Heinz Radio: Recent Episodes
Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College
Heinz Radio is a podcast created by the students of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Students host conversations with faculty, community members, and professionals at the intersection of public policy, technology, and the arts.
In this episode of Heinz Radio, we sat down with Erin Dalton to talk about the intersection of equity and community health and the role that the Allegheny County Department of Human Services plays in that space. We also spoke about the impact that COVID-19 has had public health, and concluded with a touch of optimism for the future of equity in community health.
Erin Dalton is the Director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, which provides community-based programs to families and individuals across the region. Prior to her role as director, Ms. Dalton led DHS’s analytics, planning, and information technology functions. Ms. Dalton is a 2004 alumna of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, earning a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management.
The arts and technology are often considered to be opposites of one another; however, they can also be merged to create immersive spaces that inspire wonder, creativity, and imagination. One such example is ARTECHOUSE, an immersive artspace that engages the audience in innovative hi-tech art both in physical locations as well as on their mobile app. In this episode, we had a chance to talk to Lena Galperina, the Visitor Experience Director at ARTECHOUSE, about her views on how the arts and tech inform each other, as well as how it applies in the context of ARTECHOUSE.
Lena Galperina is passionate about bringing impactful art experiences to audiences. She believes that the arts have the power to help us understand each other and bring us closer together. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from American University in Art History and International Relations, as well as a Master’s degree from George Mason University in Arts Management. She has professional and personal experience in both visual and performing arts: she loves to paint and draw (especially using watercolors and ink), tell stories and dance with Carpathia Folk Dance Ensemble, where she is also the Assistant Director. Currently she works as the Visitor Experience Director at ARTECHOUSE, an innovative art space dedicated to showcasing artists whose primary medium is technology. Her role focuses on enhancing the visitor's experience and working with the entire team to ensure audiences' connection with the artwork on view.
In the last episode, we spoke to two distinguished professors of economics at Heinz College, doctors Lowell Taylor and Martin Gaynor, to explore the economics of how a company like Amazon could grow so quickly to control half of the US online retail market, what the consequences could be for consumers, and whether we should be worried about a complete monopoly.
Today, we will explore how existing anti-trust laws could be maneuvered to deal with Amazon and other tech giants. We spoke with Attorney Michael A. Finio, and Prof. Ari Lightman from Heinz College.
Ari is a Distinguished Service Professor, Digital Media and Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. Ari is an internationally recognized expert in digital transformation and technology disruption focusing on online communities, digital collaboration, information dissemination and content analysis. He has worked with organizations across entertainment, technology, manufacturing, Consumer Packaged Goods, finance and healthcare.
Mike hails currently from Camp Hill, PA where he and his wife Amy live with their two dogs - Newfoundland Harper, and hound mix Ollie. After spending his formative years in Southwest Philadelphia and Springfield (Delco) PA, he went to the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, NH and then the (Penn State) Dickinson School of Law, in Carlisle PA. He’s been practicing law since 1983 and over his 38 years at the bar, he has from one client matter to the next over time increasingly focused on antitrust, merger review and control and other competition matters, and those things now occupy almost all of his lawyering time. He’s also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson, where he teaches Antitrust Law.
In the last episode, we spoke to two distinguished professors of economics at Heinz College, doctors Lowell Taylor and Martin Gaynor, to explore the economics of how a company like Amazon could grow so quickly to control half of the US online retail market, what the consequences could be for consumers, and whether we should be worried about a complete monopoly.
Today, we will explore how existing anti-trust laws could be maneuvered to deal with Amazon and other tech giants. We spoke with Attorney Michael A. Finio, and Prof. Ari Lightman from Heinz College.
Ari is a Distinguished Service Professor, Digital Media and Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. Ari is an internationally recognized expert in digital transformation and technology disruption focusing on online communities, digital collaboration, information dissemination and content analysis. He has worked with organizations across entertainment, technology, manufacturing, Consumer Packaged Goods, finance and healthcare.
Mike hails currently from Camp Hill, PA where he and his wife Amy live with their two dogs - Newfoundland Harper, and hound mix Ollie. After spending his formative years in Southwest Philadelphia and Springfield (Delco) PA, he went to the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, NH and then the (Penn State) Dickinson School of Law, in Carlisle PA. He’s been practicing law since 1983 and over his 38 years at the bar, he has from one client matter to the next over time increasingly focused on antitrust, merger review and control and other competition matters, and those things now occupy almost all of his lawyering time. He’s also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson, where he teaches Antitrust Law.
This week’s episode is the first in a special two-part series investigating the question, “Is Amazon evil?” We take a close look at the e-commerce giant and some of the most alarming warnings that have been raised about their meteoric rise to market dominance. In Part 1, we spoke with two distinguished professors of economics at the Heinz College, Dr. Lowell Taylor and Dr. Martin Gaynor, to understand the economics of how a company like Amazon could grow so quickly to control half of the US online retail market. We also asked what the consequences could be for consumers and whether we should be worried about Amazon forming a complete monopoly.
Dr. Lowell Taylor is the H. John Heinz III University Professor of Economics at the Heinz College and a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he serves as Principal Investigator of the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth. He previously served as a senior economist with President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. Taylor’s research interests are in labor economics and economic demography.
Dr. Martin Gaynor is the E.J. Barone University Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and former Director of the Bureau of Economics at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Professor Gaynor's research focuses on competition and incentives in health care and on antitrust policy.
In the second part of our "Building Equitable Transportation Networks" series, we sat down with Allante Whitmore to talk about the autonomous vehicle landscape and how future developments in this space can take equity considerations into account. We examined the synergies between public transportation innovation and autonomous vehicles. We explored the ways in which autonomous vehicle research and development has been both bolstered and hindered by COVID-19. We concluded the interview by talking about recommendations for how policymakers can ensure that autonomous vehicle developments are properly managed and effectively regulated.
Allante Whitmore is a fourth-year PhD student pursuing a joint-PhD in Civil Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her PhD research focuses on how to equitably deploy autonomous vehicles, how to integrate autonomous vehicles into public transportation systems, and how to develop shared autonomous vehicle networks to improve mobility for transit-dependent populations. Allante also serves as a Mobility21 Diversity Fellow where she explores the intersection between autonomous vehicle development and public policy.
Happy new years! In this episode, we sat down with Haley Townsend to discuss the use of artificial intelligence in the transportation space. How can artificial intelligence be used to ensure that transportation systems are equitable across socioeconomic and accessibility lines? In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic complicated and enhanced attempts to use artificial intelligence in the transportation industry? We explored these questions and concluded by discussing how policymakers can ensure that artificial intelligence developments in the transportation industry are properly managed and effectively regulated.
Haley Townsend is a transportation data scientist at Noblis. Noblis is a science, technology, engineering, and strategy company based out of Washington D.C. Haley attended Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University and obtained a masters degree in Public Policy, Management, and Data Analytics in 2019. She has worked at the intersection of data science and transportation for 2 years and focuses specifically on intelligent transportation systems.
In our final part of the Arts & Entertainment in the time of COVID-19 series, we had the opportunity to chat with Christine Barnes, a theme park creative and video game enthusiast. We discussed the effects of the pandemic on the theme park industry, what ways theme parks are integrating aspects from video games, how theme parks are changing and ways it will continue to evolve.
Christine M. Barnes is an Alumni of Carnegie Mellon University has been bringing magic to the stage since she was a little girl and has a lifelong passion with storytelling. She has enthusiastically shared this love through her work in theatre and theme parks enabling others to experience characters, stories, and worlds only dreamed of through their imaginations. She currently conducts workshops focused on the creative process and the importance of teamwork.
In the second part of our series on arts & entertainment in the time of COVID-19, we spoke with Whitney Jefferson about the state of live entertainment. Whitney is a second-year Master of Entertainment Industry Management Student here at Heinz College, and she spent the summer doing research on how live entertainment venues are handling the pandemic with the AMT lab.
Whitney’s passion for the entertainment industry began when she was a teenager. She decided to attend Albright College to get a bachelor degree in music industry studies. This degree equipped Whitney with the understanding of the industry she wanted to work in, but she wanted to know how the music industry worked with film and television.
During her graduate studies, Whitney has had the opportunity to intern with Calliope, a non-profit concert promoter, the Arts Management and Technology Lab, and Trend: PR, Branding, & Social Media. Whitney is interested in music licensing and live entertainment. She’s excited to see how the reliance on virtual and augmented reality for concerts during Covid-19 will impact physical concerts and licensing in the future.
The Arts Management & Technology (AMT) Laboratory, a research center of Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Arts Management Program, serves as an exchange, a catalyst for innovative ideas, and a conduit for knowledge circulating at the intersection of arts, management, and technology.
We had the chance to sit down with Lisa Alexander, in the first episode of our series on arts & entertainment in the time of COVID-19. Lisa Alexander is currently the PR Marketing Manager for Calliope: The Pittsburgh Folk Music Society, where she has worked for nine years and taken on a variety of roles. Also a writer, she holds an MFA in poetry from Drew University and has published her poems widely. She lives in Pittsburgh.
Most of us have heard about precision medicine, but do we know how this patient-centered care actually works? This week, we’re sharing our interview with Dr. Philip Empey, Associate Director for Pharmacogenomics of the Pitt/UPMC Institute of Precision Medicine. Dr. Empey helps us understand precision medicine and pharmacogenomics, discussing its potential for improving healthcare and the preparation necessary for its success.
Dr. Philip Empey is the Associate Director for Pharmacogenomics of the Pitt/UPMC Institute of Precision Medicine and leads the PreCISE-Rx and Test2Learn teams to implement pharmacogenomics clinical, research, and educational initiatives. He also directs the University of Pittsburgh - Thermo Fisher Scientific Pharamcogenomics Center of Excellence which is deploying population scale preemptive pharmagenomics testing (to >150,000 patients) in western Pennsylvania. As a clinician-scientist in the Department of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Dr. Empey conducts NIH-funded clinical and translational research aimed at understanding the mechanisms of the variability in drug response to improve medication-related outcomes in critically-ill patients.
Dr. Empey’s research interests include understanding the role/impact of xenobiotic transporters following neurological injury, transporter pharmacogenomics, pharmacogenomics clinical implementation, collection of medication-related phenotype information, and genotype-phenotype discovery. Dr. Empey teaches at the graduate level in pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, and drug transporters in the Schools of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Nursing. He also has a research interest in innovative educational models to transform education.
We're living in a time when so many companies have access to so much information about us that it is easier and easier to both predict and shape our behavior. How can we trust that our data is being used fairly and respectfully? This episode looks at the complex issues behind defining and enforcing corporate ethical behavior in the burgeoning field of data science.
Host Sormeh Yazdi conducts a remote interview with Dr. Laura Norén, whose work focuses on employee data rights, capable data guardianship, and privacy compliance. Dr. Norén is a data science ethicist, speaker, and researcher currently serving as the Vice President of Privacy and Trust at Obsidian Security. She is a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Center for Data Science and UC-Berkeley’s Division of Data Science and Information, has earned undergraduate degrees at MIT, and a PhD at NYU where she completed a Moore-Sloan Postdoc. Her work on data ethics been covered in The New York Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and American Public Media's Marketplace. On Thursdays, she publishes the Data Science Community Newsletter.
If you are interested in more on this topic, check out "Scoping the OECD AI principles" as an example of a broad framework leaving details to the domains.
Taylor Lorenz is a tech reporter for the New York Times covering internet culture, from memes to social media influencers to emerging online trends. In this episode, Taylor shares her views on “Ok Boomer,” the “flattening” of politics by social media and the internet, and the causes of the United States’ internet regulation vacuum.
Follow @TaylorLorenz on Twitter, Instagram, and in the New York Times Style Section - or risk losing touch with the youths.
David Riemer is an attorney and policy expert whose career in public service spans over four decades. In this week's episode of Heinz Radio, host Collin T Hayes spoke with Riemer about his new book, "Putting Government in Its Place: The Case for a New Deal 3.0." The book provides an expansive and comprehensive history of how America's government and political economy have transformed in the nearly 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt was first elected President. Riemer also argues that a "complete change in concept" in policymaking is necessary to tackle the issues of 21st Century society. If you like today's episode, you can order Riemer's book on Amazon or at henschelhausbooks.com. You can view more of his research and writing at govinitsplace.org.
Welcome back to Heinz Radio and welcome to year 2020! We hope you had a great holiday break and, for those of you listeners that are current students, we’re hoping you are feeling at least somewhat ready to restart classes again!
The sustainable development goals, developed by people and representatives from 193 nations, encompass 17 goals, from ending poverty, to protecting life on land and underwater, to reducing inequality, to eliminating hunger, all by 2030. How exactly is CMU going to help meet these goals by 2030? Listen in to find out how the relatively new Sustainability Initiative project is revving it's engines and getting ready to help students, staff and faculty tackle these immense goals.
Sara Cortez is a 2017 graduate of the Heinz College’s Master of Science in Public Policy and Management program. Since August 2017, she has worked as a Fiscal and Policy Analyst at the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, in the program areas of Early Education, Child Care, and Child Nutrition.
The California Legislative Analyst's Office, or LAO, serves as the "eyes and ears" of the California Legislature, providing fiscal and policy advice and nonpartisan budget analysis to ensure that legislative policy is implemented in a cost efficient and effective manner by California’s executive branch.
In this week's episode, Justin speaks with Mario Khreiche, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh's History Department. Mario's background in Political & Cultural Thought informs his current research on digital labor and the politics of automation. Justin and Mario discuss some of the new developments in work and the economy resulting from advances in technology. They touch on the gig economy, the gamification of labor, the inequitable distribution of automation’s benefits, and more!
Thorough data analysis is crucial to human rights investigations – but collecting and understanding these data can provide an incredible challenge. In this week’s episode, Patrick Ball, Director of Research at Human Rights Data Analysis Group, joins us to discuss his experience with these challenges and the importance of applying rigorous science to human rights investigations.
Patrick Ball, PhD, has spent the last 25 years conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, non-governmental organizations, international criminal tribunals, and United Nations missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Chad, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Kosovo, Liberia, Perú, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Syria. Patrick has provided expert testimony in several trials, including those of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of Serbia; José Efraín Ríos Montt, former de-facto president of Guatemala; and Hissène Habré, the former President of Chad.
How can we help lift people out of poverty for good? Heinz alum Lauren Renaud ('17), now Director of Analytics for the Family Independence Initiative, says we should start by assuming that people who have experienced poverty know more about their unique needs than any government official, philanthropist, or policy professional.
The Family Independence Initiative (FII) is a nonprofit that promotes unrestricted cash transfers as a way to alleviate poverty. They also host online forums where assistance recipients can give each other advice and feedback. In this week's episode, Lauren and host Chinmayee discuss FII's initiatives and their results, the philosophical shift Lauren hopes to see in the fight against poverty, and more.
This week Heinz Radio is co-releasing an episode from another Podcast on CMU's Campus. We hope you enjoy!
Are the robots coming for your job? The answer isn’t quite that simple. We look at what’s real and what’s hype in the narrative of industry disruption, how we might be able to better predict future technological change and how artificial intelligence will change our understanding of the nature of intelligence itself.
Each spring at Heinz College, the U.S. Army War College drops by for a weekend to run the International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE). In this week's special two-part episode, we're finding out what the ISCNE is all about and what kind of lessons the students take away from it.
In the first half of the episode, Vanessa speaks with ISCNE mentor and U.S. Army Colonel Chris Cox about leadership and cooperation in large organizations. Col Cox is a former Army War College fellow at Heinz College and U.S. Military Academy faculty member, and has held a variety of leadership positions during his three deployments and more than twenty years of service.
In the second part of the episode, Corina takes us into the last day of the ISCNE to speak with the exercise facilitator, Colonel Ken Gillian, and to hear from students about the experience.
Chris Castro, Director of Sustainability for the City of Orlando, stopped by Heinz College last spring to deliver a lecture about urban sustainability. Afterward, he sat down with Heinz Radio to discuss his efforts to incorporate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into Orlando’s sustainability and resilience strategy, and how he has relied on his experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors to craft innovative solutions to the challenges facing Orlando.
This week's episode was edited by Collin T Hayes and Chizo Nwagwu. For more information about Chris Castro, follow him on twitter @castroideas.
Designing a better foster care application process. Listening to the people. Creating a process that works for (literally) everyone. This week, Afua Bruce, Director of Engineering at New America's Public Interest Technology program, joins us to talk about how technology is being used to benefit the public, how policy and technology have been increasingly colliding, and why listening is so important when designing for the public.
At Obvious Ventures, where Joe Blair is a Vice President and investor, they invest in companies that have a #worldpositive impact -- AKA businesses that have sustainable positive impact, whose profits further their purpose, and whose margins drive their mission.
How does this kind of investing - #worldpositive, social impact investing - work? What are the tensions between social impact investing and the unintended consequences of rushing out products? How do policy and regulation come into play? This week, we talk with Joe about these topics as well as what inspired him to start his own podcast: the Epic Human Podcast.
REBROADCAST (Original Publication Date: July 30, 2018)
This week, we're republishing one of the original Heinz Radio episodes. In this episode, Eugene Leventhal interviewed Former Congressman Jason Altmire. They talked about his book, Dead Center: How Political Polarization Divided America and What We Can Do About It, as well as his experience in Congress as a centrist candidate from Western Pennsylvania. Jason told Eugene about the burden of re-elections and campaigning and how young people can think about getting engaged in their communities.
Join us this week with Dr. Alessandro Acquisti, a highly esteemed Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at Heinz College. Dr. Acquisti is the recipient of numerous awards for his research in privacy economics and is a trailblazer in the field. We discuss Dr. Acquisti's background, his research on the predictability of social security numbers, and the future of digital privacy.
Here is a link to his TED Talk that has over a million views: https://www.ted.com/talks/alessandro_acquisti_why_privacy_matters?language=en
Welcome to this week’s episode of Heinz Radio. Back in April, we had Smita Satiani come to campus to give a talk at Heinz College on moonshots. Smita is the head of Innovation Policy on the F-SOC or Free Space Optical Communications project at X. If you haven’t heard of X before, they are the moonshot factory under Alphabet.
I enjoyed this conversation with Smita where I got to ask her about the approach towards innovation they take on at X. We talked about some of the differences between innovating within the government, within nonprofits, and within the private sector. We also touched on the FSOC project at X and how they’re basically using lasers to help extend internet connectivity in Andhra Pradesh in India.
Just a heads up - we recorded this conversation over Hangouts and there were some minor connectivity issues at random points, but I think all of Smita’s point make it across clearly.
This is a great conversation for anyone interested in social innovation and I hope you enjoy the interview.
Welcome to this week's episode of Heinz Radio with host, Eugene Leventhal. Back in April, Sam Quinones came to CMU's campus to give a talk as part of the University Lecture Series. Sam is a journalist and author of the book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic - a really engaging read despite how heavy the topic is.
We were excited to get to talk to Sam about the book and about how synthetic opioids were present when he was researching for it. We started the interview talking about two of his forthcoming projects - a young adult version of Dreamland and a new project focusing on synthetic opioids. It was interesting to hear Sam's perspective on policy and legislative responses that we've seen to the crisis and to have him comment about how drug trafficking relates to the immigration debate.
We really enjoyed the conversation with Sam and I hope you enjoy the interview.
Sam's website
Dreamland
With 216 days until the Iowa Caucuses and 491 days until the 2020 Election, the campaign to nominate the next Democratic Presidential candidate has already started to heat up. Twenty candidates took to the stage last week in Miami for two nights of debates, and loyal Heinz Radio listeners might have recognized to familiar faces in the crowded field. This week, we’re bringing you our interviews with Congressman Tim Ryan and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN, who joined Collin T Hayes last fall for our 2018 Midterm Election series. You’ll notice that many of the topics discussed in these throwback interviews have continued to define these candidates’ messages on the national stage. For more information or to hear past episodes of our podcast, vist heinz-radio.com. Feel free to send your feedback to heinzradio@andrew.cmu.edu and check us out on social media @HeinzRadio.
In 2010, the Pennsylvania State Legislature mandated that the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing create a risk assessment tool to be used at sentencing. Since then, the Commission has worked to create a tool that meets this mandate and addresses public concerns about fairness, bias and the criminal justice system itself.
In this episode, Kate Vander Wiede and Collin T. Hayes talk to several experts - from the legislature (Representative Todd Stephens), the Commission (Executive Director Mark Bergstrom) and Heinz (Dr. Daniel Nagin and Dr. Mike Skirpan) - about the risks and benefits of using data in the criminal justice field, about how the risk assessment tool has changed since the commission started work on it, and about what's next for a tool that no one seems to love.
In this week's episode, host Vanessa speaks with Dr. Mark Kamlet. Dr. Kamlet is a professor of economics and public policy and a former provost who has been with Carnegie Mellon University since 1976. His research focuses on the economic impacts of automation and AI. In this episode, he explains the history of machine learning at CMU, the development of Pittsburgh since the collapse of the local steel industry, and how the two are related.
Dr. Kamlet shares his insight on why machine learning will have such a dramatic effect on humanity in the near future, and what we might need to change in response.
In this episode of Heinz Radio guest interviewer Claudia Bustamante from Carnegie Mellon’s Latino/a Graduate Student Association sat down with John Polga-Hecimovich, assistant professor of comparative politics at the United States Naval Academy, to discuss the ongoing political and economic turmoil in Venezuela. Claudia and John discuss the details of the conflict, the key players in the current political standoff, and the role of bureaucracies, the military, and the international community in any potential resolution. In May, following the initial interview, John called back in to give an update on new developments in Venezuela after Juan Guiado called for mass mobilization against Maduro on April 30th.
We at Heinz Radio would like to extend a special thanks to Claudia for hosting today’s episode, and to John Polga-Hecimovich for his generosity in speaking with us twice. You can find the latest insights from John by following him on Twitter at @jpolga
In this week's episode, we take a walk down memory lane and revisit 12 of the 40 episodes published in the inaugural season of the podcast. Come along with host Matthew Fochs as he explores some of the underlying themes that have popped up each week despite the diverse background and interests of our guests.
A full breakdown and links to each of the 12 episodes highlighted in this recap can be found on the podcast website at www.heinz-radio.com.
Thank you all for listening and we are excited to bring you more new episodes over the summer months along with a few republished episodes that we think you may want to revisit!
This week's episode Corina Paraschiv sits down with the Executive Director of the Center for Machine Learning and Health at CMU, Joe Marks. After graduating from Harvard University, Mr. Marks has been involved with invention and innovation in applied computing for over 30 years in multiple contexts and industries, including defense, media & entertainment, marketing, and healthcare.
Corina and Mark discuss the ways in which machine learning has and continues to affect the healthcare sector. The discussion touches on the intersection of innovation in healthcare, business, and government and what role advanced technology has in this wide range practice. Marks also discusses some of the roadblocks that machine learning has in healthcare sector.
Cori Zarek has spent her professional life working on transparent, open and digital government. In our interview, Cori describes some of the work she did in these areas during Obama administration, why an open and digital government matters, and how she has continued to fight for it since leaving the White House.
Have you ever felt extremely passionate about a cause but don’t know how to be an effective activist? You might find some inspiration in this week’s episode of Heinz Radio where host Chinmayee interviews Eduardo Chavez, director of the documentary Hailing Cesar and grandson of the legendary civil rights activist César Chávez.
In the episode, Eduardo discusses his grandfather’s legacy as a champion for farmworker’s rights, what he learned from creating the documentary, and what impact he hopes it will have on society.
We also discuss what it means to be a powerful leader and activist, and how to keep a legacy alive through media.
In addition to being a director, Eduardo Chavez is the co-founder of Latindia Studios, a member of the Speakers’ Board for the Chavez Institute for Law and Social Justice, and a professional golf player.
We hope you tune in to this exciting and inspirational episode of the podcast!
This week, Jeff Meisel sits down with Collin T Hayes to discuss his experience working in the federal government and the 2020 census, which will be the first ever to be conducted online. Jeff discusses the path that led him to public service after a career in the tech industry (2:18). He also explains some of the initiatives that he worked on at the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce to innovate these bureaucracies (3:20). Jeff worked in the federal government from 2014 to 2018, and he discusses his experience of the presidential transition from his perspective at Commerce (10:01). He also describes some of the programs and initiatives that he introduced to keep the agency's employees up to date with the current technology and to attract new talent to the department (12:11). Jeff also recommends that everyone take the opportunity to engage in public service (16:43). In the second half of our conversation, Jeff discusses the importance of the census to our democracy and talks about the process of developing the first ever online census (19:00). Jeff also weighs in on the controversy surrounding the Trump administration's efforts to include a citizenship question on the census (25:53) and disinformation efforts that could cause under-counting (31:20)
You can follow Jeff on Twitter @jffmsl. Learn more about the 2020 Census here: www.census.gov/2020census Follow Heinz Radio on Twitter @HeinzRadio, on Instagram @heinz_radio, and on Facebook. Visit our website heinz-radio.com for up to date information and feel free to send us your feedback. Music for the intro and outro is provided by Audiobinger: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Audiobinger/~/Random_Thoughts
Juan Agustin Marquez is a Puerto Rican filmmaker and a four time Emmy award winner. His documentary "The Last Colony" was released in 2015 and follows the events leading up to Puerto Rico's fourth plebiscite, a national referendum to decide the future of the island's status as US territory. Marquez visited Heinz College on March 22 to discuss Puerto Rico's relationship with the US in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, its efforts to recover from the devastation of the storm, and the future of the independence movement. Following that event, he sat down with Tiffany Taulton, President and Founder of CMU in Puerto Rico, whose group had just returned from a trip to the island.
To learn more about Juan Agustin Marquez, and to view "The Last Colony," visit his website: juan.mixform.com/
To learn more about CMU in Puerto Rico, visit www.cmuinpuertorico.org/
Keep up with all things Heinz Radio at www.heinz-radio.com
This week's Heinz Radio episode features Shelly Danko+Day from Pittsburgh's Department of City Planning talking with Kate Vander Weide about the ins and outs of local government.
Shelly has a broad background in food systems and gets into the weeds on creating a program to allow community members to make productive use of vacant lots, legalizing chickens & compost, promoting farmers markets, and learning the ropes on how to be an advocate within government. If you're interested in food policy, urban agriculture, or what it takes to get stuff done in local government, we think you'll find this episode enlightening!
In this week's episode, Preetha Swamy and Eugene Leventhal interview Professor David Danks. He is the Head of the Philosophy Department, the L.L. Thurstone Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, and teaches cross-listed courses on AI and Ethics.
This discussion touched on the state of regulation relating to AI and what can be learned about regulating new technologies as a whole. We also discussed the ethics relating to AI and what kind of backgrounds are necessary to avoid the kinds of pitfalls that have already been seen in terms of algorithmic biases.
This week, we’re featuring Khalil G. Muhammad,Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Khalil has spent his professional life examining the intersections of race, democracy, inequity and criminal justice in modern U.S. History, and this year he was CMU’s Martin Luther King keynote lecturer.
This episode features a roundtable discussion with several CMU students and focuses on institutional racism, reparations, how students can fight for diversity and inclusion at CMU, criminal justice and much more. Special thanks to Saaliha Khan- officer of Heinz College Council for Diversity, Richness and Inclusion, Kate VanDerWiede - President of Heinz Radio, and Shernell Smith - associate director of The Center for Student Diversity & Inclusion for co-hosting the discussion.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Have you ever wondered why you should care about bitcoin? In this episode, Eugene sat down with his 8-year old niece Ariella to discuss just that! They talk about bitcoin and one of its innovations in terms of adding trust in a peer to peer environment.
During this fun little chat, Ariella and Eugene also touched on the role that banks play in terms of providing security and peer to peer transactions overall.
We hope you enjoy the episode, and don't forget to say hi on Instagram and Facebook, and check out our new website!
In this week’s episode, hosts Spriha Gupta and Vanessa Kolb speak with Dr. Kathleen Carley about bots and disinformation on social media. Dr. Carley is a professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science and is the director of the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems. She tells us about her pioneering work in dynamic network analysis, which has been applied to disaster and disease response, counter-terrorism, evaluation of cybersecurity threats, and now to social media.
For more information about Heinz Radio, or to listen to past episodes, visit heinz-radio.com
Incidental music provided by Audiobinger from Free Music Archives.
This week on Heinz Radio, Sara Jackson sits down with Cordell Carter, Executive Director of the Socrates Program at the Aspen Institute. They talk about Cordell’s journey reviving civil discourse around the world, driving leaders to wrestle with the tensions in every big decision they make, and showing people the complexity of making tough policy choices.
Sarah and Cordell also talk about the state of news, the decentralized nature of Cordell’s work, how he curates speakers and participants, and how to let curiosity guide your career. Stepping back, they also talk about the recent midterm elections, how America’s age contributes to national discourse, iterating on the Constitution, and the potential for change at the state and local level.
To learn more about Cordell and his work, visit https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/socrates-program/ or follow him on Twitter @cordellcarterii
Sam Franklin is the VP of Schools for AltSchool, a network of tuition-funded pre-kindergarten through 8th-grade lab schools throughout San Francisco and New York City. Prior to his current job, Sam worked as the Executive Director for the Office of Teacher Effectiveness at Pittsburgh Public Schools. Beginning his teaching career as 6th-grade math and science teacher as an AmeriCorps member, Sam went on to receive his MSPPM from Heinz College in 2007. Utilizing the ideas developed in his systems project, Sam founded the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy (SciTech), one of the highest overall performing public high schools in the city.
Earlier this year, Heinz Radio host, Sara Jackson was able to sit down with Sam and pick his mind on topics ranging from how his education at Heinz helped put him on a path to success, to general leadership strategies he has picked up over the years, and where the future of education policy may be going in the U.S.
To learn more about Sam, check out his full bio and support information on the AltSchool site, or follow Sam on Twitter @samfranklin1000
For more information about Heinz Radio, or to listen to past episodes, visit heinz-radio.com
Incidental music provided by Audiobinger from Free Music Archives.
Daniel O'Brien is a data analyst with the Boston Area Research Initiative and an associate professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. He visited Heinz College on January 29 to give a lecture about how Boston has used data generated from its 311 system to understand neighborhood "custodianship," or how residents use and maintain public spaces and to discuss his book The Urban Commons. O'Brien sat down with co-hosts Kate Vander Wiede and Collin T Hayes to discuss the unlikely path that led him from evolutionary biology to urban policy, the trends he has discovered in analyzing Boston's 311 system, and how cities can utilize data to improve public services.
For more information about Dan, visit https://cssh.northeastern.edu/people/faculty/daniel-t-obrien/ or follow the Boston Area Research Initiative on Twitter @BARIboston
To order his book, The Urban Commons, visit http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975293.
For more information about Heinz Radio, or to listen to past episodes, visit heinz-radio.com
Incidental music provided by Audiobinger from Free Music Archives.
In this week’s episode, we explore the world of art and technology.
Hosts Abhijit Nimbalkar and Kate Vander Wiede talk with Dr. Brett Crawford and Jenée Iyer about why art is so important to society and how it can and should play a role in cities. They discuss how artificial intelligence, chat bots, augmented reality and other emerging technologies have been changing the way that people engage with art across the world.
Dr. Brett Crawford is an assistant professor at Heinz College and the head of the Arts Management and Technology Lab at CMU. Jenée Iyer is pursuing Masters in Arts Management at Heinz and a JD at the University of Pittsburgh, and she is the Chief Editor of Research for the Arts Management and Technology Lab.
We hope you enjoy the episode!
This week, Matthew Fochs sits down with Paul Triolo. Paul is a China Digital Economy Fellow at New America focusing on global technology policy issues, cyber-security, internet governance, ICT regulatory issues, and emerging areas such as automation, AI/Big Data, ambient intelligence, and fintech.
While the relationship between the US and China has a long history of tension, recent actions by the governments of both counties has brought those tensions to a new pinnacle. Matthew Fochs had the chance to sit down with Paul in late November as the world braced for the G20 summit in Buenos Aires and the looming new trade tariffs between the US and China set to take hold on January 1.
However, before they get to that elephant in the room, Paul talks about the “Made in China 2025” initiative, recent cybersecurity and IP theft, one of the hot button topics during the 2016 Presidential Election – the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the current administration’s actions towards China Technology company, ZTE.
This week, guest host and Heinz alum Rondell Jordan teams up with Jason to interview Sam Sinyangwe. Sam is a policy analyst and activist who founded Campaign Zero - a platform of 10 policy interventions aimed at reducing police violence across the country. He also produced Mapping Police Violence, a database of police killings in the U.S.
Rondell and Jason talk to Sam about how data and people interact to both amplify and reduce biases, and his approach to better processes for collecting, interpreting, and using that data. This turned into a deep conversation about the various issues around how police violence is measured and reported, and how he's trying to use data and a new organizing model to transform the institutions in the country.
This week, we have part two of our interview with Ijeoma Oluo, hosted by M. Shernell Smith. Shernell is the Associate Director for Community Engagement at the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion here at CMU. She is an activist and community leader who has spent years championing sustainability, social inclusion, and economic prosperity for CMU students and the broader Pittsburgh community.
Shernell talks with Ijeoma about current issues and dove a bit more deeply into her personal narrative around race, racism, social activism, as well as raising a child of color in today’s society.
This week, Eugene sits down with Ijeoma Oluo. Ijeoma is a prolific journalist and author of So You Want to Talk About Race.We were lucky to have Ijeoma come to talk on campus and were able to get an interview with her.
This episode will actually be split into a two-part episode that will come out this week and next to hold you over while you travel or rest during the holiday season. In part one this week, Ijeoma and Eugene ran through various parts of her book, including her definition of racism and intersectionality. In part two, guest host Shernell Smith talks with Ijeoma about current issues, diving a bit more deeply into her personal narrative around race, racism, social activism, and raising a child of color in today’s society.
Happy Holidays!
This week, Kate gets on the phone with Yolanda Martinez Mancilla, Heinz Alum, and the National Digital Strategy Coordinator in the Office of the President of Mexico. Kate and Yolanda talked about Mexico's progress towards providing their nearly 130 million citizens with internet access, and using the government's role to create a sustained system of growth in the digital world.
Between 2014 and 2016, Mexico went from 45th to 14th on the United Nations E-Government Survey, which measures the degree to which citizens can engage with their governments digitally. Yolanda is working to provide all citizens - young and old - with access to technology skill-building opportunities through digital technology centers, programs that focus on building skills for women, and including artisans in Mexico's e-commerce.
This week, Simran sits down with Bart Edes, the Asian Development Bank's Representative of the North American Office. Simran and Bart talk through his background in international development before diving into the exciting mission the ADB pursues.
Bart is trying to address the lack of financial access in Asia by providing capital to small businesses and entrepreneurs, but he's also focused on helping the most at-risk populations and closing the gaps in infrastructure that present barriers to developing communities. Simran and Bart also think about ways to free up capital for socially necessary projects that are not attractive to investors.
This week, Kee Won sits down with Heinz College Prof. Alexandre Jacquillat. Prof. Jacquillat is an Assistant Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy, dedicated to using data to make transportation systems more efficient and sustainable.
With a master’s degree in Applied math, another master’s in Technology and Policy, and a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT, Dr. Jacquillat is at the crossroads of technology, management, engineering and public policy. He’s studied airport congestion and capacity, runway configurations and operations, and is looking forward to continuing his exploration of car-sharing, bike sharing, electric vehicles and other new urban mobility options.
This week on Heinz Radio we speak with Emily Kennedy Co-founder and CEO of Marinus Analytics, and a CMU alum. Emily’s company utilizes AI facial-recognition technology to gather critical intelligence regarding human-trafficking victims for law enforcement agencies. As a young girl, Emily was inspired to help fight against human trafficking and has been dedicated to the cause ever since. She founded Marinus Analytics in her dorm room at CMU and leveraged the help of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute to help develop their key product- TrafficJam.
Emily’s innovative spirit and fierce dedication to the cause have led her to win numerous accolades including the Toyota Mother of Invention award. She continues to lend her time to advise, and work alongside law enforcement and empower the sector with the technology to optimize their time. Despite having achieved so much, Emily refuses to rest and speaks to her future goals of mobilizing TrafficJam so that law enforcement agents have access to the tools they need wherever they go.
In the episode Emily also talks about what it means to be a woman working at the intersection of technology and law enforcement, and how she has tackled the unique challenges this presents. If you are interested in AI, social good, female empowerment, or all the above listen to this podcast and prepare to be inspired!
Emily also has a podcast where she interviews women leaders across a variety of industries! Be sure to check it out at this link: https://www.emilykennedy.org/podcast/
This week, Eugene sits down with Carnegie Mellon Professor Molly Wright Steenson. Prof. Steenson is the Senior Associate Dean for Research in the College of Fine Arts, the K&L Gates Associate Professor of Ethics & Computational Technologies, and Associate Professor in the School of Design. She also serves as co-editor of Bauhaus Futures. Most recently, Professor Steenson released Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape. Her book explores the radical history of design, architecture, AI and cybernetics.
Professor Steenson's career began in the 90s technology space, where she managed one of the world's most popular websites at Netscape. As she made her way through the tech industry and a PhD in Architecture at Princeton, she started to see how architecture might be a lens for designing other things. The conversation touches on the importance of systems and collaborations, the intersection of design, AI, and ethics, and how the policy world can incorporate lessons from architecture into technology.
This week, Heinz alums James Reid and Laura Calloway sit down with Dr. Michael Arnold Mages. Dr. Mages's research interests include "creating work that supports participants' understanding of their own intersectional identity as a component of a conversation, and creating work that can support conversations that are difficult, or high-stakes, or where one or more participants are in a leveraged position."
In addition to sharing some insights about how to have better difficult conversations in general, Dr. Mages dives into his past work with a coalition of veterans associations, with stakeholders and city planners deciding the future of a highway corridor, and with a variety of people and organizations who came together under President Obama’s White House initiative, My Brother's Keeper.
At CMU, Dr. Mages taught classes like Designing Civic Conversations, the Senior Studio: SpeakLab, Information Design, and Design Thinking. Outside of academia, he is the Creative Director for think make do, a strategy and design consultancy, and in 2015 he co-founded The Art of Democracy, a company that designs engagement strategies for communities, local governments, corporations and nonprofits using the principles and practices of deliberative democracy.
This week, Eugene sits down with Miguel Gamino. Until recently, Miguel served as the Chief Technology Officer of New York City. Now, he is an Executive Vice President and Head of Global Cities, Enterprise Partnerships at MasterCard.
The conversation begins with a deep-dive into Miguel’s background in technology from both the private and public sides and how he first got involved in El Paso, Texas before moving onto San Francisco and eventually New York City. The focus then shifts to the importance of having technology represented in government given the times that we live in, and the type of background you need to get into working on the exciting side of government technology. Miguel and Eugene also talk about Smart Cities, the role of mobility and Autonomous Vehicles, public private partnerships, and the role of technology in society as a whole.
This week, Sara sits down with Carnegie Mellon Professor Amy Ogan. Prof. Ogan is the Thomas and Lydia Moran Assistant Professor of Learning Science at CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), where she studies the potential of software in education.
She talks with Sara about the importance of culturally-relevant technology, the potential of AI in educational technology, and other fascinating aspects of her work.
In the SERIES FINALE of our 2018 Midterms Special Edition, co-hosts Collin T Hayes and Sarah Schreck bring you interviews with two more guests from the great state of Ohio.
First, Ohio State Senator and candidate for Secretary of State Frank LaRose (07:30) talks to Collin about how he plans to balance his responsibilities protect the integrity of Ohio’s election process while ensuring that all eligible voters have access to the ballot.
Then, candidate for Ohio Treasurer Rob Richardson (32:30) joins us to discuss his unique approach to that office and how he proposes to advance criminal justice reform and college affordability if elected.
To learn more about our guests, follow them on social media:
Frank LaRose: @FrankLarose on Facebook and Twitter
Rob Richardson: @robforohio on Facebook and Twitter
All of us at Heinz Radio stand in solidarity with those affected by the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Please consider making a donation to one of these organizations supporting the victims and survivors:
http://time.com/money/5437626/pittsburgh-tree-of-life-synagogue-shooting-how-to-help/
“Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens” from NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html
“How Facebook, Google, and Twitter ‘embeds’ helped Trump in 2016” from Politico:
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/26/facebook-google-twitter-trump-244191
“Facebook says it gave ‘identical support’ to Trump and Clinton campaigns” from TechCrunch:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/facebook-says-it-gave-identical-support-to-trump-and-clinton-campaigns/
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Audiobinger/
In this episode, Kee Won Song speaks with Jon Caulkins, Heinz College professor of management science and decision analysis. They discuss Dr. Caulkins’ varied experiences as faculty member, consultant, and policy researcher and co-director for RAND.
Dr. Caulkins speaks about how he found his niche in drug policy research, talks about the massive structural change marijuana legalization will have on the market, and explains why RAND chose to open an office in Pittsburgh. Lastly, they speak about Dr. Caulkins’ time teaching at the Qatar campus and he offers some basic info about the student body and specifics of that campus.
In the second episode of our 2018 Midterms Special Edition, Heinz Radio contributors Collin T Hayes and Sarah Schreck bring you three more candidates to discuss their passions for policy and public service, their views on the current partisan climate, and their visions for our political future.
First, Collin speaks with Susan Moran Palmer (02:16), a healthcare professional and candidate for the US Congress from Ohio’s 16th House District. Ms. Moran Palmer offers her policy prescriptions for addressing runaway costs and lack of access in our healthcare system, and discusses some of the unique public health issues facing Ohio.
Then, we are joined by Casey Weinstein (28:44), a City Councilman from Hudson, Ohio, who has been endorsed by former President Obama in his candidacy for the Ohio House of Representatives’ 37th District. Mr. Weinstein explains how he plans to invest in local communities, fight for excellent public education, and deliver twenty-first century job opportunities to Ohio if elected.
Finally, we hear from Congressman Mike Doyle (51:30), representative of Pennsylvania’s 14th House District, which includes the city of Pittsburgh. Representative Doyle talks about the changing character of Pittsburgh’s economy, and how he plans to protect consumer data and fight for a free and open internet if Democrats regain the House in 2019.
To learn more about our guests, follow them on social media:
Susan Moran Palmer: @SusanPalmerOH on Facebook and Twitter
Casey Weinstein: @CaseyforOhio on Facebook and Twitter
Rep. Mike Doyle: @USRepMikeDoyle on Facebook and Twitter
This week, Jason sits down with aspiring Pittsburgher and economic development expert Jennifer Wilhelm. Jennifer is the Assistant Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Urban Redevelopment Authority here in Pittsburgh. She wrestles with innovation, entrepreneurship, and business attraction for the city, which includes several key initiatives like Inclusive Innovation Week, LaunchPGH, and PGH Labs.
Jennifer and Jason talk about her path from Guatemala to Heinz, and how the skills she picked up there make her more effective in her current role. They also discuss the the unique combination of grit and creativity that has continues to fuel Pittsburgh’s economic recovery. Jennifer’s role and unique perspective gives her uncommon insight into what makes Pittsburgh special, and she has many stories to share about how inclusion and innovation go hand in hand in this city.
In anticipation of the 2018 midterm elections, today we’re bringing you a very special episode of Heinz Radio. First time host Collin T Hayes sits down with three guests to discuss their passions for policy and public service, their views on the current partisan climate, and their visions for our political future.
First, United States Congressman Tim Ryan (D - Ohio’s 13th) shares some bold ideas for economic development and offers his view of national politics from a “bread and butter” Midwestern district where voters feel left behind by global market trends (4:15).
Then we’re joined by Zack Space, who is running for Ohio Auditor, and, if elected, plans to use the powers of this office to combat “hyper-partisan” gerrymandering and limit the influence of money in politics (27:55).
Finally, we speak with Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN, about how a “beta city” can offer innovative solutions for urban revitalization and how he hopes inspire optimism in the next generation of America’s leaders (46:46). Special thanks to Sarah Schreck for co-hosting this episode.
Where to find our guests: Tim Ryan: Twitter @RepRyan & Facebook
Zack Space: Twitter: @ZackSpaceOhio & Facebook
Pete Buttigieg: Twitter: @PeteButtigieg & Facebook
This week, Eugene sits down with Tim Zak, who is an Associate Teaching Professor and Director of the Institute for Social Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. We start the conversation talking about his background, starting off with double majoring in Computer Science and Business at CMU before moving onto IBM. We take an in-depth walk through his career path and some of the large personal decisions along the way, which sets the foundation of his background in technology, making businesses run successfully, and social innovation.
Eugene and Tim talk about his focus in areas such as strategy, innovation, design thinking, and design and policy, as well as the overall idea of housing the ISI within the policy school and not in the business school or other part of the school. They touch on the way the ISI approaches research and how it serves to fill in entrepreneurial gaps on campus.
Maps have been a part of our lives for so long that we can often take their utility for granted. Prof. Kristen Kurland brings their importance back into focus with this week's episode. Sitting down with James Reid, Professor Kurland details her path from architecture to design to teaching geospatial analysis at Carnegie Mellon.
James and Kristen talk about the many fields GIS (Geographic Information Systems) can be utilized. Her work has ranged from looking at whether childhood obesity is related to neighborhood characteristics like green spaces and restaurants, to whether transportation access influences patients showing up for check ups, to how maps of crime can inform police departments of where resources are needed.
How do you really build trust between communities and the police?David Hickton continues to impress us with this week's episode. Following the conversation they had in Part 1, Kee Won and David dive right into the opioid crisis, the tough team struggles of building community trust with police, and why Pittsburgh was the perfect laboratory for innovations in cybercrime.
David's journey through the Opioid Crisis is a unique one. His perspective as attorney and cybercrime expert allowed him to approach this problem in an unlikely manner. He talks about the boom in prescribing patterns, going after bad doctors, the National Heroin Task Force, and building a "reservoir of trust" between police forces and their communities.
He also talks about how his team's boldness in cybercrime and the opioid crisis translated to hunting down fraud in the education system and intellectual property theft.
This week’s episode has Sara Jackson interviewing Regina R. Smith, who is the managing director of The Kresge Foundation’s Arts & Culture Program. This conversations covers a lot of ground in terms of funding change in arts and culture, and the interesting creative placemaking focused approach that Kresge is currently taking.
Regina has been with Kresge since 2008 and previously worked at the Arts & Science Council in Charlotte, N.C.,as vice president of grants and services. She also served as programs and services director at Culture Works in Dayton, Ohio, for five years and managed a program for the Indiana Arts Commission prior to that. Regina was the recipient of a nine-month Arts Administration Fellowship, where she was in residence with three arts organizations: the Madison Art Center, COMPAS in St. Paul, Minn., and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs. She began her career as a museum educator at the Cleveland Children’s Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
This week’s episode has Eugene interviewing Nick Rockwell, the Chief Technology Officer of the New York Times. Prior to joining the New York Times, Nick was the CTO of Conde Naste for three years. He also served as CTO of The Ladders, digital CTO at MTV Networks and he was the technical founder of the editorial music startup SonicNet.
We had a great conversation around technology and media as a whole, starting with his background in the technology space for different mediums. We touch on topics ranging from big data in media, how technologies like AI, machine learning, and blockchain may or may not affect the industry, and about how the New York Times continues to evolve. We also talked about algorithmic bias, GDPR, which is the General Data Protection Regulation that went into effect earlier in 2018, and some examples of hype cycles around tech before.
In this week's episode, Eugene sits down with Silvia Borzutzky. Prof. Borzutzky is the Teaching Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Heinz College, and also serves as our faculty advisor.
This interview came as Silvia released a book called Human Rights Policies in Chile: The Unfinished Struggle for Truth and Justice in 2017. Silvia provides some overall background to Pinochet’s rise to power and some of the ultimate consequences of it. She wrote this book as a result of her own concerns with human rights and how governments affect society. Silvia addresses these concerns and how they were materialized in Chile and how the country tried to deal with the cases of persecuting military officials in power during Pinochet’s rule.
This week, Kee Won Song sits down with David Hickton. Kee Won and David waste no time, getting right into David’s work as U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, specifically in the area of cybercrime. They chronicle four of the major cases that David worked on and these case studies offer some amazingly interesting insights into cybercrime and what it was like to deal with individual and nation-state hackers. David is currently focused on the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, which he helped found and is now the director.
In this episode, Eugene interviews Former Congressman Jason Almire. They talk about his book, Dead Center: How Political Polarization Divided America and What We Can Do About It, as well as his experience in congress as a centrist candidate from Western Pennsylvania. Jason tells Eugene about the burden of re-election and campaigning, how young people can think about getting engaged in their communities, and they finish up with a conversation about healthcare.
On the first episode of Heinz Radio, we sit down with Martin S. Gaynor, the E. J. Barone University Professor of Economics and Health Policy at Heinz College in Carnegie Mellon University. You can find more information on Professor Gaynor’s background and work here. You can also find him on Twitter @MartinSGaynor
The discussion touches on Professor Gaynor’s background, his research and collaboration with private insurance companies, and trends in healthcare as whole.