June 12th, 2026: Stephen A. Guerriero: FROM THE CHARLES RIVER, A VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIZATION

The Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation sits on a remarkable historic footprint: the 1814 site of Francis Cabot Lowell's Boston Manufacturing Company in Waltham, the first fully integrated textile mill in the United States. In his presentation, Director of Education Stephen Guerriero will take Forum members inside this industrial landmark to trace the arc of American innovation. Using the museum's collections and ongoing research, the talk will explore the evolution of mass manufacturing from early water power to modern electrification. Stephen will also share how the museum captures 20th-century history through the Massachusetts Tech Pioneers Oral History Project, recording first-person accounts from the engineers and inventors who shaped everything from the Apollo guidance computer to the Roomba.

Stephen A. Guerriero, M.A., M.Ed., is the Director of Education at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham, Massachusetts. In this role, he designs the museum's public programs, school curricula, and interpretive exhibits. Beyond the museum, Stephen teaches AP Psychology at Weston High School and is an adjunct lecturer at Simmons University, where he teaches Greek Myth and Religion. At the museum, his recent work includes directing the Massachusetts Tech Pioneers Oral History Project and launching Blue Collar 101, a public series funded by the Lowell Institute that highlights the history and contemporary importance of the skilled trades.

May 22nd, 2026: Dr. Joshua J. Jacobs: FIVE DECADES OF ORTHOPAEDIC BIOMATERIALS REAEARCH: LESSONS LEARNED

The last five decades have witnessed dramatic advances in the performance and application of engineering materials in the treatment of musculoskeletal disease and injury. This is particularly true for total joint arthroplasty, procedures popularized in the United States in the late 1960s (hip replacement) and 1970s (knee replacement). The design, manufacturing processes and materials deployed in contemporary joint replacement components have converged, reflecting effective solutions to implant fracture, implant loosening, modular junction tribocorrosion, and bearing surface wear that plagued earlier generations of joint replacement devices. However, challenges remain that limit survivorship and functionality of joint replacements. Dr. Joshua Jacobs will address the current state-of-the-art through the lens of an orthopaedic surgeon with an undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering. Using his experience in the analysis of failure mechanisms of metal-on-metal bearings in total hip replacements, he will delineate challenges and opportunities in contemporary orthopaedic biomaterials research and development.

Joshua J. Jacobs, M.D. received a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, he participated in a cooperative engineering education program in which he served as a research assistant in the Department of Biological Materials at the Northwestern University Dental School. Dr. Jacobs graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School and completed his residency at the Combined Harvard Orthopaedic Residency Program during which time he was a Research Fellow at the H. H. Uhlig Corrosion Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the tutelage of Ronald Latanision, PhD. He completed his medical training with a Fellowship in Adult Reconstructive Orthopaedic Surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Jacobs has remained at Rush since his fellowship training and served as the William A. Hark, M.D./Susanne G. Swift Professor and Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery for 16 years. He also served as the Vice Provost for Research at Rush University and is currently the Grainger Director of the Rush Arthritis and Orthopaedics Institute.

Dr. Jacobs has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, most of which focus on the biological consequences of material degradation from joint replacement implants. Dr. Jacobs has received several research grants from the National Institutes of Health as well as several awards for his biomaterials research including the Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). Dr. Jacobs is a Past President of the AAOS and the Orthopaedic Research Society. He currently serves as the President of the Board of Trustees of the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation.

May 8th, 2026: Dr. Andrew Brightman: CAN YOU TEACH ENGINEERS TO BE ETHICAL?

On May 8, 2026, Andrew Brightman will speak about the challenges of teaching ethics to engineers. He will draw on the findings of his research team’s investigations of experiences of engineers working in the health products industry and of experiences of engineering faculty members engaged in research in biomedical engineering programs across the country. His research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation for over a decade, has deeply informed his teaching practice. He will describe the pedagogical framework, Reflexive Principlism, as well as current practices of ethics education, developed by his team and others to prepare engineers to face the challenges of rapidly emerging technological and societal change.

Andrew Brightman is Professor of Engineering Practice in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. He earned a B.S. at North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. from Purdue. For over two decades, he has served various roles in developing the academic programs of the School. His educational achievements have drawn on his experiences in the pharmaceutical industry, as a contributor to novel technology licensed by a successful start-up, and as an independent biotechnology consultant. Professor Brightman’s research in engineering ethics education was selected as a national exemplar by the National Academy of Engineering in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science and has developed an online Community of Practice that supports developing and disseminating best practices for ethics training for Biomedical Engineering.

Professor Brightman also serves as the Purdue representative on the Bioethics and Subjects Advocacy Program (BSAP) of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. BSAP is run by the Center for Bioethics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN

April 24th, 2026: Dr. John C. Mauro: GLASS FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Glass has proven to be a critically important material for the development of contemporary human civilization. Its influence continues to grow as new glass products and processes are developed to address global challenges in energy, the environment, healthcare, information technology, and more. Despite recent advances in glass science and technology, major challenges remain with respect to the sustainability of the glass industry, which generates more than 86 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. In this presentation, Professor Mauro will describe his own personal journey in glass from Corning, New York to Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. After reviewing some recent advances in glass physics and chemistry, he will peer into our glass (not “crystal”) ball to discuss future glass technologies for a more sustainable future. The latter part of the presentation will introduce LionGlass, Penn State’s patent-pending glass compositional family that offers, for the first time, an alternative to standard soda lime silicate glass for reducing the carbon footprint of the glass industry by ~50%. LionGlass achieves this goal by lowering the melting temperature of everyday glass products by 400°C and eliminating the use of carbonate batch materials. LionGlass also offers 10× improvement in damage resistance compared to soda lime silicate, enabling the lightweighting of everyday glass products.

Dr. John C. Mauro is Dorothy Pate Enright Professor and Head of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. Best known as co-inventor of Corning Gorilla® Glass, John is the author of over 400 scientific publications and is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the American Ceramic Society. He is the author of Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena and co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, 3rd edition. John is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors with 85 granted U.S. patents. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and the World Academy of Ceramics.

April 10th, 2026: Dr. James Mann: MANUFACTURING OF MATERIALS BY MACHINING-BASED DEFORMATION PROCESSING

In his talk, Manufacturing of Materials by Machining‑Based Deformation Processing, Dr. Mann will describe how machining can serve as a powerful platform for applying severe plastic deformation—high strain, high strain rate, and controlled millisecond‑scale thermal exposure—in a single pass. By tuning cutting geometry and kinematics, machining accesses strain levels on the order of ~10 and strain rates from ~10 to 10⁵ s⁻¹, enabling systematic mapping of deformation parameters to ultrafine‑grained, nanotwinned, and bimodal microstructures. The talk will highlight three machining‑based manufacturing routes: Hybrid Cutting–Extrusion (HCE) for producing continuous strip, foil, and wire; Modulation Assisted Machining (MAM) for generating engineered particulate feedstocks with controlled size and shape; and machining‑enabled nanostructuring of surfaces and subsurfaces during material removal. Together, these approaches establish a scalable framework for manufacturing metals with tailored geometry, microstructure, and texture, with promising applications in electrical machines, energy storage, and multifunctional composite systems.

Dr. James Mann is the Alva C. Todd Director of Industrial Technology and Management and a Research Professor of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is also the President and co‑founder of M4 Sciences, an advanced manufacturing technology company recognized internationally for innovations in machining, materials processing, and deformation‑based manufacturing. Over a career spanning academia, major corporations, and entrepreneurial ventures, Dr. Mann has held technical and leadership roles across the aerospace, automotive, energy, and precision manufacturing sectors. He is widely known for pioneering Modulation Assisted Machining (MAM) and guiding its progression from fundamental university research to a globally deployed industrial technology that has transformed deep‑hole drilling and advanced material removal processes.

March 27th, 2026: Aaron Pressman: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Boston area universities and corporate enterprise have long made Boston a global hub for innovation and invention. In this meeting of the Wilson Forum, Boston Globe reporter and writer of the Innovation Beat column, Aaron Pressman, will give us his views on technology news that affects our lives and our livelihood.

Aaron Pressman is a business reporter covering technology, startups, A.I., and the electric vehicle transition. In a multi-decade career, he has covered the Internet bubble, the housing bubble, the crypto bubble, and the artificial intelligence...boom. Before joining the Globe in 2021, his work appeared in Fortune, BusinessWeek, Wired, and The Industry Standard, and at Yahoo Finance, Reuters, and Bloomberg.

Pressman won a "Best in Business" award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, or SABEW, for coverage of AT&T's worker retraining effort and a silver medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for best business blog. Time Magazine named him one of the "140 most interesting people on Twitter."

He graduated from Columbia University and lives with his wife and two loyal golden retrievers in Needham.

March 13th, 2026: Vincent Dixon: THE MASSACHUSETTS 250th ANNIVERSARY AND CELEBRATIONS: Gunnery Expert Henry Knox – And – Achieving Evacuation Day

On March 13th, Wilson Forum Historian Vincent Dixon will speak about the 250th Anniversary – The Semiquincentennial – of the birthing of The United States which began in Massachusetts, observing events that led to July 4, 1776. The Massachusetts Independence Twelve is the listing of sequential events stretching over a period of years that we will review on the way to the Great Evacuation Day of 2026. The 250th Anniversary thereof, March 17, 2026, completes the cycle of primarily Massachusetts based events, Massachusetts 250, and then we are on the road to the major U.S. America 250 events, going forward.

This presentation explores aspects of the great success of local Boston bookseller Henry Knox in bringing the British cannon, which had been seized at Fort Ticonderoga, to Boston, to Dorchester Heights, leading to the Evacuation of Boston by the British. Knox was largely self-taught, yet brilliant. This unambiguous success before the United States Declaration of Independence was accomplished by a Massachusetts government that viewed itself as independent and makes clearly possible the decisions culminating in the July 4, 1776 Declaration.

While this Presentation is largely about the success of the original Evacuation Day and some exploration of the Evacuation Day Holiday, we will conclude with a bit of a flourish regarding the commemorations in July of 2026. Sail Boston, will bring ships in great number to Boston Harbor, and there will be a lot more… The Dorchester Heights Memorial, and Dorchester Heights itself, are interesting. The website known as Boston Central: 100+ Things to Do in Boston, MA | Boston Central…provides an ongoing calendar of various local community events, and will prove to be particularly valuable this year in listing fireworks, parades, and a lot more.

Vincent Lawrence Dixon has been President and Senior Guide of Cambridge Advantage Tours. His education includes being home-schooled K-12 by his parents; Harvard Extension School, A.A., A.B., (Cum Laude); Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ed.M.; and additional graduate work at Harvard Law School, Radcliffe Institute. A regular presenter, as Historian of the Wilson Science & Technology Forum, a Civics Expert, and a Newspaper Columnist, he has been published in the Cambridge Chronicle, Winchester Star, Winchester News, and other publications. He also presents regularly at Sanborn House of the Winchester Historical Society, Trolley Tours on Winchester Town Day, and has spoken extensively on legislation, and other similar matters. In February 2026, he began producing for broadcast The Vince Dixon Show, oriented to History and Civics and is initially being shown on Local Access Channels in Winchester, Stoneham, and Melrose.

February 27, 2026: Professor Ju Li: A.I and the Future of Scientific Research

On February 27th , Profess Ju Li, MIT’s School of Engineering Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and self-driving lab on the practice of research and development, in particular, clean energy research. ["Autonomous experiments using active learning and AI," Nature Reviews Materials 8 (2023) 563­564; "A multimodal robotic platform for multi-element electrocatalyst discovery," Nature 647 (2025) 390-396] Rapid growth in modeling, experiment and reasoning capabilities, such as universal neural network interatomic potential (UNIP), large language model based hypothesis generation, robotic high-throughput experimentation, and knowledge-based Bayesian optimization (KABO) active learning algorithms, could usher in an era of “mass production of science”, but plenty of challenges and peril lie ahead. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynexs.2025.100117

Ju Li has held faculty positions at the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and is presently a chaired professor at MIT. He has joint appointments in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His group (http://Li.mit.edu) investigates the mechanical, electrochemical and transport behaviors of materials as well as novel means of energy storage and conversion. Ju is a recipient of the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the 2006 Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and the TR35 award from Technological Review. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2014, a Fellow of the Materials Research Society in 2017 and a Fellow of AAAS in 2020. Li is the chief organizer of MIT A+B Applied Energy Symposia that aim to develop solutions to global climate change challenges with “A-Action before 2040” and “B-Beyond 2040” technologies.

February 13, 2026: Jennie Hwang: The AI Bubble Myth – Intelligence Incorporated and the Global Race

On February 13th, Jennie Hwang, CEO & Principal H-Technologies Group, will add another dimension to our discussion of AI. The question “Is AI a bubble?” has become a pervasive inquiry In recent months across global business circles and broader society. This presentation moves beyond market sentiment to analyze the technical foundations that render this era’s “boom” structurally distinct. Adopting a holistic and systematic lens, we will explore the six pillars of this new global reality and the critical component technologies propelling them forward. The session will further illuminate the potential trajectories of AI, offering nuanced perspectives into the forces shaping its evolution and the escalating global race for Intelligence Incorporated. The attached is a reprint of Jennie’s latest column on AI, which was published in the January issue of SMT007 MAGAZINE.

An International Hall of Famer of Women in Technology, Dr. Hwang’s career spans over 40 years of global-trotting experience across technology, manufacturing, and governance. She has resolved mission-critical challenges in innovation, manufacturing, and product reliability for the electronic/microelectronic packaging and Surface Mount Technology manufacturing – most notably for flagship defense programs such as the F-22 Raptor. She has served as the co-Chair of the DoD/National Academies’ Artificial Intelligence Committee and the Chair of NSF’s National AI Institute on Adult Learning review panel. She has held senior executive positions with Lockheed Martin Corp. and CEO of International Electronic Materials Corp., among others. She is also an invited distinguished adjunct Professor of Engineering School of Case Western Reserve University and serves on the University’s Board of Trustees.

An author of ten (10) internationally-used textbooks and over 750 editorials/publications, Dr Hwang is a featured speaker for global forums, including the keynote university commencements, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on emerging technologies, and the DoD Federal Women’s Program. She has received numerous honors/ awards, including the YWCA Women of Achievement Award, an Industry Week “R&D Stars to Watch”, and served on the Board of NYSE Fortune 500 companies and various civic, government, and university boards and committees.

Her academic foundation includes the Harvard Business School Executive Program and four academic degrees (Ph.D., M.S., M.S., B.S.) in Materials Engineering, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Liquid Crystal Science, respectively. Further Info: www.JennieHwang.com

January 23, 2026: Alain C. Briançon: The Synthetic Data Revolution Will Be Televised

On January 23rd Alain C. Briançon will join us. Alain is a senior executive and technologist specializing in the application of artificial intelligence to market research, data-driven decision systems, and large-scale commercial analytics. He currently serves as Vice President of Research and Data Science at Dynata, where he leads AI and data science across methodology, advertising effectiveness, brand solutions, feasibility modeling, and internal operations.

With more than 25 years of experience across market research, telecommunications, finance, and enterprise technology, Dr. Briançon has repeatedly built and scaled platforms that deliver measurable business impact. Achievements include the design of a global AI-powered pricing system for Profiles by Kantar , real-time churn and routing optimization systems for large consumer panels. He has led and deployed AI systems across finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and public sector domains. His work includes real-time churn reduction models for telecom customers, AI-driven automotive loan adjudication systems, and macroeconomic forecasting models used by the Bank of Canada to inform national interest rate decisions. He is the inventor on 90 issued patents, including 29 in artificial intelligence and machine learning, covering areas such as federated learning, privacy-preserving analytics, time-series modeling, machine learning governance, graph-enabled decision systems, and event-driven business optimization.

Dr. Briançon holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Outside of his professional work, he enjoys opera, travelling (at times to see operas), wine, and swimming.

January 9th, 2026: Professor George R. Tynan: The Opportunity and Challenge of Fusion Energy

On January 9th, Professor George R. Tynan will speak with us about recent advances in fusion energy. Research progress into the controlled fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium, which powers the stars, has put mankind on the threshold of harnessing this fundamental energy source for useful purposes. In this talk, we will first summarize what fusion is, what conditions must be reached for net energy production from fusion, and why it can play a critical role in meeting humanity’s energy needs into the far future. We then discuss the two primary approaches for fusion energy production – inertial fusion, which is produced by compressing and heating the fuel with rapid and intense energy deposition in a fusion target, and magnetic confinement fusion, in which the hot fuel is held in place by carefully constructed magnetic fields. Finally, we will summarize the present status and outlook for fusion as it transitions from a basic research program into a practical energy technology in the coming decade, with a particular emphasis on the emergence of an ambitious fusion industry which has taken root in the U.S., Japan, Europe and China.

Professor Tynan received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at UCLA, did postdoctoral research in Germany and Princeton University, and joined the faculty at UC San Diego in 1999. At UCSD he provided the first direct experimental evidence that turbulent mixing in magnetically confined plasmas could spontaneously relax into a well-ordered state that reduced the rate of particle and heat loss from the confined plasma and then showed that the same phenomena was responsible for initiating improved confinement regimes in large-scale tokamak fusion devices. More recently he has studied the fundamental processes that degrade materials exposed to the severe fusion environment with the goal to learn how to engineer better materials to enable fusion to become a practical energy technology.

He has received a number of honors, including being named as the Kazuo Iwama Endowed Chair with rank of Distinguished Professor, American Physical Society Distinguished Speaker in Plasma Physics, Global Expert in Controlled Fusion Energy Research in the People’s Republic of China, Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Department of Energy Early Career Award. He also served in a number of leadership roles, including Department Chair, Associate Dean of Research, Executive Associate Dean, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. He joined the MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering Department in 2025 where he is the Norman C. Rasmussen Adjunct Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering. George is affiliated with MIT Plasma Fusion Science Center.

December 12th 2025: Peter Ciriscioli: Autonomous Vehicles Policy Issues - UPDATE

On December 12th , Peter Ciriscioli will speak with us on Autonomous Vehicle Policy Issues. Autonomous Vehicle developers have continued to make progress with their efforts to deploy Autonomous Vehicles. This talk will examine the current state of AV safety and suggests that more effective AV safety validation processes can be modeled after proven processes used in the Aerospace and Defense industries.

Peter Ciriscioli has extensive development experience with ground vehicles, aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft including a number of different ICBM programs and satellites. He has successfully developed complex ground vehicles and vehicle systems: He led the development of the BAE Systems MRAP family of vehicles for deployment during the Iraq War. Peter also led the development of the successful proof of concept vehicle for the DoD’s HMMWV replacement, the CTV. In parallel with that effort, Peter led the development of the BAE Systems JLTV. He also led the initial development of the first hybrid electric drive for armored vehicles. Peter received a patent for a vehicle armored window system and has received recognition from the Secretary of Defense for his work in vehicle development and vehicle survivability.

Prior to his vehicle development work, Peter led the successful development of a new molecule which is currently used in the secondary carbon fiber composite structures of almost all commercial aircraft manufactured since 1997. Peter wrote 37 FAA approved material, process, and manufacturing specifications for the LearFan aircraft, which is now displayed in Boeing’s Museum of Flight, and Peter’s patented fire shield material was used on the nonstop globe-circling Rutan Voyager aircraft, now displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Peter developed the composite material manufacturing processes and composite material “design allowables” for the equipment section of the Trident II (D5) missile.

Peter received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University for his work to develop an expert system which cures advanced composite materials.

In addition to the USA, Peter has worked in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Israel, Zambia, India, Japan and Australia. Peter is currently an independent consultant who helps companies innovate to improve cash flow.

November 28th 2025: Vincent Dixon: The Purposes and Evolution of Government Past – Present – Future – Evaluating the Many Challenges Including A Special Look at Frances Perkins Author of The New Deal

Vincent Dixon, Historian of The Wilson Science & Technology Forum, will present a Special Forum on Thanksgiving Friday, November 28 on a central debate of our time: The Purposes and Evolutions of Government. The challenges of our time intersect with foundational elements of economic systems, systems of law, beliefs in what government should, or should not do, shifting coalitions of nations, demographic changes, public health realities, and more. Stable consensus on many of these issues that existed after World War II and were adjusted and changed in the 1980s and 1990s are now in chaotic and dynamic flux across the world, in a new age, lacking any worldwide functional template. At risk is scientific progress, public health, educational progress, and socio-economic progress, balanced on the double-edged knife blade of unstable populism.

Understanding this incredible series of dynamic interactions is vital to engaging with the waves of Artificial Intelligence, the movement of masses of population, and the relative peace of ourselves, as challenged individuals. Frances Perkins, the actual author of The New Deal, is an example of how an inspired, knowledgeable individual drove change in an extremely challenged Depression Era.

Vincent Lawrence Dixon has been President and Senior Guide of Cambridge Advantage Tours. His education includes being home-schooled K-12 by his parents; Harvard Extension School, A.A., A.B., (Cum Laude); Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ed.M.; and additional graduate work at Harvard Law School, Radcliffe Institute.

He has been a regular presenter as Historian of the Wilson Science & Technology Forum, a Civics Expert, and a Newspaper Columnist, having been published in the Cambridge Chronicle, Winchester Star, Winchester News, and other publications. He presents regularly at Sanborn House of the Winchester Historical Society; Trolley Tours on Winchester Town Day, and has spoken extensively on legislation, and other similar matters.

November 14th 2025: Joe Simonetta "Truth: The Choice Between Collapse and Renewal Humanity’s Most Urgent Task in a Closing Window of Time"

On November 14th, author Joe Simonetta will speak about…truth! In his words: “In my talk, I will explore what I believe is humanity’s most urgent challenge. Our technological power has advanced at breathtaking speed, but our mental and emotional evolution has not kept pace. We still operate with a brain shaped by fear, greed, and tribal instincts — impulses that once ensured our survival but now imperil our future. At the same time, we continue to cling to inherited mythologies that divide us and distort our understanding of reality. Together, these forces create a dangerous mismatch between power and wisdom, one that now threatens the stability of civilization itself. At this pivotal moment in our evolution, we must transcend the primitive instincts of aggression, dominance, and short-term thinking that once ensured our survival — an unparalleled task, at an unprecedented scale, under the shadow of a closing window. What we need is not more belief, but a new understanding of what is truly sacred. It is not about Supreme Beings — it is about a Way of Being. Reverence for health, for one another, and for the Earth that sustains us is not idealism; it is the foundation of survival. From now on, every action we take, every system we build, must be judged by the only measure that matters: whether it diminishes and threatens life, or sustains and enhances it. When we violate these essential relationships, we don’t just suffer or decline — we unravel the fabric of life itself and edge closer to self-inflicted extinction. When we honor them, we give ourselves the only real chance we have — not merely to endure, but to build a future in which humanity not only survives but thrives.”

Joseph R. Simonetta is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate whose work grows out of a lifetime of inquiry, diverse experience, and a deep commitment to understanding and advancing humanity’s future. Driven by a lifelong desire to reduce ignorance and suffering while expanding knowledge and justice, he brings an unusually broad and integrative perspective to the great challenges of our time — blending science, ethics, design, and philosophy into a coherent vision for humanity’s next evolutionary step. A former U.S. Army officer and lifelong athlete — including a twice gold medal–winning senior triathlete — Simonetta has lived and worked in diverse arenas, from architecture and real estate development to nonprofit leadership and public service, including two nominations for the U.S. Congress. He holds a B.S. in Business from Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Architecture from the University of Colorado, and a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, with additional studies at Yale Divinity School. He has written twelve books, including TAOLISM: The Architecture of Life and EVOLVE: The Choice Between Collapse and Renewal, which articulate a science-based, ethics-driven framework for human survival and flourishing. Simonetta’s work has been featured in talks, articles, and interviews across a wide range of platforms, including a widely viewed TEDx talk.

He continues to write, speak, and consult on issues at the intersection of human behavior, sustainability, and civilization’s future — inviting audiences to confront the realities of our time and embrace a path that leads not merely to survival, but to the thriving of life on Earth. His work challenges humanity to evolve beyond primitive impulses and divisive mythologies and to build a future defined by reverence for health, one another, and the living world that sustains us.

On October 24th Purdue University Professor of Nuclear Engineering Lefteri Tsoukalas will address a topic of immense interest to nuclear electric suppliers throughout the world. Electricity and water demand from Artificial Intelligence is placing an unprecedented strain on energy. This talk argues that meeting AI’s voracious energy appetite requires a fundamental shift in strategy. We propose that new nuclear generators be deployed including, but not limited to, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), Micro Reactors (MR), and Fast Breeders burning spent fuel (aka nuclear waste) while creating fresh fuel. This strategy offers realistic solutions to our energy problems and a cost-effective, scalable alternative to fossil fuels. The presentation explores how AI can accelerate the atomic energy transition and outlines a policy framework that leverages the immense energy density of nuclear fuels to sustainably power the future of humanity while strengthening existing non-proliferation targets.

Lefteri H. Tsoukalas is the founding director of Purdue’s Center for Intelligent Energy Systems (CiENS) and a professor at Purdue University. He has over three decades of experience in developing AI/ML methods with over 300 publications including the textbooks Fuzzy and Neural Approaches in Engineering (co-authored with Robert E. Uhrig, Wiley, 1997); Fuzzy Logic: Applications in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Machine Learning (McGraw Hill, 2024); and, Energy Transitions: The AI-Energy Nexus (World Scientific, 2025). Dr. Tsoukalas has served in several advisory and consulting capacities including at the OECD-NEA; the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR) of Singapore; and the Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT) in Greece. Dr. Tsoukalas is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and the 2009 recipient of the Humboldt Prize, Germany’s highest honor for international scientists.

October 10th 2025: Dr. Eddie Robins "Tales from the AI Frontier"

The rapidity with which AI has become part of daily life for wide segments of society raises many concerns. Not many users, for example, are trained to manage their relationship with the machine and its pseudo-intelligence, and it is not uncommon for people to confuse machine responses as those of an intelligent, even emotional, agent. Partly, this is a matter of education in understanding of what exactly the machine (aka intelligence) is, compared to their own human nature. It is a hole that few corporations and providers of AI are even trying to mitigate, and this is no small matter. In this talk we shall compare the basic ‘architecture’ of rational human decision making compared to the way in which LLM’s reach their conclusions, and how agents, our alter-egos in the machine and on the internet, are essentially (or should be) extensions of ourselves into the cybernetic world. As humans and machine become more integrated, there is a real risk of humans forgetting the central purpose of their creation. Additionally, where humans see uncertainty, the machine often provides answers with unwarranted confidence. Without injecting uncertainty and doubt in machine responses, and cross-checking, erroneous myths and misguidance could lead to disaster. Through tests, scifi, myths and tales, technical analysis, and even illustrative art, we’ll plumb some of the depths of the human/machine combination to better comprehend the abilities of the machine, its current limits, dangers, and how we may manage that relationship – and why it needs managing ­in the first place – in order to achieve what the author considers is the primary goal: the benefit of humans. For some, however, the human-machine world or just the machine is an alternative and conflicting goal. Which of course raises the all-important initial question that is so needed in decision-making: what is the goal, and do we really want it?

Dr. Eddie Robins has a Ph.D. and Masters in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Manchester, and an undergraduate degree in Physics from Imperial College, London. His career has spanned forty plus years over a range of industries and disciplines. From 1981 to 1989 he developed advanced algorithms and methods for data analysis, data analytics and data management in Canada’s National Fusion facility based in Quebec, Canada. In 1995, he joined Arlington Software in Montreal as VP and Chief Scientist to provide the underpinning algorithms and methods for multi-criteria decision-making products. These were applied to complex, large-scale decision problems in industry and governments in Canada, the US, and the UK. These decisions often required transparency to ensure liability risks were minimized in the decisions. Dr. Robins served as both consultant and lead in many projects which ranged from government and corporate policy decisions, to decisions involving complex, technological analysis with multiple cross-disciplinary teams. Though the decision process and algorithms may be thought of as elements of AI, they differ in several important aspects, the most major of which is keeping humans centered on the process, and the goal or goals focused on human needs. The machine, the algorithms, the people and the decision leader / mentor were necessary components to reach consensus (Pareto optimal.) At EMC (now part of DELL), Dr. Robins lead several corporate wide efforts to manage risk and corporate and customer exposure to loss, largely through models and data analytics. Here he employed a variety of mathematical techniques, including Bayesian and neural nets, fuzzy logic, device physics, and Markov models. Access to large data sources, modeling human behavior as well as machine and component characteristics were necessary attributes, which made him estimate failure in the light of the machine-human link. This gave him a unique perspective of large-scale human-machine interactions, and the potential for corporate and personal liability. From this experience, he sees the need for guidance and guidelines in the use of such complex systems, and to more fully understand where human and machine can best find a working relationship for the benefit of (hopefully) the human world.

September 26th, 2025 MIT Physicist Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera :Electron Spin and Superconductivity Drives Information Age and Computing Technology: Quantum Computers

The revolution in information storage, communication, and the recent emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is growing at an unprecedented rate. To keep up with the demands there needs to be extensive technological development, needing a similar revolution in computer processing, nonvolatile (permanent) memory, in-memory computing as in neuromorphic computing, and sensing. While the electron tunneling phenomenon (due to wave nature of electrons) has richly contributed to our understanding of various branches of physics over the years, electron spin (the magnetic part) tunneling has transformed the magnetic storage industry termed as spintronics. Our fundamental curiosity led to the discovery of tunnel magnetoresistance - large electron spin dependent current flow in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ, a very sensitive trilayer system consisting of two ultrathin magnetic films separated by a few ‘atomic’ layers of an insulator). This signaled a transformational breakthrough to computer processing/storage industry and sensor technology. This is evident by the exponential increase in data processing and storage capabilities reaching several trillion bits in a standard computer hard drive costing $100. The super sensitive MTJ sensors are making their ubiquitous presence in all sections of society – from AI controlled automobiles to medical diagnostics (magnetic encephalography) to terrestrial and space exploration.

As computing power demands continue to rise, superconducting electronics (SCE) are playing an increasingly important role; essential to progress towards energy-efficient high-end computing and moderate the escalating power consumption by data centers. Such SCE would enable energy efficient supercomputing, and in turn, immensely benefit society, among others, the medical diagnostics and discovery, national security dark matter detection etc. This requires superconducting analogues of semiconducting devices: such as superconducting diode (SD) rectifiers for efficient power delivery, passive nonvolatile superconducting memory and logic devices for operating at cryogenic temperatures (~ – 4600 F). There could be > 1000X reduction in size and power requirement, mitigating the present limitations in superconducting qubit (a basic unit of quantum computing with multi-state capability unlike the classical binary unit, 0 or 1.) stability and scalability, control and readout while achieving complex circuits. Dr. Moodera highlights his recent work in this direction with a variety of thin film superconducting devices such as SD and nonvolatile superconducting memory elements consisting of a superconductor layer subjected to exchange fields (the magnetic interaction at the atomic level) when sandwiched between two magnetic insulators. Development of these nanoscale devices with rich functionality for seamless on-chip integration would open the world for realizing superconducting quantum and classical computers.

MIT Physicist Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera is a Senior Research Scientist and Group Leader in the Physics Department, Francis Bitter Magnet Lab and the Plasma Science and Fusion Center MIT. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor, IQC, University of Waterloo; Visiting Professor, Applied Physics Department, Technical University of Eindhoven; Distinguished Institute Professor, IIT Madras; and Distinguished Foreign Scientist at NPL, Delhi. His research interests include manipulating electron spin in solids - spin tunneling, spin filtering and interfacial exchange coupling; molecular spintronics - molecular-scale spin memory; ferromagnet/superconductor heterostructure towards superconducting quantum devices and spintronics; quantum transport in topological driven systems and heterostructures: atomic scale interface exchange phenomena - magnetic and electrical transport studies’ and the search for Majorana bound states in unconventional superconductors. He has served on the Board of External Experts at National High Field Lab (Florida, 2018) and High Pulsed Field Lab at Los Alamos Lab (2024); the national research program committees of Austria, France, Holland, England, India and Ireland. Dr. Moodera was Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, and AAAS. He is the recipient of the IBM, TDK Research Awards, and the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize of American Physical Society.

September 12, 2025: Michael Garjian Presents An Alternative to Corporate Capitalism in Managing the Socio-economic Risks of Emerging Technologies

The introduction of any new technology into the marketplace and into our social fabric involves risks. Some risks are technical, some are economic, and others are social. In this new season leadoff meeting of The Wilson Forum, Michael Garjian posits that many of today’s problems are the result of an economic model of corporate capitalism which requires corporations to produce maximum profits and maximum growth for their investors. He will be speaking about how we might implement an alternative, parallel, voluntary, community controlled, economic model he envisioned and designated as E2M on January1, 2000. In August of 2000, Michael formed E2M.org to act as an implementing organization. In 2009, E2M.org received its designation as a federally recognized 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. Michael first spoke publicly about E2M at the request and home of Hampshire College Founding President Greg Prince in 2001, then at public presentations including at the UMass Global Sustainability Festival in 2002, the UMass Amherst Department of Anthropology in 2002; the Boston Social Forum in 2004[1]; a social economics conference at Boston University in 2005; at the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Conference in 2007,[2] and others. In 2003, a community survey named Michael’s office as the third most important cause of the Easthampton, MA Economic Renaissance. During the 2000 to 2008 period of time, the E2M Board created all of the policies, procedures, methods, and organizational structures to create a template for other regions to quickly and easily implement the E2M model in their regions. During that time, Michael’s ideas received commendations by the Mass State Senate President, MA House Representatives, a Member of Congress, other elected officials, local businesses, and community members. In 2010, Michael authored his book “Community Capitalism: How Communities Can Use Capitalism to Create a Shared Economy that Works for Everyone”, included below[3]. Excerpts from the book and other references are included as an attachment that would be useful to read in advance of our meeting.

In 1964, Michael Garjian left the farm to earn a degree in business management from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Isenberg School of Management. As a lifelong commercial entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, and author, he holds 11 international patents for alternative lighting systems, electronic power supplies, and atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) systems. As a commercial entrepreneur he and his wife Irene employed 400 associates producing innovations he developed and sold internationally. As a social entrepreneur since 1999, he conceived of and pursued the development of sustainable economic systems while working in community development organizations helping more than one hundred very low-income individuals and refugees start small businesses. Michael and his wife Irene are the founders of CarbonStar Systems, Inc., a Massachusetts domestic benefit corporation (B-Corp). The E2M Board of Directors embraced the CarbonStar mission to use alternative, clean, renewable fuels to develop a sustainable, off-grid source of electricity, heat, biofuels, and fertilizers to act as the anchor industrial tenant in each E2M Regional Economic Cell. The CarbonStar system entered prototype testing status in 2021, was moved into a large manufacturing facility in 2023, and is now ready for initial production runs. Once complete, the current facility has the infrastructure means to build 100 or more CarbonStar systems annually. Thus, it is time to return our attention to the expansion of the E2M model, hopefully as a movement[4] into a new era.

June 27, 2025: Marv Goldschmitt speaks on artificial intelligence and the future of human society.

Generative AI, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) represent potential societal challenges and benefits of unprecedented character derived from science and technology. Marv Goldschmitt will moderate a discussion including the results of the survey (attached) that captures this spectrum. This is too important to let the moment go by without active response (acceptance or resistance) on the part of everyone. The fundamental question is what happens when cognition, creativity, and agency are no longer uniquely human? The consequences of the artificial intelligence movement will affect all of us on this planet. So, we all need to be alert and informed. Marv Goldschmitt has been involved in the “bleeding” edge of the computer industry for 45 years. He brings a long history of high technology executive management and consulting experience to every engagement. He is a broad thinker who applies his skills to a variety of areas that are impacted by rapid changes in technology. Active in the evolving areas of information privacy and data governance he started and ran the first software industry lobbying organization to combat piracy and establish protection for software IP. He was a member of IBM’s Data Governance Council leading the privacy and security policy development team. Marv has a long interest and involvement with AI. In 1986 he worked with Nestor Inc., the first dedicated neural networking company. He was at IBM when Watson was being developed and then started a company to help job seekers combat the use of AI in resume screening. Marv has published numerous articles on business development strategies, security and data governance. He holds a BS from the State University of New York and an MS from the Medical College of Virginia/VCU, in psychology, is a professional photographer and spent a number of years as a meditation instructor.

June 13th Dr. Amit Goyal presents High Temperature Superconductors: From Discovery to Large-Scale Industrial Applications

Remember high-temperature superconductors? These high-tech darlings of the late 1980s brought a Nobel Prize to their discoverers and generated endless speculation about how their near perfect conduction of electricity would revolutionize the world we live in! A key obstacle in realizing large-scale applications of these novel materials was the difficulty of forming long, flexible wires that can carry large amounts of supercurrent per unit area, from these highly brittle, ceramic superconductors that essentially resemble “mud”.It turns out that from a technical or performance standpoint, a mile-long, flexible, single-crystal-like wire of the highly brittle, ceramic superconductor was required. From a cost and fabrication standpoint, an industrially scalable, low-cost process was needed with the goal being to meet or beat the price of ordinary copper wire! This constituted the first holy-grail in fabrication of high-performance, superconducting wires, namely, fabrication of single-crystal-like superconducting wires by the kilometer at a price/performance metric equivalent to that of copper. Once this seemingly insurmountable objective was addressed via fundamental technical innovations, a second holy-grail became apparent for realizing large-scale applications where high-applied magnetic fields were present. This related to substantially improving the vortex-pinning within the superconducting wires which could only be accomplished by introducing periodic, nanoscale, non-superconducting regions separated by nanoscale dimensions, within kilometer-long superconducting wires. Of course, all of this had to be accomplished without adding any significant cost! In this talk Professor Amit Goyal of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo will take you on a journey from the discovery of high temperature superconductors towards realizing practical, large-scale, applications of these novel materials by addressing the key scientific and technical challenges mentioned above. The eventual solutions are one of the first, large-scale, high-technology applications of nanotechnology, the only example of "epitaxy-by-the-mile" and of self-assembly of nanomaterials by the mile! These HTS wires are now enabling commercial nuclear fusion for limitless clean energy generation, loss-less transmission of energy, superconducting magnetic energy storage systems, next-generation MRI and NMR, MagLev for transportation and all-electric planes and ships with superconducting drivetrains for defense applications.

Dr. Amit Goyal is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo; a Member of US National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors; a Fellow of AAAS, MRS, IEEE, APS, ASM, ACERS, IOP, WIF and WTN; and a Member of the US National Materials and Manufacturing Board (NMMB). He has co-authored over 360 publications and has 85 issued patents. He was ranked by Thompson-Reuters as the most cited author worldwide in the field of high temperature superconductors from 1999-2009. He is the Director of the Lab for Heteroepitaxial Growth of Functional Materials and Devices, and the Director of the NYS Center of Plastics Recycling Research and Innovation at SUNY. He served as the Founding Director of the Institute on Research and Education on Energy, Environment and Water (2015-21), and is an Emeritus Corporate Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Lab. He has received numerous accolades including DOE’s E.O. Lawrence (EOL) Award in the inaugural category of Energy Science and Innovation. The EOL award is given by the DOE Secretary on behalf of the President. Selected additional honors include: TEN R and D 100 awards, the R and D Magazine's "Innovator-of-the-Year" award (2010), Three National Federal Lab Consortium Awards for Tech. Transfer, and the SUNY-Buffalo President’s Medal (2019), the. highest award at the University at Buffalo.