On Friday, April 12th, Historian Vincent Dixon, will speak on The Massachusetts Legislative Process.

The Right of Free Petition is a legally unique opportunity for all those in Massachusetts to file their own legislation, once each Legislative Session. This opportunity is not only Interesting but potentially important in legal capacities for reform. Vincent’s work as a historian allows him to add perspectives on issues of importance to the lives of our citizens that is unique, and, in our technologically intense world, to help identify, various leaders, including technology leaders, who can help serve the public interest in Winchester, Eastern Massachusetts, and the broader Commonwealth. He will also touch on The Expanded Massachusetts Agenda: A package of 45 pieces of proposed legislation, that offer potential solutions to a wide range of distinct, and interrelated problems.

Vincent Lawrence “Vince” Dixon is a known Historian, especially focused on presentations including Colonial History; Current Events, and their Relationship to History; Church-State Relationships, Evolutions, and Relationships with Civic Society; Parks, and Landscape History; and has taught, and tutored, as well. He has done work in curriculum development, is a frequently published columnist, and speaker; and responds to custom requests. MASS PRESENTATIONS (a dba brand, of Dixon’s) develops a wide variety of presentations, including media, curriculum, and published materials, across a wide range of audiences, and subject matter. Dixon has made many presentations, including to Winchester Historical Society: Religious Realities of Winchester: Houses of Worship and Communities of Faith; Schools of Winchester and Their Namesakes (including an exploration of The Lincolns of Massachusetts); Sports History of Winchester (A Virtual Event – by Zoom); and a History of Vaccination, Immunization, and Disease Prevention. He has also conducted Town Day Trolley Guided Tours; and will again, on this year’s Winchester Town Day, June 1, 2024; previous presentations to Cambridge Historical Society; and is periodically invited to teach classes in History, and Civics, at East Boston High School. Interestingly, Vince was home schooled K-12; earned his Associate in Arts, and his Bachelor of Arts Degree, cum laude, at the Harvard University Extension School and a Master of Education Degree at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. He studied with Dr. Thomas H. O’Connor, University Historian of Boston College, the long-time Dean of Boston Historians.

On March 22, Boston Globe business reporter Jon Chesto will speak broadly about current events shaping Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Future

Jon Chesto covers the leaders who shape Boston’s business community. He has been reporting on business and politics in New England for the past two decades. Before joining the Globe, he was managing editor at the Boston Business Journal. Prior to that role, he was the business editor at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy. His weekly Ledger column, “Mass. Market,” won several national awards with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, he has also worked as a business reporter at the Boston Herald and as a political reporter with Ottaway Newspapers.

Richard Adler rejoins us on March 8th to revisit Bending the Law of Unintended Consequences: More Decision Support Models.

We witness the unintended consequences of critical decisions all around us, like Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the disastrous war in Gaza. My presentation for the Wilson Science and Technology group last year described a “test drive” method for improving critical policy and business decisions. Much like consumers try out cars before buying one, decision test drives help organizations explore the possible outcomes of decision options before committing to one alternative. This method helps leaders improve anticipation of the future and thereby avoid unintended outcomes. My follow-on talk will revisit the test drive method in more detail. I’ll present a rationale for our method by explaining how it improves upon existing decision support techniques. I’ll also describe our hybrid simulation approach, which improves realism in modeling the complex situational dynamics that shape decision outcomes. Finally, I’ll present a business example to illustrate these concepts. This test drive case study improves decisions about competitive marketing strategy in the pharmaceutical industry.

Rich Adler is a software architect, management consultant, and start-up executive. He spent most of his career building software tools and applications to improve business operations and critical decision-making. Richard worked for Control Data, MITRE, Computer Sciences Corporation, and three software start-up companies. Early in his career, Richard built AI programs, including one that automated operations support for the Launch Processing System for NASA’s Space Shuttle Fleet. As the founder of DecisionPath, he developed solutions to improve strategic decisions such as competitive marketing, counterterrorism, and organizational change, as described in his recent book Bending the Law of Unintended Consequences. Richard has published and spoken on topics including intelligent and distributed systems, simulation, homeland security, and knowledge management. Richard holds a BS degree in Physics and Philosophy (University of Michigan), an MS in Physics (University of Illinois at Urbana) and a PhD in Philosophy of Physics (University of Minnesota).

On February 23rd, MIT Professor Jesus del Alamo will speak on the future direction of microelectronics, Microelectronics: Quo Vadis?

The COVID pandemic, in dramatic form, made evident the critical role that microelectronics plays in modern human society. Supply disruptions brought us the realization that semiconductor chips are like oxygen, only when we don’t have them we come to appreciate how much we depend on them for nearly every aspect of our lives. Indeed, countries around the world have all of a sudden recognized the strategic nature of semiconductor microelectronics and policies to foster on-shore production of the most advanced chips and to strengthen the robustness of supply chains are being enacted around the globe. Beyond its strategic importance, semiconductor microelectronics is a domain that wonderfully illustrates what human ingenuity can accomplish. For over 50 years now, the power of microelectronics has been increasing exponentially. While the popular press has been warning us of the impending “End of Moore’s Law”, technologists continue to push the technology forward. At any one time, they see 10 more years of continuous progress ahead. This talk will review the long march of microelectronics to this date and the opportunities and challenges going forward. In its late middle age, the field remains youthful and pregnant with possibilities.

Jesús A. del Alamo is the Donner Professor and Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT. He obtained a Telecommunications Engineer degree from Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain) and MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. In 1985 he joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone LSI Laboratories in Japan and since 1988 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2013 until 2019, he served as Director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories at MIT. His current research interests are focused on nanoelectronics based on compound semiconductors and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors and novel ionic and ferroelectric devices for artificial intelligence accelerators. Prof. del Alamo was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator. He is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society. He is the recipient of the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award in Emerging Research Devices, the Semiconductor Research Corporation Technical Excellence Award, the IEEE Electron Devices Society Education Award, the University Researcher Award by Semiconductor Industry Association and Semiconductor Research Corporation, the IPRM Award and the IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award. From 2019 to 2022 he served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Electron Device Letters. He is the author of “Integrated Microelectronic Devices: Physics and Modeling” (Pearson 2017, 880 pages), a rigorous and up to date description of semiconductor physics, transistors and other contemporary microelectronic devices.

On February 9th, Professor Angel Serrano Aroca of the Catholic University of Velencia (UCV) will speak about his work on Antimicrobial Face Masks, Face Shields and...Lipsticks.

Face masks and face shields are accepted to be effective protective tools to avoid bacterial and viral transmission, especially against indoor aerosol transmission. However, the commercial materials used to produce these tools are not capable of inactivating pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 or multidrug-resistant bacteria. Lipsticks are usually associated with higher physical, sexual and social attractiveness and are not generally made of antimicrobial materials either. In this context, we have developed new antimicrobial face masks and face shields with a biofunctional coating of benzalkonium chloride (BAK). These coatings were capable of inactivating SARS-CoV-2 in less than 1 minute of viral contact.

Moreover, the BAK coating was also effective against the life-threatening methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE). Other antimicrobial face masks can be developed using a low-cost technology consisting of a solidified hand soap coating. Bio-based technologies for the production of antimicrobial face masks can also be applied using cranberry extracts by dip-coating. A novel bio-based lipstick containing cranberry extract was also developed to prevent infections caused by a broad range of microorganisms: enveloped and non-enveloped viruses; multidrug-resistant bacteria like MRSA, Escherichia coli, and Mycobacterium smegmatis, a surrogate of Mycobacterium tuberculosis; and the Candida albicans fungus. Therefore, all these antimicrobial tools are very promising in the current antimicrobial-resistance era.

On Friday, January 26th, Dr. Robert Caligiuri , Corporate Vice President at Exponent, Inc., will describe An Example of the Challenges and Adventures of Failure Analysis and Risk Mitigation—The Camisea Pipeline System.

Engineering systems sometimes fail in service. Understanding the origin of such events can lead to improved design and increased performance life. Funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Camisea pipeline system in Peru was designed and built in the early 2000’s by the operator TGP to transport natural gas and natural gas liquids from the Amazon basin to the coast. The system traverses three distinct geographical regions: a tropical rain forest, a high elevation mountain range, and a coastal plain. Each region brought its own risks to pipeline integrity: flooding, mudslides, rockslides, earthquakes. Shortly after beginning operation, the pipeline system experienced five distinct leaks and ruptures, some of which impacted the indigenous population. Exponent was retained by the IADB to investigate the causes of these leaks and to develop measures to mitigate the risks of future failures. Given its multi-disciplinary nature, Exponent was uniquely qualified to conduct this investigation.

Bob Caligiuri is an internationally recognized leader in understanding the fracture and fracture mechanics of materials used in critical engineering systems. He holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC-Davis and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford. He specializes in combining the principles of solid mechanics with an understanding of the physical, mechanical and corrosion behavior of metals to solve complex problems in industrial applications. He has over 35 years of experience conducting failure investigations, root cause studies and risk assessments for clients in the petrochemical, consumer product and transmission pipeline industries throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has specialized expertise in the use and application of the standards, codes and regulations that govern the design, operation, and maintenance of engineered systems. Bob Caligiuri is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

On January 12th, Dr. Piotr Moncarz, XGS Energy, will speak on Geothermal Solutions.

The most under-utilized of all currently available energy sources, geological heat, is a principal topic of this discussion. With all the attempts to move the energy delivery balance of the world away from fossil fuels the needle barely moved, and even that resulted in major as-of-yet unresolved questions related to intermittency of wind and solar energy, battery storage raw materials mining, processing, and disposal, nuclear power plant long development and construction time, and for many countries, exorbitant initial cost. The delivery of geological heat to the surface has many prior and current technological attempts, some of them could never scale, some of them demand supplies of precious water, some of them laden with technological challenges beyond todays state-of-the-art. The most recent efforts labeled “enhanced geothermal systems” (EGS) are striving to address some of those problems. Heat of a high temperature is needed for electricity generation, while heat at lower temperature can be used in direct applications e.g. district heating. Thus, more than one solution might eventually emerge from the current unprecedented effort towards delivery of commercially viable geological heat. With the parallel efforts of development towards revolutionary drilling technologies, high temperature sensors and electronic operating systems, the fulfillment of the dream of using the energy under our feet to address once and for all the sustainable, economically viable energy supplies at every place on Earth is around the corner.

Dr. Piotr d. Moncarz, is a Co-Founder and Vice Chair, and CEO for the initial years of XGS Energy, Inc., a company focused on closed loop harvesting and delivery of geological heat from very hot rock. He serves as Adjunct Professor at the School of Engineering and the School of Sustainability at Stanford University. He graduated from Road and Bridge Vocational School, Poznan, Poland; with a final Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. He joined California firm, Failure Analysis Associates, today Exponent, where he has worked on issues of engineering design and project analysis including risk management, failure prevention, and correcting project failures. As a corporate officer he participated in taking Exponent public and building it into a world‘s leading engineering and scientific consulting company. For over 30 years he has been actively involved in energy projects with international and domestic project development, plant restructuring, and acting in an advisory role in national energy policies in resurging economies. Passionate about delivering a solution to the keystone element of environmental, climate, and geo-political stability: ubiquitous, green, no water, no land-grab, 24/7 energy supply - GeoHeatTM (www.xgsenergy.com ). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers, member of numerous US and international energy, environmental, and engineering societies, registered professional engineer in numerous U.S. states and provinces of Canada, educator and professional leader.