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Missy Cummings

Missy Cummings, one of the country’s first female fighter pilots and director of Mason’s Center for Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Translational AI, calls herself a tech futurist, charged with making tech work better and safer. In a conversation with Mason President Gregory Washington, Cummings is unflinching in her critique of AI’s strengths, weaknesses, and shortcomings, as well as that of humans. There is a lot to like about AI, Cummings says, but she calls out bad tech where she sees it, including in the vision systems of self-driving cars and Tesla’s Autopilot.

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Podcast Episode

podcast

College of Engineering and Computing

Artificial Intelligence

Volgenau School of Engineering

School of Computing

robotics and autonomous systems

Center for Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Translational AI

Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center

Podcast - EP 43: Are the midterm elections the most consequential of our time?

Damian Cristodero — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:32:21 +0000

Podcast - EP 43: Are the midterm elections the most consequential of our time? Damian Cristodero Tue, 10/18/2022 - 11:32

In This Story

Jennifer N. Victor

Are the midterm elections the most consequential of our time? Jennifer Victor, associate professor of political science in Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, and Mason president Gregory Washington wrestle with that, and you might be surprised at the answer. Want more surprises? Then hear why high voter turnout could be a double-edged sword for our democracy and how the parties misread the electorate. And just what is “thermostatic politics?”

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Podcast - EP 37: On Ukraine, Russia, China, and a very messy world

Damian Cristodero — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:11:20 +0000

Podcast - EP 37: On Ukraine, Russia, China, and a very messy world Damian Cristodero Tue, 03/15/2022 - 10:11

In This Story

Larry Pfeiffer, director of ��AV’s Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, explains to Mason President Gregory Washington about Vladimir Putin’s real agenda in Ukraine. He explains why the war in Ukraine matters to the United States even though the U.S.’s long-term geopolitical, economic and technological challenge is from China. Pfeiffer also asks Americans to guard against autocracy at home because, as he said, it doesn’t take much for a country’s values to be subverted and freedoms suppressed.

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Podcast Episode

Podcast - EP36: Charles Chavis: The truth will set you free

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:39:43 +0000

Podcast - EP36: Charles Chavis: The truth will set you free Damian Cristodero Fri, 02/18/2022 - 09:39

In This Story

Charles Chavis

Charles Chavis, an assistant professor of conflict resolution and history, and director of African and African American studies at Mason, talks to Mason President Gregory Washington about his new book that explores the lynching of a young Black Man in Salisbury, Md., and how understanding his story and the Black experience in the United States can help find ways to fight anti-Black violence. Chavis also pushes for a National Truth and Reconciliation Program to give the country the chance to reset and “deal with the truth.”

Topics

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

podcast

Podcast Episode

African and African American Studies

Podcast - EP35: Foods you can lose to climate change

Damian Cristodero — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:03:20 +0000

Podcast - EP35: Foods you can lose to climate change Damian Cristodero Wed, 01/12/2022 - 12:03

In This Story

Ted Dumas, an associate professor of psychology, is an experienced researcher who is ringing alarm bells about the damage from climate change. His book, “If Food Could Talk: Stories From 13 Precious Foods,” explains how foods such as coffee, chocolate, bananas and avocados could soon disappear for good. Dumas tells Mason President Gregory Washington how the book came about, how these foods can be saved – a pooping bear in Japan might provide a way to save cherries – and how the book was almost entitled “The Last Chocolate Kiss.”

Topics

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Psychology

Climate Change

climate change; global warming

climate change education

Office of the President

Schar School Student Duo Win ‘Most Interesting Presentation’ in Student Research Competition

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:51:59 +0000

Schar School Student Duo Win ‘Most Interesting Presentation’ in Student Research Competition Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2021 - 04:51

In This Story

Delton T. Daigle

Sally Kishi

Originally published on May 20, 2020

Seven Schar School teams, along with numerous others from colleges at ��AV, signed up to “virtually” display their research posters in an annual campus-wide competition. The “Virtual Celebration of Student Scholarship” is sponsored by the Honors College.

While judges considered many elements in the three-minute presentations of the posters—among other attributes, the judges looked at the information, organization, creativity, and potential impact on its field—only one team could be awarded “Most Interesting Presentation.” This year that award went to Government and International Politics majors Sasha Silva and Sally Kishi for their research poster titled “Chile: Populism, Nativism, and Economic Uncertainty.”

“I think we won because our research provided a new and unique perspective on a topic that has been previously researched by other Mason students and faculty,” said Kishi, a junior from Fairfax, Va. “We supported our statistical findings with an explanation based on real-life events that I believe made our presentation more understandable, accessible, and intriguing to a broader audience.”

Sasha Silva

Overseen by faculty advisor Associate Professor Delton Daigle, their research poster presented a quantitative analysis on the 2017 general election in Chile. They verified that the right-wing vote was related to high levels of nativism and economic uncertainty.

“We stripped our research down to its basics to make it digestible and engaging for the audience, and Dr. Daigle really pushed us to make it our best work possible,” said Silva, a junior from Annandale, Va.

Not to mention rehearsing the presentation “for about four hours,” she added. “It still did not come out perfect but I’m proud of it given our time constraints.”

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Schar School Professor Justin Gest Wins Teaching Excellence Award

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:46:43 +0000

Schar School Professor Justin Gest Wins Teaching Excellence Award Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2021 - 04:46

In This Story

Justin Gest

2020 Mason Excellence in Teaching Award Winner Justin Gest

Originally published on May 19, 2020

Schar School of Policy and Government Associate Professor Justin Gest has received ��AV’s highest teaching honor, the 2020 Teaching Excellence Award. Recipients of the annual award are recognized for their significant work in course planning, innovation, and curriculum development.

“I was particularly impressed by the variety of problem-based learning opportunities, hands-on experience through field trips, connecting with clients, and inviting important speakers to your courses that your students receive,” a representative of the award’s selection committee wrote in the judges’ comments.

Gest is a professor of public policy researching comparative politics, immigration policy, minority politics, and qualitative methods. He has published commentary in a number of major news outlets including the Washington Post, Politico, and Reuters. His well-received books include The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (2016) and Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in a World of Demographic Change (2018).

Before joining the Schar School, Gest was a Harvard College Fellow and lecturer in Harvard University’s Departments of Government and Sociology. In 2014, he received the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize, Harvard’s highest award for teaching.

“With a broad-minded education and equipped with strong communication skills, students can develop their ideas, share them, and own them,” said Gest. “That is what I hope that they take away from my courses—not my ideas, but their own.

“And in this way, the student becomes my achievement,” he said. “The student becomes my legacy. The student becomes me, and I become the student.”

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Studies: Nicotine Exposure Increases Vulnerability to COVID-19 Not Only in Heart and Lungs, but Also the Brain

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:37:44 +0000

Studies: Nicotine Exposure Increases Vulnerability to COVID-19 Not Only in Heart and Lungs, but Also the Brain Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2021 - 04:37

In This Story

Jim Olds

James Olds: ‘This is a new and evolving situation, and we need to be highly vigilant on many fronts.’

Originally published on May 14, 2020

Five days after President Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, Schar School neurobiologist James Olds and Nadine Kabbani, an associate professor at Mason’s School of Systems Biology, released a study linking prior nicotine exposure to COVID-19 cardiopulmonary vulnerability. The study called on data and research from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002 and concluded that those exposed to nicotine are “primed” to be at higher risk of COVID-19.

They published a second study days later revealing similar findings regarding the COVID-19 and the brain.

“Smoking history is germane to how the disease will present in patients,” said Olds, former Director of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation. “Understanding the symptoms is important for early detection and management. Asymptomatic individuals may also be at some risk that we still don't understand.”

Kabbani, an associate professor in Mason’s School of Systems Biology and associate director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, said the nicotine exposure can come from smoking cigarettes, using electronic cigarettes, vaping, or maybe even second-hand smoke.

“Prolonged nicotine exposure systemically—through various kinds of smoking habits—may thus provide a cellular mechanism for susceptibility to the virus and impact illness severity,” she said. “The activation of nicotinic receptors by smoking is coupled to how the host receptor for the virus, ACE2, is distributed on lung epithelial cells.”

The cardiopulmonary study was published in The FEBS Journal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies. The second study, published April 1 in the journal Molecular Pharmacology, drew the same conclusions about nicotine exposure and heightened vulnerability in the brain. The bottom line: “Viral entry into the brain now appears a strong possibility with deleterious consequences and an urgent need for addressing.”

The World Health Organization released a statement addressing nicotine vulnerability on May 11.

“If our hypothesis is correct, nicotine consumption in Latin America and Africa predict future health challenges for at-risk populations as the epidemic proceeds,” warned Olds. “This is a new and evolving situation, and we need to be highly vigilant on many fronts.”

Additional reporting by Colleen Kearney Rich.

Topics

Tech Talent Investment Pipeline (TTIP)

TTIP

Tech Talent Investment Program

Four Schar School Graduates Win Award from Global Training Firm Content Enablers

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:29:28 +0000

Four Schar School Graduates Win Award from Global Training Firm Content Enablers Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2021 - 04:29

In This Story

Kenneth A. Reinert

Originally published on May14, 2020

Four graduates of the Schar School’s Master’s in International Commerce and Policy (ICP) program have been awarded the Content Enablers Trade Compliance Award.

Content Enablers, a Schar School online education partner, is a global trade compliance training firm assisting some of the world’s largest and most vital companies in accessing markets. The student award provides access to Content Enablers’ trade compliance training, valued at $1,500, free of charge to the awardees.

This year’s awardees are Brian Bowling, Jason Zimmermann, Ryan Krysiak, and Tyler Stone.

The awards are symbols of Content Enablers’ commitment to the program as well as the accomplishments of the awardees, said International Commerce and Policy program director Ken Reinert.

“I am very happy that our partnership with Content Enablers has allowed us to recognize the hard work of these four awardees,” Reinert said. “I wish them the very best in their future endeavors.”

—Buzz McClain

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Schar School’s Jack Goldstone Wins Prestigious Carnegie Fellowship

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:26:57 +0000

Schar School’s Jack Goldstone Wins Prestigious Carnegie Fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/19/2021 - 04:26

In This Story

Mark J. Rozell

Jack A. Goldstone

Louise I. Shelley

Originally published on May 12, 2020

The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced today that Schar School of Policy and Government public policy professor Jack Goldstone is one of 27 recipients of this year’s Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program awards.

“Really quite a surprise,” Goldstone said upon learning of the award.

Goldstone, who has been with the Schar School at ��AV since 2003, is the director of the Schar School’s Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions and Policy and is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel Chair Professor of Public Policy.

The award provides a $200,000 stipend—the largest of its kind, the corporation says—toward funding research in the social sciences and humanities. Goldstone has spent his career researching the intersection of population trends and, he said, is about to take an even deeper dive.

Goldstone begins his fellowship in September. His research, he said, will look at how different population trends will affect international economy and security. It will be an extension of the research he has been doing through a multi-year, $1.1 million grant from the Charles Koch Foundation he received in March.

But whereas the Koch grant mainly provides summer salaries and support for Goldstone’s Schar School PhD student-researchers, the Carnegie fellowship will allow him to take a year to write what he hopes will be a significant book addressing these issues.

“Right now, population change is really confronting the world with lots of challenges,” said Goldstone, who was nominated for the fellowship by the university. “How are we going to support and care for aging generations when we’re facing a huge economic downturn? How will the young, fast-growing labor force in Africa and South Asia be productively employed?”

“And if the shift in world population in religion is leading to a world where Muslims will be more numerous than Christians for the first time in history, we need to work out a cooperative relationship between them,” he said. “If we don’t do that and deteriorate into confrontation and conflict, then we go back to the Middle Ages, where Islam and Christianity are at war all over the world.”

Goldstone said he has been able to pursue these questions because of the Schar School’s rich interdisciplinary environment, not to mention its “wonderful graduate students.”

“Jack Goldstone is that rare social scientist whose scholarly insights have shaped the thinking of both academic researchers and policy professionals on such critical topics as revolutions and political demography,” said Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell. “His work embodies the Schar School’s commitment to leading both scholarship and public policy impact.”

“It’s another affirmation,” Goldstone said of his fellowship, “that the work my colleagues and I are doing at Mason on global population trends addresses major social challenges. I am deeply honored to get this support from the Carnegie Foundation.”

He is the third Mason professor and the second from the Schar School to receive the award, following the Schar School’s Louise Shelley (2015), director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, and Charlotte Gill (2017), deputy director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy .

Mason is one of just 15 universities nationwide with three or more Carnegie Fellows, including Yale, Duke, Harvard, Stanford and MIT.

Additional reporting by Buzz McClain.

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