News

Democracy and technology

February 10, 2018

This past February, the University of California Irvine's Forum for the Academy and the Public hosted a symposium called, "Who Do We Think We Are? American Identity and the Ideal of Democracy in the 21st Century." I was invited to speak on a panel on "Democracy and Technology", and it's now online and linked above. I took the opportunity to talk about infrastructure and other systems, building on what I wrote in this piece for the Atlantic in 2017.

#democracy #technology #culture #techculture

To reduce gender biases, acknowledge them

August 22, 2017

I was asked by the journal Nature to write an editorial on how gender bias shapes the way we see the world, often unknowingly, and what we can do about it.

But there is a third argument that I make for people with scientific and technical backgrounds: if you value rationality and objectivity, you need to engage with gender bias. That’s because bias is part of us: we live in a world steeped in conventional gender roles. To borrow a metaphor from computing, biases have root privileges in our brains.

#gender #science #writing

CEEA keynote: "Towards Innovative Engineering Education"

July 20, 2017

Last summer, I was invited to give the opening keynote of the 2017 Canadian Engineering Education Association Conference, which was held at my alma mater, the University of Toronto. It was a genuine honor to be asked to speak there, and enjoyable to be back on campus after so many years away, seeing both what was new and what was unchanged. Here's my abstract of the talk:

Innovation doesn’t exist for its own sake; the value of innovation is that addresses needs that are previously unrecognized or unmet, sometimes with emergent technology. The way we teach engineering has deep historical roots, and is shaped by culture, experience and technology (some of which we no longer even immediately recognize as technology): from the founding of the first universities a thousand years ago, to the Cold War, to how Tetris and Minecraft embody different kinds of learning behaviour. But there are also clear unmet needs, including inclusivity, motivation, and preparing our students for a professional life that’s very different from previous generations. In this wide-ranging talk, I’ll discuss how we think about learning engineering, rooting it in concepts drawn from educational psychology (including motivation and self-efficacy), and from research in new approaches to engineering education (such as the role of hands-on and project-based learning), with the goal of using this deeper understanding to both create innovative learning experiences for our students and to better equip them to foster innovation themselves.

Also, I tend to talk fast at the best of times but I seem to be especially mile-a-minute in this talk—my apology to all the non-native English speakers. I'm going to try to pull together a transcript as well.

#engineering #education #innovation #speaking

Malice and neglect

July 12, 2017

My friend Natalie Kane quoted me on stage last year: "Any sufficiently advanced neglect [or negligence] is indistinguishable from malice." I'm regularly saddened by how apropos this quote is. Photo by Andrew Sempere.

#culture #technology #ArthurCClarke #quote

Architectural biology and biological architectures

June 27, 2017

Eyeo 2017 - Deb Chachra from Eyeo Festival // INSTINT on Vimeo.

I was delighted to be invited to speak at the brilliant Eyeo Festival in Minneapolis this year. I gave a talk about the last two hundred or so years, and the next fifty or so years of engineering structures, in which I argue that increasing computational power, embedded sensors, and the ability to carry out fabrication in situ means that architecture is approaching the geometries and responsiveness to mechanical force of tissues in organisms. And yes, I was indeed delighted at the chance to spend fifteen minutes explaining bone biology to a roomful of designers.

#speaking #design #technology #engineering #biology #materials

Clock time vs. calendar time

June 8, 2017

Sit ex aut quam magnam qui. Corporis placeat voluptas dolor deleniti non quibusdam ut in. Libero vel dolores quibusdam velit maxime voluptatem. Omnis sit fuga nam ea. Et aspernatur autem enim labore voluptatum aperiam. Recusandae non atque nemo est alias.

Esse cum asperiores aut facilis dignissimos et aspernatur. Qui labore et esse. Eum consequuntur iusto expedita.

Hic rem ut in ut eum vitae. Praesentium incidunt eum dicta possimus labore magnam et praesentium. Veniam nobis itaque reprehenderit vero error. Sunt consequuntur non dicta vitae ut nihil et perferendis.

Quibusdam quas ut enim et quidem velit rerum. Exercitationem sed aliquam ducimus sint quaerat unde. Et iure at eos labore. Repellendus incidunt corporis reprehenderit est nemo qui. Et aut odio recusandae deleniti animi ut.

Et quibusdam ut architecto velit qui. Corporis sunt eligendi labore. Perferendis sint dolores in ipsam ea. Vitae eos nihil perferendis iste a autem id. Rerum fugiat quod esse nobis ad nulla vel rerum.

Sit ex aut quam magnam qui. Corporis placeat voluptas dolor deleniti non quibusdam ut in. Libero vel dolores quibusdam velit maxime voluptatem. Omnis sit fuga nam ea. Et aspernatur autem enim labore voluptatum aperiam. Recusandae non atque nemo est alias.

Esse cum asperiores aut facilis dignissimos et aspernatur. Qui labore et esse. Eum consequuntur iusto expedita.

Hic rem ut in ut eum vitae. Praesentium incidunt eum dicta possimus labore magnam et praesentium. Veniam nobis itaque reprehenderit vero error. Sunt consequuntur non dicta vitae ut nihil et perferendis.

Quibusdam quas ut enim et quidem velit rerum. Exercitationem sed aliquam ducimus sint quaerat unde. Et iure at eos labore. Repellendus incidunt corporis reprehenderit est nemo qui. Et aut odio recusandae deleniti animi ut.

Et quibusdam ut architecto velit qui. Corporis sunt eligendi labore. Perferendis sint dolores in ipsam ea. Vitae eos nihil perferendis iste a autem id. Rerum fugiat quod esse nobis ad nulla vel rerum.

#time

The systems that underpin the modern world

May 18, 2017

I was invited by The Atlantic to contribute a piece to their series, "Can Technology Rescue Democracy?" I decided to write about infrastructure and our large-scale systems, like the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Aviation Authority, GPS, and more.

When we think about caring for our neighbors, we think about local churches, and charities—systems embedded in our communities. But I see these technological systems as one of the main ways that we take care of each other at scale. It’s how Americans care for all three hundred million of our neighbors, rich or poor, spread over four million square miles, embedded in global supply chains.

Gratitude for Invisible Systems

#technology #culture #writing #infrastructure #systems

“Making Makers”: my talk at Design Week Portland

May 18, 2017

In April 2016 I gave a talk as part of Design Week Portland, which focused on making and education. In it, I describe how making is an important part of education not because students make things, but because the way we teach making in classrooms fosters motivation and engagement, and I argue that we should extend these pedagogical approaches across the curriculum.

Watch talk

#speaking #engineering #education #making

I wrote an editorial for *Bitch Planet*!

January 6, 2016

One of my favorite comic book series is Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro's Bitch Planet, about a future where 'non-compliant' women are sent to the eponymous prison planet. The back of the comic is a community pace that includes editorials, artist profiles, letters, and more. I was so honored to be able to write an editorial for it, "Countering the Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Gender Schemas," in which I talked about Virginia Valian's work on how we have mental models of men and women, and how even small gender biases can have a significant cumulative effect:

And the effects of these tiny, unconscious assumptions are cumulative. Because being professionally competent is not part of the gender schema for women, they're less likely to be listened to, to be given responsibility, and to have their successes recognized as a result of their own ability. Men (who are presumed to be professionally competent) are more likely to be given responsibility, which means more chances to prove themselves, which means they are more likely to be promoted--and the cycle continues.

Read the whole editorial here. [PDF]

More about Bitch Planet.

#gender #bitchplanet #writing

Interview for PBS's "America Reframed"

June 1, 2015

http://worldchannel.org/programs/episode/arf-s3-e322-if-you-build-it/