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Taking advantage of the ‘innovative’ years

news@neu.edu (Greg St. Martin) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

At a talk on campus Wednesday night, consumer advocate Ralph Nader urged students to become more civically engaged. Photo by Gustav Hoiland.

During his lecture on campus Wednesday night, consumer crusader and environmentalist Ralph Nader asked audience members to raise their hand if they regularly see television commercials for new cars. Then he asked how many have seen one commercial for public transportation. Not nearly as many hands shot up.

The exercise highlighted two of Nader’s core themes throughout the evening: the corporate power in American society today and his plea for students to become more civically engaged on issues that benefit both society and the environment.

“[This] is the most innovative decade of your lives,” Nader told several hundred people who packed the Blackman Auditorium on Wednesday night, many of whom were students. “You will never be as imaginative, as pioneering as you will be in your 20s.”

The Husky Environmental Action Committee (HEAT) — a Northeastern student group focused on environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality — sponsored the event.

Throughout his career, Nader has launched presidential campaigns and played a crucial role in the creation of numerous consumer protection laws and the establishment of organizations such as the Public Interest Research Group. His latest book is entitled “Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism.”

During his lecture, he decried the corporate influence on society.

He also noted the story of Ray Anderson, the founder of the carpet manufacturing company Interface. In 1994, Anderson, who died last year, made a conscious effort to reduce his company’s carbon footprint while still turning a profit.

Nader called him “one of the greatest corporate executives in American history,” but lamented the fact that his eco-friendly approach has not caught on in corporate America.

On the other hand, environmental action on college campuses is stronger than ever, noted Nader, who hailed HEAT and other student groups for promoting recycling and energy efficiency.

He noted, however, that college students of past generations had “more fire in their belly” than those today.

Nader encouraged students to use new technology to make a difference in their communities and take a stand on issues of national and global significance.

He even urged students to head into their co-op experiences armed with the confidence and ambition to bring their own ideas to the table.

Students, he said, should not let the negative rhetoric of political campaigns turn off their passion for politics.” The more you’ve turned off politics, the more politics will turn on you,” he said.

Dissecting drowned drumlin fields

news@neu.edu (Angela Herring) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Earth and environmental sciences associate professor Peter Rosen said Boston Harbor is home to the nation’s only “drowned drumlin field,” a group of elongated hills formed under glacial ice.

He addressed roughly 100 students, faculty, staff and community members at the Marine Science Center (MSC) in Nahant on Wednesday as part of a monthly lecture series on topics ranging from the evolution of Boston Harbor to the seaweed habitats of marine animals.

Rosen — whose research examines eons of geological history, which can yield insights about the earth’s future — said about 200 drumlins pepper Metro West Massachusetts, “but what we see on land,” he noted “is a small fraction of the drumlin field that once existed.”

Typically, drumlins are up to two kilometers in length, 300 to 600 meters wide and less than 50 meters in height, with a characteristic shape — one steep side with a more gradual side opposite. Most drumlins, said Rosen, are now submerged offshore, drowned by rising sea levels caused by global warming.

Fourteen thousand years ago the “Laurentide Ice Sheet” (the glacier that covered this region) began melting in the Boston area, Rosen said. This caused massive amounts of sediment-laden water to flow into the harbor basin and raise the sea level about 100 feet higher than it is today, The sediment, called “Boston Blue Clay,” settled like a blanket over most of the glacial deposits.

The rise in sea level, Rosen said, was followed by a rapid decrease once the glacier melted: the land beneath it began to rebound upward, no longer compressed by the weight of the ice.

Some 12,000 years ago, sea level had reached its lowest point; continual melting of the glacier (now the Polar ice) gradually filled Boston Harbor with water, isolating many drumlins as islands.

Rosen said this more recent sea-level rise, at about 3mm a century, actually represents the slowest ascent in history. A comprehensive satellite study issued yesterday reports that the global sea-level increase was 12mm in the years between 2003 and 2010.

“How do we know about the early higher levels of the ocean?” Rosen asked. Answering his own question, he said: “From the Boston Blue Clay.”

Studies, he said, have turned up marine microfossils in the clay as far inland as Watertown, which is about 8 miles from the shoreline. These findings, Rosen said, indicate the presence of salt water — and thus a higher sea level — about 14, 000 years ago.

Rosen said the gradual rise in sea level can also be determined with the help of Boston Blue Clay. His team, for example, takes cores of the earth beneath salt marshes, which tend to grow at sea level. A chemical analysis called carbon dating can indicate how long ago that clay was at the surface.

“The impact of rising sea levels includes loss of land due to shore erosion, as well as an increase in the frequency and magnitude of coastal flooding,” Rosen explained. “This is especially important in low-lying areas such as Boston, where the land is mostly artificial fill just a few feet above sea level.”

Student experience attracts employers to career fair

news@neu.edu (Matt Collette) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Recruiter Lauren Matthews, a 2006 Northeastern graduate, speaks with senior economics major Dashawn Bristol at Wednesday's Spring Career Fair. Photo by Mike Mazzanti.

Senior economics major Dashawn Bristol did his homework in preparation for Northeastern’s Spring Career Fair, which attracted thousands of students and more than 150 employers to Cabot Cage on Wednesday.

“I did research in advance and identified 10 companies I knew I wanted to talk to,” Bristol said in between interviews at the career fair, which was sponsored by the university’s career services office. “I’ve had some great conversations that seem promising and now I’m talking to companies I may not have considered before learning about all the options here.”

Like many Northeastern students on the cusp of graduation, Bristol noted the importance of finding a perfect professional match. As he put it, “You want to find something you like, not just something you have to jump for because you have no other choice.”

Employers at the fair praised Northeastern’s co-op program for preparing students for the working world and giving them an advantage over their peers when it comes to snagging top job choices.

“We’re a very driven company and we’re growing quickly, so we’re looking for managers who can run their own team in a few months and their own office in just a few years,” said MJ Paradiso, BA’10, a sales manager for the Boston branch of Meltwater, an international company that develops software for businesses. “Co-op gives a great boost to any potential employee, so we’re always looking for people with the right experience.”

Lauren Matthews, AS’06, an on-site human resources representative at Staples, said Northeastern students often fit the bill for positions she is trying to fill.

“I work a lot with recent college graduates and I look for someone who is eager, can thrive in stressful situations and is definitely eager to learn,” Matthews said. “Northeastern is a great place to find someone like that.”

Some students at the career fair, such as freshman engineering management major Neha Panchdhar, sought out co-op or internship opportunities.

“We have summers, we have free time, we have co-op,” she said. “Why not start looking now for a great experience?”

Documentary speaks for silenced refugees

news@neu.edu (Matt Collette) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Law student Jawaid Stationwala made a documentary about a poor but vibrant culture in Bangladesh, which he began filming as a 2008 Fulbright scholar. Photo courtesty Jawaid Stationwala.

The subjects in Jawaid Stationwala’s documentary are unimaginably poor. But the film isn’t about their poverty, says the third-year Northeastern University law student.

“That may be the backdrop of this film, but it’s not the focus,” Stationwala explains.

Instead, the documentary “Ma Ki Zaban” — or “Mother Tongue” — highlights the art, language and cultural identity of some 250,000 Urdu-speaking refugees who were stranded in camps the size of prison cells in Dhaka, Bangladesh shortly after the 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation War.

The broader goal of the film, Stationwala said, was to raise awareness of a population with a distinct, but unheard, voice.

“The people I’m working with are indigent, poor and — in the most extreme sense — have no access to even the most basic rights,” Stationwala says, adding that the Dhaka refugees have only recently been granted citizenship in their own country.

“The idea was to produce a documentary that was something near and dear to their hearts — their language and the beauty that comes out of it — and draw some attention to their culture as a whole.”

The seeds of the documentary were planted more than three years ago. As a 2008 Fulbright scholar, Stationwala visited Bangladesh to collect data on the Urdu-speaking refugees in order to build a community-health profile.

One of the filmmaker’s subjects is a young Bihari poet named Hasan, whose plight helped tell a story of poverty, rife with health and educational disparities. “He had every excuse in the world to not turn out well, and somehow he came out to be this phenomenal person," Stationwala says.

Stationwala, a Public Interest Law Scholar, will graduate with his degree in the spring. He plans to apply to become a public defender, with the goal of helping indigent people charged in criminal cases.

The Northeastern Law Forum, which sponsors events and discussions on contemporary legal issues, will screen “Ma Ki Zaban” on Monday, Feb. 13 at noon in 240 Dockser Hall.

With Northeastern support, Whittier Street Health Center finds new home

news@neu.edu (Jason Kornwitz) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

President Joseph E. Aoun (left) greets Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick at the grand opening of the new Whittier Street Health Center facility on Monday afternoon. Photo by Mike Mazzanti.

Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were among roughly 150 members of the community to celebrate the grand opening of the new Whittier Street Health Center facility on Monday afternoon.

The new site is located at 1290 Tremont St. in Roxbury, about a quarter mile from its previous Renaissance Park address.

Prior to a ribbon cutting ceremony, Aoun highlighted the university's commitment to the health center, a co-op employer whose staff includes Michelle Jacobs, an assistant clinical professor in the School of Pharmacy. "We need you more than you need us," he said. "For students to understand the world, they must be engaged in the world."

The clinic cares for some 19,000 patients each year, many of whom suffer from diabetes, hypertension, HIV/AIDS, cancer, obesity and mental illness, said Frederica Williams, the president and CEO of the Whittier Street Health Center. "It's important for us to have this beautiful medical home to address the social determinants of health," she said. "This is the beginning of a legacy in healing and transforming lives."

The clinical services offered to patients at the Whittier Street Health Center rival those offered at larger hospitals in the city, Menino said. The health center, he added, will serve as an "oasis for folks who need the most help."

Mary Wakefield, who was named administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration by President Barack Obama in February 2009, said that the Whittier Street Health Center received $12 million in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, which she called an "investment in the economy and the health of people who live and work here."

Donna Matthews, a Whittier patient who suffered a stroke last April, praised the health center for its dedication to quality care. "I feel a sense of peace here," she said. "It is a lifeline for a lot of the issues I suffer from."

Whittier is an important cog in the wheel of the state's health-care system, in which 90 percent of patients have a primary-care physician, said Patrick, adding that he supports "investing in the spirit of universal health care in Massachusetts."

Patients in Massachusetts, he said, "don't have to worry about going bankrupt if they get sick."

Northeastern pushing forward on new campus space plan

news@neu.edu (None) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ralph Martin discusses the Master Plan process with the Faculty Senate on Wednesday. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill.

Just as the most recent phase of development at Northeastern — spanning the past 10 or 15 years — focused largely on residence halls and student life, the next phase will focus largely on growing needs for new and renovated academic spaces on campus. The plan also focuses on matters such as housing and enhancing the student experience.

By the end of 2012, Northeastern plans to submit to the city of Boston its Institutional Master Plan that outlines its broad plans for development over the next decade, a process that involves talks with the Northeastern community and surrounding neighborhoods, said Ralph Martin, senior vice president and general counsel, at Wednesday’s Faculty Senate meeting. Martin is leading the university’s Master Plan effort.

Since the Master Plan process started last year, students, faculty and administrators have helped shape areas of focus. Those include the idea of a “classroom of tomorrow,” improvements for using campus space and how to take advantage of “campus spines” like Huntington and Columbus avenues, which tie Northeastern to Boston at large, said Patrick Tedesco, a principal at Chan Krieger NBBJ, a firm contracted to assist with the planning process.

The Master Plan will take a broad look at how Northeastern’s infrastructure can help achieve over-arching goals, including excellence in the university’s research themes of sustainability, health and security.

“We’re not just looking at buildings and grounds, but how best we can use them to achieve the university’s aspirations,” Tedesco said.

One idea under consideration is to group academic disciplines together; Tedesco showed a hypothetical configuration creating a science quad east of the Curry Student Center and an engineering quad clustered around Snell Engineering.

Another challenge would be to better connect the sections of campus located on the opposite side of the MBTA’s Orange Line, which are currently linked by a few overpasses and Ruggles Station.

Despite Northeastern’s limited options for further expansion, one option the Master Plan will likely explore is vertical space. “We should consider whether the two- and three-story buildings on campus are the best utilization of land,” Tedesco said.

The Master Plan process will continue through December, with Northeastern officials currently looking for input on “broad thoughts on how to capture opportunities for the future,” said Senate Agenda Committee chair Louis Kruger, an associate professor of counseling and applied psychology.

Ideas or suggestions for the Master Plan can be submitted via email to masterplan@neu.edu.

At the edge of a cliff, health care must evolve quickly

news@neu.edu (Matt Collette) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Dr. Donald Berwick (right), the country’s former Medicare and Medicaid administrator, speaks with Northeastern University student Kayla DeVincentis prior to his lecture Tuesday, part of the Healthcare Improvement Leadership Seminar Series. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill.

To reverse America’s unsustainable health-care costs, Congress must adopt more refined, nimble strategies and get tough in the face of those pushing to keep the status quo, according to Dr. Donald M. Berwick, a leader in the fight to improve medical care and wellness in the United States.

“Policymakers are dealing with health care with very thick mittens on, so we need new leaders with new ideas, skills and voices,” Berwick said on Tuesday at the quarterly Healthcare Improvement Leadership Seminar Series held in Blackman Auditorium. The event was sponsored by Northeastern’s Healthcare Systems Engineering Program.

Berwick, the country’s former Medicare and Medicaid administrator, said that when Congress does act, it often does so at the expense of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable.

“It is inevitable, in my view, that the safety net for the poor will be under siege,” he said. “The poor don’t vote and they don’t have lobbyists, so they don’t have a say in this.”

To prevent changes that hurt rather than improve health care in America, students and professionals in the fields of health care and systems engineering need to speak out and offer new, bold and innovative solutions, he said.

“All I can say is that your voices help. In Washington, the squeaky wheels get the grease — and we need a lot of new wheels.”

Berwick’s lecture, delivered to a wide audience of students and professionals in health and engineering fields from across the Boston area, stressed the need for broad changes in health care to improve six areas of the health-care field: safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency and equity. President Obama’s signature health-care law, the Affordable Care Act, helps to accomplish those goals, he said, by creating new tools to provide better care in those areas.

“We’re at a very historic time in the progress of health care in our nation,” Berwick said. “We’re on the path at last — and last among Western democracies — of making health care a human right.”

James Benneyan, a professor of industrial engineering and director of the Healthcare Systems Engineering Program, said Berwick was a powerful speaker about the ability of the local medical community — among the nation’s top regions for health care — to take on a national set of issues.

“This isn’t an engineering program, it’s not a public health problem, it’s not a nursing problem,” Benneyan said. “This is all of our problem, and we’ve got to work together to create broad solutions.”

The Healthcare Systems Engineering Program works to have a broad impact on the nation’s health-care system through research, education and application of engineering improvement sciences.

3Qs: Forecasting 2012 for the BRIC nations

news@neu.edu (Kara Shemin) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

In 2001, Goldman Sachs grouped the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — into that acronym because they were at a similar stage of economic development. On Tuesday, the American multinational news corporation Bloomberg named China as the only BRIC nation ranked among all top global emerging markets. We asked Ravi Ramamurti, Distinguished Professor of International Business and director of the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern, to identify what’s next for these four countries, how they’ve made a global impact and which BRIC nation to look out for in 2012.

Are these countries' economies still comparable to one another? As their economies continue to develop, will a new "Big Four" emerge to replace them?

Goldman Sachs clumped the BRIC countries together for only one reason — they were the four largest emerging economies, and by 2050 they would be among the world’s six largest economies (G6), leaping ahead of France, Germany, Italy and the UK. That aside, the BRICs are a pretty heterogeneous bunch. For instance, Brazil and Russia are eight times as rich as India. China and India each have a population that is more than six times that of Brazil or Russia. China’s GDP is greater than that of the other three BRICs combined. Russia’s growth is driven by the export of natural resources, while China and India depend heavily on imported natural resources, and so on.

By 2012, only China had actually made it to the G6; indeed, last year it overtook Japan for the number two spot and is projected by 2025 to overtake the United States for the top spot. Brazil may break into the G6 in the next two to three years, India in about a decade and Russia thereafter. Russia is most susceptible to getting knocked off the G6, because its population is projected to fall by 30 percent over the next few decades. If that happens, the country most likely to replace Russia is Mexico, Indonesia or Turkey.

How have the BRIC countries become prominent players in the global marketplace? What opportunities do they offer to global companies? What obstacles must these countries overcome to flourish?

The BRICs are in the news because they are growing at 6 to 10 percent per year, compared to the 1 to 3 percent rate of Europe, Japan and the U.S. They now account for two-thirds of world growth and have become the world’s growth engines. Together, the BRICs have 3 billion people, which makes for a lot of new customers for U.S. firms and a large new pool of talent.

Emerging economies are also spurring new kinds of innovation, particularly in making products incredibly cheap and simple to use. But every BRIC country has its Achilles’ heel. China’s big vulnerability is its political system, based on one-party rule. India’s includes its poor infrastructure and tension with neighbors. Brazil suffers from very high inequality of income, and Russia from weak institutions and an overdependence on natural resources. In other words, the BRICs will thrive, but it won’t be smooth sailing all the way.

Which BRIC nation should we watch most closely in 2012?

Growth has slowed in every one of the BRICs, following financial crises in the U.S. and Europe. Getting back to the pre-2008 rates of growth will not be easy, not the least because of political distractions, such as the upcoming presidential election in Russia, or the corruption scandals in India. But the country to watch in 2012 is China, because it has to make at least three important transitions this year. It has to change its strategy from export-driven growth to domestically driven growth. It has to find a way to placate a restive population looking for greater freedoms and transparency. And, most important, it has to make the decennial transition of power, from President Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping. Unless all these transitions occur smoothly, China could be in uncharted waters.

‘Radium Girls’ gives old issues new light

news@neu.edu (Matt Collette) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Theatre students rehearse ahead of the opening of "Radium Girls," which starts this week at Northeastern. Photo by Gustav Hoiland.

In the 1920s, a new, luminous element used in everything from makeup to medical treatments caught the world’s attention.

“It was in everything because it was this new miracle cure,” said Wanda Strukus, a lecturer in Northeastern’s theatre department in the College of Arts, Media and Design. “There was no scientific proof it did anything for you, but the world went wild with radium.”

In one factory, young girls applied radium-based paint to the hands and faces of wristwatches. To accomplish such a precise task, the factory girls would lick the tips of their paintbrushes to achieve a perfect point.

“They were eating radium paint without knowing the dangers it posed,” said Strukus, director of an upcoming student production of “Radium Girls,” which opens on Thursday at Northeastern’s Studio Theatre.

At the same time, top scientists and company managers did all they could to avoid contact with radium. That disparity sparked one of the nation’s first court verdicts establishing occupational health and workplace safety laws.

The events of the play, set in 1927, mirror the modern-day world, when issues involving working conditions in the Chinese plants that make Apple products dominate the headlines.

“By doing this play today, we’re suggesting we still think it’s relevant,” Strukus said.

A panel discussion with health, law and journalism faculty addressing issues raised by the play — including legal, media and public health history in the United States — will be held following the Feb. 12 performance of “Radium Girls,” a 2 p.m. matinee.

The first student play of the spring semester is performed in what theatre faculty refer to as the “fast and furious” show, with just over a month to prepare for the performance.

“We like to do this because it gives our students more of a sense of the real world, when you don’t have as much time to put on a show,” Strukus said. “They have three days, not three weeks, to learn their lines.”

Many of the actors and actresses also play multiple roles, a theatrical device that leads audience members to draw comparisons between seemingly different roles.

“When you have the same actor playing the unethical lawyer [and] an ethical scientist, you start to see that there are connections between people, that these people are not just one thing or another,” Strukus said. “It’s a very fine line, maybe, that two people can have the same intentions, but one will use it for evil while the other for good.”

“Radium Girls” will be performed at 8 p.m. on Feb. 9 – 11 and Feb. 14 – 16 and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 12. Tickets are $12 for Tuesday and Wednesday’s performances and $15 on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday’s performance. Tickets are available at the Ell Hall box office or at neu.universitytickets.com.

Charting the new course of science mapping

news@neu.edu (Angela Herring) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

"Places & Spaces: Mapping Science" uses maps and globes to give meaning to scientific data. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill.

The 1736 “New Map of the Whole World,” created by Dutch cartographer Herman Moll, represents California as an island and outlines only a portion of Australia (then called New Holland), the southeastern corner of the continent drifting like a wayward castaway in the middle of the Pacific.

In a recent Meet the Authors talk in Snell Library, Katy Börner — author of “Atlas of Science: Visualizing What We Know” — said, “The first maps of the planet were not perfectly correct … I would argue we are in the same state of the art in the mapping of science.”

She noted that the visual language used by cartographers in the early days of geographical mapmaking were not yet fully developed nor standardized. Today, science mapmakers are treading similarly uncharted waters as they work to define what it means to visualize science.

As Universities Libraries Dean Will Wakeling said, Meet the Authors events “act as a stimulation for conversation across campus.” This talk was no exception: Börner curates a traveling exhibit called “Places and Spaces: Mapping Science,” which attempts to make science mapping accessible to the general public. The exhibit arrived on campus last week, and Wakeling called it “the essential complement to the book.”

There will be an opening reception for the exhibit this afternoon at 4:30pm in Snell 421. Additionally, the Library is developing a series of related programs and events, including a "do-it-yourself-science-map" workshop.

Historians and scientists have used diagrams and other visual elements to illuminate the interconnectedness of research and data for nearly a century, but science mapping is only now emerging as an autonomous field as data generation rises exponentially and computer technologies capable of analyzing all of it are developed.

The exhibit, a series of science maps and globes on display in Snell Library, Gallery 360 and International Village through the end of March, presents maps and globes created by artists and scientists alike. Among them are Northeastern professors Alessandro Vespignani and Albert-László Barabási and research scientist Maximilian Schich, who works with Barabási in the Center for Complex Network Research; Schich will give a short discussion of his mapmaking work at today’s event.

“Places & Spaces” maps range from an artful model depicting the distribution of patents across the globe to a scatter plot of the various scientific research disciplines and how they interact with each other based on paper citations.

As David Lazer of the College of Computer and Information Science and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities said in his introduction to Börner’s lecture, science mapmaking is “a remarkably beautiful way of illuminating heretofore invisible processes.”