Morning Breakout Sessions

Grad Catalyst: Prepare, Apply, and Succeed in Grad School

Gloria Anglón, Assistant Director, Diversity Initiatives & MIT Summer Research Program
Joy Johnson, Engineering Program Manager, Apple

This interactive workshop is designed to help you create a personal roadmap to prepare for admission to and success in a STEM graduate program. We will explore the unwritten rules of applying and how you can make the most of your undergraduate time. We will discuss which courses to take, how to succeed in a summer research program, and how to obtain effective recommendation letters. Joy Johnson (PhD, 2015) will speak to her own experience and share her lessons learned.

Outsmarting Imposter Syndrome

Robbin Chapman, Associate Provost and Academic Director of Diversity & Inclusion, and Lecturer in the Education Department, Wellesley College

Many smart and capable people secretly doubt their abilities and question their successes. This is like leading a double life, displaying confidence on the outside while harboring doubts about your amazing smarts. Are you living the life of an impostor? Join us to learn more about how impostor syndrome works and how you can exploit it to motivate excellence.

Navigating Academia: My Journey from the Media Lab

Shaundra Daily, Associate Professor, University of Florida

Prof Shaundra Daily’s (PhD, 2010) journey to academia has been full of challenges and opportunities – having to negotiate multiple identities, different roles, and adjusting to various cultures. All of these experiences have allowed her to develop her personal beliefs, values, and boundaries as it relates to career, family, and many other topics. In this talk, Prof Daily will present her journey into academia, from undergrad, through the Media Lab, to a professor in Florida, and everything in between.

Your Theory of Social Change

Francesca Escoto, Founder and CEO, Startups for Social Impact

This workshop will challenge participants to test their assumptions about what is truly causing the social issue that they seek to remedy. We will discuss what funding sources are looking for, and how a theory of social change can meet their expectations. Participants will learn:

• How to design business solutions to social problems that magnify impact.
  
• The three things that every social enterprise aims to do but fails to do well.
  
• How to narrow down your scope and still make a huge difference.
  
• The one thing every social enterprise can do to exceed expectations and increase funding.
  
  How Men Can Effectively Help Bring Gender Balance to Tech

Lauren Kinsey, Advocate for Gender Equity in Technology

Men in tech play an important role in helping to bring gender balance to the industry. Once a man is deeply grounded in why gender balance matters and has the tools to be an effective ally, his daily actions have a positive ripple effect. How do you achieve this state of being?

Lauren will discuss:

• Why gender balance is a win-win for everyone
  
• Core concepts that lead to being an effective change agent
  
• How to skillfully manage unconscious bias and create a truly inclusive environment
  

How to Lead Into the Unknown

Susan Schuman, Cofounder & CEO, SYPartners

In a world that’s increasingly interconnected and unpredictable, with challenges that are ever more complex to solve, it’s becoming clear that a new kind of leadership is required. This is true if you aspire to the boardroom or the halls of academia. Qualities like optimism, courage in the face of complexity, humanity, and creativity are drivers of the great collaboration that’s essential to tackle just about any challenge worth taking on. Authentic, clear communication helps build belief in the people you need, to create the impact you seek to make. In this session, join Susan Schuman—longtime advisor to CEOs and leaders at GE, IBM, USA Today, Kohl’s, and Facebook—for a masterclass in telling powerful stories that help the people around you listen and join you in your goals.

Creating Emerging Design without a Design Background

Caroline Sinders, Eyebeam Fellow with the Buzzfeed Eyebeam Open Lab, UX designer and artist

How does one become a designer when their background has nothing to do with design? How can other forms of research and research methodology inform design and technology? Caroline Sinders’ background is in photography and cinema studies. She received a Masters degree at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, which is aptly described as “kindergarten for adults” or “The Center for the Recently Possible.” She has worked as a UX designer for a number of years, but she was never formally taught design. Yet design is what she does everyday, and design research informs her personal and professional practice. However, she couldn't be the kind of designer or researcher she is without having first been a photographer. This talk is about user research and design without a traditional background, and becoming a T-shaped person by using a variety of nontraditional skills.

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

How To Succeed at MIT & Beyond: Developing a Growth Mindset

Lourdes Alemán, Research Scientist, MIT’s Office of Digital Learning (ODL) and Biology Department

Many students arrive at MIT after years of success and praise. But what happens when you encounter uncertainty and failure? Have you faced difficult situations where you worry about how others will perceive you if you don't sound smart enough? When you fail to achieve a specific goal, how do you manage and overcome discouragement and self-doubt? In this talk, we will examine how our own notions of potential and ability can have a fundamental impact on how we approach our work, how much we learn, and how successful we can be in achieving our goals. The talk will focus on recent, evidence-based insights regarding human performance, neuroplasticity, and motivation. Participants will learn how deliberately cultivating a "growth-mindset" can improve their willingness and ability to face challenges and to innovate, despite the risk of failure.

Grad Catalyst: Prepare, Apply, and Succeed in Grad School

Gloria Anglón, Assistant Director, Diversity Initiatives & MIT Summer Research Program
Joy Johnson, Engineering Program Manager, Apple

This interactive workshop is designed to help you create a personal roadmap to prepare for admission to and success in a STEM graduate program. We will explore the unwritten rules of applying and how you can make the most of your undergraduate time. We will discuss which courses to take, how to succeed in a summer research program, and how to obtain effective recommendation letters. Current MIT graduate students will speak to their own experience and share their lessons learned.

Overcoming the Inertia of Fear and Doubt

Noramay Cadena, Founder, Latinas in STEM; Cofounder and Managing Director, Make in LA

Risk taking is a learned behavior. Noramay will share her favorite tactics for breaking through boundaries - from a pregnant 16 year old to earning 3 degrees from MIT to starting a nonprofit and then a business.

My Winding, Warty Startup Path: Balancing Risk, Research, Private IP, and Public Service

Arlene Ducao, Chief, DuKorp and Principal, Brooklyn’s DuKode Studio

A lot of students are attracted to the Media Lab for creative freedom in science and technology. But once you leave the ML, how do you balance your need for autonomy with the need to pay the bills? Arlene Ducao (SM, 2013) will share some lessons learned from:

• Translating ML projects to the real world and making money from them
  
• Participating in a startup incubator (the E14 Fund)
  
• Participating in a startup accelerator
  
• Running (and crashing) several businesses
  
• Running (and crashing) several crowdfund campaigns
  
• Finding outside pursuits to balance the startup grind
  

In this conversation in which active participation is encouraged, Arlene will focus on honest talk–not just the successes and privileges of post-ML life, but the challenges, the disappointments, and the hard-won lessons of being in it for the long haul.

Solve Problems / Ask Questions: Building a Technical and Social Lab

Sara Hendren, Assistant Professor of Design, Olin College of Engineering

Prof Hendren’s research area is in disability and technology. She’ll speak about some of what motivates her research as a topic and about building a lab that's designed to house engineering, design, and artworks, together under one roof. How do you build a unified practice that includes some technical research that solves problems (traditionally engineering), while letting other initiatives ask questions (traditionally the arts)? Prof Hendren will also speak to her own training as a humanist and artist working in an engineering school: about expertise, crossing boundaries, and more.

But What Do I Do Instead? A workshop to counteract the "bystander dilemma"

Libby Mahaffy, Assistant Director for Conflict Management@MIT
Julio Oyola, Assistant Director, MIT LBGT Services

We’ve all experienced situations we felt weren’t right – a friend making a sexist joke or a supervisor verbally berating a supervisee in public – but we’re not always sure what to do in those situations. Should you intervene? Is calling someone out the only way to do it? Those situations are called “bystander moments,” and there are options for dealing with them productively and effectively. Participants in this workshop will learn a variety of strategies for standing up instead of standing by in a tough situation, and practice those strategies so they will be more equipped – and more likely – to act when another situation comes along. This workshop promises to be interactive and engaging, and will offer immediately useful tools.

Financing Strategies for the Non-Zuckerbergs

Nathalie Miller, Startup Advisor & Mom

Given what we know about the VC world and unconscious bias, how do we finance our startup when we don't look like the stereotypical entrepreneur? In this session, Nathalie will talk about financing strategy, pattern matching, and the challenges of hitting the Sand Hill Road pavement for people who are not white guys in hoodies. Nathalie will share what she learned from spending half of 2015 meeting with investors in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, pitching for seed funds for her startup, as a pregnant woman.

Influence, Persuasion, and Presence for Women

Denise Minor, Senior Partner, MindSpring Metro DC

Projecting a powerful and open presence allows women to effectively interact with and influence others. A truly dynamic woman understands her impact on others, both verbal and nonverbal, and knows how to use her presence to motivate and inspire. Attendees will learn how to gauge their impact and will cultivate strategies for creating a more dynamic and confident presence for themselves, positively impacting all facets of their lives.