes it is a key piece of the puzzle for a Big Hero 6 or Terminator-like robotic material.To learn more, go to this paper published in the Journal Science:https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads7942 A news article written by UCSB giving a high-level explanation:https://news.ucsb.edu/2025/021769/how-get-robot-collective-act-smart-material

The Philosophy and Literature Circle provides learning opportunities for scholars incarcerated in prisons and jails in South-Central Texas to engage with and create works of literature and philosophy. The program draws on the strengths of humanistic inquiry and engagement to redress the isolation and exclusion central to U.S. punishment cultures. The mission of the Circle is to cultivate collaborative learning communities so that people in prison and beyond can thrive and build trust across divides. The vision of the Circle is to foster a world filled with thriving communities of trust and accountability that embody commitments to justice, peace, and freedom. Program content and structure seek to bring such a world about through critical, compassionate, and creative engagement with texts, ourselves, one another, and our worlds.Our speaker, Judith Norman, has been engaged with community organizing for 20 years. She has worked with movements for economic justice, anti-militarization, educational justice, and the liberation of Palestine as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. In 2020 she helped start the Philosophy and Literature Circle at the Torres Unit, a learning circle that brings undergraduate students together with incarcerated scholars to read, write, and discuss works of philosophy and literature.Judith is a Murchison Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Trinity University. Her research focuses on the history of philosophy, and German philosophy in particular, and she has published numerous articles on the subject. She has translated the works of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and teaches classes in the history of philosophy as well as indigenous philosophy and the philosophy of art.To make a donation to the Classroom on the Inside program (UTSA): https://giving.utsa.edu/thecircle To learn more, go to: https://www.trinity.edu/news/classroom-insideTo read Mary Oliver's Wild Geese: https://www.empoweredstl.org/courageinactionblog/k8yuhtr76c6s58w3368kamhw0mxit2The Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network and the words we use: https://ficgn.org/our-pledge

A little over seven years ago, we had a program from this week's speaker that is one of the most-watched programs our club has shared with the world. It's focused on the fascinating topic of tiny homes.Today we'll have a chat about how Ariel's life has grown and changed since the last program with our club. Was living in a tiny house the right decision for her circumstances? What is she doing now? How many of the things she was doing then have stayed the same? What has changed over the years? Are there choices she regrets or would do differently in hindsight? How has she worked to make her housing choices fit pursuing what is important to her larger life goals?Our speaker is Ariel McGlothin. Ariel, along with her husband Clay, their dogs, cats, bees, and poultry, strive to live a simple and regenerative life in the mountains of western Wyoming on their little homestead. They collect and split wood for heating, gravity feed water from a natural spring, use a composting toilet, do laundry by hand and dry it with the latest in solar & wind technology, store some crops in a root cellar, can/ferment/dehydrate/freeze others, and attempt to grow, hunt, or forage as much of their own food as possible between the weather and wildlife. Ariel loves to share the skills she has learned with others. She tries to share real life around their place. The good and the bad. The ups and the downs. What works, and what doesn't. The parts she loves (most of it!), and the things she doesn't. Not just the romantic idea of "homesteading" or a more self-sufficient life, but the everyday details of this lifestyle. She hopes to help others learn from her mistakes and make life just a little easier for anyone else interested in pursuing a similar lifestyle. They live in a somewhat harsh and cold climate at a little over 6000 feet above sea level tucked into the mountains, but enjoy the stunning scenery and wildlife that they are surrounded by on a daily basis. When not busy in the garden, taking care of the animals, or cooking something, Ariel really enjoys spending time reading, hiking, and photographing the natural world around her. Find Ariel, wildlife & nature photography at any of these spots:https://arielcelestephotography.zenfolio.com https://youtube.com/fynyth https://odysee.com/@FyNyth:d https://rumble.com/c/c-5592588 Lots of info from my first years in the tiny house:https://fynyth.blogspot.com