Stanford Radio: Recent Episodes
Stanford Radio
Evelyn sits down with Genevieve Lakier, a Professor at University of Chicago Law School, to discuss the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden, narrowing but affirming a district court injunction prohibiting large parts of the federal government from communicating with platforms about content moderation.
Guest Rania Awaad is a psychiatrist who studies mental health in the U.S. Muslim community. There are promising approaches, like talk therapy derived in historic Muslim settings, that can also apply to other faith communities. The deeper lesson, she says, has been that Muslim approaches are in line with mainstream ideas of holistic health and healing. Like others, Muslims believe you can’t be physically well if you’re not mentally well, Awaad tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn discuss a bunch of things that happened while they were on "summer break": OpenAI recommending using GPT-4 for content moderation, but not enforcing its own political content moderation rules for ChatGPT; the EU's Digital Services Act coming into force and a report from the Commission that has us worried; Meta rejecting its Oversight Board's recommendation to suspend Hun Sen's account; a bunch of First Amendment decisions; and much more!
Bad science is a big problem for society, says guest Jonathan Osborne, an expert in science education, but we don’t have to surrender to it. Beating bad science requires young people to learn three skills, Osborne says. First is an ability to size up conflicts of interest. Second, to evaluate a source’s qualifications. And third, to more rigorously question those who go against consensus. The whole goal of science is consensus, Osborne tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Today we're rerunning a conversation Russ had in 2020 with Mykel Kochenderfer, a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University.
Mykel's research has impacted anyone who has been on a plane recently for any kind of travel. His research led to the creation of a program known as the Airborne Collision Avoidance System, or ACAS X , which as he explains in more detail, is a critical tool in keeping air travel safe.
Thank you for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy this episode from the archives.
Guest David Rehkopf is an expert in population health who says that where we live is one of the strongest influences on how long we live. While we know diet and health care are important, it has been tough to tease out what about these places allows people to live longer and healthier lives. By examining environmentally induced changes in DNA, we may be able to more quickly and more accurately quantify what aspects of environments promote longer, healthier lives, Rehkopf tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn discuss Ex-Twitter's latest examples of "free speech absolutism"; Apple removing an independent Russian media outlet's podcast from its podcast app; the Cambodian Prime Minister's return to Facebook; TikTok's new For EU measures; skyrocketing demand for Perspective API to moderate LLM hate speech; the reasons the dismissal of a First Amendment challenge to Utah's age verification law is so scary; and your weekly dose of random sports news.
Alex and Evelyn discuss some of the week's headlines, including Ex-Twitter's continued trust and safety, er, best practices and a baseless threat to try shutdown research it doesn't like, before being joined by Josh Tucker and Jen Pan, two academics part of a research partnership with Meta to examine the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors during the US 2020 election. The group released the first four papers this week and Josh and Jen discussed their findings and what they mean for platform design.
Alex and Evelyn discuss trust and safety challenges for federated social media, following a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory about child safety problems in the fediverse. Also: Bluesky's flailing, Tw-... X's rebrand, a First Amendment challenge to Texas' TikTok ban impeding academic research, and more.
Alex and Evelyn discuss the very successful launch of Meta's Twitter competitor Threads, and the content moderation challenges ahead. Elon's taking it very well. Europe and the US reached a data sharing agreement -- Alex has thoughts. Scary rhetoric out of the EU about banning platforms makes Evelyn sad. A US Court upholds FOSTA.
Explore the frontiers of 3D printing in healthcare and its potential to revolutionize personalized medicine, reshape prosthetics, and reimagine drug delivery systems.
In this episode we're re-sharing a conversation Russ had in 2021 with Joseph DeSimone, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University. This one is about health, and Joe tells us how 3D printing is transforming healthcare. His group is using it to make vaccine delivery easier and more effective. They're also creating implantable chemotherapy that kills tumors, while having fewer side effects for the patients.
We hope you enjoy this glimpse of how 3D printing technologies are being used in novel and unexpected ways.
Neuroscientist Kalanit Grill-Spector studies the physiology of human vision and says that the ways computers and people see are in some ways similar, but in other ways quite different. In fact, she says, rapid advances in computational modeling, such as deep neural networks, applied to brain data and new imaging technologies, like quantitative MRI and diffusion MRI, are revolutionizing our understanding of how the human brain sees. We’re unraveling how the brain “computes” visual information, as Grill-Spector tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
A lot to cover this week. Alex and Evelyn discuss AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery; the first draft of history on Telegram during the mutiny in Russia; Musk's meetings with Indian PM Modi and EU officials; link taxes causing Meta to stop serving news content in Canada; YouTube taking down an RFK Jr video; Meta buckling to government demands in Vietnam; and a disappointing Supreme Court decision about cyberstalking.
Guest Debra Kaysen is a psychologist specializing in treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who says that promising new cognitive and behavioral therapies are, quite literally, giving people “their lives back.” These therapies work without drugs to help patients manage their disease and its symptoms and, perhaps, even cure PTSD. We’re providing tools to change how they think, Kaysen tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
For interested listeners, Kaysen offers a list of PTSD resources:
Resources
Previous TFoE episode with Shaili Jain on treatments for PTSD - https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/shaili-jain-treatments-ptsd-are-more-effective-ever https://istss.org/public-resources/trauma-basics https://istss.org/public-resources/find-a-clinician https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/what-youre-feeling-ptsd-what-do-help
Free apps from the VA for PTSD and other related concerns https://www.ptsd.va.gov/appvid/mobile/ https://www.abct.org/get-help/
For a Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) trained therapist https://cptforptsd.com/cpt-provider-roster/
Stanford’s PTSD clinic https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/patient_care/ptsd.html
International resource for a Prolonged Exposure (PE) trained therapist https://www.med.upenn.edu/ctsa/find_pe_therapist.html
Alex and Evelyn discuss the Reddit blackout in response to its decision to start charging for API access; Dorsey confirming that India has threatened to shut down Twitter if it doesn't remove certain content; Spotify's Joe Rogan problem; Meta's new Covid-19 policies; and the latest round of DDoS attacks in state platform regulation legislation from Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
Hi everyone, Russ here, we’re running a best-of episode this week to re-share a conversation I had in 2021 with Karen Liu, an associate professor of computer science here at Stanford Engineering. The conversation is relevant today because, as we all know, AI is having a moment, and robotics is an important part of that. Karen and her lab have a goal of enabling robots to contribute in caregiving roles - think of tasks like helping medical patients get dressed each day - and they’re using physics-based simulations to do that. I hope you’ll take some time to tune into this discussion, it’s a timely and relevant one given larger societal conversations about AI. Enjoy!
Evelyn and Alex talk to David Thiel and Renée DiResta, Alex's two co-authors on a report released by the Stanford Internet Observatory last week with findings from an investigation into the distribution of illicit sexual content by minors online. They talk about the findings, how social media companies should be and have been responding, and the public and political response to the report.
Guest Bill Mitch says it’s no secret the world is running short of fresh water. As a civil and environmental engineer, he sees wastewater as a potential solution, if only we can eliminate the impurities. Mitch designs systems to remove toxic chemicals from wastewater to enable its reuse as a drinking water supply. It’s not easy, but it costs half as much as desalinating seawater, Mitch tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn cover a of stories you'd definitely want to hear on your first day as the CEO of Twitter: Twitter has been failing to remove dozens of known images of child sexual abuse, as revealed by an investigation by Stanford Internet Observatory; ad revenue is way down; Senators are concerned the company cannot comply with its obligations under the FTC consent decree; this is not helped by the fact it recently lost two high ranking trust and safety employees... and more! Good luck Linda! Meanwhile, YouTube is no longer enforcing its 2020 election misinformation policy; Instagram has reinstated RFK Jr's account; TikTok has been sharing user on an internal messaging tool accessible by ByteDance employees; and the Surgeon General issued an Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.
Guest Matteo Cargnello approaches the challenge of greenhouse gases from a different perspective. He doesn’t study how harmful chemicals got in the skies, or even the consequences. Instead, Cargnello is using his skills as a chemical engineer to turn them into other benign or useful chemicals. So far, he’s turned greenhouse gases into valuable industrial chemicals, polymers, renewable fuels, and even ethanol. Useful products from greenhouse gases, that's the dream, Cargnello tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’sThe Future of Everything.
This episode of The Future of Everything podcast with Srabanti Chowdhury first ran in 2022. We’re sharing it again to offer a glimpse into research being done to identify new materials for semiconductors that could lead to smaller, faster, more powerful and more energy efficient electronics. Since we recorded this episode, the CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law, creating a $280 billion dollar investment in the field over the next 10 years, and in light of the renewed commitment to this technology, we’re excited to share this conversation on the future of semiconductor materials.
Alex and Evelyn discuss the Supreme Court decisions in Gonzalez and Taamneh; Montana passing its state-wide TikTok ban and the immediate legal challenge filed against it; Meta's $1.3 billion dollar fine under the GDPR; OpenAI's charm offensive; and just another Monday at Twitter.
Deborah Cullinan’s job is to integrate arts of every form across campus. She says art has the power to heal and may be the answer to many of our present-day societal problems, such as growing political polarization and social isolation borne by the pandemic. Art advances equity, improves health, and enhances well-being for all, she says. Everyone should see themselves as artists—engineers, physicians, political scientists alike. "We all want to have creative lives," Cullinan tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Play the sad trombone 5 times for this week's Twitter Corner: Musk censors political content at the behest of the Turkish Government in the final days of a close and historically important election; Linda Yaccarino is announced as the new CEO; Tucker Carlson announces he's going to stream his new show to Twitter; the platform announces not-so-encrypted messaging; and continues its ad hominem content moderation practices. Also: Singapore, Pakistan, Russia all crack down on internet freedom, and the European Court of Human Rights releases a wild ruling holding politicians responsible for third-party comments on their Facebook pages.
Helen Bronte-Stewart is a neurologist and an expert in movement disorders, like Parkinson’s. She says new approaches, such as closed-loop deep-brain stimulation, and new digital health technologies that chart subtle changes in movement are reshaping the field, leading to new understandings and new treatments for this once-untreatable disease. To modulate behavior, you first have to measure it, Bronte-Stewart tells host Russ Altman. It’s the future of movement disorders in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn discuss Utah's new age verification law going into effect and the state's completely unrelated spike in VPN downloads; the horrific footage of the Allen Texas shooting on Twitter and how the understaffed platform is coping with one of the hardest content moderation challenges; but it's okay, Musk is focusing on other really important issues. Also, Meta's adversarial threat report (and Twitter's lack thereof); the 9th Circuit decision in a jawboning case brought by RFK Jr against Elizabeth Warren; the Brazilian government's latest attempts to limit internet freedom; and Bluesky's solution to the head of state content moderation dilemma.
Our guest, Christopher Manning, is a computational linguist. He builds computer models that understand and generate language using math. Words are the key component of human intelligence, he says, and why generative AI, like ChatGPT, has caused such a stir. We used to hope a model might produce one coherent sentence and suddenly ChatGPT is composing five-paragraph stories and doing mathematical proofs in rhyming verse, Manning tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn talk about the totally unsurprising news that Twitter is complying with more government take-down orders under Musk and the very underwhelming "transparency report" they released this week. Also: the EU designated 19 platforms VLOPs and VLOSEs that will need to comply with the most onerous requirements under its new Digital Services Act; it looks like someone in Montana finally talked to a First Amendment lawyer, as the Governor requests changes to its TikTok ban bill; more bipartisan moral panic on the Hill with the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act; and Bluesky's trust and safety challenges ahead.
This episode of The Future of Everything podcast with Mehran Sahami first ran in 2019. We’re sharing it again to offer a glimpse into the ways our faculty are thinking about computer science education, an increasingly popular and impactful field of study. Earlier this week, Sahami and another of his colleagues, Chris Piech, launched the third offering of Code In Place, a free online course that offers coding education to people all over the world.
First up, Stanford's Riana Pfefferkorn joins the show to give an update on two child safety bills on the Hill. Then Alex and Evelyn discuss the DOJ's charges against members of a Chinese troll farm; Prof. Alexandra Roberts from Northeastern University weighs in on the Blue Checkmark Fiasco and possible legal claims that could follow; in a great sign for 2024, Twitter has stopped labelling "state-affiliated" media and Meta layed off a lot of people from its information operations investigations team; the Meta Oversight Board delivered a shruggie emoji of an opinion about Meta's COVID-19 policies; and the Supreme Court granted cert to hear two cases about whether and when government actors can block people on their social media accounts.
An expert in corporate decision making explains why companies that follow fewer and simpler rules are often the best innovators.Kathleen Eisenhardt is an expert in strategy and organizational behavior. She studies corporate decision making. She says the most creative companies are like jazz bands. Bound by a few simple rules, they are able to innovate continually. Other companies are like orchestras, tied to rigid scores and complex rules; they find it hard to improvise. If innovation is your metric, Eisenhardt says, having a few simple rules is the best path to success, as she tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn are joined by John Perrino to discuss Montana's TikTok ban bill, passed this week, and other things to watch on the TikTok front. Then they discuss why people's ideas to content moderate away the Discord leaks problem won't work; Substack's ill-thought-out thoughts on content moderation; a blog post from Twitter that seems to have slipped through a wormhole from the past; an important case the Supreme Court is hearing this week that could have big ramifications for protections against online stalking; and much more.
An expert in protein structure and function explains how rapidly evolving study of these complex molecules is revealing ever-greater understanding of human life.While DNA may be the blueprint of life, proteins are the workhorses, says Polly Fordyce, a bioengineer, explaining how one of her favorites, kinesin, “walks” in 8-nanometer steps transporting chemical cargo through the body. More remarkable still, Fordyce says, kinesin is just one among thousands of “incredible” proteins that make life happen, as she tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn discuss what was a ridiculous week for Twitter, even by its new standards: Germany is threatening to fine it over poor content moderation of illegal content; it made a hash of state-affiliated media labelling; and got into a fight with Substack. Meanwhile, India continues its forward march in cracking down on the internet; everything is a content moderation story, including the recently leaked US intelligence documents; and Arkansas is the latest state to join the "won't you think of the children" bandwagon.
Rising temperatures and rainfall from climate change will have a surprising effect on human health, says biologist Erin Mordecai, an expert in diseases borne by mosquitoes, ticks and other living creatures. Such conditions are perfect breeding grounds for parasites that will bring deadly diseases to the U.S. and other places once thought out of reach. Hope may rest in mathematical models to guide smarter environmental policies, as Mordecai tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn chat with Sol Messing, Research Associate Professor at New York University with the Center for Social Media and Politics, about what to make of the open source info Twitter provided on its ranking algorithm. They also chat about the blue tick debacle, concerns about YouTube's treatment of political videos in India, and Midjourney's pretty not-okay approach to content moderation.
Alex and Evelyn discuss why the Congressional hearing with TikTok's CEO was bad news for the app, AOC's opposition to a ban, and why the First Amendment hurdles to getting the ban enacted remain high. They also discuss India's continued crackdown on online speech and Twitter's continued acquiescence; whether the long-anticipated deepfake apocalypse is finally here (spoiler: no); Utah's "think of the children" social media law being signed into law; and Twitter's helpful move to give you more information about who not to pay attention to on the platform.
Alex returns and he and Evelyn discuss: the rapidly escalating TikTok situation, and what the possible endgame is; the return of Donald Trump to Facebook and YouTube, just as he calls for people to protest and take the country back on Truth Social; more of the same over on Twitter and a few small updates in the Legal Corner.
When we’re sick, the time between onset and diagnosis is critical, sometimes life-saving. It turns out the human immune system is pretty good at knowing what’s making us sick. In fact, it’s telling us all the time, but only now is science tuning in to what nature has to say, explains Purvesh Khatri. The immune system is a “perfect diagnostic,” he tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
SIO's Riana Pfefferkorn joins Evelyn this week to talk warrants for abortion related data and California laws post-Dobbs looking at ways to protect sensitive information; why the FTC asking Twitter for information about its privacy practices is totally unsurprising; an anti-Jawboning bill on the Hill; this week's TikTok tick tock; and a Utah "think of the children" social media bill.
When one has a medical procedure in America, it is often an algorithm that figures out how much of the cost will be reimbursed. That leads to a lot of unfairness, worse health outcomes for many and a group of insurers who learn to game the system, says guest Sherri Rose, a statistician and health policy researcher who studies the causes of such inequities. Rose is using artificial intelligence to root out these bad incentives and to bring greater equity and better care to the American health system, as she tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn discuss the snowballing TikTok bans (won't someone remember the First Amendment!); their new "screen time limit"; Twitter's "new" violent speech policy; Meta's response to the Oversight Board's recommendations on its X-Check program; FTC's blog post on AI hype; post-Dobbs data requests and content demands on tech platforms; and Google's "civil rights audit."
With the advent of wearable devices and omnipresent monitoring of heart, lungs, blood and more, scientists can now gather unprecedented amounts of personal medical data. Just ask guest Michael Snyder, referred to as “medicine’s most-measured man.” He is the author of Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know and has collected billions of bytes of his own biodata. Snyder says that all this data can lead to earlier diagnosis than ever before, often before symptoms appear, as he tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn chat about Meta's latest report on information operations; TikTok's announcement of a researcher API; the last two weeks in Twitterland; Meta's announcement of paid verification and participation in "Take It Down", a new platform run by NCMEC for people to get sexually explicit images of under 18-year-olds removed; Europe's DSA is coming; Susan Wojcicki is going; and a New York online hate speech law is on hold.
Evelyn speaks with Moderated Content's Supreme Court correspondent Daphne Keller again to discuss the oral arguments in Twitter v. Taamneh, and the big elephant that was missing from the courtroom.
While many users remain blissfully unaware, a battle is raging for the future of the internet. On the one hand are the large phone and cable companies who want to promote their services and to charge more for video and other data. On the other are people, like guest Barbara van Schewick, a lawyer, who champions a more democratic approach known as net neutrality. Net neutrality guarantees unfettered access for all and makes sure that we get to choose what we do online, van Schewick tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Evelyn speaks with Moderated Content's Supreme Court correspondent Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, to discuss their quick takes on the Supreme Court oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google.
Beatriz Magaloni is a lawyer and a professor of political science who studies the challenges at the intersection of governance, poverty, and police violence in Latin America. On this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, Magaloni tells host Russ Altman that the solution to these challenges begins with studying the root causes as explained by people living in the communities that are most impacted.
Alex and Evelyn discuss the House Oversight Committee hearing last week about, supposedly, Hunter Biden's laptop. and why Alex was name-checked; Twitter's restriction in Turkey in the aftermath of the disaster; what to make of journalism finding bias in AI tools used to detect sexual suggestiveness; a China-linked deepfake information operation; The Balloon and geopolitics; and oh btw Donald Trump has his Facebook account back.
Guest Nicholas Bloom has studied telecommuting for 20 years. Prior to the pandemic, he says, just five percent of days were “worked from home,” but the number is now closer to one in three. It looks like the hybrid workplace is here to stay. What was once thought to be a boon to employee morale has also helped companies slash real estate budgets. But, it’s not all sunshine and roses, as Bloom tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
A little over a year ago, Evelyn interviewed Josh Parecki, Zoom's Head of Trust & Safety and Associate General Counsel, and Josh Kallmer, Zoom's Head of Global Public Policy and Government Relations, about how Zoom thought about content moderation. And since then, they've been doing some rethinking. So Evelyn asked them back to talk about what's changed in the way they think about trust and safety, the change in regulatory landscape even in the last year, and the difficult problems that pop up for every communications platform.
Alex and Evelyn discuss updates to the story about the BBC documentary take-downs in India; the latest Twitter Files on the Hamilton 68 bot dashboard; TIkTok's charm offensive and ... Oracle's (?!?) role; Apple's expansion of censorship for China to Hong Kong; and the Financial Times' admirable admission that it wants nothing to do with content moderation.
On this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, guest Mac Schwager talks safety in multi-robot systems, like those controlling the autonomous vehicles that will soon fill our future. Some engineers are helping robots communicate better among themselves while others are working on “emotionally aware” algorithms able to pick up on subtle cues in how others are driving to help robots make better on-the-road decisions.Never fear, Schwager says, the future is in good hands. “Autonomous cars will reach a level of safety that surpasses that of human drivers, but it may take a little while,” he tells host Russ Altman on this episode of The Future of Everything podcast.
Evelyn sits down with Nate Persily, Professor at Stanford Law School, and Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss Meta's decision that it is reinstating former President Trump's accounts. Nate is pragmatic, Alex is cynical, and Evelyn is a naive little formalist about it all. Here's their quick takes.
Evelyn and Alex discuss what should be a massive story about India's orders to platforms to take down content related to a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Modi. They also discuss the UK's Online Safety Bill; ChatGPT content moderation; the Republican battle against Gmail's spam filters; Trump's pending return to mainstream platforms; TikTok "heating" videos; and an update from Courtroom Corner. Thanks to our new sponsor, Guttr.
Our guest on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, Ilan Kroo, is an expert in aircraft design. But when Kroo talks of aircraft, he means a new generation of flying vehicles that could transform our very concept of transportation—like personal flying cars that take off and land vertically or commercial airliners fueled by clean-burning hydrogen.Kroo says the rapid changes he’s seeing in the industry could lead to safer, less expensive, more efficient—and quieter—air travel. Listen in as he shares more with host Russ Altman on this episode of The Future of Everything podcast.
Alex and Evelyn get Josh Tucker, a professor at New York University, and Solomon Messing, a Visiting Researcher Georgetown University, to talk them through the results of two major studies about the effects of online speech; they also discuss Twitter cutting off API access; public universities cutting off TikTok access; Apple promising more transparency about app store take-downs, and an update from the courtrooms.
Alex and Evelyn kick off 2023 with a rollicking tour through stories about: Meta's $400 million EU fine for privacy violations (cameo by Daphne Keller), Google's new appeals process for users flagged as uploading child sexual abuse material, WhatsApp introducing proxy servers, Twitter reinstating political ads, Meta's struggles to get out of politics, an Oversight Board decision about Iranian protests, information from the Jan 6 Committee about their findings to do with social media, and what's going on in Brazil.
Alex and Evelyn sweat through the holidays to make sure you get your critical trust and safety news, including Congressional action on platform transparency (cameo by Nate Persily); TikTok and LastPass data breaches (yikes!); and, of course, Twitter mayhem (sigh).
Evelyn and Alex talk about news happening in other corners of the trust and safety and platform regulation world: bills are introduced to ban TikTok; Meta released its annual adversarial threats report; a tech industry trade body filed a legal challenge to the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act and asked SCOTUS to review the 5th Circuit ruling upholding Texas' social media law; Trump had thoughts about defunding Stanford. And then, yes, they discuss the ongoing Twitter death spiral.
Helen Blau is a stem cell biologist and expert in why, as we age, our muscles weaken, even if we get exercise and try to stay fit. In an age when humans are living longer, our muscles are critical to living life to the fullest and Blau is helping them keep pace by recruiting stem cells to regenerate youthful muscle in older people.Join us on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast as Blau and host Russ Altman discuss the science of muscle regeneration.
Evelyn and Alex wonder if this podcast is the propaganda platform that Elon Musk has said Alex runs. Then they discuss Apple’s huge set of announcements about encryption this week and the balance between privacy and safety; their weekly check in on the Twitter files and how things took a dark turn; and the Meta Oversight Board’s long-awaited decision on Meta’s X-Check system.
In the wake of the Buffalo shooting in May, New York passed a law imposing certain obligations on social media networks regarding "hateful conduct" on their services. It went into effect at the start of December and Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA Law who runs a legal blog, is challenging the law as unconstitutional. Evelyn sits down with Eugene and Genevieve Lakier from UChicago Law to discuss.
In this explosive, never-before-heard episode, Evelyn and Alex discuss the trust and safety implications of the AI text-generator ChatGPT, the expansion of a cross-industry database for removing non-consensual intimate images from platforms, a legal challenge to a new online hate speech law in New York, and….. The Twitter Files, of course.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman:E204 | Lawrence Wein: Computation cracks cold casesThis episode’s guest on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast is Lawrence Wein, an expert in the science of catching criminals using DNA left behind years or even decades prior. All it takes is a snippet of the killer’s DNA and for a relative of the killer to have registered their DNA with one of the many genealogy websites in operation today. Armed with those few details, genetic detectives quickly narrow in on the suspect. They’ve used it to capture some of the most reviled, previously unidentified killers on record.Listen in as Wein joins host Russ Altman to discuss the mathematics of forensic genetic genealogy on this episode of The Future of Everything podcast.
Evelyn and Alex discuss how China’s censors are struggling to contain information about the ongoing protests, how they are going on the offensive, and why that offensive includes an image of Alex with horns.They also, of course, check in on Twitter with the weekly Elon Musk segment, and discuss US-backed information operations.
Evelyn and Alex talk about the latest Musk shenanigans, why the flight to decentralized platforms isn’t solving all our content moderation problems, account hijacking at Meta, and what to make of the discussion of the security risks of TikTok. Also, Evelyn learns the results of the Big Game.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E203 | Doug James: Computer-generated sound catches its graphical sibling
Natural sounds in the world around us are based on the principles of physics. Today’s guest on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, Doug James, uses those same principles to create computer-generated sounds to match the imaginary computer-generated objects and creatures that inhabit almost every movie or game these days.
His algorithms speed the animator’s work and make the final product all-the-more believable, as James tells host Russ Altman on this episode of The Future of Everything podcast
Come for the discussion of whether Musk is going to find himself in hot water with the FTC, stay for the discussion of privacy and data security regulation more generally. Evelyn discusses Twitter’s data security problems and what this says about privacy regulation more generally with Whitney Merrill, the Data Protection Officer and Privacy Counsel at Asana and long-time privacy lawyer including as an attorney at the FTC, and Riana Pfefferkorn, a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Evelyn and Alex talk about what the Election Integrity Partnership saw online in terms of mis- and dis-information around the midterms, and what the results might mean for tech policy. And... Elon. Sigh. What a week. Twitter's security team resigned -- what does this mean for compliance with an FTC consent order and... what does it mean for Twitter's security? Elon says they're turning off "microservices." That can't be good. What does it mean? And other exciting developments in the Musk/Twitter debacle.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E202 | Mellisa Valentine
This episode's guest on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, management science and engineering professor Melissa Valentine studies a workplace phenomenon known as the flash organization. These ad hoc groups of experts are assembled online and exist only long enough to solve a particular problem—perhaps a week or few months at a time. As soon as the problem is solved, the flash org dissipates, and the participants get paid for their time and expertise. It’s a whole new way to work.
Join us for a look at the future of the gig economy on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Special note: At the end of this episode, host Russ Altman, along with the entire production team of The Future of Everything, offer a tribute to our audio engineer, Ray Avila, who passed away in October of 2022. Ray's work was instrumental in making this podcast possible and his presence is sorely missed.
Evelyn and Alex discuss Musk's "just tweet through it" approach to Twitter ownership; the pros and cons of the great Mastodon Migration; Rumble pulling out of France over demands it block RT; the Intercept's (poor) reporting on DHS-Platform collaboration,; what to expect with the Midterms (GO VOTE!); and check in on legislative developments in India and the UK.
Our guest on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Elaine Treharne, is an English professor and an authority on ancient manuscripts. She's using modern tools like machine learning to unlock the secrets hidden inside these aged pages. Despite frequent predictions of the demise of physical writing, she says, books will never go away. Physical writing, she believes, is a perfectly human manifestation of our humanity—an effort by transient beings to create something eternal.
All this and more as Treharne and our host Russ Altman discuss the future of books, writing and reading on this episode of The Future of Everything.
Evelyn and Alex reluctantly talk about Elon Musk and Twitter, again, before some updates about The Wire in India, the midterms at home, Meta's political ad transparency fine in Washington state, and the publication of the EU's mammoth regulation, the Digital Services Act.
Evelyn and Alex talk about, what else, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. He says he’s freed the bird, but there’s a whole bunch of restraints he clearly hasn’t thought about. He’s got some not-so-fun meetings and phone calls coming up.
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, robotics expert Oussama Khatib takes us on a deep dive into the vagaries of creating robots that swim. His most recent project is OceanOneK, a 200-pound, humanoid robot with stereoscopic vision and opposable thumbs that can travel nearly a thousand meters below the surface. When the pressure was on, Khatib had to redesign everything he thought he knew about robots, he says, beginning with a new glass-like shell good to 6,000 PSI.
Listen as Khatib and host Russ Altman plumb the depths of underwater robots on this installment of The Future of Everything.
When we talk about content moderation, we often focus on companies at the application layer of the internet, like the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. But there are a whole bunch of other companies in the internet stack that have the power to knock things offline. So what is similar or different about content moderation when it moves into the infrastructure layers of the internet? Evelyn spoke with Alissa Starzak, theVice President and Global Head of Public Policy at Cloudflare and Emma Llanso, the Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project to explore thisincreasingly pressing question.
This week Evelyn and Alex discuss severed fiber-optic cables in France, Kiwi Farms v2.0, worrying moves to crack down on online content in Turkey and Brazil, and how Republicans are going after our last line of defense against an unusable inbox: spam filters. Also Alex reveals Evelyn’s lack of knowledge about 19th Century Railroad regulation.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E198 | Desiree LaBeaud: The curious connection between plastic trash and infectious disease
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford infectious disease expert Desiree LaBeaud talks trash, literally. She says carelessly discarded plastics can collect water, providing a perfect nursery to mosquitoes that then spread dengue, chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever and other killer diseases worldwide. Plastic trash has become a public health nightmare as LaBeaud tells host Russ Altman and listeners of The Future of Everything. Reducing it is now a critical component of life-saving disease prevention strategies.
This week, Evelyn and Alex went long on one of the weirdest tech reporting stories they've ever heard. Last week, The Wire—an Indian news outlet—released a bombshell report alleging it had seen internal Instagram documents evidencing improper influence by the Indian government over Meta. Meta denied the reports and what followed was a back and forth that got stranger and stranger as the saga went on...
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E199 | Alexandria Boehm: Wastewater helps reveal COVID’s real reach
Civil and environmental engineer Alexandria Boehm joins Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast to discuss how a new form of epidemiology is using the tools of engineering to test wastewater to track COVID-19’s true spread. The wastewater that enters a treatment facility is really just one big biological sample, Boehm says. Testing it is far more accurate than COVID-19 case data, and it is useful for tracking other diseases in our communities, as well.
Listen in to this episode of The Future of Everything, as Boehm and host Russ Altman explore the great promise of wastewater epidemiology.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court granted cert in two cases concerning the scope of platform liability for content on their services: Gonzalez v. Google, about whether platforms lose section 230 immunity when they recommend content to users, and Twitter v. Taamneh, about whether platforms can be found to have aided and abetted terrorism if they are found to have been insufficiently aggressive in removing terrorist content from their sites. The cert grants were a surprise, and the cases are complicated. Evelyn sat down with Daphne Keller, the podcast’s Supreme Court Correspondent, to dig into the details.
Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos bring you the latest in online trust and safety news and developments, including two new Supreme Court cases, a Chinese influence operation targeting the US ahead of the mid-terms and PayPal’s accidental foray into content moderation discourse.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E197 | Is a good diagnosis possible without revealing your medical secrets?
New cryptographic techniques allow patients to get personalized health care yet never divulge their medical secrets to anyone—even their doctors.
On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford bioengineer Jan Liphardt talks about the challenge of getting good medical recommendations and diagnoses while guaranteeing that a patient's health secrets remain private. Computing on encrypted data is the way, he says. Tune in as health data expert Liphardt and host Russ Altman discuss the future of health privacy.
Last week the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas social media law that, among other things, prevents platforms from discriminating against users based on their viewpoint. The leading opinion declared that a bunch of things we thought we knew about how the First Amendment and content moderation work are wrong. Next stop: the Supreme Court.
Evelyn talks with Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, and Genevieve Lakier, Professor of Law and the Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar at the University of Chicago, about what the ruling said and what it means—to the extent that’s decipherable.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E196 | The water problem that’s still unresolved in schools across the country
Access to clean drinking water should be a given and there are health consequences for children when it’s not.
Stanford pediatrics professor Anisha Patel tells us how engaging a local community about their health concerns can lead to impactful discoveries and interventions. She recounts how a visit to a middle school helped her team realize that simple access to drinking water was a problem in schools across the nation. Patel also shares how similar interactions during the COVID pandemic created a system of free lunches at public schools that helped ensure food security for children throughout the country. On this episode of The Future of Everything, Patel and host Russ Altman discuss the future of community health.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E194 | A scientist uses radar technology to map the insides of ice sheets
The technique helps us understand ice sheets right here on Earth -- and whether there could be life far, far beyond.
To better understand the inner workings of glacier — which are often many kilometers in depth — researchers are using ice-penetrating radar, which sends radio waves through the ice, to create maps of what it looks like inside.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford radio glaciologist Dustin (Dusty) Schroeder explains how this technique works and how the data it generates can help us understand the implications of climate change here on Earth. Together with host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Schroeder also discusses how he and his team are using this technology to investigate the habitability of moons and planets in our solar system – and whether there might be life already there. Listen and subscribe here.
Criminal law expert David A. Sklansky discusses the August 8 search by the FBI of Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence and the legal implications of news reports that the former president took more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some related to the nation’s most covert intelligence operations, to his private club.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 27, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E195 | How un-syncing the brain can help Parkinson’s patients
Abnormal levels of neuronal synchronicity is a hallmark of many neurological conditions. A Stanford professor discusses how to alleviate their symptoms.
When we think of synchrony, we often think of positive things, like ice skaters gliding in tandem. But if there’s too much synchrony in the brain – when neurons fire simultaneously – it can be a problem.
In fact, abnormal neural synchrony underlies many neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and dystonia. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford professor of neurosurgery Peter Tass joins host, Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman, to discuss how vibrational therapies, such as a glove that applies vibrations to an individual’s fingertips, can help patients with neurological conditions by helping the neurons break and unlearn synchronicity. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E193 | How to put AI tools into the hands of primary care physicians
Artificial intelligence tools can improve patient care. But health care AI innovations are mostly in specialized areas. A Stanford physician explains why that needs to change.
Primary care medicine represents 52% of all care delivered in the United States, but when it comes to AI innovation, it’s been largely left behind.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford physician Steven Lin, explains how AI could improve healthcare logistics, optimize patient care, and significantly lower costs by reducing the clerical burdens that cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars a year and keep physicians from spending more time with their patients. Learn more with Lin and host, bioengineer and fellow physician, Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E191 | A mobile app can help communities improve their health and well-being
A Stanford professor explains how a relatively simple tool can empower individuals to identify and advocate for meaningful changes in their neighborhoods.
Take a look around your neighborhood and you’ll see a few things you like -- and, most likely, a few you don’t. Maybe you need a crosswalk near the senior home. Or garbage keeps getting dumped on the sidewalk.
Now imagine if you and others in your community could document what you saw, collect those data, identify and agree on issues to prioritize, and then find feasible solutions for them?
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford faculty member Abby King, professor of epidemiology and population health and of medicine, explains how this scenario is possible, starting with a mobile app called the Our Voice Discovery Tool. King and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, also discuss how this by-the-people type of citizen science can help improve the well-being and health of communities in the U.S. and around the world. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E190 | Using technologies from the gaming industry to improve medicine
A Stanford professor explains how augmented and virtual reality, body tracking, and other technologies from the gaming industry could be used in medicine.
Unfortunately, not every medical procedure is 100% successful. Due to the complexity of breast cancer lumpectomies, for instance, 16–25% of surgeries fail to remove the entire tumor, requiring patients to repeat the procedure. But to improve surgery success rates, and their efficiency, physicians are now looking to technologies from a surprising source: the gaming industry.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Bruce Daniel, a professor of radiology, explains how technologies developed by the gaming industry, such as virtual reality and body tracking, can be used to improve medicine. With host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Daniel also discusses how the potential of these technologies goes beyond surgeries, even helping patients manage anxiety before undergoing stressful diagnostic procedures like MRIs. Listen and subscribe here.
Pam Karlan, one of the nation’s leading experts on law and voting and the political process, discusses the new conservative-majority Supreme Court—and potential consequences of its blockbuster term, including the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 13, 2022.
Researchers Dion Burns and Naomi Ondrasek from the Learning Policy Institute on the learning outcomes of children experiencing homelessness.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 13, 2022.
Urban law expert Michelle Wilde Anderson discusses her new book, The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, which looks at how local leaders are confronting government collapse in four blue-collar American communities—and the progress they are making against some of the seemingly intractable problems of poverty.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 13, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E192 | How to design algorithms with fairness in mind
Algorithms are behind many serious decisions in mortgages, medicine, and a range of other areas. A computer scientist explains how we can build notions of fairness into algorithms.
Algorithms inform the news you read, the TV shows you watch, and the advertisements that appear on your internet searches – and they also have a say in who gets a bank loan, what medical procedures are covered by insurance, and who gets selected for a job interview. As algorithms are used to make these decisions, how do we make sure they’re fair? And what does fairness even mean?
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, computer science professor Omer Reingold explains how we can create definitions of fairness that can be incorporated into computer algorithms. Reingold and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, also discuss how flawed historic data may result in algorithms making unfair decisions and how a technique called multi-group fairness can improve health predictions for individuals. Listen and subscribe here.
While polls of Republican voters still show strong support for former president Trump, some of the most powerful testimony against him during the January 6 Congressional hearings have been by members of his administration and party. In this episode we hear from Stanford Law Professor Michael W. McConnell, a former judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit nominated by President George W. Bush, about a new report he co-authored, Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election, which examined every count of every case of election irregularities brought by Trump’s team in six battleground states—and concluded that “Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case.”
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 30, 2022.
What have we learned from the Congressional hearings into the January 6 storming of the Capitol and then-President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election? Join Stanford criminal law expert Professor Robert Weisberg for a discussion of the hearings—what we learned and who might face criminal charges.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 30, 2022.
Helping families with children on the autism spectrum.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 30, 2022.
Full title: ALAN CHIU, CEO, BOBA NETWORK & STANFORD ALUM: BLOCKCHAIN, CRYPTOCURRENCY, & WEB 3 DEMYSTIFIED.
Description: Making crypto accessible to all, best of Web 3.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 23, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E186 | How cryptography and Web3 can fight misinformation and help restore trust in digital media
A group of researchers explore how the tools of cryptography can be used to verify the veracity of the images and videos you see online.
Many of the lies, distortions, and pieces of disinformation online are easy to spot. But as technology advances it will become harder to tell the difference between video and images that are true and accurate and those that are manipulated or outright made up. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Jonathan Dotan, of Stanford’s Starling Lab for Data Integrity, and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss what researchers are doing to keep ahead of advances in deep fakes and other forms of manipulated media. Dotan explains how the lab is using cryptography and blockchain technologies to verify the veracity of images and videos, and how these tools are already being used to document war crimes in Syria and Ukraine, and to secure the testimonies of genocide survivors. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E189 | How to make quieter airplanes
A Stanford professor explains how fluid mechanics can help decrease the sound generated by airplanes.
Since they were invented more than a century ago, airplanes have gone from carrying a single person to ferrying many hundreds of people and several tons of cargo. Despite the increase in size and capacity, commercial aircraft have actually become quieter over the past several decades, thanks to a few key design changes informed by fluid mechanics, a branch of physics that studies fluids in motion.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Sanjiva Lele, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of mechanical engineering, explains how adjustments in aircraft design, landing gear, and engines can have massive consequences for the field of aeroacoustics.
Lele joins host, bioengineer Russ Altman, to also discuss how high-fidelity simulations can be used to study and improve the fluid mechanical modeling of aircraft engines, as well as wind turbines. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E188 | A cardiologist says embracing diversity will catalyze medical research
Diversity in medicine boosts innovation and has even improved physicians’ ability to prevent transplant rejection.
Data shows that greater gender diversity on company leadership groups leads to improved business outcomes, says Stanford cardiologist Hannah Valantine. Likewise, she says, in medical research, where diversity boosts the development of new technologies.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Valantine, the former inaugural chief officer for scientific workforce diversity at the National Institutes of Health, as well as a senior investigator at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, discusses why increasing the diversity of researchers and study participants is vital to medical innovation. Valantine and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, then explore the barriers that keep new medical technologies, such as a blood test to detect signs of heart transplant rejection, from being used in hospitals. Listen and subscribe here.
Tara VanDerveer, head coach of the Stanford women’s basketball team (and all time winningest women’s bball coach) on the anniversary of Title IX and its impact on girls in sports.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 16, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E187 | An innovative polling model can move us past political polarization
A Stanford professor explains how the deliberative polling model can get people to listen to one another and even compromise on some of society’s most complex policy issues.
In our deeply polarized society, the prospect of holding thoughtful discussions on policy issues seems impossible. But it doesn’t have to be.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, James Fishkin, a professor of communication at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, describes the deliberative polling model, a system of structured and moderated small group discussions that can help bring people together and bridge differences in perspective on even some of the most politically fraught issues. Together with host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Fishkin discusses how deliberative democracy has been successfully used in more than 30 countries, including Chile, Denmark, and Japan, and how it can be scaled up through technology. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E185 | Data is transforming our understanding of natural disasters
A Stanford professor explains how new types of data collection and advanced computers are improving our knowledge of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes – and how we might prepare for them.
Humans have been trying to predict when earthquakes will happen for centuries, with little success, by developing earthquake detectors and by wondering if unusual animal behavior could be a sign of an incoming temblor. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Eric Dunham, a geophysicist at Stanford University, explains that while we’re still unable to predict when earthquakes will happen, advanced computers and new sensors on the seafloor are pushing the field of natural-hazard modelling forward and providing new information about the nature of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Dunham and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss how this modeling could help us understand where large earthquakes and tsunamis are likely to happen – and how it could help us prepare for these potentially devastating events. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E184 | Computational modeling can help understand Alzheimer’s disease
A professor of mechanical engineering explains how computational models of Alzheimer’s spread in the brain are providing new information about the disease.
Physicians diagnose Alzheimer’s disease with tests that measure memory loss and behavioral change. But many years before these symptoms appear, the disease is changing the brain, leading to the buildup of misfolded proteins and brain shrinkage that cause cognitive decline. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford mechanical engineer Ellen Kuhl explains how she’s using databases of brain images of both Alzheimer’s patients and healthy individuals to create computational models that show how the disease spreads through distinct parts of the brain and gradually impacts different brain functions. Kuhl and host, Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman, explore how these models have generated new insights into how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, as well as its diagnosis and its potential treatment. Listen and subscribe here.
Using enterprise software, Arc provides tech startups with customized financial products they deserve.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 9, 2022.
Nearly ten years after the massacre of 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the world has been shocked by another American school shooting—this one at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas where 19 students and two teachers were gunned down on May 24. That came barely a week after the racially motivated massacre of ten shoppers at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. And these are only the most lethal mass shootings—hundreds more have already occurred in cities across the United States. In this episode, Professor John Donohue, an expert on gun law, joins Rich and Joe to discuss can be done to meet this uniquely American challenge of mass shootings.
Full title: Dr. Trina Wiggins, pediatrician, wellness coach, & author on keeping it short and simple to live a healthy and balanced life.
Description: Dr. Trina Wiggins, Stanford alum and past Miss Fitness winner on her mission to move others to a healthier lifestyle.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 11, 2022.
Geoffrey Canada, founder, Harlem Children’s Zone on importance of Early Childhood Education through high school for disadvantaged communities. Blurb: Breaking the cycle of generational poverty from birth to college through education reform.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 4, 2022.
Peter Tseng, Stanford alum and co-founder, Open, on designing a new way to practice well being.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 28, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E183 | How to develop ever better computer chips
The pandemic accelerated society’s digital transformation by years, requiring more and better computer chips. A Stanford electrical engineer explains how to make that happen.
Computer chips are everywhere: your cellphone, your car, even your refrigerator. And they’re essential to enabling advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and faster and better computers -- and to solving global challenges such as climate change. The omnipresence of this foundational technology has been growing for decades, but the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of society, significantly increasing the demand for more and better chips.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford electrical engineer Philip Wong and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss why filling that need will require a greater emphasis on semiconductor research in universities, global cooperation, and increased investment in both research and development (R&D) and manufacturing. They also discuss the importance of shortening the distance between the kind of computer chip innovations happening in university labs and the fabrication of the next generation of chips, or what Wong calls “the lab-to-fab gap.” Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E182 | Training the next generation of entrepreneurs
Are entrepreneurs born or made? A Stanford professor explains how understanding and practicing a set of skills can make entrepreneurs of us all.
Search online and you’ll find lists of all the skills entrepreneurs should have - among them are imagination, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship. But are entrepreneurs born with these relevant skills, or can they be taught?
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Tina Seelig, professor of the practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, explains the differences between imagination, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, and how all four can be taught and then applied to finding solutions to big challenges. Join Seelig and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, as they discuss how to train a generation of entrepreneurs who will make positive contributions to the world. Listen and subscribe here.
Guest Anne Charity Hudley, professor of education at Stanford, discusses how language interacts with learning, and specifically explores with our hosts the experiences of Black students in college.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 21, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E180 | The physics of gel-like substances
The vast majority of substances are neither liquid, solid, nor gas – but an alternative form that shares characteristics of liquids and gases. Among them are gels, glasses, and colloidal suspensions, and they’re an essential part of everyday products like toothpaste, paint, hair products, and even windows. Stanford chemical engineer Roseanna Zia is an expert on the gel-like substance known as colloids.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, Zia joins host Russ Altman to talk about the physics of these substances, and how a greater understanding of colloids can improve our understanding of cells, biological processes, and human health and disease.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E181 | How to Fight Climate Change
An environmental scientist explains why taking on climate change will require that we continue to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of increasing temperatures.
The consequences of climate change have already been devastating: wildfires, drought, coastal flooding, and increased temperatures, among them. And there are massive economic, societal, and geopolitical and security costs as well. It's no wonder that many people may feel the situation at this point is hopeless. But in this episode of the Future of Everything, Stanford’s Chris Field tells host and bioengineer Russ Altman that the world has made more progress than we might have expected a decade ago, and that we can still pave a way to a sustainable future, both by reducing emissions and by adapting to the impact of increasing temperatures through such things as technological innovation and improved infrastructure and land and resource management. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Casey Means, MD & Stanford alum, co-founder at metabolic health firm Levels, on her mission to reverse preventable chronic disease. Description: Dr. Casey Means on using tech-enabled tools to empower individuals with smart, personalized, sustainable dietary and lifestyle choices.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 14, 2022.
In an unusual leak from the U.S. Supreme Court, a draft memo shows the Court has decided to overrule Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal throughout the U.S. What does this mean for women seeking abortions in the U.S.? Are other rights, like same-sex marriage under threat? And what does this say about the politicization of the Court? Constitutional law expert Bernadette Meyler joins this episode to discuss these questions and more.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 7, 2022.
Since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of the world’s leading companies, from investment banks to consumer goods, have shuttered their Russian operations. But Law firms have been slower to respond. Join us for a discussion with business law expert Robert Daines who has been leading an effort to expose leading American and British law firms about their status of work for Russian interests.
Originally aired May 7, 2022 on SiriusXM.
On Time's "30 Under 30" list of world change-makers, Shiza Shahid, entrepreneur & Stanford alum on impacting girls' lives through technology and education.
Shiza Shahid talks investing in mission-driven technology, & high-growth business models to empower girls and women in the global economy.
Join co-hosts Joe Bankman and Rich Ford for a discussion with Professors Paul Brest and Colleen Honigsberg, co-authors of the Measuring Corporate Virtue and Vice: Making ESG Metrics Trustworthy (book chapter of the recently published Frontiers in Social Innovation.
Shareholders and investors alike are pressuring companies to improve their environmental, social, and governance performance. And an increasing number of funds are designated as ESG. But how do we measure—and verify—ESG? Who performs the audits and do the ratings matter?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 23, 2022.
Jonas Miller, a researcher at the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology Laboratory, discusses the importance of giving young children opportunities for high quality learning.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 23, 2022.
Join co-hosts Joe Bankman and Rich Ford for a discussion with founding director of Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic Debbie Sivas and 3L students Chris Meyer and SidniFrederick about critical environmental cases—and why they matter.
Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic issues come in all sizes and shapes, from arguing successfully before the Ninth Circuit on their Endangered Species Act/NEPA case against the Forest Service, which implicated forest management issues in the face of drought and wildfire, to going before the Eastern District of California in a wildlife trafficking case.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E178 | What makes a surgeon great?
A professor of surgery discusses what we can learn by using sensors and video to examine and quantify every moment of a surgery.
Conducting a surgery is one of the most complex tasks an individual can do — but how do you recognize the difference between the highly skilled surgeons performing at the top of their game and those still honing their techniques? With the help of wearable sensors, motion tracking and video, physicians can now watch surgeons in action, quantify their movements, and determine how highly skilled physicians accomplish the unique choreography of surgery.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Carla Pugh, a professor of surgery at Stanford, discusses what we learn when we measure physicians’ movements, and how studying the movements of skilled surgeons can shorten the learning curve for their less experienced colleagues. Dr. Pugh joins bioengineer and host Russ Altman to explore the future of surgery. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E179 | How social media can help gauge societal health
Hundreds of millions of people use social media in the U.S. A computational social scientist explains how to harness the technology to measure mental and physical well-being.
Are U.S. adults happy? Sad? Depressed? One can answer these questions by calling thousands of people and surveying their psychological state, a strategy that’s both costly and time-consuming. But with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence, you can also measure a population’s well-being by turning to social media platforms and tracking what millions of people are talking about.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, computational social scientist Johannes Eichstaedt and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss how social media can be used to gauge a population’s psychological state, including how events like COVID-19 have impacted well-being. They also discuss how social media has the potential to work as an early warning system for public health crises to help cities and counties deploy resources where they’re most needed. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E177 | What happens when computers can write like humans
An increasing amount of written communication is being created by artificial intelligence. A professor of communication discusses the implications.
Start an email with “I hope” and before you can type the next word, the program will suggest you complete it with “all is well.” You may not have realized it, but this is AI-generated text. In the past several years, this technology has advanced beyond completing sentences in emails: It can now respond to others’ emails, and write essays, hip-hop songs, public health messages, and much more. What’s more, it can sometimes be even more effective than humans at conveying certain messages. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Jeff Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford, explores this phenomenon and its positive and negative implications for how we communicate and how we understand our interactions with one another and the world. Learn more with Hancock and host Stanford Professor Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
CEO Peter Collis with Ethos talks about the importance of helping families get simple and ethical life insurance.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E176 | The impact of income gaps on children’s health
A pediatrics professor explains how COVID-19 put a spotlight on how income disparities affect health — and how innovations in telehealth might help overcome some of the challenges.
The world has made remarkable gains in pediatric medicine and public health over the past several generations. The average American child of the 21st century has access to clean water and milk, fully functioning sewage systems, and antibiotics, vaccines, and other medicines. Result: Child mortality rates have declined dramatically over the past century. At the same time, a widening income gap in the United States has led to vastly different prevalence rates for health conditions between low- and high-income families, says Stanford pediatrician Lisa Chamberlain. And COVID-19, she says, has put a spotlight on many of the health challenges associated with these wealth disparities. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Chamberlain joins host Professor Russ Altman to discusses these issues, and how telehealth might help overcome some of the burgeoning challenges in pediatric health. Listen and subscribe here.
Author John David talks about how to change human behavior in his book, "Radical Business: How to Transform Your Organization in the Age of Global Crisis"
The Legacy of retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is discussed by Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez, who clerked for Breyer.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 12, 2022.
Stanford researcher Roberta Katz discusses her new book, “Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age,” and what we can learn from the generation born in the mid-1990s.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 12, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E175 | The crucial role of data compression
The total size of digital file types is expanding exponentially. So are the challenges of storing them. An electrical engineer discusses new approaches to tackling the issue.
It may not be immediately obvious, but there are huge financial, environmental and security costs associated with storing all the selfies, videos, documents and other digital assets the world is generating. One way to address this issue is by developing better compression algorithms that can represent the data more succinctly. Another is by creating new ways of storing the information itself, including, potentially, within biological molecules.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford electrical engineer Tsachy Weissman discusses with host Professor Russ Altman the challenges associated with storing our ever-growing mountains of digital data – and how they can be addressed. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E174 | Regenerating and rejuvenating human tissues
A bioengineer discusses how biomaterials created in a lab can help the human body regenerate or rejuvenate tissues, or provide 3D disease models to inform drug discovery.
Children have an amazing capacity for healing after injury. Break a leg, the bone grows back; cut a finger, the skin heals. But as we age, most tissues no longer heal easily, and tissue loss is unavoidable due to aging, degenerative diseases such as arthritis, and cancer.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Fan Yang and host and fellow bioengineer Russ Altman, discuss how biomaterials created in a lab can be injected into wound sites to enable tissue regeneration or rejuvenation by modulating stem cells, vasculature, or immune responses.
They also discuss the potential of exploiting such biomaterials to create 3D cancer models to facilitate discovery of novel drugs with reduced time and cost. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Lianna Holston & Siena Jeakle host the popular podcast Tossed Popcorn. They describe themselves as dear/old/close/funny-but-in-a-hot-way friends who have neither seen nor enjoyed that many films, particularly the Classics, adding "we're here to get the Classics off their pedestal with irreverent observations and outspoken confusion."
Description: Join hosts Lianna Holston & Siena Jeakle, as they dish on their fun and cheeky film reviews from the "100 Greatest American Movies Of All Time" in their weekly Tossed Popcorn podcast.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 5, 2022.
Over 30 state legislatures across the country have introduced bills to limit the discussion of racial history in a wave prompted by the emergence of critical race theory as a subject of political fear-mongering. In this episode, Rich and Joe are joined by Professor Ralph Richard Banks, an expert in race and law, for a discussion about the politicization of critical race theory, book banning, and more.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 26, 2022.
Teacher burnout—and resignations—may be leading to a crisis in education. Join Laura Juran, Chief Counsel and Associate Executive Director of the California Teachers Association, for a discussion about the challenges the nation's teachers have faced during the pandemic, when they have been on the frontline during an unprecedented health crisis.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 26, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E172 | Why AI must embody the values of its users
Artificial intelligence has become increasingly important in our daily lives. A computer scientist explains what he’s doing to help ensure it’s working with us, not against us.
You might not realize it, but AI-driven systems are integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives. But how can we be certain the values AI systems are striving for reflect what we want for ourselves and for society? And how can scientists and engineers do a better job of increasing people’s trust in AI? Stanford computer scientist Carlos Guestrin is a leading voice on how to advance and implement a more trustworthy AI. Learn about his work in this area, and his particular interest in AI and healthcare, on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, with host Professor Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E173 | A more thoughtful approach to technology can improve medical care
A professor of medicine and expert on organizational behavior explores how innovation and an integrated approach to healthcare can help tame some of its complexities.
Anyone who’s ever been to a hospital knows that the healthcare system is extremely complex. Every patient has their own challenges – and they will typically see multiple physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare practitioners, and come into contact with a slew of medical technologies, protocols, and billing and insurance systems.
Sara Singer, a Stanford professor of medicine, is an expert on integrated care – the development of tools, technologies, and processes designed to improve the interactions among patients, clinicians, and other providers to lower costs and improve health outcomes.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, she explains how new technology, and its improved integration into the healthcare system, can enhance practitioners’ ability to care for patients. Learn more with host Professor Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Matt Haney, San Francisco Board Supervisor, joins Stanford Legal for a discussion about the challenges of homelessness and crime in cities, particularly since the start of the Covid pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 10, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E171 | How do you build a better robot? By understanding people.
A computer scientist discusses the growing field of human-robot interaction.
Whether it’s autonomous vehicles or assistive technology in healthcare that can do things like help the elderly do core tasks like feeding themselves, some of the most challenging problems in the field of robotics involve how robots interact with humans, with all of our many complexities.
Drawing from fields as varied as cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics, Stanford computer scientist Dorsa Sadigh is exploring how to train robots to better understand humans – and how to give humans the skills to more seamlessly work with robots.
Learn more on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, with host Professor Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Full Title: TINX, POPULAR TIK TOK STAR AND STANFORD ALUM TALKS HER RISE TO BECOMING A TOP AND AUTHENTIC INFLUENCER.
Description: Tinx, Los Angeles–based content creator with over 1.2 million followers on her success in pop-culture commentary, daily vlogs, and the power behind her personal recommendations .
Full title: Roberta Katz, Author and Stanford alum explains who Gen Z is, and what we can learn from their impacts on work culture and trends.
Description: Author Roberta Katz talks about the most diverse generation yet in her latest book, Gen Z, Explained; The Art of Living in a Digital Age.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 22, 2022.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E170 | James Zou: Trust is AI’s most critical contribution to health care
AI can reveal remarkable medical insights, but only if patients and doctors have faith in it. Thus, trust has become AI’s singular goal, says this expert in the field.
Among the many areas James Zou might have chosen to apply his considerable knowledge of artificial intelligence, he opted for health care. It was the most interesting, the most complex and the most impactful area of study. In short, it was the most exciting outlet for his expertise.
Since that epiphany, Zou has gone on to publish influential studies that have improved the patient experience, shaped basic research and sped the development of new drugs. Among his most important contributions, Zou says, are efforts to expose and overcome bias in the data and algorithms.
His latest project, Pathfinder, uses anonymized, real-world medical records to allow researchers to conduct synthetic clinical trials on fictional (but realistic) patients, as Zou explains in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Just as pandemic fatigue is setting in and the Omicron variant is sweeping across the nation—putting a tremendous strain on America’s healthcare infrastructure—the Supreme Court heard arguments in challenges to the Biden administration’s authority to combat the COVID-19. Labor law expert Professor William B. Gould IV joins Joe and Rich to discuss challenges to the administration’s efforts to impose vaccine mandates—and trends in the American labor market during the pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 15, 2022.
Full title: SCOTT REISS, STANFORD ALUM & VOICE OF THE STANFORD CARDINALS TALKS #1 BESTSELLER THAT DEPICTS THE CAREERS OF 15 National TV SPORTS BROADCASTERS
Descripton: SCOTT REISS ASKS BROADCASTERS TO DETAIL THEIR CAREERS IN NEW BOOK "WHERE THEY WERE THEN: SPORTSCASTERS"
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E169 | Martin Fischer: AI and virtual reality can help society build better.
Harnessing the latest tools of computer science, an engineer hopes to reshape one of the oldest fields of human endeavor — construction.
For a profession that has existed essentially since the beginning of human civilization, few people fully appreciate the importance of construction in our everyday lives, but Martin Fischer does. To build the key infrastructure of society, he says, requires intimate understanding of human nature, the environment, the materials and the ever-evolving techniques of building things.
Fischer has grown frustrated with the present state of his profession and decided to change its trajectory using artificial intelligence and virtual reality to redefine what construction will look like in the future.
It’s an effort he hopes will unite the profession in creating more efficient, safer and more livable homes, buildings, airports, bridges and more. Fischer muses all about the future of construction in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E167 | Johan Ugander: How misinformation spreads faster than truth
An expert in the spread of misinformation talks about how we might at last conquer falsehood and the surprising new direction his work is taking him.
Stanford professor Johan Ugander is an expert in making sense of messy data. Lately he’s been working to tell fact from fiction online, as news stories spread on social media. He comes at the question from a unique angle, using machine learning to study the differing patterns in how both types of information spread (or don’t).
In so doing, Ugander has come to some interesting conclusions and, more important, suggests some novel strategies for preventing the spread of misinformation. False stories, he says, are more “infectious,” with wide-ranging consequences for how they spread. Strategies to slow or restrict this infectiousness range from increasing digital literacy to asking potential sharers to consider the factual accuracy of a story they are about to share.
Ugander has also started to take his research in a new direction, criminal justice, working to make sense of the complex data records that a Stanford team has collected to understand California’s parole system, as he tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E166 | Gill Bejerano: How cryptogenomics advances both science and privacy
Uniting computer science, mathematics and genomics, one professor hopes to expand access to DNA while keeping it secret.
Much of what the world knows about genetic diseases is learned by comparing the DNA of people with a shared disease against the DNA of otherwise healthy people to learn where the differences lie.
This is all well and good except that, written into all that DNA, is a lot of other information that the subjects would rather keep private. And that’s where Gill Bejerano enters the scene. He’s an expert in cryptogenomics, a discipline that marries the fields of cryptography and genomics to essentially scramble the genetic code to researchers in such a way that they can still glean valuable information from it without revealing the donor’s entire genetic code.
Bejerano’s efforts have been so successful he’s now applying a similar process to medical records, as he explains to host Russ Altman and listeners of this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E168 | Cynthia Lee: How to teach computer science
A lecturer in Stanford School of Engineering's Department of Computer Science says that change must come to the classroom from the top and the bottom.
As the field of computer science has evolved over the last half century, so too has the way in which computer science is taught and to whom it is taught.
Stanford lecturer Cynthia Lee says she is encouraged by the diversity she sees as she looks out over her classroom. But that wasn’t always the case, particularly when she, a woman, was in college. Lee has since dedicated her career to changing that mindset from a fixed and rigid outlook to one that is more open and welcoming of diverse backgrounds and skills.
Change, she says, can come from the top in how classes are structured and at the foundation in undoing preconceptions about who can excel in the field. Diverse faces, myriad skills and interests, fewer lectures and more hands-on, peer-to-peer collaboration are in order, Lee tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman.
Two time Stanford graduate, Dan Grunfeld has played hoops both in Palo Alto and during his professional career abroad. The Stanford Graduate School of Business alum's new book, “By the Grace of the Game - The Holocaust, A Basketball Legacy and An Unprecedented American Dream” details how three generations of his family tackled various challenges using grit and determination.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on 12/11/21.
Guest Ted Lempert, a former member of the California State Assembly, discusses key ways parents and others can build coalitions that support children’s health, education, and welfare.
Originally aired on November 20, 2021, on SiriusXM.
When AG Garland put out a call to lawyers, law students, and law schools generally to suit up to deal with the "eviction tsunami" that many are predicting in the coming months, Juliet Brodie, director of the Stanford Community Law Clinic and an expert in tenants’ rights answered the call.
In this episode, Joe and Rick discuss evictions, the challenges lower income Americans face in staying in their homes, and how the law has been innovating during Covid-19. Juliet is joined by Lauren Zack, a teaching and litigation fellow working on the eviction projects with the clinic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 20, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E165 | Chelsea Finn: How to make artificial intelligence more meta
An expert on AI and robotics says that the latest trend in her field is teaching AI to look inward to improve itself.
In one of computer science’s more meta moments, professor Chelsea Finn created an AI algorithm to evaluate the coding projects of her students. The AI model reads and analyzes code, spot flaws and gives feedback to the students. Computers learning about learning—it’s so meta that Finn calls it “meta learning.” Finn says the field should forgo training AI for highly specific tasks in favor of training it to look at a diversity of problems to divine the common structure among those problems. The result is AI able to see a problem it has not encountered before and call upon all that previous experience to solve it. This new-look AI can adapt to new courses, often enrolling thousands of students at a time, where individual instructor feedback would be prohibitive. Emboldened by results in class, Finn is now applying her breadth-over-specificity approach to her other area of focus, robotics. She hopes to develop new-age robots that can adapt to unfamiliar surroundings and can do many things well, instead of a few, as she tells host Russ Altman and listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Headline: Rich Jarolovsky, Stanford Alum and Pioneering Journalist Talks Print vs. Digital and the quest for digital news that can be trusted.
Description: What's the future of journalism? Are content aggregation sites the solution? Who can you trust? Journalist and digital media guru Rich Jarolovsky talks about industry growth and trends in the digital era.
Originally aired on November 13, 2021.
It was the stuff of Silicon Valley dreams. Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford University to launch the blood testing disruptor Theranos and built it to a $9 billion valuation. But the tech adage “fake it until you make it” didn’t quite work for this medical device startup, and charges that the devices didn’t work mounted. Holmes and Ramesh Balwani, her onetime business and romantic partner, were indicted with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In this episode, Stanford Law School Professor Robert Weisberg, a criminal law expert, discusses the trial, which began in September, the prosecution, the defense, and the larger implications of the case.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 6, 2021.
Eric Hanushek, who recently was awarded the Yidan Prize for his research in education, explains how research can bolster educational attainment globally.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 6, 2021.
Online education is experiencing a revival but pitfalls remain. Matthew Rascoff, vice provost for digital education at Stanford, explains what’s ahead.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 6, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E164 | Kayvon Fatahalian: How the pandemic changed the virtual world
An expert in computer graphics tells how the rapid shift online brought on by COVID-19 has inspired a revolution in the tools of his trade.
For experts in digital graphics and visual perception, like computer scientist Kayvon Fatahalian, the recent pandemic has been a call to arms. Fatahalian says he and others in the field felt an urgent responsibility to harness their background in computer graphics and interactive techniques to improve life for people across the globe. He says new, virtual tools have proved better than past, real ones in improving certain aspects of our everyday lives.
His job as a computer scientist is to make those experiences more successful, more of the time. His role as a teacher is a case in point. While the virtual world is not a replacement for face-to-face interaction between students and instructors, Fatahalian notes there are many aspects of the live virtual lecture experience that enable more students to participate, and participate more frequently than in a physical classroom.
Fatahalian is now busier than ever discovering where and how the virtual world excels and creating new tools to meet the evolving need, as he tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Ivan Maisel, sports writer & Stanford alum tells the story of unfathomable tragedy – the loss of his son to suicide in the best seller, “I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye: A Memoir of Loss, Grief, and Love.”
Description: It was a call that would alter his life forever. In his deeply emotional memoir, longtime ESPN writer Ivan Maisel reflects on the suicide of his son Max and delves into how their complicated relationship led him to see grief as love.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 30, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E 163 | Kuang Xu: How to make (and keep) genetic data private
An expert in genetic privacy says there’s a fine line between one’s right to know and another’s right to not know.
One underappreciated fact about the explosion in genetic databases, like consumer sites that provide information about ancestry and health, is that they unlock valuable insights not only into an individual’s past and future, but also for that individual’s entire family. This raises serious concerns about privacy for people who have never submitted their genetic information for analysis, yet share much the same code as one who did.
Today’s guest, Kuang Xu, is an expert in how genetic information can and should be used. He says that the DNA problem weighs heavily on privacy experts in fields ranging from law and engineering to public health and criminal justice. The fundamental question is: Can we create methods for accessing genetic data while maximizing the privacy of all involved?
The problems will only grow more intense as time and data accumulate, Xu says, unless we resolve them now, as he explains on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E 162 | Eric Appel: Gels are changing the face of engineering ... and medicine
An expert in gels explains why these “Goldilocks” materials are the among the most promising areas of research today.
Readers of Eric Appel’s academic profile will note appointments in materials science, bioengineering and pediatrics, as well as fellowship appointments in the ChEM-H institute for human health research and the Woods Institute for the Environment. While the breadth of these appointments does not leap to mind as being particularly consistent, the connections quickly emerge for those who hear Appel talk about his research.
Appel is an expert in gels, those wiggly, jiggly materials that aren’t quite solid, but not quite liquid either. Gels’ in-betweenness is precisely what gets engineers like Appel excited about them. Appel has used gels for everything from new-age fire retardants that can proactively prevent forest fires to improved drug and vaccine delivery mechanisms for everything from diabetes to COVID-19. Hence the appointments across engineering and medicine.
Listen in with host and bioengineer Russ Altman as Appel explains to Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast why gels could be the future of science. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Stanford Professor & alum Mehran Sahami talks about his co-written book, System Error - Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot.
A forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professors—experts who have worked at ground zero of the tech revolution for decades—which reveals how big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 2, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E 161 | Lianne Kurina: How controlling confounders makes better epidemiology
Public health studies are among the most challenging to get right, says this expert in epidemiology. But better design can yield greater confidence.
As the world has learned through the recent pandemic, epidemiological studies can be complicated by many unanticipated factors. Lianne Kurina is an expert in the design of epidemiological studies who says that the key to greater confidence is better design.
The gold standard, she says, is the randomized controlled trial—a study that compares groups that are essentially identical by every apparent factor but one— the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated, for instance. In the case of COVID-19 vaccinations, Kurina stresses that investigators did an exemplary job of this.
In situations where we can't use a randomized controlled trial, achieving a similar balance and specificity is far harder. Kurina says that researchers working with observational data, rather than trial data, must always be attuned to the overlooked factors—“confounders” she calls them—that can muddy the data and render a study moot.
However, Kurina notes, the better one controls the confounders in these observational studies via better design and data collection, the greater confidence we can have in the end results, as she tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Assistant Professor Chris Piech discusses how a Stanford project to teach computer coding to people stuck at home during COVID-19 went viral.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 25, 2021.
In 2007, Erik Jensen, helped launch the Afghanistan Legal Education Project, a collaboration with with Stanford Law School and the American University in Afghanistan to build a high quality legal program for Afghan law students. Today, dozens of Afghan men and women count themselves as graduates—lawyers critical to building the legal infrastructure so badly needed in Afghanistan. But what will happen to the country—and those dedicated to law and civil society—under the new Taliban regime? In this episode, Jensen discusses the abrupt withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the prospects of the still struggling country.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 25, 2021.
How user generated content is changing the world of marketing.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 18, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E160 | Priyanka Raina: How computer chips get speedier through specialization
Increasingly, the path to faster, more efficient computers is in chips that excel at specific tasks, says this expert in chip design.
For decades, the general-purpose central processing unit—the CPU—has been the workhorse of the computer industry. It could handle any task—literally—even if most of those capabilities were unnecessary.
This model was all well and good as chips grew smaller, faster and more efficient by the day, but less so as the pace of progress has slowed, says electrical engineer Priyanka Raina, an expert in chip design. Raina says that, to keep chips on their ever-improving trajectory, chip makers have shifted focus to chips that do specific tasks very well. The graphics processing unit (GPU), which handles the intense mathematics necessary for video and gaming graphics, is a perfect example.
Soon, there’ll be a faster, more efficient chip for every task, but it’ll take industry-wide cooperation to get there, as Raina tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Full title: Rich Kushel, Stanford alum and Senior Managing Director at BlackRock on how the world's biggest investor is modeling the economic effects of climate change.
Description: BlackRocks's Asset manager BlackRock, makes climate change and environmental sustainability central to its multi-billion dollar investment approach.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 4, 2021.
Western states are once again in severe drought with water in short supply. And California’s fire season is starting earlier and causing more devastation, with the Dixie fire, the second largest in the state’s history, still growing after destroying almost 750,000 acres. In this episode, a leading national water law expert Buzz Thompson joins us to discuss fires, water, and climate change.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 28, 2021
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E159 | Biondo Biondi: : How to measure an earthquake through the internet
New technologies that detect motion in the Earth’s crust are emerging in surprising places and reshaping our understanding of earthquakes … and much more.
Most people know the seismograph, those ultrasensitive instruments that record every small shift in the Earth’s crust.
But did you know that the very latest method for measuring earthquakes involves fiber optic cables that carry internet data around the world?
Stanford geophysicist Biondo Biondi says that the waves of energy sent forth by an earthquake cause fiber optic cables to stretch and contract ever so slightly. Using precise mathematical algorithms, experts like Biondi can measure earthquake intensity, making every meter of fiber optic cable a potential seismograph and dramatically increasing the data experts can gather in a day. Biondi’s sensor arrays are so sensitive they can detect sinkholes, landslides and even the rumblings of failing urban infrastructure.
These new technologies – and the secrets they might reveal – are only starting to emerge, as Biondi tells listeners in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Full Title: Brooke Weddle, Stanford alum and partner at McKinsey & Co on surviving to thriving; adapting your business to create a winning post-pandemic business model.
Beyond coronavirus: How McKinsey and Company helps businesses and organizations navigate to what's next.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 21, 2021.
Stanford Professor Wiliam Damon, who made a startling discovery about his father later in life, explains how exploring your past can help you find purpose in your present.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 14, 2021.
Stanford Professor Emily Levine discusses her new book, Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 14, 2021.
Full title: Stanford alum Rob Siegel, a venture capitalist and lecturer on staying competitive when combining digital and traditional business functions.
Rob Siegel, author of "The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical" an eBook on maintaining a competitive business advantage in today's digital economy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 7, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E158 | Emmanuel Candes: How to increase certainty in predictive modeling
Today’s predictive algorithms carry too much uncertainty says one mathematician, who is working to bring confidence to the models that, increasingly, rule our lives.
Anyone who’s ever made weekend plans based on the weather forecast knows that prediction – about anything – is a tough business. But predictive models are increasingly used to make life-changing decisions everywhere from health and finance to justice and national elections. As the consequences have grown, so has the weight of uncertainty, says today’s guest, mathematician and statistician Emmanuel Candès.
Candès knows this paradigm all too well. He is an expert in identifying flaws in today’s highly sophisticated computer models. He says the secret to better prediction rests in building models that don’t try to be right every time, but instead offer a high degree of certainty about things of real consequence.
In that regard, the old scientific maxim holds, he says. Correlation does not equal causation. The statistician’s job, therefore, is helping to sort through the noise to find the nuggets of truth in the things that really matter, as Candès tell listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Emma Seppala, expert in mindfulness, explains how teachers and parents can encourage restorative practices like meditation to help mental well-being as we emerge from the trauma of the pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 31, 2021.
Psychologist Geoffrey Cohen discusses what teachers can do to help students feel a sense of belonging, and how that feeling propels learning.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 31, 2021.
Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, Director & Public Health Officer, City of Pasadena & Stanford alum talks public policy, research, and medicine.
Ying-Ying Goh leads the Pasadena Public Health Dept. in its dedication to the physical, social and mental well-being of all those who love, live, work, learn, and play in Pasadena.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 24, 2021.
Legal issues surrounding the elderly and mentally incapacitated have been making headlines lately, particularly the conservatorship for popstar Britney Spears. But why are these legal tools used? What are the alternatives? And what rights do people like Britney have? In this episode of Stanford Legal, Michael Gilfix , a leading authority in the field of law, aging, and estate planning, answers these questions and more.
Originally aired on July 17, 2021 on SiriusXM.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E157 | Srabanti Chowdhury: New forms of semiconductors are key to the future
An electrical engineer discusses how new materials for semiconductors could lead to smaller, faster, more powerful, more energy efficient, and more versatile electronics.
Electronics are everywhere these days, so much so that often we don't even register that we are using them. The use of electronics will only grow over time as engineers solve societal challenges through increased connectivity, faster computation, new high-tech gadgets, and energy sustainability. Against that backdrop, electrical engineers like Stanford’s Srabanti Chowdhury have been searching for new semiconductors that can expand the application space beyond the ubiquitous silicon. Among the options she’s exploring is an old familiar friend—diamond—and a few new ones, too, like gallium nitride.
The diamonds Chowdhury works with are a far cry from the sparkly gems a jeweler might prize. These diamonds are “doped” with other elements to achieve optimal electrical performance. Meanwhile, gallium nitride has shown promise in LEDs and lasers, as well as in cutting-edge radar systems—among other applications.
While these new semiconductors have raised hopes of scaling new heights where even silicon cannot reach, much work remains if they are ever to move from lab bench to laptops and myriad other electronic devices. The payoff, however, will be smaller, faster, more powerful, more energy efficient, and more versatile electronics, as Chowdhury tells listeners to this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Private online team building facilitated by experts Michael McCarroll and Bob Sutton, both Stanford alums.
Blurb: Experts at Teamraderie discuss winning strategies on developing trust, commitment, and innovation through virtual team building.
Guest Glenn Kleiman outlines the main levers for changing school systems for the better.
We grumble about paying taxes, but appreciate the roads, bridges, safety net, and more that they pay for. But is the U.S. tax system fair? Should the rich pay more, and the poor pay less?
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E156 | Simona Onori: How ready are we for our electric future?
An expert in energy resources engineering says “battery biopsies” are key to a tomorrow filled with electric vehicles.`
It now seems more certain than ever that the world will make the all-important transition to electric vehicles, but that shift raises important questions about global preparedness.
The world is going to need a lot of batteries to make it happen and engineers are rightly concerned about everything from the availability of raw materials to how many miles can I drive before I run out of juice?
Simona Onori is an electrical engineer by training and a professor of energy resources engineering as well as an expert in creating computer models of what that electric future will look like. For instance, she is developing mathematical battery management systems that assess the internal chemistry of a battery to predict how much life is left in it, how safe it is and, yes, how long until that next charge is needed.
Onori likens her analyses to “battery biopsies” that can help engineers and everyday drivers get more life out of their batteries. Don’t fret, our electric future is in good hands, Onori reassures listeners in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E155 | Irene Lo: How math makes markets fairer
An expert in algorithms discusses how the changing meaning of the word “market” is being leveraged to achieve important social goals.
Engineer Irene Lo studies markets, but not traditional marketplaces based in cash.
Instead, she studies markets for goods/resources that place a high value on social goods like diversity, fairness and equity.
Thus, Lo came to help San Francisco create an algorithm to assign kids more fairly to public schools across geographic, social, racial and economic boundaries. As it turns out, math is just the first step. The most challenging part was getting families to trust in the system, begetting a multi-year community engagement effort.
Lo is now turning her attention to other markets with social impact, like her work on the system that places medical students in residency programs across the country or one trying to make the palm oil supply chain fairer for farmers.
Listen in as Irene Lo explains the changing face of markets to host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The 2020 Election continues to have an unprecedented impact on the country, the “big lie” about fraud spread by some media outlets and used by at least 14 states as justification to undo key election laws. Yet since Trump was banned from popular social media platforms, his voice is less prevalent in mainstream America. In this episode, we hear from election law expert Nate Persily about Facebook’s oversight board and its decision to continue the ban on Trump for another two years. Nate also discusses efforts by state legislators to curtail voting laws and why he is sounding the alarm bells for a threatened American democracy.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E 154 | Joseph DeSimone: How 3D printing is changing medicine
With growing precision and new materials, 3D printing stands to reshape health care.
Oft-heralded 3-dimensional printers can build objects ranging from simple spoons to advanced running shoes.
While those objects are usually made very slowly, the latest printing technologies portend a new era of 3D printing in real-time for use in health care.
The possibilities are endless, says Joseph DeSimone, who is an expert in translational medicine – the field of transferring promising technological breakthroughs into real-world products. He says printers he developed have led to the first FDA-approved 3D printed dentures, ultra-thin microneedles that make it easier and more effective to deliver vaccines, and even implantable chemotherapy devices that kill tumors while reducing side effects for patients.
From dentistry to oncology, the promise of 3D printed medical devices is only just emerging, as DeSimone explains in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Peri Hansen, Stanford alum, shares how executive search works and how best to position yourself for career success.
Strategic career planning for upper-level executive recruitment, retention, and leadership development.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 12.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E153 | Tina Hernandez-Boussard: How data improves the quality of health care
A specialist in bioinformatics explains that the tools of data science are delivering insights into health care outcomes and improving care as never before.
Tina Hernandez-Boussard is an expert in biomedical informatics who says a new era of understanding the real outcomes of our health care systems is on the horizon thanks to big data, artificial intelligence, and the growing availability of electronic health data. She says that the combination of these tools and data holds the promise of providing never-before-possible insights into whether health procedures truly improve patient quality of life and for which populations.
With these tools, she says, her field can peer into the “real-world” details hidden in the medical records, even going so far as to use natural language processing to analyze the freeform notes and emails to and from the provider. The examples are virtually limitless: matching health records against data from wearable devices to know when a knee patient is not getting enough physical exercise, cross-referencing prescriptions to learn whether a patient might be susceptible to adverse drug combinations, or even revealing undisclosed medical events such as past mild heart attacks.
It’s all there in the data, waiting for us to explore, as Tina Hernandez-Boussard tells bioengineer and host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E 152 | Nate Persily: How to restore faith in America’s elections
Our recent election focused attention on the mechanics of democracy as never before. An expert in election law sizes things up and suggests ways to regain trust in the institution.
Nate Persily is a professor at Stanford Law School and an expert in election law.
He sees the most recent presidential election as a fundamental change in the way Americans vote. For the first time ever, the majority of voters cast their ballot by mail, rather than at a polling place. It “was an earthquake,” Persily says, speaking metaphorically about the 2020 election’s profound implications for future elections.
But not all agree it was a success. Republicans and Democrats are further apart than ever in their beliefs as to whether the recent presidential election was free and fair. Addressing polarization in beliefs regarding the fairness of the election will be very difficult. Until leaders come together in a bipartisan fashion to affirm the legitimacy of an election winner, reform will not be able to do much to address this underlying problem.
Failing that, we need to bolster the institutional position of all nonpartisan election administrators who are placing the public interest over party, as Persily tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E151 | Krishna Shenoy: How brain-computer connections could end paralysis
By listening into the chatter among a handful of brain cells, an expert in brain-computer interfaces says a future in which people with paralysis control computers with their thoughts is within reach.
Whether by injury or disease, paralysis has afflicted humans through the ages.
Only now have science and technology converged to a point where scientists can contemplate a day when computers and the human mind can communicate directly to restore a certain degree of independence to people with debilitating spinal injuries and other physical conditions that impede or prevent movement.
Electrical engineer Krishna Shenoy is an expert in such brain-computer interfaces and has built machinery by which humans can control the movement of computer cursors with mere thoughts. Using small chips implanted in the brain itself, Shenoy “listens intelligently” to the electrical “chatter” among a hundred or so of the 100 billion neurons of the brain’s motor cortex and then translates the meaning into language a computer can understand. In this way, Shenoy has allowed a man with paralysis to “write” his thoughts at some 17 words per minute, a record more than double the previous standard.
Work remains, but the future of brain-computer interfaces is on the horizon as Krishna Shenoy tells us on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Glasses for kids can be cool and fun! Stanford alums Nathan Kondamuri and Sophia Edelstein of Pair Eyewear tell us how.
Nathan Kondamuri and Sophia Edelstein of Pair Eyewear tell us how they have fundamentally changed the world of eyewear for children and adults.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 29.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E150 | Sam Wineburg: How to improve American students’ fact-checking skills
A cognitive psychologist explains why, with so much information at their disposal, American students struggle to tell fact from fiction … and how he thinks we might fix it.
Sam Wineburg, a research psychologist at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, recently conducted a nationwide study of the fact-checking skills of thousands of American high school students.
He didn’t go about it with a survey asking the kids to self-report their own behaviors. Instead, he devised a live experiment that charged the 3,000 students in the study to determine the veracity of a now-famous bit of fake news from the 2016 election. Wineburg and team were then able to follow along as students tried to find the true source of the video, which had been produced in Russia as part of a disinformation campaign.
In the end, just three students – one-tenth of one percent – arrived at the right answer. Rather than blame the kids, however, Wineburg says fault lies with the tools they are using, which have changed so dramatically in speed and scope that their fact-checking skills have had trouble keeping up.
All is not lost, he promises, but fixing the problem will require changing not just what information students consume, but the way they think about it, as Wineburg tells host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E149 | Julie Parsonnet: How faith in herd immunity may be misplaced
An expert in infectious diseases says that an undue focus on herd immunity could actually be doing more harm than good in the fight against COVID-19.
Many have now become familiar with the term herd immunity, an idea few outside the infectious disease community knew just a few short months ago.
It’s an elusive concept to comprehend, and harder still to achieve, but Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Julie Parsonnet says it’s important to understand just what herd immunity does – and doesn’t – mean for today’s pandemic.
Broadly speaking, herd immunity is reached when enough people have either recovered from or have been fully vaccinated against an infectious disease and there are no longer enough susceptible people in the entire population (the herd) to sustain transmission. Herd immunity doesn’t mean there won’t be cases, only that when they crop up, they will then die out. Parsonnet says this term is meant for epidemiologists to model what things will and won’t work; herd immunity is never really a public health goal in and of itself. Parsonnet also says that, in models, there are many obstacles to attaining herd immunity, including vaccine hesitancy, especially in people most likely to transmit the infection (young adults); imperfect effectiveness of the vaccine; movement of people; carriage of the virus in non-human hosts; and the continuous appearance of variants.
Importantly, Parsonnet says, herd immunity is unlikely to be permanent. Society must remain vigilant, continuously limiting the number of susceptible people to keep the herd safe. She therefore counsels deemphasizing the concept and instead bringing the diversity of communities into the conversation to achieve high levels of protection in the U.S. and globally. She says every vaccine given is a step in the direction of “normal.”
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, host Russ Altman and Parsonnet also talk about her other research showing that average human body temperature is on the decline worldwide. Listen and subscribe here.
A new study from Stanford researchers shows that the content in college essays strongly correlates with income and SAT scores. Our guests discuss what this means for fairness in college admissions.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 8, 2021.
How disability intersects with race, gender, and social class in education.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 8, 2021.
While calls to "defund the police" have made headlines, a new Stanford Law report Safety Beyond Policing: Promoting Care Over Criminalization explores alternatives to the use of police in sensitive situations such as mental health crises and in schools. Two of the report's co-authors, Professor Robert Weisberg and Stanford Law student Michelle Portillo discuss key questions about policing, shedding light on promising alternatives that have been piloted in a variety of places around the country—alternatives that deploy mental health professionals, saving lives, police resources, and funds.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 8, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E148 |Maneesh Agrawala: How AI is changing video editing
Technology is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in video editing. Society must consider the creative possibilities as well as the misinformation risks..
Imagine typing words into a text editor and watching on a nearby television as a well-known celebrity speaks those words within seconds.
Computer graphics expert Maneesh Agrawala has imagined it and has created a video editing software that can do it, too. Given enough raw video, Agrawala’s application can produce polished, photorealistic video of any person saying virtually anything he types in.
While he acknowledges concerns about manufactured “deep fakes” of political leaders or others speaking words they never said, Agrawala chooses to focus on the profound upside. He envisions the television and film industries using his technology to forgo costly reshoots, for instance, or medical professionals helping people with damaged vocal cords regain their natural voices.
In the end, while ethical and legal frameworks are being developed to address deep fakes with all due seriousness they deserve, Agrawala says the benefits of the technology, and his passion for it, gets at the most basic of all human endeavors — better communication. Agrawala tells host Russ Altman all about it in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E147 | Noah Rosenberg: How biology is becoming more mathematical
A geneticist explains why biology, a field once thought relatively removed from mathematics, is quickly becoming a hotbed of computational science.
Biology is not typically considered a mathematically intensive science, says Noah Rosenberg, an expert in genetics, but all that is about to change.
Math, statistics, data and computer science have coalesced into a growing interest in applying quantitative skills to this traditionally qualitative field.
The result will be better and more accurate models of life, ranging from genetic inheritance to the entirety of human society. The yield will be a greater understanding and, quite possibly, revolutionary interventions into disease, ecology, demography, and even evolution itself. The tools of mathematical biology have never been more apparent, Rosenberg says, as mathematical models of the spread of infectious disease have been central around the world in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With applications in health care, forensic genetics, and human evolution, the tools of mathematical biology are proving more relevant and more needed than ever, as Noah Rosenberg tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, with host bioengineer Russ Altman.
Anxiety is a natural response to stress. Summer Moore Batte, Stanford alum talks how to effectively manage it in her book “Name and Tame Your Anxiety.”
Summer Moore talks managing debilitating anxiety in her playbook for parents who are trying to help their kids with their anxious feelings.
The Importance of Cultural Humility and Mental Health in the Legal Field by Stanford Radio
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E145 | Meagan Mauter: How freshwater supply is becoming more circular
An expert in freshwater systems says the world’s pending water crisis is only just beginning, but it’s not too late to make the course correction necessary to right the ship.
The world’s once linear — take it, treat it, use it, dispose it — model of freshwater usage is changing fast.
Despite two-thirds of Earth being covered in water, just 2.5% of it is fit for human consumption. And that share is dwindling by the day, says civil and environmental engineer and expert in water treatment and distribution systems Meagan Mauter. With a rapidly increasing population and climate change disrupting traditional weather and distribution patterns, access to freshwater is headed for, if not already amid, a worldwide crisis.
Avoiding calamity will require industrial scale desalination and other technologies that can separate precious freshwater from other less desirable substances in the water, but also a shift to a more circular model where every drop of water is treasured and reused.
Doing that, Mauter says, will demand doing away with not only inefficient practices but also the very notion of “waste” water, as she tells us in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Relationship coaches and Stanford alumni Nate and Kaley Klemp on seeking greater love, connection and intimacy in our modern world.
Nate and Kaley Klemp, best-seller authors offer a transformative guide to the 80/80 marriage, a new model for balancing career, family and love.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 17, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E146 | Ram Rajagopal: How the grid is becoming more human-centric
An expert in the future of electrical power says that today’s big “dumb” grid is becoming a thing of the past and what’s replacing it is something much smarter and more personal.
Slowly but surely, the highly centralized, industrial electric grid that supplies power to the vast majority of American homes and business is changing.
Our existing system of massive power plants and huge networks of high-voltage wires is giving way to a much leaner, decentralized system of small-scale power generation on a more personal, neighborhood- or residence-level scale.
In other words, we’re going from an “infrastructure-centric” model to a “human-centric” one, says grid expert Ram Rajagopal. He says that the new grid will be much smarter, more inclusive and better able to adapt to the individual needs of users, helping them to schedule power-intensive tasks, like laundry or charging of electrical vehicles, to off-peak times of the day.
Before that day can come, however, Rajagopal says we’ll need new sorts of sensors and algorithms that will provide much more data about who, how and when people are using power, as he tells listeners to Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast with host bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E144 | Anthony Kinslow: How to close the clean-energy divide
An engineer and clean-energy entrepreneur discusses the troubling socio-economic gap in access to sustainable energy and the things we can do now to narrow and, perhaps, close it.
As the world moves to more efficient and cleaner energy solutions, there is a growing divide between the clean-energy haves and have-nots, says Anthony Kinslow II, PhD, a lecturer in civil and environmental engineering. Too often the divide falls along racial and socio-economic lines, as minority and low-income communities do not benefit from clean energy to the degree that whiter and wealthier communities do.
The problem is founded in history and in the federal government’s askew system of financing and incentivizing clean and renewable energy systems. The money flows to certain communities and not to others, Dr. Kinslow says.
Fixing the problem won’t be easy, but solutions might begin with energy audits of minority and low-income homes and communities to better understand where the gaps are and how wide they have become, as well as greater diversity in federal appointments to energy and finance positions in government. With audits will come opportunities for low-interest loans and other financing to transition to greater efficiency, as Dr. Kinslow tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman E143 | Catherine Gorle: How cityscapes catch the wind
A civil and environmental engineer describes how engineering is designing better built environments that shape rather than bend to the will of the wind.
Humankind has long harnessed the wind to its advantage. From ancient mariners to millers grinding grist, the wind has been an ally for millennia, but only now do engineers have at their disposal advanced computer simulations to better understand the details of wind flow and to optimize designs.
Catherine Gorle is one such engineer who has made it her career to design better built environments able to improve walkability, temper extreme winds, shuffle air pollution far away and dissipate heat islands arising from so much sun-beaten concrete in our cities.
Once, that work had to take place in wind tunnels, but now transpires through advanced computer simulations that both speed her work and add critical detail to her understanding of the close interrelationship between wind and human society. Join us as Catherine Gorle tells host bioengineer Russ Altman all about the future of wind on this episode Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
Imagine serving a life sentence in prison for stealing a floor jack from a tow truck? Many of the clients our guest today, Michael Romano, has represented were drug addicts or homeless when they got caught up in California’s Three Strikes law that forced minimum sentences and locked up thousands of nonviolent offenders for 20, 30 years and more. Romano, the founder of Stanford's Three Strikes and Justice Advocacy Project, has become a leading voice in criminal reform in California and the nation—shining a light on the high cost to both the imprisoned and the taxpayer, who foots the bill. Romano, who was recently appointed to chair the state’s new criminal law and policy reform committee, the California Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code, joins Stanford Legal to talk about the criminal justice crisis in American and efforts in California to release nonviolent offenders through reform of the Three Strikes law and other legal reforms.
In this episode David Sklansky, a criminal law expert and former federal prosecutor, discusses his new book A Pattern of Violence: How the Law Classifies Crime and What It Means for Justice, which traces central failures of criminal justice, including mass incarceration and high rates of police violence, to legal ideas about violence—its definition, its causes, and its moral significance. David also discusses the criminal investigations of former president Donald Trump in New York and Georgia.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E142 | Kunle Olukotun: How to make AI more democratic
A chip designer talks about how advances in hardware will be needed to make the much-hyped artificially intelligent future a reality.
Electrical engineer Kunle Olukotun has built a career out of building computer chips for the world. These days his attention is focused on new-age chips that will broaden the reach of artificial intelligence to new uses and new audiences—making AI more democratic.
The future will be dominated by AI, he says, and one key to that change rests in the hardware that makes it all possible—faster, smaller, more powerful computer chips. He imagines a world filled with highly efficient, specialized chips built for specific purposes, versus the relatively inefficient but broadly applicable chips of today.
Making that vision a reality will require hardware that focuses less on computation and more on streamlining the movement of data back and forth, a function that now claims 90% of computing power, as Olukotun tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
Stanford alum Brodie Van Wagenen, COO and Head of Strategy & Business Dev., ROC Nation on the business of sports and entertainment.
Brodie Van Wagenen on the business of elevating athletes' careers on a global scale from conceptualization to marketing and endorsement deals.
Co-hosts Denise Pope and Dan Schwartz discuss a new study from NBC News and Challenge Success about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on student well-being and academic engagement.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 13, 2021.
Modern day fashion says a lot about who we are and the image we project. Join Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford for this episode for a discussion about his new book, Dress Codes, and the history of fashion and its social and political implications.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 13, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E141 | Julie Owono: How local voices will shape the global internet
An expert in international law and digital content explains why she thinks the future of the worldwide internet is very much in local hands.
Julie Owono is a lawyer, executive director of Internet Sans Frontières and a fellow at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. She wants the world to know that the internet is the not the same for every person, everywhere. Born in Cameroon, and having grown up in Russia, she understands firsthand that every nation sets and maintains its own content standards.
Owono has dedicated her career to establishing and securing basic digital rights, but also to developing standards by which social media giants—like Facebook, Google and Twitter—can distinguish hate speech from free speech. In many ways, Owono says, the global internet is a local endeavor.
Owono tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast and host Russ Altman that this dynamic means local voices will be critical to fairly determining standards of speech and, by extension, to charting the future of the global internet. You can listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E141 | Dan Jurafsky: How AI is changing our understanding of language
A linguist and computer scientist explores how AI is expanding from capturing individual words and sentences to modeling the social nature of language.
Words are a window into human psychology, society, and culture, says Stanford linguist and computer scientist Dan Jurafsky. The words we choose reveal what we think, how we feel and even what our biases are. And, more and more, computers are being trained to comprehend those words, a fact easily apparent in voice-recognition apps like Siri, Alexa and Cortana.
Jurafsky says that his field, known as natural language processing (NLP), is now in the midst of a shift from simply trying to understanding the literal meaning of words to digging into the human emotions and the social meanings behind those words. In the social sciences, our great digital dialog is being analyzed to tell us who we are. And, by looking at the language of the past, language analysis promises to reveal who we once were. Meanwhile, in fields such as medicine, NLP is being used to help doctors diagnose mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, and to measure how those patients respond to treatment.
The next generation of NLP-driven applications must not only hear what we say, but understand and even reply in more human ways, as Dan Jurafsky explains in his own words to host Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
Stanford alum Carlos Watson, entrepreneur, Emmy-winning journalist and TV host, and co-founder and CEO of Ozy, a media company that's ahead of its time.
Carlos Watson has an insatiable appetite for learning and talks about life growing up, entrepreneurial success and building a media brand focused on the new and the next.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 6, 2021.
Why are some schools open for in-person learning while others aren’t? Stanford Law Professor Bill Koski talks about the challenges to re-opening schools, from legal issues to infrastructure problems, and who (or what) is to blame for those that remain shuttered to students.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 27, 2021.
Sociologist Matt Snipp talks about how he teaches about race and racism in America, providing tips for other educators.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 27, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E139 | Riitta Katila: How diversity drives innovation
An expert in entrepreneurship argues that greater diversity is the key to corporate creativity.
When Riitta Katila looks at old photos or movies about the space program of the 1960s, she sees one common thread among the people depicted there — homogeneity. The engineers and technicians who first put humans on the moon were, almost without exception, white and male.
While society has come a long way in the decades since, Katila, who is an expert in technology strategy and organizational learning, says there’s still a long way to go. She notes that companies need innovation not only to reach the top, but to stay there. And now more than ever, innovative companies should be hiring, promoting, and listening to a broader range of voices.
The good news is that innovation can be taught. It’s like a recipe, says Katila, who encourages entrepreneurs — even those who have already built successful companies — to seek out mentors who can help them navigate the future. More important, those same entrepreneurs need to proactively identify mentors who can empower their team members to think like innovators too, as Katila tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, hosted by bioengineer Russ Altman. You can listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E138 | David Miller: How light could transform computing
An expert in photonics explains the remarkable potential of using light instead of electricity in computation.
As the silicon chip embarks upon its second half-century of dominance in computing and communications, the field is confronting fundamental boundaries that threaten to halt that progress in its tracks.
The transistor cannot get much better or smaller and the copper wires that connect them cannot carry much more data than they do now. But, says electrical engineer David Miller, an alternative technology that uses light instead of electricity has the potential to transmit vastly more data than present technologies. It’s known as photonics.
“A silicon chip these days looks like six Manhattan grids stacked atop one another,” Miller says of the challenge facing today’s technology. Photonics holds the promise of more powerful computing by beaming tiny packets of photons through light-bearing conduits that carry 100,000 times more data than today’s comparable wires, and it can do it using far less energy, too.
Before that day can arrive, however, Miller says photonic components need to become much smaller and less expensive to compete with the sheer scale advantages silicon enjoys, and that will require investment. But, for once, a way forward is there for the asking, as Miller tells bioengineer Russ Altman, host of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E137 | Jin Hyung Lee: How can we systematically cure brain diseases?
Lee uses artificial intelligence to determine what healthy and diseased brain circuits look like in order to better diagnose Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain disorders.
In recent decades, medical and biological science have advanced by leaps and bounds using technologies that allow us to peer into the brain in myriad new and insightful ways — MRI, CT, PET, EEG, etc.
However, Stanford electrical engineer Jin Hyung Lee says, we are still missing critical insights that could lead to a cure for currently incurable brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and others.
Even in diagnosis, we still rely on “diagnosis of exclusion,” where tests are used to exclude other conditions that are relatively easy to identify, such as a tumor. However, there is still no way, for instance, to directly test why one’s memory is failing or why motor functions decline and lead to tremors.
Lee’s approach is to directly identify the brain’s underlying algorithms and to enable quantitative diagnosis of its malfunctions in order to design approaches to cure brain diseases. She employs optogenetic MRI and various measurement tools at different scales, which she then uses to reconstruct the algorithms of brain function using artificial intelligence. Lee defines healthy circuitry and function, which in turn allows identification of the characteristics of dysfunction. Her approach has put Lee on the cusp of new understanding and new treatments for epilepsy, for instance, as she tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, hosted by bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
Christopher Thomas, a former advisor to the World Bank, makes the case for international cooperation in education.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 30, 2021.
As deaths from COVID-19 surge to the half million mark, health law expert and Stanford Professor Michelle Mello joins Pam and Joe to discuss the many challenges facing the new Biden administration in getting control of the pandemic in the U.S.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 30, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman Episode 135 | Mark Schnitzer: How to better understand the brain
Midway through the 12-year, $5 billion nationwide “Brain Initiative,” a brain scientist explains how technology is producing profound insights into how the brain works—or doesn’t.
Stanford’s Mark Schnitzer says several of the more exciting recent advances in his field of applied physics have come through developing new imaging technologies that peer into the brain as never before. What’s more, Schnitzer says the insights gained have put the world closer to solving long-vexing brain diseases, like Parkinson’s and others, where the circuitry of the brain seems to be malfunctioning.
Schnitzer says that these new imaging methods are helping medical science discern the specific functions of various cells that make up the brain’s complex communications systems. No longer is the brain seen as a monolith of neurons, but instead as a complex organ made up of numerous cell types, each with its own role to play in proper function.
Best of all, medical science is starting to move toward manipulating these cells with new drugs and other treatments that could lead to a cure or effective treatment for previously untreatable diseases and chronic pain, as Schnitzer tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast and host, bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E135 | Mutale Nkonde: How to get more truth from social media
A sociologist and former journalist warns that the artificial intelligence behind much of today’s social media is inherently biased, but it’s not too late to do something about it.
The old maxim holds that a lie spreads much faster than a truth, but it has taken the global reach and lightning speed of social media to lay it bare before the world.
One problem of the age of misinformation, says sociologist and former journalist Mutale Nkonde, a fellow at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS), is that the artificial intelligence algorithms used to profile users and disseminate information to them, whether truthful or not, are inherently biased against minority groups, because they are underrepresented in the historical data upon which the algorithms are based.
Now, Nkonde and others like her are holding social media’s feet to the fire, so to speak, to get them to root out bias from their algorithms. One approach she promotes is the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which would authorize the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create regulations requiring companies under its jurisdiction to assess the impact of new and existing automated decision systems. Another approach she has favored is called “Strategic Silence,” which seeks to deny untruthful users and groups the media exposure that amplifies their false claims and helps them attract new adherents.
Nkonde explores the hidden biases of the age of misinformation in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, hosted by bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
President Trump lost the November, 2020 election but has refused to concede, instead stoking the flames of anger in his supporters by spreading false claims of a stolen election. In this episode, voting law expert Nate Persily joins Pam and Joe to discuss the 2020 election—and why it is considered by experts and government officials alike to have been fair and free of fraud.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 16, 2021.
After the siege of the Capitol building on January 6, Americans have been left stunned by the breach of security and concerned about new threats from hate groups and the angry mob. National security law expert Shirin Sinnar joins Pam and Joe to discuss critical legal questions about homegrown terrorism—and those accountable for the insurrection.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 16, 2021.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E134 | Karen Liu: How robots perceive the physical world
A specialist in computer animation expounds upon her rapidly evolving specialty, known as physics-based simulation, and how it is helping robots become more physically aware of the world around them.
Stanford’s Karen Liu is a computer scientist who works in robotics. She hopes that someday machines might take on caregiving roles, like helping medical patients get dressed and undressed each day. That quest has provided her a special insight into just what a monumental challenge such seemingly simple tasks are. After all, she points out, it takes a human child several years to learn to dress themselves — imagine what it takes to teach a robot to help a person who is frail or physically compromised?
Liu is among a growing coterie of scientists who are promoting “physics-based simulations” that are speeding up the learning process for robots. That is, rather than building actual robots and refining them as they go, she’s using computer simulations to improve how robots sense the physical world around them and to make intelligent decisions under changes and perturbations in the real world, like those involved in tasks like getting dressed for the day.
To do that, a robot must understand the physical characteristics of human flesh and bone as well as the movements and underlying human intention to be able to comprehend when a garment is or is not going on as expected.
The stakes are high. The downside consequence could be physical harm to the patient, as Liu tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast hosted by bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E133 | Jef Caers: How better mineral exploration makes better batteries
A geoscientist explains why the use of artificial intelligence in the exploration of rare metals could be the key to America’s environmental and energy future.
It has been said that batteries hold the key to a sustainable future.
But so-called “clean energy” does not come without environmental costs. For instance, says Stanford geoscientist Jef Caers, the batteries in a single Tesla contain some 4.5 kilograms — about 10 pounds — of cobalt, in addition to plenty of lithium and nickel, too.
With some 300 million cars in the U.S. right now, a full transition to electric vehicles would be impossible without new resources. But, finding new deposits and getting them safely out of the ground is an expensive and environmentally fraught proposition. Half of all cobalt reserves and most of current production come from just one unregulated country, Congo. To close the gap using environmentally and labor-regulated resources, Caers says we need AI to rapidly explore countries with stricter safeguards.
To help, geoscientists like Caers are turning to data science and artificial intelligence to quickly identify new resources, to get the most out of those we already know about and to improve refining processes to leave as small an environmental footprint as possible. Their success, he says, could be key to America’s environmental future and its long-term energy independence. Learn more on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, hosted by Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Evan Reed: How to discover a magic material
Want to build a better battery, a stronger airplane, or a faster computer? A materials science expert says your success starts in the atomic structure of the materials you choose.
Evan Reed and a team of scientists recently identified a promising solid material that could replace highly flammable liquid electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries.
The trick? Reed didn’t discover the material the old-fashioned way, using trial and error to narrow down a list of candidates. Instead, he used computers to do the legwork for him. He says that until recent advances in computer science, the seemingly never-ending search for new materials was more like a quest for unicorns. Breakthrough materials must possess that rarest of combinations: precise physical characteristics with few if any downsides.
It's exacting and time-consuming work, Reed says, but computers are accelerating the pace of discovery. He now believes the future of materials science lies at the heart of a computer algorithm, as he tells listeners in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
How can students, parents, and teachers use peacemaking, a framework used by indigenous communities, to resolve conflicts at school and home?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 5, 2020.
Tristan Harris, President, Center for Humane Technology and Stanford alum on developing a framework for how technology can ethically realign social media to reverse its negative impacts on humanity.
Ethical challenges and opportunities for creating a radically reimagined 21st century digital infrastructure.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 28, 2020.
Professor Chris Lemons addresses how parents and teachers can support students with disabilities during the covid-19 pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 21, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E131 | Renee DiResta: How to beat bad information
Inadvertent misinformation and outright disinformation have become a scourge on American discourse, but those committed to the truth are keeping pace.
Renée DiResta is research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a multi-disciplinary center that focuses on abuses of information technology, particularly social media. She’s an expert in the role technology platforms and their “curatorial” algorithms play in the rise and spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Fresh off an intense period keeping watch over the 2020 U.S. elections for disinformation as part of the Election Integrity Partnership, DiResta says the campaign became one of the most closely observed political dramas in American history.
She says that whether it comes from the top down or the bottom up, bad information can be spotted and beaten, but overcoming falsehoods in the future will require vigilance and a commitment to the truth. She explains more on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, with host Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E130 | Will Tarpeh: How to take the waste out of wastewater
The very notion of wastewater, and what we choose to do with it, could change dramatically if this Stanford chemical engineer has his way.
Once the bathwater is drained, the toilet flushed or the laundry done, few give a passing thought to the wastewater that leaves our homes. But chemical engineer Will Tarpeh might change your mind, if you give him the chance.
Tarpeh says that that water is a literal mine of valuable chemicals. Chemicals like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium make great fertilizers. Lithium can be used in lithium ion batteries. And even pharmaceuticals could be recovered and reused. In fact, Tarpeh points out that if we could harvest all the world’s urine, it could supplant 20–30% of our nitrogen needs — and in some places can be cheaper to do than existing production and transport methods.
Waste, Tarpeh says, is just a state of mind. His “pipe dream,” he says, is to develop next-generation treatment plants on the neighborhood or even household scale able to extract the valuable chemicals in water most would rather send down the drain. Tarpeh tells bioengineer Russ Altman all about it in this the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E129 | Kwabena Boahen: How to build a super-efficient super-computer
Could new-age computer chips, modeled on the how the human brain works, empower a watershed for artificial intelligence? At least one expert has staked his career on it.
Bioengineer Kwabena Boahen builds highly efficient “neuromorphic” supercomputers modeled on the human brain. He hopes they will drive the artificial intelligence future. He uses an analogy when describing the goal of his work: “It’s LA versus Manhattan.”
Boahen means structurally. Today’s chips are two dimensional — flat and spread out, like LA. Tomorrow’s chips will be stacked, like the floors of the skyscrapers on a New York block. In this analogy, the humans are the electrons shuffling data back and forth. The shorter distances they have to travel to work, and the more they can accomplish before traveling home, will drive profound leaps in energy efficiency. The consequences could not be greater. Boahen says that the lean chips he imagines could prove tens-of-thousands times less expensive to operate than today’s power hogs.
To learn how it works, listen in as Kwabena Boahen describes neuromorphic computing to fellow bioengineer Russ Altman in the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen and subscribe here.
Stanford Professor Sam Wineburg helps teachers and students discern fact from fiction online.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 7, 2020.
Stanford alumnus Travis Bristol, professor at UC Berkeley, explains why it’s important to recruit and retain Black teachers.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 7, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E128 | Daphne Koller: How machine learning is transforming drug discovery
A veteran of the age of artificial intelligence explains why she left academia for a chance to change the pharmaceutical industry.
In a world where a drug takes years and billions of dollars to develop, just one in 20 candidates makes it to market. Daphne Koller is betting artificial intelligence can change that dynamic.
Twenty years ago, when she first started using artificial intelligence to venture into medicine and biology, Koller was stymied by a lack of data. There wasn’t enough of it and what there was, was often not well suited to the problems she wanted to solve. Fast-forward 20 years, however, and both the quantity and quality of data, and the tools for studying biology, have advanced so dramatically that the adjunct professor of computer science at Stanford founded a company, insitro, that uses machine learning (a subspecialty of artificial intelligence) to explore the causes and potential treatments for some very serious diseases.
She tells bioengineer Russ Altman about the lessons she’s learned along the way, and the challenges and rewards of getting diverse teams of experts from many fields to speak the same language. It’s all on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here, and subscribe to the podcast here.
Jeff Orlowski, The Stanford alumnus behind the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma wants you to stop scrolling for our collective benefit.
Describing himself as a technical optimist, film director Jeff Orlowski on implementing positive change for social media for the betterment of humanity.
President Trump has repeatedly refused to state clearly that he will accept the results of the November election. In so doing, he raises critical questions for American democracy—particularly if the election is close. In this episode of Stanford Legal, Pam Karlan, one of the nation’s leading experts on the law of democracy discusses critical issues in this important election for the next American president.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 24, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E127 | Markus Covert: How to build a computer model of a cell
A bioengineer sets out to create a computer simulation of a single living cell and comes to grips with the remarkable complexity that is life.
When Stanford bioengineer Markus Covert first decided to create a computer model able to simulate the behavior of a single cell, he was held back by more than an incomplete understanding of how a cell functions, but also by a lack of computer power. His early models would take more than 10 hours to churn through a single simulation and that was when using a supercomputer capable of billions of calculations per second.
Nevertheless, in his quest toward what had been deemed "a grand challenge of the 21st century," Covert pressed on and eventually published a paper announcing his success in building a model of just one microbe: E. coli, a popular subject in biological research. The model would allow researchers to run experiments not on living bacteria in a lab, but on a simulated cell on a computer.
After all was said and done, however, the greatest takeaway for Covert was that a cell is a very, very complex thing. There were fits and starts and at least one transcendent conceptual leap — which Covert has dubbed “deep curation” — needed to make it all happen, but he found a way. As Covert points out, no model is perfect, but some are useful. And that is how usefulness, not perfection, became the goal of his work, as he tells fellow bioengineer Russ Altman in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here, and subscribe to the podcast here.
Calley Means, Stanford Alum and Founder of Anomalie, a start up driving change beyond the traditional in the wedding dress industry.
Accomplished fashion entrepreneur Calley Means is disrupting the bridal industry through customizable technology that designs the perfect wedding gown and ready to wear pieces.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 17, 2020.
Revelations about President Trump’s tax returns, and news about how much or how little he has paid to the federal government, have made headlines in recent weeks. In this episode, Stanford Legal co-host Joe Bankman, himself a tax law expert, breaks down the important takeaways from what we know about the President and his taxes.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 10, 2020.
The Electoral College is a uniquely American system, with electors in each state choosing our president rather than the popular vote. After two recent presidents lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College (Bush and Trump), is it outdated and unfair? In this episode, Stanford historian Jack Rakove joins Pam and Joe to discuss the history and present-day relevance of the Electoral College.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 10, 2020.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the legal icon known as the architect of the legal fight for women’s rights in the 1970s, is remembered in this episode of Stanford Legal by her former SCOTUS clerk Lisa Beattie Frelinghuysen. Join Pam, Joe, and Lisa for this discussion about RBG’s legacy, key cases, and recollections of the notorious justice.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 26, 2020.
Antero Garcia, Stanford education professor, discusses civic engagement in times of COVID-19 and political division.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 26, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E126 | Rafael Pelayo: How to get a good night’s sleep
A sleep expert offers insight into why so many of us are not getting enough zzz’s, what the consequences are and, above all, how we can sleep better.
COVID-19 is changing how many scientists, like Stanford sleep expert Rafael Pelayo, MD, view their field. First off, the shift to telemedicine is providing Pelayo, author of the new book How to Sleep, an unprecedented glimpse into the sleep environments of his patients. “I’m making house calls for the first time,” he says.
Second, surprisingly, some of his patients, unburdened of long commutes, say they are sleeping and dreaming more than ever. But, others are not so fortunate, reporting increased trouble sleeping and more nightmares. Pandemic-induced or not, the consequences of lost sleep are universal and readily apparent in the country’s diminished productivity, in the rates of stroke, heart attacks and car accidents, and in the pervasive irritable mood many can’t seem to escape.
To get a better night’s sleep, Pelayo says, put the screens away, consider that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine if you snore (it could save your life, he says), and find a way to create a personal sleep environment even if you share a bed with someone you love.
Join us as Rafael Pelayo and our host, Stanford bioengineer, Russ Altman, talk sleep on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here, and subscribe to the podcast here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Marietje Schaake: Can democracy survive in a digital world?
A former Member of the European Parliament sizes up the state of democracy in the digital age and finds much to fret about, but also ways to fight back.
Marietje Schaake was a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019 and now serves as the international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. As she has watched democracy evolve in the age of instantaneous global communication and hyperconnected social media, she has grown concerned about the resilience of democracy as technology disrupts the status quo.
While the technologies—and the often-unregulated companies who created them—claim to be well-meaning, she says democracy is under attack from propagandists and bad actors using these transformative tools in troubling ways. The business models based on surveillance and advertising were never designed with preserving democracy in mind. We now find ourselves at a decisive moment for the future of elective government, she says. America and other democratic nations can expose the meddlers and their techniques or succumb to their approaches. The solutions, she says, begin at the grassroots and with the tech companies. We need real-time and independent monitoring and research to better expose manipulations and to allow for evidence-based policy making.
Join Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast for an insider’s sobering look at democracy in the digital age. Listen here, and subscribe here to the podcast.
Ronan McGovern on empowering people to be their best selves, with a particular focus on the Neurodiverse among us.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 19, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman Andrew Huberman: How stress affects the mind — and how to relieve it
The year has unleashed stresses few would have imagined just months ago, but the science of stress — and of stress relief — is keeping pace. A Stanford neurobiologist explains.
Andrew Huberman is a Stanford neurobiologist and ophthalmologist keenly interested in the biology of stress and ways to manage stress.
He’s developed and tested a number of stress-relieving techniques — from specific patterns of breathing to visual tools — and uses virtual reality to help humans control their stress in adaptive ways. He is also testing how people can access better sleep using stress-relief tools. Much of this work is done in collaboration with David Spiegel, MD, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine.
Huberman studies how the nervous system takes in and processes information and uses it to drive reflexive and deliberate behavior. In that regard, humans are largely visual animals. The vast majority of the information we collect about the world comes through the eyes, and those circuits are tied directly to our most primordial “fight or flight” systems. Light, and how our brains process light energy, is closely tied to our stress mechanisms. Our most immediate reaction to stress, he notes, is for our pupils to dilate, which changes how we see the world — literally — in a way that allows us to better respond to threats. Breathing and vision can also be used to control stress.
Huberman tells us all about it in this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, hosted by Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe to the podcast here.
Xiao Wang, Founder of Boundless, a start up that empowers families to navigate the immigration system more confidently, rapidly, and affordably.
Originally aired on September 12, 2020.
Stanford education Professor Ramon Martinez spoke about how families--in particular English language learners--can incorporate learning into their daily home activities.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 29, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E123 | Manu Prakash: How to beat a pandemic on a budget
A prolific inventor of low-cost, high-impact healthcare devices recently set his sights on COVID-19.
Manu Prakash was in France when COVID-19 took hold throughout the world. There, the Stanford bioengineer, famous for “frugal science” like his $1 field microscope made of paper, witnessed the challenges a relatively well-resourced nation experienced holding back the disease. His head was soon filled with visions of the nightmare awaiting developing nations, given that a COVID-19 test in developing countries can cost as much as $400.
In a flurry, Prakash jotted down an engineering manifesto of sorts for a worldwide revolution in open-source, inexpensive healthcare solutions. As he saw it, here were three areas of greatest need — diagnostics, protective equipment and critical care.
From his lab at Stanford, Prakash, his students and partners in academia, industry and government around the world led a frenzy of invention that yielded an array of transformative products in just months. There was the electricity-free COVID-19 test based on a simple children’s flashlight. There was Pneumask, a full-face, reusable N95 protective equipment for caregivers inspired by the mask Prakash uses in one of his favorite pastimes, snorkeling. And then there was the “N95 factory in a box” Prakash and his lab developed using cotton candy machines to spin N95-quality filtration materials from waste plastics. Finally, to tackle one of the most technical challenges of all, he built a global consortium with manufacturing partners in India, Kenya and Nepal to design an open-source full-feature ICU ventilator, known as Pufferfish (Prakash has a penchant for naming products after marine life) — bringing a low-cost critical care solution to the world.
In August, Prakash discussed these innovations with Russ Altman, a fellow bioengineering professor and the host of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here.
Professor Tom Dee, Stanford Graduate School of Education on the summer slide and keeping learning happening when out of school.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 22, 2020.
With Covid-19 still spreading in the U.S., and November fast approaching, more Americans are looking to mail-in voting. How can the presidential election be held safely? Voting law expert Nate Persily and law student Chelsey Davidson join Pam and Joe to discuss challenges for voting this year and possible solutions.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 15, 2020.
In the heat of war, the legality of the U.S. bombing of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagsaki in August, 1945 wasn’t questioned. But the devastation of those nuclear bombs, with hundreds of thousands of mostly civilians dead, spurred the international community to look for ways to prevent it from ever happening again. But today, 75 years later, the nuclear threat is more real than ever. In this episode, international law expert Allen Weiner joins Pam and Joe to discuss the law of war and the threat of nuclear weapons after Hiroshima.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 15, 2020.
Dr. Yvonne 'Bonnie' Maldonado, Professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases, Stanford on what parents and guardians should know before sending their kids back to school during the COVID pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 15, 2020.
The coronavirus pandemic is forcing us to make difficult choices about school, work, personal health, and mental well-being. How do we make good decisions? Political scientist Rob Reich, who teaches courses on ethics, walks us through a framework.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 15, 2020.
Full title: Dr. George Rutherford, Director of The Prevention & Public Health Group at UCSF, with the Latest on COVID-19.
Doctors at UCSF are studying all aspects of COVID-19 from attempts to contain it, testing, contact tracing and how to reopen schools.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 15, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman Byron Reeves: What our screens tell us about us
A professor of communication recorded long stretches of screen time in the lives of his test subjects and turned to artificial intelligence to paint a remarkable portrait of modern life.
With the emergence of touchscreen smartphones, tablets and watches, so much of our lives is spent on our devices that in many ways we are what appears on screen. This “mediatization,” as Byron Reeves, a professor of communication at Stanford University, puts it, sparked a remarkable and unprecedented study of the way we live today.
In a series of field studies, Reeves has recorded screen time of his subjects one frame every five seconds for days on end — with promises of absolute privacy, of course. He then uses artificial intelligence to decipher it all — words and images are recorded and analyzed. The portraits that emerge play out like cinema, revealing never-before-imagined insights into how people live in the screen-time world.
Reeves says the pervading sense that everyone is multitasking and that attention spans are narrowing is not just a hunch, but demonstrable in the data. Our screens are often filled with radically different content side-by-side and each bit gets consumed in rapid-fire bursts of focus, often no more than 10 to 20 seconds each.
Join us for a fascinating look at our screen-time culture on the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Newsha Ajami: How engineers restored hope for our water supplies
There was a time when all great cities were built near water. Whether for agriculture, aesthetics, energy or just plain drinking, water was a life-affirming, life-sustaining resource. But with the advent of advanced engineering in the form of dams, pumps and pipes, cities like Los Angeles thrived in places with very little fresh water. Now, global climate change is leaving many of those cities in danger of running dry.
But there is hope on the horizon, says Newsha Ajami, senior research engineer at the Woods Institute for the Environment and director of urban water policy with Stanford University’s Water in the West program. Just as engineering made it possible to store and pump fresh water great distances, the field is developing new ways to use less water, to store more of this prized resource, to repurpose used “gray water” for non-potable uses like agriculture, and to inform inventive policy approaches to conserve fresh water.
It won’t be easy, she says. California alone has over 7,000 independent water agencies that must be wrangled into a cohesive team to make it real, but recent progress has people believing once again that our parched cities can be saved. It’s all here on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast. Listen here.
Full title: Eric Abrams, Chief Inclusion Officer at Stanford Graduate School of Education, Discusses Diversity and Belonging on College Campuses
Promoting diversity and inclusion using effective approaches that foster open intercultural communication.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 8, 2020. Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 8, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Susan Holmes: How statistics are reshaping our understanding of biology
A leading statistician discusses her discipline’s growing influence on biology and why she thinks the most important skill for the biostatistician may be communication, not analysis.
In recent years, biologists have learned that the vaginal microbiome — the make-up of the bacteria in the vagina — during pregnancy may be the best predictor of pre-term birth. It is a valuable finding that could reshape obstetrics. What is perhaps more revelatory about this emerging knowledge is that biologists have learned it from a surprising source: statistics.
Stanford’s Susan Holmes is one such statistician in the rapidly evolving science of using statistics to understand biology. Holmes is now turning her attention to improving our understanding of the remarkable human immune system to help fight cancer and other deadly diseases. She says that the statistician’s greatest contribution to biology may not necessarily reside in analyzing the myriad numbers and data points available these days, but rather in divining and explaining which patterns are replicable and which are not.
Join bioengineering Professor Russ Altman for the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast to discuss the fascinating and fast-evolving field of statistical biology with a leading proponent of the science, Susan Holmes. Listen here.
Full title: Religious Liberty at the Supreme Court: Education Aid, Medical Coverage, and Employment Discrimination Protections with guest Michael McConnell
Description: The Supreme Court recently decided several important First Amendment cases—ones that asked big questions about the rights of religious intuitions to receive federal aid for education, to be held to federal employment discrimination protections, and to cover all employee medical expenses. Join constitutional law expert Michael McConnell for a discussion about religious liberty in the U.S. and these SCOTUS decisions.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 25, 2020.
Some residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma may be surprised to discover that they live on Native American land. What does that mean legally—for tribal people and others? Join Professor Greg Ablavsky, an expert on American legal history including issues of sovereignty, territory, and property in the early American West, for a discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decision McGirt v. Oklahoma and important legal issues of Native American lands and governance.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 25, 2020.
As Covid-19 resurges across the country, it is hitting prisons hard and courts are more backed up than ever. Is the American criminal justice system, already stressed, now at a breaking point? Join Stanford criminal justice expert Robert Weisberg for a discussion of prisons, the courts, and criminal justice during a pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 18, 2020.
Join health law expert Professor David Studdert for a discussion of his extensive study of handgun ownership and suicides in California. David will also weigh in on the politicization of the Center for Disease Control particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 18, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Sheri Sheppard: How do we educate a new kind of engineer?
Mechanical engineer Sheri Sheppard got her start in engineering working on the Corvette for General Motors and later worked for both Ford and Chrysler.
Back then, she was among a handful of women engineers in the auto industry, where she learned firsthand the risks a monolithic culture presents.
Today, Sheppard is a professor at Stanford University, where she works to encourage diversity in the student body, in the classroom and in the curriculum. She says that engineering needs to reach beyond the traditional disciplines to tap into sociology, history, ethics, psychology and even philosophy to help engineers explore the “peopleness” in the challenges they are trying to solve.
In that pursuit, she encourages women and minorities eager to transform their field to become what her colleague Deb Meyerson has dubbed “tempered radicals” — leaders who can rock the boat while remaining in the boat. The result, Sheppard tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, is more empathetic engineering that benefits everyone in society.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Jonathan Chen: Can algorithms make doctors better?
An expert in bioinformatics says that empowering clinicians with artificial intelligence that combs medical data will deliver better health care than either could do alone.
We’re all familiar with those algorithms on our favorite e-commerce and streaming services that recommend purchases, books or movies based on what “others like you” have enjoyed. In the industry, they are known as “recommender engines.”
Medical doctor Jonathan Chen is an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford and an expert in bioinformatics who wondered if the medical profession might benefit from similar artificial intelligence. He now creates recommender engines for doctors that comb real-world clinical data to help them make key decisions based on steps other doctors have taken with similar patients, empowering individuals with the collective experience of the many.
Chen tells Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast that such programs will soon be commonplace in exam rooms, helping doctors become better at what they already do and making medical practice a more consistent, universal experience for everyone.
Michael Tubbs, Stanford Alum, on creating change as the youngest and first African-American Mayor of Stockton, CA.
Michael Tubbs on leading bold policy and economic changes to transform a struggling city.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 11, 2020.
Adrian Miller, an American culinary historian, lawyer and public policy advisor shares his views about race, religion and ethnic reconciliation. He says social change begins when people listen to one another.
Adrian Miller previously served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America, the first free-standing White House office to address opportunity gaps that exist for minorities in America.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 4, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Mykel Kochenderfer: AI and Safety-Critical Systems
Advances in artificial intelligence are leading to greater autonomy and improved safety in systems ranging from air traffic control to automated driving.
Artificial intelligence can help us design safety-critical systems for aircraft and other vehicles that are more robust to the many sources of uncertainty in the real world, says aerospace professor Mykel Kochenderfer.
Building systems that meet the exceptionally high level of safety expected of commercial air transport is challenging, but Kochenderfer says that the key is in modeling the likelihood of the full spectrum of outcomes and planning accordingly. Validating the safety of these systems is also difficult, often requiring billions of simulations. He tells Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything how AI, empowered by algorithms such as “dynamic programming,” can make autonomous systems safer.
Dereca Blackmon, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant on tackling uncommon conversations on issues about diversity, inclusion, equity and access.
Cutting through “diversity fatigue” to engage in deep, authentic and meaningful dialogues and “uncommon conversations” on issues of race, gender, class and social justice.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 20, 2020.
Landmark Supreme Court ruling protects gay and transgender workers by federal law from employment discrimination.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 20, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Pamela Chen: How meme culture and algorithms are reshaping photography
A former senior photo editor for National Geographic and creative director at Instagram, and now HAI-JSK Fellow at Stanford, discusses the changing face of photography in the age of algorithmic personalization.
With a degree in photography with a concentration in mathematics and boasting high-profile jobs at two of the most influential visual outlets in the last century, National Geographic and Instagram, Pamela Chen knows a bit about the state of modern photography and the algorithms that shape popular tastes.
Now, as the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and John S. Knight Journalism (HAI-JSK) Fellow at Stanford, she studies how artificial intelligence is shaping the role of photography in society: particularly the rise of memes, which she refers to as “packets of culture.” Chen says mathematics is redefining photography as much as artistic vision, altering both consumer tastes and the creative eye of photographers who want to become – or remain – relevant in a rapidly changing world.
Chen joins The Future of Everything host Russ Altman to discuss why artificial intelligence’s influence on photography is only just in its infancy and why lovers of photography still have power to shape AI as much as it shapes us.
The recent killings of unarmed black men in police custody, including George Floyd in Minnesota, have once again sparked outrage and protests across the country and world. In this episode, David Owens, an attorney who has represented clients in several high profile police brutality cases, joins us to talk about the challenges that victims, their families, and their attorneys face when bringing cases against the police.
David is a partner at Loevy & Loevy. His practice is national, representing clients from Washington and California, Wisconsin and Illinois, and throughout the South. He is dedicated to zealous, client-centered advocacy on behalf of those seeking vindication for the violation of their civil rights and focuses on cases involving wrongful convictions, police shootings and other excessive force, false arrests, free speech rights, race discrimination, and other violations of the U.S. Constitution. David is also a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago, where he co-teaches in the school’s world-famous pro bono wrongful conviction clinic, The Exoneration Project.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 13, 2020.
How broadcast journalists are working together to cover the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally aired June 13, 2020.
Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky, the Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, is a former federal prosecutor who served as special counsel to the independent review panel appointed to investigate the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division scandal that formed in the wake of the Rodney King case.
In this episode, Sklansky discusses race and policing in America and how we can reform policing to prevent another George Floyd death in police custody.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 13, 2020.
Education Professor Mitchell Stevens talks about the future of online learning at universities.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 13, 2020.
Communication Professor Jeff Hancock discusses what parents should know about deep fakes, social media and screen use during COVID-19.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 13, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Michael O'Sullivan: Data leads New Zealand’s COVID-19 response
A native New Zealander and engineer versed in data modeling shifts focus from business to public health and contributes to his nation’s response to a dangerous pandemic.
Stanford engineering alumnus Michael O’Sullivan, now at the University of Auckland, likes to say his business is the “science of decision-making,” and that expertise paid off handsomely in his native New Zealand’s successful response to COVID-19.
O’Sullivan pivoted his knowledge of computer modeling, usually reserved for optimizing business processes, to help predict how quickly the disease might have spread through the island nation’s 5 million inhabitants, and to gauge various national response strategies. Based on expert models from a team of researchers that included O’Sullivan, New Zealand’s leadership took an aggressive approach and quelled the disease after just a month of lockdown.
O’Sullivan tells Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything he is now turning his attention to highly detailed geographic models to better understand how COVID-19 could spread geographically if a future outbreak occurs. He is also putting his modeling to work to help analyze how response to the disease will impact the coming flu season and how the lockdown might have had negative effects on the treatment of other illnesses such as the early detection of cancer.
Michael O’Sullivan, MS ’97, PhD '01, would like to acknowledge the work of Kevin Ross, MS '01, PhD '04 (Precision Driven Health), and Pieta Brown (Orion Health), who have been instrumental in making a pipeline for the modeling work discussed in this podcast readily available to the New Zealand government.
Dan and Denise answer your most frequently asked questions about education.
Originally aired on June 6, 2020.
Greg Walton, Stanford Alumnus and Stanford Professor of Psychology, explains how people don't have to be physically together to still feel a sense of togetherness.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 6, 2020.
As one of the first municipalities in the nation to declare a shelter in place order, San Francisco has been on the frontline as a public policy leader during the COVID-19 crisis. Join us for a discussion with Board Supervisor Matt Haney about the challenges facing the City by the Bay, from the decision to shut down, to controlling the disease for all citizens including the growing homeless population, to how to open up schools and businesses safely.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 30, 2020.
Professor Victor Lee discusses how teachers can integrate data science into their lesson plans even in younger grades.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 30, 2020.
With guest Sujata Patel.
How to manage difficult topics with kids and teens.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 23, 2020.
On May 4, J.Crew became the first major American retailer to file for bankruptcy, with Neiman Marcus and Gold’s Gym quickly following. With unemployment at record levels and a wave of bankruptcies expected, the COVID-19 health crisis is quickly turning into an economic crisis—despite the CARES Act passed by Congress in April. In this episode of Stanford Legal, bankruptcy law expert and Stanford Law Professor George Triantis explains how current U.S. bankruptcy laws can help us through this crisis and offers his recommendations on what more the government can do.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 16, 2020.
Harry Elam, a senior administrator at Stanford University, joins hosts Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope to discuss how colleges are responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 16, 2020.
Early in May, tech competitors Google and Apple shared sample code for their new contact tracing technology. Hopes are high that apps developed with partnership's technology will help to slow the spread of COVID-19 by using Bluetooth technology in cell phones to contact trace infection. Consulting Director of Privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Albert Gidari, joins Pam and Joe to discuss the new tools and privacy concerns surrounding tech in contact tracing.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 16, 2020.
Historic market and econmic volatility from the coronovirus crisis.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 16, 2020.
Stanford Professor Milbrey McLaughlin explains how some schools become the center of community life by providing academic, wellness, social and health supports, and how that may be a model COVID-19 recovery.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 16, 2020.
Heather Hough, executive director of the Stanford research center, Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), discusses what decisions policymakers and school leaders are considering as they look to restart schools amidst COVID-19.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 9, 2020.
Full title: Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann Talks About the Emotions Children and Young Adults Experience During Times of Bereavement.
The difficult emotions of bereavement.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 9, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Megan Palmer: COVID-19’s scientific silver lining"
Megan Palmer, executive director of Biopolicy and Leadership Initiatives at Stanford, joins bioengineer Russ Altman for this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, to discuss how we can better prepare for future virus outbreaks and how the world could ultimately become a more secure, peaceful and prosperous place as a result of the lessons learned from COVID-19.
The key to that future, she says, will be better coordination and communication among world leaders in science, security and policy, who will be charged with foreseeing and preventing the next crisis. Likewise, it will take better cooperation between humankind and the natural world.
Guest Larry Cuban gives a historical perspective on school reform to help understand what innovations in teaching and learning that have come out of COVID-19 may stay with us long after the pandemic is over.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 2, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Catherine Blish: Immunology is on the trail of a killer
As she tells it, the life of immunologist Catherine Blish has not changed all that much from what it was just a couple months ago.
Her lab still studies deadly infectious diseases, but instead of myriad killers like HIV, dengue fever, influenza and the like, her team is now focused solely on the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Only a select group of researchers in the world are qualified to work with such serious viruses, and fewer still are properly equipped with the protective gear and sophisticated ventilation systems needed to guarantee the safety in the lab.
Blish recently joined Russ Altman for this special COVID-19 edition of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, to talk about the unique character of the virus, a few surprises she and others have unearthed in their research, and how once-competitive scientists around the world have united to find treatments and a vaccine that are critical to ending the pandemic for good.
As the number of COVID-19 cases across the U.S. continues to rise, with shelter in place orders in place throughout most of the country, America’s preparedness for a pandemic has been thrown into question. What went wrong with testing and protective gear, and why are we still behind? Can tech help the country safely open up again? And who is in charge—the president or the governors? Health law expert Michelle Mello joins the show today to discuss these developing issues.
Originally aired on April 25, 2020.
Dr. Sallie De Golia specializes in treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. She discusses common types of mood disorders, including Coronavirus symptoms of depression.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 25, 2020.
Stanford Legal co-hosts Pam Karlan and Joe Bankman discuss the ramifications of the the COVID-19 pandemic, both on mental health issues and procedural issues faced by the Supreme Court during this time.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 25, 2020.
Denise and Dan speak with Professor Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo about grading, testing, and other assessments during the novel coronavirus pandemic when schools are closed and many schools have moved teaching online.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 25, 2020.
With a vaccine and effective treatment still months away, it is increasingly likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will fundamentally change the 2020 presidential election. After the Wisconsin primary in April reportedly to low turnout and, as recently was reported, the spread of the virus, can in-person voting happen safely? Is mail-in balloting the answer? Here to help us understand how a secure November election can be planned is election law expert Nate Persily.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 25, 2020.
Spending time at home with young children (toddlers and Pre-K) in the stages of early learning.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 25, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Seema Yasmin: How to conquer a pandemic with communication"
A specialist in reporting on epidemics — and a medical doctor to boot — explains why bad information is an enemy of public health.
Seema Yasmin is a rarity in public health: a medical doctor who is also a journalist. As such, she’s seen a lot, from Ebola in West Africa to SARS and MERS, and now COVID-19, the most serious pandemic in a century.
Yasmin is currently director of research and education at the Stanford Center for Health Communication. From her years in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a group widely described as “the disease detectives” — and as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, Yasmin says that the greatest impediment to halting an outbreak is the rapid spread of bad information, and even abject disinformation, which when abetted by social media can spread faster than the disease itself. To halt the pandemic, she says medical science and public health experts — and the journalists who cover them — must become better storytellers to get ahead of bad information and to “pre-bunk” false claims that lead to bad decision-making.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Victor Carrion: How to beat stress in a pandemic"
An expert on trauma unmasks the sometimes hidden hallmarks of stress and discusses techniques to recognize and lessen its effects at every age.
Child psychiatrist Victor Carrion has dedicated his career to studying and helping people deal with trauma, especially kids. He says that it is understandable that everyone in the family is dealing with some degree of stress due to COVID-19, and that’s okay. The key is to recognize and acknowledge the stress and deal with it head on.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything with host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Carrion explains that stress manifests differently at different ages. What works for parent may not for child. He also discusses strategies for minimizing the risk of future post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Carrion counsels trying creative outlets like art and mindfulness techniques like yoga to find what works best to beat stress in these very stressful times. Listen here.
Preserving the safety of medical workers while identifying and treating the sick in a global pandemic.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 18, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "William Chueh: How to build a better battery"
The renewable energy future is riding on the advent of better energy storage options that challenge the very definition of the word “battery.
Stanford materials engineer William Chueh got interested in battery design as way to battle climate change. He looked across the energy landscape and understood that a future filled with renewable solar and wind energy will require more and better batteries to even out the troughs when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.
Chueh says battery design has come a long way in the last 10 years. But sating the energy needs of a future filled with countless smartphones, laptops, electric cars and wearable devices will drive a profound transition in the battery industry. Today’s $50 billion battery market will blossom to a trillion dollars in the next 15 years, he predicts.
Chueh says the grid of the future will be a network of diverse smaller-scale energy-storage options that guarantees a steady supply of electricity with no single point of failure — a model that takes its inspiration from the way the internet delivers information without fail. The result will be a more efficient and resilient grid for all, Chueh says.
E108 | John Etchemendy: How can we get the most from artificial intelligence? by Stanford Radio
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Russ Altman: Artificial intelligence takes on COVID-19"
Days after COVID-19 broke out in the United States, Russ Altman and colleagues at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) scrambled to organize a full-day online conference to replace the in-person meeting they were planning for spring 2020. Their topic: using AI to defeat the deadly new virus behind COVID-19 and, in particular, analyze how countries were responding; developing new ways of tracking and anticipating its spread; reshape the search for treatments and a vaccine; and, last but not least, to battling “infodemics” — the tendency for information overload to hinder scientific progress.
With thousands from around the world tuning in for the live event and 60,000-plus views of the recordings since, the conference illustrated in real terms how an entire field pivoted in a matter of weeks to address the pandemic in new and promising ways. In this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, guest host Howard Wolf turns the tables on Altman — a medical doctor, an expert in bioinformatics and the HAI associate director who helped lead the conference — and digs deep on AI’s response to COVID-19.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Nigam Shah: A researcher turns to data to fight the COVID-19 virus"
An expert in bioinformatics describes how better information and modeling can help caregivers stay a step ahead of the new virus.
Recorded through Zoom in March 2020
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Elizabeth Sattely: Plants are the ultimate chemists"
They make a remarkable array of chemicals to survive the world around them. One engineer is using that knowledge to help people live better.
When things aren’t going well for humans and other ambulatory creatures, they simply move on to a new location, a new life. For plants, it’s different, says chemical engineer Elizabeth Sattely, who studies the evolutionary adaptations plants make to survive.
Unable to migrate, plants must make do with the hand that’s dealt them. And sometimes that hand is not very good. The soils where they are rooted can lack nutrients or play host to pathogens. The air can be polluted or too arid.
This fact of life, however, has given rise to a remarkable breadth of evolutionary adaptations plants use to make the best of their surroundings. They produce powerful small molecules that help them get more nutrients from the soil or air. And, they partner with microbes that help them live.
Sattely hopes to better understand and, possibly, employ these adaptations for human benefit by making crops more robust to environmental challenges and by learning how the small molecules plants create impact human health. She says we might even turn plants into biofactories that produce medicines and other valuable chemicals.
Join host Russ Altman and Sattely for a deeper look at the remarkable world of plant biochemistry. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Stephen Quake: What can the DNA in your blood reveal about your health?"
In our 100th episode, we meet the scientist who answered this question and revolutionized everything from detecting Down syndrome to cancer.
In The Future of Everything’s 100th episode, bioengineer, physicist and inventor Stephen Quake recounts a personal experience. When Quake’s wife was pregnant with their first child, doctors performed a common but risky procedure known as an amniocentesis. Using a long needle, they pierced his wife’s uterus through her abdomen to grab a few cells from the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus to test for genetic diseases and abnormalities.
The child was fine, but to Quake and his wife the test felt like an invasion. So Quake, a renowned bioengineer and physicist at Stanford, decided to do something about it. He invented a blood test to replace amniocentesis.
It turns out that a small percentage of the DNA floating around in every mother’s bloodstream comes from the fetus. And that cell-free DNA, as it’s known, can be tested for the same diseases and abnormalities that amniocentesis can reveal, all without risk to the mother or child. Today, 4 million expectant mothers each year get Quake’s blood test, and use of amniocentesis is quickly fading as a diagnostic tool.
Little did Quake understand at the time that his lab would set off a revolution of sorts, leading to a remarkable array of similar blood tests that can detect everything from cancer to hidden infections to tissue rejection in transplant patients to premature birth – all weeks or months earlier and less invasively than existing techniques can.
Join host Russ Altman and Stephen Quake for The Future of Everything radio show’s 100th episode. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Scott Delp: Better gait, better life"
A biomechanical engineer explains how new diagnostics and improved understanding of human movement are yielding great leaps forward in the treatment of motor dysfunction.
Engineer Scott Delp first got interested in the details of human movement when he was injured in a skiing accident and spent five years trying to recover.
Back then, today’s powerful diagnostic tools, like MRI, weren’t generally available, and Delp experienced many roadblocks and false starts in his recovery.
Delp turned that challenging experience into a career studying and developing new approaches to motor dysfunction that he puts to use helping people with conditions like osteoarthritis and cerebral palsy to walk, run and move more easily and without pain. His multidisciplinary team includes surgeons, neurologists, roboticists, engineers and computer scientists who use sophisticated computer models to analyze movement dysfunction and to counteract them through surgery, robotics, neurostimulation and other techniques, including the use of Botox.
Delp’s latest focus is on discovering approaches that inspire patients to see better movement as key to better health and view physical rehab not merely as necessary, but actually enjoyable.
Join host Russ Altman and expert in the biomechanics of human movement Scott Delp for a “moving” discussion about the joys and the benefits of motion here on The Future of Everything radio show from Sirius XM. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
The Future of Everytying with Russ Altman "Emma Brunskill: Amped-up education with AI"
Computer programs that purport to help humans learn have been around almost as long as there have been computer programs, but their track record for success has been less than impressive.
Emma Brunskill, an expert on artificial intelligence and machine learning, thinks that less-than-stellar record is about to change and has dedicated her career to finding new and better ways to teach computers to teach humans. Her research creates innovative "reinforcement learning" algorithms in which computers learn through experience to get better at teaching humans. In the process, the algorithms lead people to make better, more-informed decisions that produce better outcomes in the long run.
To Brunskill this is no schoolroom affair, but an endeavor where the stakes are high. She says that better education is key to big societal challenges, like alleviating poverty. She believes that better training of new workers — or retraining of older ones — can yield better paying jobs for more people. What’s more, she’s turning her attention to other fields, namely healthcare, where better decisions can have life-or-death implications.
Join host Russ Altman and Stanford computer scientist Emma Brunskill for a deep exploration of the new age of computer-assisted learning and decision-making. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Sharon Chinthrajah: The air is making us sick"
The connection between bad air and bad health is growing clearer by the day. One allergy specialist says that real change starts at home, but ends on a much larger scale.
Air quality affects our health far more than many would suspect. It’s closely related to asthma, of course, but also to concerns like cardiovascular disease and other lifespan-reducing conditions. It’s a health emergency, says allergy and asthma specialist Sharon Chinthrajah, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford who studies and develops strategies for combatting conditions caused by air pollution.
She says there are a number of ways we all can do better, including changing clothes frequently and showering in the evenings to wash away the day’s detritus collected on hair and skin.
But, she says, those efforts are only stopgaps to truly solving the problem of air pollution. The most effective responses have to come at a societal level, and there, Chinthrajah says, we must target the biggest contributors — motorized vehicles that burn fossil fuels. Eighty percent of California’s air pollution comes from these sources. Often concerns about air quality are accompanied by racial and class aspects, as people of color and the poor tend to live in urban, heavily trafficked areas.
Chinthrajah advocates for large-scale efforts to battle air pollution, particularly a move toward electric vehicles and public transportation. She notes that in California, low-income families can qualify for up to $20,000 in state, federal and local subsidies to purchase electric vehicles, putting clean cars within reasonable reach for the first time.
Join host Russ Altman and allergy specialist Sharon Chinthrajah for an exploration of the connection between air pollution and health, and what we all can do to lessen its influence on our well-being, on the latest episode of The Future of Everything radio show from SiriusXM. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Jelena Vuckovic: Photonics — a light on the computing horizon"
Photonics engineers are working toward a day when fast, energy efficient computers do their mathematics using photons — packets of light — instead of electrons.
Experts estimate that computers gobble up as much as 10% of global electricity. They predict that that share will only grow as data centers expand and the internet of things brings scads of new computer-controlled devices to the world.
Jelena Vuckovic is an electrical engineer who sees a light on the horizon — quite literally. She is building computers that calculate and communicate more with photons than electrons. These “photonic” devices could cut energy consumption in half and empower exciting new technologies, like quantum computing, in the process.
Before that day can come, however, Vuckovic and other proponents of photonics — the science of using light for practical purposes — will have to design smaller devices and improve manufacturing techniques to compete with today’s ultra-small electronics. To hasten that arrival, Vuckovic is turning to artificial intelligence to develop new device designs and new materials that could usher in the age of photonics.
Join Russ Altman and engineer Jelena Vuckovic for a discussion of the power and promise of photonics on The Future of Everything.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Simone D’Amico: “The Swarm” is coming to an orbit near you"
A professor of astronautics foresees a new space age in which distributed space systems made of small satellites work in tandem to replace or augment their monolithic ancestors.
EPISODE NOTES The geostationary satellites used for communication and weather forecasting today are very large and very expensive — and most are still functioning perfectly when they must be disposed of because they run out of fuel. In their place, Stanford astronautics professor Simone D’Amico imagines an new era of smaller, less expensive, more efficient satellites that work in tandem to accomplish things their bigger brethren never imagined. He calls it distributed space systems — formations or “swarms” of small satellites.
Distributed space systems have breakthrough applications in earth and planetary science, astronomy, and astrophysics, as well as in-orbit servicing and space infrastructure. One task D’Amico foresees for what he calls “The Swarm” is a sort of janitorial role. These “garbage trucks in space” would remove, repair or refuel the thousands of unused satellites orbiting the earth. He says The Swarm could also improve our knowledge of the Sun and its interaction with the upper layers of the atmosphere, leading to better space weather predictions or achieve other important scientific objectives — like detecting life on other planets.
Before this space age can be made real, however, D’Amico and his compatriots in astronautics must figure out how to control these distributed space systems with the required precision in safety, and help develop a new set of “galactic” rules to make space traffic sustainable in the long run.
Join host Russ Altman and astronautics professor Simone D’Amico for a look at “The Swarm” — the changing face of satellites in space — on the latest episode of The Future of Everything.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Bonnie Maldonado: The science is clear. Vaccinations save lives."
An expert in infectious diseases says that vaccinations are more powerful than ever, but better communication by the medical community is needed to combat misinformation.
Stanford professor Yvonne “Bonnie” Maldonado is a medical doctor and an expert in pediatric infectious diseases. She has been fighting and preventing disease her entire career. She says that vaccinations have made remarkable progress in recent years and yet, despite well-known programs that have virtually wiped out once-dreaded diseases like measles, smallpox and polio, a more insidious foe than these diseases has appeared — misinformation that sows confusion, fear and distrust of vaccines in the general public.
The result has been a worrying reappearance of some of the diseases society has worked so hard to eradicate. But the science is clear: Vaccinations save lives and carry very little to no risk for the vaccinated. Meanwhile, scientific advances are making vaccines more effective and less risky by the day.
There is no magic solution, Maldonado says, but evidence suggests that a more personalized communication approach could help by avoiding stigmatizing naysayers in favor of greater understanding and cooperation with dubious audiences. In working with the public, she says, medical providers remain the first and best line of communication with both the scientific knowledge and the public trust to deliver these life-saving messages.
In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s “The Future of Everything” podcast, Russ Altman and vaccination expert Bonnie Maldonado for a clear-eyed look at the future of vaccines.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman " Michelle Mello: Patient privacy and the law are on a collision course"
A rapidly shifting legal debate is raging in healthcare over patient data and privacy. One legal expert says that even though regulations have lagged, a reckoning is due.
How much control should patients have over who sees their medical records? How readily should researchers share patient-level data from their clinical studies? In today’s world, should the answers to these questions depend on whether the data are “anonymized?”
These are but a few of the ethical and legal conundrums that Michelle Mello, Stanford professor of law and of health research and policy, grapples with on a daily basis. She says that rapidly evolving ways to gather and share medical data are exposing the limitations of laws that protect patient privacy.
Meanwhile, the value of sharing patient and clinical data is growing by the day. Data from multiple studies can be pooled to study subgroups or explore rare conditions that were once out of reach. It could help lower drug prices, too, or identify ways to treat patients with greater precision and efficiency. Mello says that reaping these benefits will require a national conversation about what patients are willing to trade off in terms of privacy and control over their personal health information.
Join Michelle Mello and host Russ Altman for a wide-ranging discussion of the ethical and legal challenges in healthcare on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything.
Professor Michael Hines discusses how Chicago schools managed classes during the polio crisis in the 1930s that closed schools in the city, and he provides strategies for teachers and parents today.
Originally aired April 4, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Alex Dunn: When cells communicate by nudging one another"
New research explores how physical pushing and pulling between cells helps them differentiate into the myriad cell types in the body.
Professor Jonathan Rosa joins Dan and Denise to discuss how school communities are coping with the novel coronavirus pandemic, and what issues may emerge during recovery.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 28, 2020.
Description: From the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education case to voting rights and education, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) has been the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality since its founding in 1940 by legendary civil rights lawyer (and later Supreme Court justice) Thurgood Marshall. Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF’s President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), will discuss important NAACP cases and issues.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 28, 2020.
Nicole Quinn of Lightspeed Venture Partners Talks About the Growing Numbers of Women in Venture Capital.
Quinn talks about listening to core customers and the importance of being open to new ideas.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 21, 2020.
A marine scientist travels the world to understand whether and how the ocean will respond to climate change, overfishing and other challenges.
Fiorenza “Fio” Micheli grew up on the Mediterranean Sea, where she fell in love with the ocean and made it the object of her scientific career. Now a marine ecologist and co-director of Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions, her research spans the spectrum of marine science.
She has studied the overfishing of sharks and how their absence affects coral reef ecosystems; she has explored the influence of marine protected areas on biodiversity below the waves; she has studied the impacts of the many ways in which we use the ocean — through fishing to farming to recreation — on its ecosystems, and how to more sustainably support these crucial services. And, for lessons on how undersea life might respond to climate change, she traveled to Italy, her home country, to investigate life near undersea volcanic vents that jet carbon dioxide into the seawater like a Jacuzzi.
In all of Micheli’s varied research, she returns to a constant theme: The ocean is a magical place, worthy of awe and wonder, but it is in trouble. It is time to act before it is too late.
In the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast, Micheli takes host and bioengineer Russ Altman — and listeners — on a deep dive into ocean science and global efforts to protect this valuable resource.
How brain mechanisms differ in reading abilities of children on the spectrum and with dyslexia.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 14, 2020.
The ACLU has been the nation’s premier defender of civil liberties since its founding 100 years ago. David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director who oversees its entire legal docket, will discuss key civil liberties issues facing the country today including two LGBTQ rights cases that he recently argued before the Supreme Court.
Originally aired on March 14, 2020.
Matt Abraham, Professor at Stanford School of Business, Teaches How to be Compelling & Confident When speaking in Any Situation.
Abraham, author and coach, explains how to communicate without freaking out.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 7, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Nick Ouellette: What flocks of birds can tell us about engineering"
A civil engineer explains how new insights gleaned from the flight of birds may one day be applied to fields as far-ranging as autonomous cars and crowd control.
Anyone who has ever observed a large flock of starlings in flight — darting and swirling as if the entire flock were one big beautiful being — cannot help but marvel and wonder at how all those birds keep from crashing into one another.
Nick Ouellette is studying the in-flight behavior of birds to draw lessons he can apply to engineering. He says that birds are not alone in their tightly coordinated patterns of movement; such behaviors can be observed at every scale of nature, from bacteria to bees to beluga whales.
Ouellette is doing sophisticated video measurements of flocks in flight to understand just how it is that birds can pull off their beautiful balletics without total chaos. He says the secret is that nature favors decentralized, bottom-up control of groups versus the top-down, leader-follower approach favored by humans.
Ouellette, a civil engineer and birdwatcher extraordinaire, discusses his research on the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s “The Future of Everything” podcast with bioengineer and host Russ Altman.
The open secret of Supreme Court advocacy in a digital era is that there is a new way to argue to the Justices.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 29, 2020.
Long-term outcomes on the mental health of survivors of mass shootings. Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 29, 2020.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Shaili Jain: Treatments for PTSD are more effective than ever"
How a revealing father-daughter conversation led to a career dedicated to studying and treating severe trauma and stress-related disorders.
Shaili Jain first got interested in studying post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on an East Coast road trip listening to her father describe his experiences during the 1947 Partition of British India. As she listened to details of his trauma and losses, many revealed to her only for the first time, Jain realized she had a deep personal connection to trauma survivors that had, until now, been hidden. This realization spurred a new career, committed to specializing in PTSD and advancing the science of traumatic stress.
PTSD became Jain’s life’s work as a medical doctor and a researcher. She would eventually go on to pen a 2019 book, The Unspeakable Mind. Her book combines vividly recounted patient stories, cutting-edge neuroscience, interviews with some of the world ’s top trauma scientists and Jain’s professional expertise, and offers a textured portrait of a widely misunderstood condition.
PTSD has historically been hidden in plain sight, she says, and it is typically tough to diagnose and often goes hand in hand with anxiety, mood and substance abuse disorders. But now, she says, researchers are making great strides at understanding trauma and treating PTSD effectively.
In the latest episode of Stanford Engineering’s “The Future of Everything” podcast, Jain discusses the hopeful prognosis for traumatic stress disorders with host and bioengineer Russ Altman.
Amy Brooks, a Stanford M.B.A. and Chief Innovation Officer at the NBA, talks about the future of the leagues.
Brooks is the highest ranking woman at the NBA. With 1.6 billion followers globally, she is responsible for growing all aspects of the NBA.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 22, 2020.
How friendship and relational networks matter for academic and social success as pathways for connecting in college.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 15, 2020.
In the wake of the first wave of primary voting, former judge and Constitutional Law Professor Michael McConnell will discuss how we elect the President. What are the caucus, primary, and convention systems? Why do we have an electoral college? Is there a good system for resolving disputed elections?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 15, 2020.
Amado Padilla, Professor of Education explains the challenges of helping kids who live in trailer parks to thrive and compete academically with their peers who come from wealthier communities.
Recognizing resilient students who achieve high levels of academic performance despite coming from home and community backgrounds that pose multiple challenges to educational excellence.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 1, 2020.
Equality for women in the U.S. is still an uphill battle, the wage and leadership gap a challenge 100 years after passage of the19th Amendment. But can gender equality be regulated with law and quotas? California is trying in one narrow area—the boards of public companies—with a new law mandating gender diversity on those boards. Joe Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner and expert on corporate governance, and Gail Harris, who serves as lead director of investment banking advisory firm Evercore Inc., discuss the law, possible challenges to it, and why it matters.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 1, 2020.
How one man starting out with a handful of franchises goes on to transform an entire industry.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 25, 2020.
Professor Michael Hines, School of Education, on the value of teaching cultural history classes on the twentieth century.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 18, 2020.
In December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment against the president focusing on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Only three U.S. presidents have been formally impeached by the House, including Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and now Donald Trump. So far, not one has been removed from office. In this episode, we are joined by former prosecutor and Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky to look at impeachment through the lens of the prosecutor. Did the House make a good case? What are the legal procedural questions?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 18, 2020.
Jill Gwaltney, Founder of Rauxa, one of the fastest women-owned digital marketing agencies in advertising.
Gwaltney explains the philosophy of doing what’s right for the client and not giving up until you have exceeded customer expectations.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 11, 2020.
Brian Spaly is a self-taught tailor and co-founder of Bonobos, a New York-based men's apparel company best known for the flattering fit of its pants.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 14, 2019.
Director Laura Wentworth discusses the value and challenges of doing research in a public school setting.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 7, 2019.
Former U.N. Ambassador and diplomat Susan Rice talks about her new memoir “Tough Love,” including her work with the Obama Administration and her concerns about current US foreign policy.
Rice also recounts the personal toll the Benghazi controversy took on her family, her views on Washington politics, and her early years at Stanford where she met her future husband.
Pam and Joe welcome John Donohue, Stanford Law Professor, who talks about his new research looking at concealed carry gun laws and the Assault Weapons Ban.
Originally aired on November 22, 2019
As one of few female drivers in NASCAR history, Julia Landauer is an outspoken pioneer and advocate for female empowerment in professional motor sports and is building her brand where technology, community and racing intersect.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on Nov. 16, 2019.
Talking about women driving the momentum for change in high-tech with guest Julian Guthrie, author of Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took on Silicon Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime. She's joined by M.J. Elmore, partner at IVP venture capital firm, who is profiled in the book.
She's the creative writing power behind the blockbuster film series Aliens and the TV hit "The Walking Dead.” Gale Hurd shares her stories about how her career started in Hollywood and offers advice for those seeking writing and producing careers in film.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 2, 2019.
Turnover and use of acting officials in the Trump administration is more prevalent than previous administrations, but churn in the White House is not unique to this president. Stanford Law Professor Anne Joseph O’Connell shares her recent research into vacancies in the executive branch and the law.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 26, 2019.
"Students Mathematical Identity and its Relation to Classroom Social Dynamics with guest Jennifer Langer-Osuna"
Guiding students to a healthy math identity through relationships with peers and teachers.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 26, 2019.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Former Oakland Raiders Quarterback Jim Plunkett About His Legendary Career @ Stanford & in the NFL"
Heisman trophy winner and two-time MVP, Jim Plunkett is the most celebrated athlete in Stanford history. He walks us through his biggest competitive challenges and success stories throughout his sports career and life after football.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "How Pre-Kindergarten Makes a Difference in Childhood Learning with guest Francis Pearman"
Professor Francis Pearman explains the impacts of pre-k studies on 3rd-grade achievement in low-income environments.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 12, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Power of the Presidential Pardon with guest Bernadette Meyler"
The U.S. president’s power of pardon dates back to the British monarchy and the “godly” rights of kings, but has the pardon stood the test of time? Listen in as Constitutional Law expert Bernadette Meyler and author of the recent book, “Theaters of Pardoning,” discusses modern-day pardons and the evolution of the law.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 12, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "National Security Intelligence and American Threats with guest Amy Zegart"
Guest Amy Zegart examines U.S. intelligence challenges, cyber security, and American foreign policy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 5, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley with guest Cary McClelland"
Stanford Law School alum Cary McClelland’s book “Silicon City” was mailed to 1,700 incoming Stanford freshmen over the summer as part of the Three Books program, which this year invited students to think about the ways cities shape experiences and social relationships. Listen as McClelland shares what he’s learned interviewing San Francisco residents whose lives have been transformed by Silicon Valley.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 28, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "School Defiance Policies and the School-To-Prison Pipeline with guest Peter Williamson"
Can educator restorative practices reduce student suspensions in public schools?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 28, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Ross Shachter: Can AI improve mammography?"
Radiologists have the difficult job of detecting and diagnosing malignant tumors. A new computer model could improve their accuracy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 21. 2019.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Redefining How We Think About Food with guest Maya Adam"
Medical Doctor Maya Adam talks about America's love-hate relationship with food.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 21, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Wealth, Inequality, and Taxes with guest Jacob Goldin"
Taxes help to pave our roads and even change our behavior. Can they also help to decrease extreme wealth inequality in the U.S.? Listen in as tax law experts Jacob Goldin and Joe Bankman discuss some of the latest taxation plans.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 14, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The Job of a School Superintendent with guest Eric Burmeister"
Menlo Park, CA, Superintendent of Schools Eric Burmeister talks about his top priorities as a change maker in raising student achievement levels through innovation and strategic leadership.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 14, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Ash Alizadeh: A New Age in Oncology"
In cancer detection, could a blood test replace a biopsy?
Once, when a cancer was suspected, the next move often involved a biopsy – literally cutting out human tissue to ascertain malignancy. But that highly invasive model is now being overshadowed by the promise of “liquid biopsies.” In these non-invasive approaches, blood, spinal fluid and other bodily liquids are drawn and tested for the presence of cancer cells, bits of DNA or other molecules that are the unmistakable markers of serious disease. Often, such non-invasive biopsies can be done before clinical symptoms appear.
Ash Alizadeh is an authority on the rapidly evolving technologies and techniques of oncology. He says that information is reshaping not only how we detect cancer but also how we treat it. The data we gather about any given cancer is being combined with knowledge about the patients themselves, leading to highly personalized approaches that did not exist just a few years ago. No two cancers, nor two patients, are exactly the same, Alizadeh says. Cancer cells grow differently in each patient and cancer treatments should be personalized accordingly.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 7, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman : "Mildred Cho: Ethics in the age of easy gene editing"
How do new technologies and techniques for altering DNA get used? And who gets to use them?
In recent years, the development of inexpensive genetic sequencing and easy gene editing technologies has given rise to a community of non-academic, amateur researchers who like to refer to themselves, only half-jokingly, as “biohackers.”
But, says Mildred Cho, a research professor who has published frequently about bioethics, such communities are not bound by traditional “first-do-no-harm” ethical norms that professional biologists and physicians adhere to.
There is, for instance, a group of such do-it-yourself researchers pursuing a low-cost insulin substitute that is free of patent protection; they hope to bring that life-saving medicine to millions who cannot afford it. On the flip side, Cho says, there are also bio-hobbyists who like to do things “just for fun” that could present considerable danger to society.
“Would you want your neighbor recreating polio in his garage?” she asks, rhetorically, adding that these deep and challenging concerns are better addressed sooner rather than later.
Join bioethicists Mildred Cho and The Future of Everything host Russ Altman for a provocative discussion about the shifting landscape in the ethics of biological research. You can listen to The Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or via Stanford Engineering Magazine.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 7, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Law and Access to Education with guest Bill Koski"
The Constitution guarantees equal educational opportunity for all, but what does that actually mean? Listen in as Stanford Law’s Bill Koski discusses this vital right.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 31, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The Potential Gains and Risks of Scholarly Open Access Publishing Cooperatives with guest John Willinsky"
Examining the feasibility of publishing cooperatives that bring together libraries, journals, scholarly societies, and other institutions as a financially sustainable open access model for peer-reviewed scholarly publishing.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 31, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "An Immigration Update with guests Lucas Guttentag & Julia Neusner"
What is driving the challenges at America’s southern border, with a surge in the number of asylum-seekers waiting to file claims? And how is the law developing for illegal immigrants already here? Immigration law expert Lucas Guttentag joins Stanford Law student Julia Neusner to discuss the situation at the border and legal issues surrounding immigration.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 17, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning As We Age with guest Laura Carstensen"
Do brain-training exercises really work to strengthen memory and learning as we get older?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 17, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Lynn Hildemann: What pollutants are lurking in our indoor spaces?"
An expert on air quality talks about the hidden dangers inside our homes and offers some helpful tips on what you can do to reduce your exposure.
We all know about the decades-long battle to improve air quality outdoors, but Stanford environmental engineer Lynn Hildemann says that while much progress has been made in that regard, it may have caused us to look past the pollutants in our own homes.
Hildemann, who studies air pollution and its effects inside and outside the home, says that chemicals and microparticles from cooking, furniture, carpets, cleaning products and good-old household dust represent the latest air quality battleground. She says it’s such a big concern because most Americans spend some 90 percent of their lives indoors.
Hildemann offers a few small steps we can all take to improve air quality at home. Using the ventilation hood when cooking is a great first step. Opening the windows whenever possible is another. And, opting for easily cleanable hardwood floors over carpet can help, too.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 10, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The Choice To Forgive with guest Fred Luskin"
Professor Fred Luskin explains what forgiveness is and what it's not, and how the choice transforms anger into healing and peace.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 10, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "How Textbooks Reflect Changes in Society with guest Patricia Bromley"
How textbooks incorporate attitudes and ways of looking at the world.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 3, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Fight For Women's Reproductive Rights with guest Jane Schacter, et al."
Women’s reproductive rights are in the news again, but what exactly are these rights—and what guarantees are they granted under the U.S. Constitution? Constitutional law expert Professor Jane Schacter joins Stanford physicians Jenn Conti and Erica Cahill.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 3, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankma: "The Changing Landscape of Auditor Litigation and It's Implications for Audit Quality with guest Colleen Honigsberg"
Companies like Apple, Google and Walmart report earnings each year. They also report on social justice issues, like carbon emissions and child labor. These are important reports, with important implications for shareholders and the public. But how do we know they're accurate? Listen in as Stanford Law’s Colleen Honigsberg discusses auditing.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 5, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Ami Bhatt: Lessons from the microbial world living within us"
An expert on the gut microbiome says it’s important to stop seeing bacteria as an enemy and instead as a partner in our good health.
The vast majority of bacteria that live inside us are not invasive, but rather quite the opposite. They are partners in our lives, helping us to metabolize difficult to digest foods and even to fight infection.
Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD is a hematologist and geneticist who studies these important bacteria — the so-called “microbiome.” It is possible, through disease or excessive application of antibiotics, for the microbiome to become out of kilter affecting human health.
Treatment options for those whose gut bacteria are not in balance range from the simple addition of probiotic foods, like yogurt and kombucha, to the diet, to the more extreme, such as the transplant of healthy fecal matter into the digestive tracts of the patient in the hope that a more balanced microbiome might take root. The bottom line, however, says Bhatt: we still know very little about the microscopic world within us and much more study is needed.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 27, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Issues of Aging in Today's Busy Society with guest Carroll Estes"
Carroll L. Estes, Professor and Founding, Institute for Health and Aging demystifies misconceptions about healthy aging.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 27, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Steven Collins: New prosthetics should be better than the real thing"
A mechanical engineer explains how more and better data is helping to create new prosthetics unlike any before.
For years prosthetic limbs were merely functional devices, but recent advances in robotics and neuroscience are transforming the very meaning of the word "prosthetic."
Steve Collins is a mechanical engineer who is helping to lead that transformation to the benefit of people who've had an amputation, stroke or battlefield injury. The field has come a long way since the days of strap-on wooden legs.
Collins says that, rather than trying to merely mimic what the body does, he's working on new ways of discovering prosthetic limb designs that outperform unimpaired bodies. His team uses advanced robotic systems that record and analyze the wearer's response, continually tuning their mechanical assistance to optimize performance and make them better than ever before.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 27, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Supreme Court: A Crucial Year for Democracy with guest Brian Fletcher"
Prof. Pamela Karlan and Brian Fletcher discuss gerrymandering, the 2020 census, and two of the most important decisions from the Supreme Court’s recent term.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
"Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Regulating Rights for the Intellectual and Developmentally Disabled with guests Alison Morantz & Peter Vogel"
About 6.5 million people in the U.S. have an intellectual or developmental disability that affects their day-to-day functioning. While there are laws and policies designed to help them access the same core rights and protections that other individuals enjoy, there are still big gaps in important services. How is the law developing in this critical and often-overlooked area? Stanford Law Professor Alison Morantz, co-founder of the newly-launched Stanford Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project, and Peter Vogel, JD ’19, who worked with Morantz on newly-published research, discuss their findings and more.
Originally aired on SirusXM on July 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Exposure to multiple languages enhances communication skills in grades K-12 with guest Ramón Martínez"
Early exposure to multiple languages and code switching can enhance children’s communication skills, even when children are effectively monolingual.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman : "Margot Gerritsen: How to get more women into data science"
Women face many roadblocks to careers in data science and other STEM disciplines. One Stanford professor is out to change perceptions and realities for women in these fields.
It was in 2015 when Margot Gerritsen was asked to speak at a data conference with not a single other woman on the program that she knew that something had to be done to get women into the field. As then-director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), Gerritsen knew more than a thing or two about data science and became determined to change the male-dominated culture.
This determination led to the creation of the wildly popular “Women in Data Science Conference.” In putting the first agenda together, she was insistent that the conference be not about the problematic state of women in the field, but on the exceptional science of the attendees.
Now into its fifth iteration, with more than 100,000 participants worldwide, online and at satellite events spreading into six continents, Gerritsen and her co-directors of the conference have inspired women across the planet to enter the sciences and provided a platform for them to highlight their work. In addition to the conference, WiDS now includes a datathon, a podcast that Gerritsen hosts, and ongoing education programs. The results have been, quite literally, life changing for many.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf : "Rising Popularity and Growth of eSports with guest Pete Vlastelica"
Howard welcomes Pete Vlastelica, President and CEO of Major League Gaming (MLG), a division of Activision Blizzard devoted to creating the best esports experiences for fans across games, platforms and geographies.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Mehran Sahami: The evolution of computer science education"
Once the core American curriculum meant reading, writing and arithmetic, but Stanford professor Mehran Sahami says we might soon have to add a fourth skill to that list, “coding.”
Sahami thinks deeply about such matters. He’s the leading force behind recent changes in Stanford’s computer science curriculum. He notes that it may not be surprising that more students are choosing to major in computer science than ever before, but what might turn heads is the changing face and intellectual landscape of the field. With concerted effort, more women and minorities, and even students from traditional liberal arts and sciences backgrounds, are venturing into computer science.
Sahami says coding has become more than just videogames, social media and smartphone apps. The field is an intellectual endeavor taking on the biggest issues of our day. And in pursuit of tackling big issues, computer professionals also need to be aware of ethical issues that arise, such as the implications of data-driven decision making, respect for personal privacy, the long-term impacts of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, and the role of large platforms like Google, Facebook and Apple on free speech issues.
Sahami says that computers and algorithms are now part of the fabric of everyday life and how the future plays out will depend upon realizing more cultural and gender diversity in computer science classrooms and encouraging multidisciplinary thinking throughout computer science.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Creating a Social Media Oversight Board for Content Decisions with guests Nate Persily and Madeline Magneson"
Nate Persily, election law and free speech expert, discusses his Stanford research practicum that looks at critical issues in creating a social media oversight board for content decisions. Stanford Law student Madeline Magneson joins the conversation.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 6, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf" "The Power of Humor In The Workplace with guests Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas"
Stanford Professor Jennifer Aaker and Lecturer Naomi Bagdonas examine the the positive power of humor to achieve business objectives in the workplace.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 29, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Sylvia Plevritis: Better cancer treatment through data"
Biomedical data scientist Sylvia Plevritis is an expert in computational modeling of cancer risk and treatment options hidden in the remarkable quantity of data available today. Rarely is a tumor made up of a single mutation, she says, but more commonly of a mix of different mutations. Such heterogenous tumors may require complex combinations of drugs to produce the most effective treatments. That’s where computers can help.
Using mathematical simulations, Plevritis is helping patients and their doctors understand the genetic makeup of a given cancer for the purpose of identifying drug combinations that stand a better chance of success. Some of the models Plevritis works with can be run in an hour or less and yet return invaluable guidance that can save a patient’s life.
Plevritis says these computational approaches can even help those without cancer understand their inherent genetic risks to assess whether and when additional screening or risk-reducing interventions are warranted.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 29, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Regulating Online Hate Speech with guest Daphne Keller"
How do we regulate online hate/terrorist speech? Daphne Keller, an expert in platform regulation and Internet users' rights, discusses how the law is developing particularly in the European Union.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 22, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Immigration in Schools. How's It's Changing American Education with guest Tomas Jiminez"
Impacts of immigration on public schools with guest Tomas Jimenez.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 22, 2019
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "James Landay: What’s next in human-computer interaction?"
Computers are everywhere and humans are engaging with them in nearly everything they do. Knowing this, the question becomes: How do we design a world around us so that technology makes life better, not worse? James Landay, an expert in human-computer interaction, says the key to thoughtfully integrating humans with digital technology is to put people first.
This perspective draws on a philosophy known as human-centered or user-centered design. Within this approach, the first priority is to understand the problem vexing a particular population by observing, interviewing, and working with that population. Only once the problem is clear does the development of a solution begin. Typically, engineers and technologists have done the opposite. They’ve worked to develop the coolest technology they can think of, and then once it’s ready look around for a way to use it.
With human needs at the forefront, Landay’s research focuses on finding ways to use artificial intelligence technology to augment human performance. His current projects range from leveraging technology to encourage positive behavior change, to enabling kids to stay engaged in their education, to helping professionals stay healthy while feeling more connected to their co-workers and workplace.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 15, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Smart Money Investing with guest Mark Curtis"
Mark Curtis with Graystone Consulting, a business of Morgan Stanley, talks about his decades long career as a top multi-billion dollar wealth and investment portfolio manager.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 15, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Securing American Elections with guest Nate Persily"
In 2016, Russia attacked the United States. As the Special Counsel report stated, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion.” In this episode of Stanford Legal, Stanford Professor Nate Persily, election law and free speech expert, discusses a new Stanford report that looks at the vulnerabilities of our election systems and ways to secure it.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 8, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "How To Make Science Awesome for Kids with guest Jonathon Osborne"
Science and science standards in early education with guest Jonathon Osborne
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 8, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "John Markoff: The past, present and future of Silicon Valley"
John Markoff is perhaps best known as a science and technology writer for the New York Times, but he is also a fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford. In both roles he is a keen observer and chronicler of the rise of Silicon Valley as the heart of the technological revolution of the past six decades.
While Silicon Valley remains the preeminent technology center in the world today, Markoff cautions that nothing lasts forever and a demise can often be just as swift as the rise. The next big thing in tech, he says, will be a surprise and it could come from anywhere. To remain at the top, Silicon Valley cannot rest on its laurels, but must continue to innovate like no other.
Markoff has noticed a shift in emphasis in recent years from faster and cheaper computers to artificial intelligence and robotics that may be opening new frontiers to technologists outside of Silicon Valley for the first time in many decades. He says the biggest problem for society will not be losing jobs to robots, but rather dealing with rapidly aging populations around the world. The question, he says, isn’t which jobs will be the first to go, but rather who will be available to fill the jobs that remain.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 1, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Kari Nadeau: Science takes on food allergies"
Once avoidance was the only answer, but a leading allergist says that advances in desensitizing allergies are challenging common convention.
Food allergy expert Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, says that as many as one in ten adults in the U.S. has a food allergy, many without knowing it. With consequences that range from mild to serious (including lethal anaphylaxis), it is imperative that medical scientists become better adept at spotting food allergies and ultimately at helping patients cope with allergies.
Nadeau notes that while a cure remains elusive, it’s a "moonshot issue" worthy of pursuit. She has seen positive results with incremental desensitization therapies that build a patient's tolerance for foods that cause allergic reactions. In addition, new gene therapies are just emerging that are offering a glimmer of promise for those whose diets and lifestyles have been impacted by food allergies.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 1, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope : "Student Social Activism, Past, Present and Future with guest Tom Ehrlich"
Promoting social change through the courage of student activism with guest Tom Ehrlich.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 25, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman:
"Can Technology Help Address the Mental Health Crisis? with guest Joe Ruzek & Zach Harned"
Mental health care is going digital, with new apps designed to offer personalized intervention and instruction right when a client might need them. Can a robot be a good therapist? Who is liable when things go wrong? Joe Ruzek, a psychologist who specializes in web- and phone-based psychological interventions, Zach Harned, a third-year student at Stanford Law, and Alison Darcy, CEO and founder of Woebot, discuss in a live taping of the Stanford Legal podcast.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 25, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Monica Lam: Privacy in the age of virtual assistants"
Can we reap the benefits of artificial intelligence while also protecting our personal information?
From scheduling appointments to setting the thermostat to ordering pizza, virtual assistants are growing more commonplace by the day. Stanford professor Monica Lam says they will only become more entrenched as their capabilities grow and their voice-recognition skills become more accurate.
Such developments are welcomed by many who rely upon Alexa and Siri and other virtual assistants. But it is also troubling to those, like Lam, who worry that privacy concerns and lack of competition put too much power in the hands of a few companies. Lam is an advocate for a more open approach.
“If there is no open competition, then you are kind of stuck with whatever these platforms provide for you,” she tells host Russ Altman in the latest episode of The Future of Everything radio show from Sirius XM.
Lam thinks a lot about the future of privacy. She says we can have both the AI and privacy at the same time, but first she’d like more options in the marketplace and for those who dominate the market to be less insular than they are today. What’s needed is an “infrastructure of privacy” that returns control of data to the rightful owners: the users who created it in the first place. The key to that, she says, is choice.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 18, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jeremy Weinstein: Technology in the public interest "
Political scientist Jeremy Weinstein has worked at both the White House and the United Nations. In both jobs, he encountered the ethical and policy concerns that new technologies can present to policymakers. As one example, he points to the fierce debate between Apple and national security experts over end-to-end encryption and the challenges investigators faced in accessing data on the iPhones of the perpetrators of a terrorist attack in San Bernardino in 2015.
He wants universities, like Stanford, to educate a new breed of engineer that he refers to as a “civic-minded technologist.” These engineers would consider ways in which technological advances could serve the public good, while also thinking critically about the impacts of new technologies on society.
In this spirit, Weinstein and two Stanford colleagues, Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami, have begun teaching a new course on the ethics and policy of technology to a large number of undergraduate CS majors. He says it’s critical that these nascent technologists learn from the start to think about the larger implications of their work – even before they write a single line of code. This is because code itself is not value neutral, and technologists must be able to recognize what values are being encoded in the programs they write as well as the competing values that might be traded off. This kind of preparation, he says, will help us as a society to more effectively realize the benefits and minimize the potential harms inherent in new technologies.
In his own research, Weinstein is applying his unique perspective to challenges of global poverty and human migration, where, he says, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing our understanding of two of society’s fundamental problems.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 18, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Autism Diagnosis and Treatment in Kids with guest Dennis Wall"
Dennis Wall talks about understanding levels of autism in kids through diagnosis and treatment.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 11, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Fuel Economy Standards and the Law with guests Deborah Sivas & Ben DeGolia"
Cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But fuel economy standards intended to limit their impact have been challenged by the current administration, setting the stage for a legal battle. Tune in to a live taping of the Stanford Legal podcast as environmental law expert Professor Deborah Sivas and student Ben DeGolia discuss.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 11, 2019.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Elementary Education and Literacy with guest Rebecca Silverman"
Rebecca Silverman discusses early literacy development in elementary school education
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 11, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Sharad Goel: How hidden bias affects the criminal justice system"
In-depth statistical analyses show time and again that subtle, unconscious bias is pervasive in the American justice system. The bigger question, however, is what to do about it?
Sharad Goel is an expert in computational social science – that is, using computers and data to examine and address policy issues. He says unconscious bias is subtle but entrenched in American life, and nowhere are the consequences more concerning than in criminal justice.
Goel has analyzed hundreds of millions of crime records to show, for instance, that black drivers are pulled over more than white drivers and that judges demand bail too often. He says the data suggest that up to 30 percent more people could be released on their own recognizance without adversely affecting crime rates.
Goel is developing risk assessment tools to assist in high-stakes decision making. He cautions, however, that algorithms are an aid, not a panacea. They should be used to inform decision making and to help decision makers to make fairer choices, but not to actually make the decisions.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 4, 2019.
Recorded live from the board by Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Deep Space Travel and Beyond with Former NASA Astronaut Ellen Ochoa"
In an exclusive interview, former astronaut Ellen Ochoa talks about her pioneering journey into space.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 4, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Live from Washington, DC: Developing Leaders of Education with U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan"
In a wide-ranging conversation, Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., discusses how she became interested in politics, what it was like to teach high school chemistry and how to help develop educational leaders.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 27, 2019.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Artificial Intelligence & the Administrative State w/ guests David Engstrom & law student Cristina Ceballos"
Professor David Engstrom and law student Cristina Ceballos discuss artificial intelligence and whether it can help or hinder important decision making by the federal government?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 27, 2019.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Mueller Report and Indictments. What Have we Learned? With guest David Sklansky"
Professor David Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor, discusses what we know about the investigation, what we have learned from the report, and what may come next.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 27, 2019.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Margaret Brandeau: Math and computers help reshape health policy"
Margaret Brandeau may carry a business card that reads Professor of Management Science and Engineering, but her expertise is in using complex systems models to solve challenges in public health policy. For instance, she recently created a sophisticated computer model of the national opioid crisis, which led her to the stark –and surprising – conclusion that it may take a short-term rise in deaths to ultimately reduce them.
She didn’t come to that conclusion lightly, but made no less than 10 models of drug-user behaviors to analyze interventions. Nonetheless, each model led her to the same basic conclusions. First, policies are needed that lead to cutbacks in the number of prescriptions of opioids for pain management. Second, fewer prescriptions of opioids for pain management will cause some individuals to turn to more-deadly heroin. Third, because of this unintended consequence, it is essential to also scale up treatment for opioid-addicted individuals. But her fourth finding was the most sobering of all: No one of these policies will suffice; they must all be combined if we are to curb the opioid epidemic – and the epidemic is not likely to abate significantly anytime soon.
Mathematical modeling is an art, Brandeau says, but it’s a powerful art that is only going to grow in influence. Her advice for those looking to solve big problems – from reducing sodium intake to battling the return of measles – is to start out simple. Know what question you want to answer and create a model that captures just the most salient elements of the problem. Things will flow from there.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The Right Way To Choose A College with guest Denise Pope"
Does the brand name of the college you attend actually matter? Denise Pope says no. The key is engagement in and outside of the classroom.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Paul Yock: Innovation in medical technology"
When Stanford’s Paul Yock was a young interventional cardiologist, he was frustrated by the complex, two-person process required to deliver life-saving stents. So, he invented a better way. His Rapid Exchange stenting and balloon angioplasty system, one of several inventions Yock is known for internationally, can be managed by just a single operator, making procedures like stent placement faster and safer. Yock is a man of many talents. He is a doctor, a professor of bioengineering and of mechanical engineering, and an innovator who combines these many interests to solve problems in healthcare.
He says that the aha moments work beautifully when they come, but they are too often based in luck. For the rest of us, there is a better and more consistent path to transformative medical tools he calls the biodesign process. It starts, first, with a deep understanding of the medical need. The next step is brainstorming and iteration, preferably by non-hierarchical, multidisciplinary teams of doctors, engineers and business people. Diversity of insights and expertise leads to better inventions, Yock says.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 20, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Children and AI"
Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz (School's In co-host) speaks about the role of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives and it's impact on child learning and education.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "How Safe is Your Online Information? with guest Jennifer King"
Why and when do people choose to hand over their personal information in exchange for online services? Jennifer King, of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, discusses power dynamics and privacy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The Science of Sleep with guest Rafael Pelayo"
Rafael Pelayo is a sleep specialist at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine. He discusses why sleep is so important and what it does for the brain.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Race, Class, and College Admissions with guest Rick Banks"
Law Professor Rick Banks, author of the forthcoming book Meritocracy in an Age of Inequality, discusses college admissions, race, and class in the wake of the college admissions scandal and Harvard bias case.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 13, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Tony Oro: Stem cell therapies for incurable diseases"
A new class of gatekeeper physicians is helping make scientific and ethical sense of stem cell and gene therapies that offer hope to many patients who once had none.
By last count, there are 5,000 genetic diseases in the human body.
A few are merely annoying, but far more are devastating and without cure. In the last decade, much popular attention has been focused on the potential for stem cells and gene therapies to cure these once-intractable diseases. While the promise is clear, Tony Oro cautions patience.
Oro is a dermatologist and associate director of the Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine at Stanford. He is a leading expert in the scientific and ethical dilemmas such therapies raise. He and many others say cures are close at hand, but there is still much to be determined before these therapies can be pronounced both effective and safe.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 6, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Talking Major League Baseball with guest David Flemming"
David Flemming, sportscaster and play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants talks about his illustrious career in Major League Baseball and broadcast sports.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 6, 2019
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Michelle Monje: New therapies for brain cancer"
A deepening understanding of how the healthy brain grows and functions is leading to exciting new brain cancer therapies that are both more effective and easier on patients.
Brain cancers are known to be elusive and clever killers, but Michelle Monje, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, is helping to find new treatments through a better understanding of how healthy brain cells develop and how cancers often hijack those very same processes in order to grow themselves.
Monje says that the last decade has seen tremendous progress in our understanding of how cancers thrive and in the development of new drugs and therapies to kill the killers. Unfortunately, many chemotherapy drugs powerful enough to kill cancers also cause lasting impairment of the patient’s cognitive abilities, a condition known among doctors and patients as “chemobrain.”
Monje is on the hunt for more effective and safer treatments for brain cancer. One exciting development, she says, is a quickly evolving field known as immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s own immune system to recognize and to kill cancers. She’s also exploring a new drug that can help specific brain cells, known as glia, counteract the harmful effects of chemobrain.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "What it's Like Being the President of a Major League Baseball Team w/ guest Dave Kaval"
Dave Kaval, President of the Oakland Athletics talks about his career in sports and the A's quest to build a new ball park.
Originally aired on March 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Dennis Wall: The changing face of autism diagnosis and treatment"
AI is reshaping diagnosis of autism, making it quicker, less expensive and more accurate. As a result, interventions are coming earlier in life, a key to more effective treatment.
The current process for diagnosing autism requires no less than 10 hours of intensive doctor-to-patient observation.
It is expensive and time-consuming, says autism expert Dennis Wall, an associate professor of pediatrics and of biomedical data science at Stanford. Wall is developing new ways to tackle the problem.
He says advances in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence focused on training computers to perform important medical tasks, stand to shake up the field. He’s developing computer models that can spot autism by watching just a few minutes of video of a child at play in their natural home environment.
With these technologies, diagnosis happens in as little as four minutes. In addition, Wall says, scoring can be done by non-experts, rather than highly trained psychiatrists, lowering the costs further. He thinks such AI models could reduce bottlenecks and get kids with autism into treatment sooner, a key to maximizing the treatment’s effect.
Beyond diagnosis, Wall says that digital technologies together with AI are also changing therapeutics. For example, he’s developing augmented reality applications, one for Google Glass, that can help autistic kids better recognize and learn emotional cues – anger, joy, sadness – in the faces of others, a particular challenge for those with autism. Another that goes beyond the wearable form factor to even more ubiquitous technologies – your phone – is an app that can teach social skills through fun but poignant AI-enabled games, such as charades, where imitation advances the child’s social skills as the AI engine tracks progress automatically.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Football Powerhouse Andrew Luck Discusses His Life and Career"
From growing up as a child in Germany to choosing to attend Stanford University, this football great talks about his Stanford days, reveals some of his favorite memories on and off the football field, and discusses his bright future with the NFL.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 9, 2019. Will re-air with a fresh preface mentioning his retirement on September 7, 2019.
Recorded at SiriusXM in New York City.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Xiaolin Zheng: New benefits of combustion revealed"
Humankind has prospered greatly from fire, but that doesn’t mean we know all its secrets.
Mechanical engineer Xiaolin Zheng really likes to burn things, but she is more like a modern-day Prometheus than a pyromaniac. She uses combustion to create minute nanoparticles of various metal oxides that have many practical and valuable uses in today’s world.
For instance, she has created nanoparticles that can turn water into hydrogen peroxide using only energy from the sun. Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful disinfectant that kills microbes and removes other pollutants from water. Zheng imagines creating inexpensive, portable, solar-powered water purifiers to help the two to three billion people in the world who lack access to plentiful potable water.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 9, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The Intersection of Language and Race with guest Jonathan Rosa"
Jonathan Rosa is a linguistic anthropologist and an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He discusses how language and race intersect, and how teachers can approach these language differences in the classroom.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 2, 2019.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Billy Loo: “FLASH” radiation therapy brings hope to cancer patients"
This technology aims to eliminate cancer while minimizing collateral damage to surrounding healthy organs.
Stanford radiation oncologist, Billy Loo, says that a new generation of radiation therapy technology called PHASER will be so fast that it can even compensate for the patient moving during treatment.
High-energy X-rays will be fired so quickly, like a flash photograph, that motion is frozen and radiation can be more precisely focused on tumors. His research team is also finding that such ultra-fast “FLASH” radiation kills cancer cells through new biological mechanisms while causing less damage to healthy tissues.
Loo says that while radiation benefits two-thirds of U.S. patients, half of patients with cancer around the world lack access to these curative technologies. To address issues of access, the Stanford Radiation Oncology and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory team is designing PHASER to be a mobile unit that will fit in a standard cargo shipping container and can be powered by solar energy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Constructive Vigilance with Larry Diamond"
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discusses his recent report, “Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance,” and the compelling conclusion it draws about China’s manipulation attempts in the United States
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Londa Schiebinger: Why does gender matter?"
From designing research to setting priorities for funding decisions and drafting policy, understanding gender differences enhances all phases of scientific research.
In safety engineering, ergonomic differences between men and women are important. Conventional seat belts do not fit pregnant women properly and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of fetal death related to maternal trauma. Analyses of sex differences have led to the development of pregnant crash test dummies that enhance safety in automobile testing and design.
In medicine, osteoporosis has been conceptualized primarily as a women's disease, yet after a certain age men account for nearly a third of osteoporosis-related hip fractures. Tragically, when men break their hips, they tend to die. We don't know why. Analyzing the interaction between sex and gender in osteoporosis has led to new diagnostics for men, and the search for better treatments is underway.
In these and many other cases, historian Londa Schiebinger points out that if we don't consider sex or gender analysis, past bias may be perpetuated into the future, even when governments, universities and companies have implemented policies to foster equality.
The big question now, she says, is: How can humans automate processes that also contribute to creating a fair and equal society? Schiebinger highlights examples of efforts where computer scientists are working to create mathematically rigorous definitions of fairness in order to develop and optimize algorithms that guarantee fairness. There is much work to be done, but as Scheibinger sees it, there is a big opportunity for these algorithms as well as the robotic systems they will enable to challenge and eventually reconfigure gender norms.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on Febrary 23, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning Differences with guest Elizabeth Kozleski"
Elizabeth Kozleski is a Dean’s Senior Scholar for Teaching and Learning at Stanford Graduate School of Education. She discusses inclusiveness, learning differences and how children are tracked into special education classrooms.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 16, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Global Effort to Educate Girls with guest Kathryn Moeller"
Kathryn Moeller is a visiting scholar at the Lemann Center at Stanford Graduate School of Education. She is the author of the 2018 book, The Gender Effect: Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development. She discusses the global effort to educate girls and women, and how empowerment programs are sometimes based on questionable evidence.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 16, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Gene-edited Babies with guest Hank Greely"
Hank Greely, an expert in ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, discusses gene-edited babies and DNA testing on this episode of Stanford Legal.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 16, 2019
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Doing Business with China"
How has China managed to grow in the world economy? Stanford Law Professor Curtis Milhaupt, an expert in Asian legal systems and state capitalism, discusses his research into Chinese state-owned businesses -- and the implications the Chinese planned economy has for policy makers in the U.S.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 16, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Robert Reich: Is it time to rethink philanthropy?"
Philanthropy is often driven by the idiosyncratic pet notions of the very rich. It is an exercise of power that deserves our scrutiny, not our automatic gratitude.
Why do well-off public schools often demand that parents supplement school programs with personal contributions? Why do many rare diseases receive the lion’s share of donor attention and money? Is basic science being driven by the whims of big donors?
These are questions that keep Stanford political philosopher Rob Reich up at night. Reich says that philanthropy is at an ethical crossroads in which the heart often leads the head in determining which causes get showered with money while other, perhaps more deserving, ones go without.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 9, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Disrupting Group Healthcare with guest Ali Diab"
Ali Diab, co-founder of Collective Health, a company which works to find new ways to address the intractable problem of rising healthcare costs, explains why he believes every CEO in America is in the healthcare business, and how to balance the needs of companies and employees.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 9, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Rights of Immigrants with guest Katrina Eiland"
Katrina Eiland, staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants’ Rights Project, discusses the Trump administration's termination of DACA, and family separation policy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 2, 2019.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Democracy on the Ballot with guest Nate Persily"
Voting law expert Nate Persily discusses gerrymandering, the 2018 midterms and the 2020 census.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 2, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Carlos Bustamante: Genomics has a diversity problem"
A geneticist explains how the relatively young science of genomics has the potential to reveal the mysteries of the living world, but first it has to be more inclusive.
Carlos Bustamante is an expert in genomics—the study of genetic variation and its effects on the living world. He says genomics holds tremendous promise but, so far, virtually all sequenced DNA comes from European blood lines and this presents a problem.
Without greater diversity in the genomic data that is collected, he notes that we cannot fully reap the benefits of this knowledge, particularly in areas such as healthcare.
"Genomics is the new oil," Bustamante says, of the opportunities that lie ahead. It's being used for everything from studying rare diseases to developing more effective drugs. Before its potential can be fully realized,however, genomics will have to address its diversity problem. The more genetic variants that are represented in the genomic data collected, the better equipped we'll be to understand and improve human health.
Originally aired on January 26, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Toomas Ilves: Lessons in digital democracy from Estonia"
The former president of Estonia discusses how a small Baltic state became a world leader in digitization of everything from voting to medicine.
Of the many nations that have implemented some measure of digital democracy, none perhaps has had more success than Estonia. Toomas Ilves, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, would know: He served as president of the Baltic state for two terms. Ilves says that all Estonians have verifiable digital identities and they use them to vote, sign legal documents, order prescription medication, file taxes and more online.
Estonian digitization began with schools and banking in the 1990s. Online voting followed in the early 2000s. Today, a third of Estonians vote online. Faith in the system is high, Ilves says. The country has a single voter registry and voters can confirm – and even change – their votes right up to the deadline. Estonia’s latest effort is a comprehensive genome project that will fuel a new era of personalized medicine.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 26, 2019.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf "Giving Better with guest Rob Reich"
Rob Reich, professor of political science at Stanford and author of "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better.”, explains how the current laws and policies that structure philanthropic activity tend to favor the interests of wealthy individuals.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 26, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Wildfire Issues with guest Buzz Thompson"
Is climate change to blame for recent natural disasters like California’s Camp Fire? Will law and policy make the appropriate adjustments to protect lives and property? Buzz Thompson, an expert in water and natural resources law shares his expertise on the issue.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning, Design, and Technology with guest Karin Forsell"
Karin Forsell, director of the Learning, design, and technology master’s program, discusses some of the ways in which students and teachers are making the most of technology in the classroom.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Improving Education from the Inside with guest Heather Hough"
Policy Analysis for California Education executive director Heather Hough talks about the value of arming local officials with the best information to make great decisions when it comes to improving schools.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Climate Change and the Law with guest Tom Heller"
Stanford Law Professor Tom Heller, faculty director of the new Sustainable Finance Initiative at Stanford, discusses the legal and financial challenges in the effort to solve climate change.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 19, 2019.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Alex Stamos: How do we preserve free speech in the era of fake news?"
It’s nothing we haven’t already heard – the news you read is being shaped by the ubiquitous presence of social media. So-called “fake news” spread by bots and social media may continue to influence American elections and, ultimately, democracy.
Alex Stamos, the former chief security officer at Facebook and an adjunct professor with Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, explained at a recent live taping of “The Future of Everything” that the emergence of social media has made everyone a potential publisher. “We will never go back to the era in which a small number of people control the flow of information,” Stamos says.
While social media can be credited with democratizing the dissemination of information, these platforms have also become a hotbed of false and misleading content spread by domestic and foreign actors. Solving the “fake news” problem is extremely difficult, Stamos explains. “It turns out that regulating social media actually means asking social media companies to regulate people’s freedom of speech.” The danger here, Stamos emphasizes, is that this regulation will be done in a way that benefits the short-term interests of a company and does not uphold basic human rights.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 15, 2018.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Adina Sterling: How will artificial intelligence change hiring?"
New technologies help bring increased efficiency to the hiring process, but also pose significant challenges.
The next job search you conduct will likely be shaped by artificial intelligence. In the age of LinkedIn and Monster.com, job hunters can count on their resumes being screened by non-human intelligence. So what does this mean for the future of hiring?
At a recent live taping of the Stanford School of Engineering podcast “The Future of Everything,” Adina Sterling, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business who studies labor markets, said that roughly three-quarters of the job applications received by major companies will be touched in some way by artificial intelligence. Because these hiring bots look for very specific criteria, qualified applicants may be screened out early in the process if their resumes don’t contain “the right buzzwords to get through the filters. It’s just as likely today as it was 20 years ago that a diamond in the rough will be overlooked,” she said.
While the use of artificial intelligence allows for gains in efficiency for both job seekers and potential employees, there is the danger that AI algorithms will embody and perpetuate existing bias. Sterling noted that she has been encouraged to see that companies are moving with a lot of caution in the area of AI and hiring. There is a recognition that machines can’t do this work on their own and that, at a minimum, a supervised AI hiring process is necessary.
Originally aired on SirusXM on December 15, 2018.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Launching Students to Adulthood with guest Abby Falik"
Global Citizen Year founder and CEO Abby Falik discusses the importance of taking a year off between college and high school to work on projects in a non-classroom environment. Many call it taking a gap year, but she explains why it should be called a launch year.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 15, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Religious Liberty in the Workplace with guests Jim Sonne and Liz Klein"
Jim Sonne, professor of law and founding director of the Religious Liberty Clinic at Stanford, and law student Liz Klein discuss the constitutional right of religious liberty and how that sometimes clashes with workplace rules.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 8, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Barriers to Voting with guest Rabia Belt"
During each election, people with disabilities across the country face hurdles to casting their votes while thousands of formerly-incarcerated citizens are barred completely from this essential democratic act. Assistant Professor of Law Rabia Belt discusses voting rights for people with disabilities and the formerly incarcerated.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 8, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Seeing Around Corners with guest Ann Miura-Ko"
Floodgate co-founder Ann Miura-Ko discusses the challenges of building a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. The self proclaimed investment ninja talks about some of the investments that helped build her reputation as one of the most powerful women in start-ups and what makes up the DNA of a great entrepreneur.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 1, 2018.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Greg Beroza: Data helps prepare us for ‘The Big One’"
Data is reshaping our knowledge about many things, including earthquakes: how we measure them, what causes them and how we can better prepare for them.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Rapping with guest KFlay"
Stanford grad and hip hop artist KFlay talks about her interest in words and lyrics, her disdain for the music on the radio, and how a budding interest in college lead her to her career in music.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 17, 2018.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Anne Kiremidjian: Cities built to endure disaster"
Wind, water and quakes can destroy years of valuable development in an instant, but there are ways to build more resilient cities.
Episode Notes Like clockwork, every time a large natural disaster hits and wipes out billions in built infrastructure, public officials, developers and private citizens cry, “never again.”
And every time, equally like clockwork, very little gets done, says Stanford civil engineer Anne Kiremidjian, one of the world’s foremost authorities on constructing buildings that can withstand major natural disasters.
She says there are technologies available that could move us toward stronger, safer buildings, but a lack of political and economic will is holding us back. What’s needed, Kiremidjian says, is the culture of resilience that has helped certain major metropolitan areas bounce back from disaster stronger than ever. That spirit is lacking in other cities and the result is months or even years of recovery. Join host Russ Altman and civil engineer Anne Kiremidjian for a look inside cities that are built to last.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: The Supreme Court after Kennedy (part 1) with guest Dahlia Lithwick
Dahlia Lithwick, JD ’96, senior editor for Slate, joins co-hosts Pam Karlan and Joe Bankman for a lively discussion about reporting on the Supreme Court and changes to it after Justice Kennedy’s retirement.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 10, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman:
The Supreme Court after Kennedy (part 1) with guest Dahlia Lithwick
Dahlia Lithwick, JD ’96, senior editor for Slate, joins co-hosts Pam Karlan and Joe Bankman for a lively discussion about reporting on the Supreme Court and changes to it after Justice Kennedy’s retirement.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 10, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "A Diversity of Success with guest Miriam Rivera"
Ulu Ventures’ Miriam Rivera talks about her journey from discovering her passion for education, to finding her home in the Bay Area, and making waves as managing partner of one of Silicon Valley’s most diverse venture capital firms.
Originally aired on November 3, 2018, on SiriusXM
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Nigam Shah: Artificial Intelligence transforms health care"
Data analytics is revolutionizing health care – quietly, pervasively and in some surprising ways.
In hospitals across the world, the unmet need for end-of-life palliative care threatens to overwhelm the few doctors who are equipped to adequately provide counseling that can help patients die on their own terms. There are just too many patients and too few doctors.
Stanford’s Nigam Shah, an expert in medical informatics, says that such scenarios may soon become a thing of the past. Artificial intelligence, founded on tens-of-thousands of data points gathered from millions of patients, is flipping such age-old scripts to change how and with whom care conversations happen. It is but one example of the many ways AI is reshaping medicine, but these major advances are not without ethical concerns, Shah says.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Paul Oyer: Where, exactly, is the gig economy taking us?"
In a search for answers, an economist embedded himself as an Uber driver.
Oyer says lessons from the gig economy hold deep lessons for the job market for more traditional jobs. Uber’s surge pricing, for instance, is more than a payment structure – it entices Uber drivers to work odd hours or at times of peak demand. He says Uber is constantly reworking its payment structure to ensure that the company and its drivers’ interests are aligned to reduce workforce turnover.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Conformity and Self-Censorship on College Campuses with Greg Lukianoff"
Free speech advocate and FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff, discusses issues of conformity and self-censorship on college campuses, and his recently-published book, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” co-written with Jonathan Haidt.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 27, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Acquiring Language with guest Mike Frank"
Stanford Professor of Cognitive Psychology Mike Frank discusses research on how children learn language and develop speech skills. He shares some tips on what parents and educators can do to provide kids with an excellent environment for learning and understanding language.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 27, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The Business of Basketball with guest Joe Lacob"
Owner and CEO of the Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob talks about how his experience as a venture capitalist informed his success in running the NBA’s current dynasty. Lacob discusses the building of the organization, his decision to move the team to a new arena in San Francisco, and what he expects out of the Warriors as they begin the 2018-2019 season.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 20, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jayodita Sanghvi and Grace Tang: Big data meets big business"
Jayodita Sanghvi is director of data science at Grand Rounds, a startup that connects members to high-quality health care. Grace Tang is a data scientist at LinkedIn. Both are alumnae of Stanford bioengineering.
While the connection between big data and bioengineering may not be readily apparent, Sanghvi and Tang say that the connection couldn’t be more clear or timely than right now when big data is now firmly entrenched in big business.
From applications that help diagnose and guide people to relevant care to programs that suss out bad actors on social media, the challenges of harnessing big data and the consequences of incorrect or improper use are raising important questions for those charged with making big data work. The challenges range from finding correct answers in messy or missing data to the deep ethical and privacy dilemmas inherent in the breadth and quantity of information available today.
Join host Russ Altman and big data experts Jayodita Sanghvi and Grace Tang for a deeper look into the challenges arising when big data meets big business.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 20, 2018.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Alison Marsden: Computer models could transform cardiovascular surgery"
Imagine being born with just half a heart.
Alison Marsden does, pretty much every day. She is an associate professor of pediatrics specializing in cardiology and also of bioengineering. She works with children born with such dire defects.
Fortunately for those kids, Marsden is also an expert in computational modeling of cardiovascular system and developer of SimVascular, software that helps surgeons simulate surgeries on the computer without risk to living patients. The software provides researchers and surgeons a way to propose novel surgical procedures and then simulate the resulting blood flow patterns in order to better understand the potential for a successful outcome.
Join host Russ Altman and Alison Marsden for an exploration of the many ways computer simulations are making heart surgery more effective and more personal than ever before.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 20, 2018.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Bad Blood and Silicon Valley Startup Culture with guest John Carreyrou"
John Carreyrou, author of best-selling book “Bad Blood,” joins Pam and Joe for a discussion about Silicon Valley excesses, the downfall of VC darling Theranos, and its charismatic founder Elizabeth Holmes.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 13, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Mental Health Challenges for Lawyers & Law Students w/ guest Kathryne Young"
Kathryne Young, assistant professor of sociology at Amherst and author of "How to Be (Sort Of) Happy in Law School,” joins Pam and Joe to discuss the mental health challenges of high-pressure careers like law and shares tips that law students and others can use to improve their mental well being in school, on the job, and in life.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 13, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Taking the Stress Out of College Selection with Denise Pope"
Dan Schwartz, Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean, talks with his co-host, Senior Lecturer Denise Pope, about college rankings, how they are determined, and whether it is important to choose a school that is high on one of the many lists create college hierarchies.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 13, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Tackling Concussions in School Sports w/ guests Shelley Goldman & Piya Sorcar"
Shelley Goldman, Associate Dean for Faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Piya Sorcar, CEO of the nonprofit TeachAIDS, tell us about concussions during school sports, how to identify them, and talking to students about understanding and reporting concussions.
Originally aired October 13, 2018, on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Workplace Activism with guest Lily Zheng"
Author, consultant, and activist Lily Zheng talks about some of the successes and hardships that the trans community is facing in corporate America. Lilly shares some of the surprising findings she experienced while researching her book, “Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace: Transgender and Gender-Diverse Discrimination”.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 6, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Annelise Barron: The battle against Alzheimer’s is reinvigorated"
Fresh insights into Alzheimer’s are giving researchers renewed confidence that better treatments are just around the corner.
Episode Notes While Alzheimer’s disease has cut short too many lives and devastated more families than can be counted, its root causes and effective treatments have eluded researchers for decades.
But, says Stanford bioengineer Annelise Barron, new science indicates that many Alzheimer’s cases are coincident with viral or bacterial infections in the brain, pointing to possible new approaches to treatment or prevention.
Originally aired on October 6, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Challenges for Native Schools with guest Teresa LaFromboise"
Teresa LaFromboise, Professor of Development and Psychological Science at Stanford, talks about the challenges facing schools with a predominantly Native American population and how those communities are addressing those problems.
Originally aired September 29, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Marshall Burke: The impact of climate change on human behavior"
Obscured behind the better-known impacts of climate change are a host of potentially more serious effects global leaders have yet to reckon with.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 22, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Riana Pfefferkorn: How are the boundaries of digital privacy shifting?"
The growing power and prevalence of smart devices are reshaping the definition of personal privacy in the digital age.
Episode Notes Riana Pfefferkorn is a digital security expert and Cryptography Fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. She says that we are living in the “Golden Age of Surveillance,” in which the growing ubiquity of data-rich smart devices has produced a fundamental tension between the rights of users to protect their personal data and the needs of law enforcement to investigate or prevent serious crimes.
She says draft legislation in Australia could have major privacy and security implications across the globe, including in the United States. If passed, the bill would require tech companies that do business in Australia to design their devices (such as smartphones) and communications services (such as encrypted messaging apps) to include digital backdoors allowing law enforcement to access data. The bill is raising concerns among privacy and computer security experts who argue that, in the wrong hands, such backdoors could lead to troubling breeches of personal privacy and data security.
Join host Russ Altman and guest privacy expert Riana Pfefferkorn for a glimpse into the future of digital privacy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 22, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Changing Banking with Cryptocurrency and Blockchain with guest Chris Larsen"
Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen talks about the promise of XRP and other cryptocurrencies and how blockchain technology will change the way we do business.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 22, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The Politics of Textbooks with guest Francisco Ramirez"
Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Francisco Ramirez tells us about the politics behind textbooks and how changes in textbooks reflect a national outlook.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 15, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Back to High School with guest Amika Guillaume"
East Palo Alto Academy High School Principal Amika Guillaume gives us insight into the daily life of a principal. She also discusses some of the challenges in helping first generation students get into college and the importance of professional development for teachers aiming to improve education outcomes.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 15, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Regulating Cryptocurrencies w/ guests Brad Garlinghouse & Joe Grundfest"
What are cryptocurrencies? Should they be regulated? How much? Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Professor Joe Grundfest answer these questions and more in this episode of Stanford Legal.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 15, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Fighting Opioids/Addiction in the Courts w/ guests Nora Freeman Engstrom & Michelle Mello"
An estimated 510,000 people will die over the next decade from opioid-related causes. Should the companies that make and distribute the drugs be held liable? Professors Michelle Mello and Nora Freeman Engstrom share their thoughts on an issue that is increasingly ending up in our courts.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 15, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Balaji Prabhakar: Can digital incentives help alleviate traffic?"
Researchers are reducing traffic congestion and commute times using networks that gently nudge people toward better travel habits.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 8, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Earning a spot on the bench with guest Goodwin Liu"
California Supreme Court Associate Justice Goodwin Liu discusses his ascension to the highest court of our nation’s largest state. From his upbringing as the son of immigrant parents in Sacramento, to his education, to clerking for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and what it is like to go through a confirmation process.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 8, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "David Magnus: How will artificial intelligence impact medical ethics?"
In recent years, the explosion of artificial intelligence in medicine has yielded an increase in hope for patient outcomes, balanced by an equal concern for ethical implications.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 8, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Legal Advice for Temperamental CEOs w/ guests Joe Grundfest & Michael Callahan"
Stanford Law Professor Joe Grundfest and Michael Callahan, former GC of Yahoo! and LinkedIn, discuss the legal issues arising from America’s changing corporate culture where it is easier for CEO’s to speak off the cuff and take to social media without the knowledge of their lawyers-- sometimes to the detriment of their companies.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 1, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Dress Codes, Style, and the Law with guest Richard Thompson Ford"
Can an employer force women to wear makeup and tell them what to wear? Do we have the right to style our hair as we pleased for work? Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford explains the relationship between dress codes, style, law, and bias-- and whether the courts are ready to address the issue.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 1, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning Math skills for Life with guest Keith Devlin"
Stanford Mathematician and NPR Weekend Edition “Math Guy” Keith Devlin talks about how learning math in the classroom is evolving and why it is more important for students to understand math concepts than it is to repeatedly solve equations.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 1, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Unlocking Your Creative Potential with guest Tina Seelig"
Tina Seelig, Professor of the Practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program discusses creativity, problem solving, and the importance of reframing the question to come up with the best solution to a problem. Her recent TED Talk on risks and luck is available now: https://tinyurl.com/y8eg4k94
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 25, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Common Core and Setting Standards with guest Kenji Hakuta"
Kenji Hakuta, Professor Emeritus with the Graduate School of Education, talks about how the Common Core educational standards were set and why standards exist in the first place.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 18, 2018.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Getting Ready for School with Guest Ira Lit"
Ira Lit, Director of Stanford’s Elementary Teacher Education Program, discusses how parents can prepare their kids for school and some of the ways teachers can prepare to meet the needs of their students.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 18, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Appreciating young adult literature with guest Jennifer Wolf "
Jennifer Wolf, Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education discusses young adult literature, banned books, and whether or not it is easy to find the next big hit in the genre that spawned recent classics like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 4, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Eroding union rights with guest William B. Gould IV"
Stanford Law Professor Emeritus William B. Gould IV talks about the recent Supreme Court decision that hinders the ability of unions to collect dues from their members.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 4, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Planning Your Education with guest Mitchell Stevens"
Mitchell Stevens, Associate Professor with the Graduate School of Education, shares his expertise on college path planning and how the use of a web based tool called Carta is helping students plan their college course trajectory.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 4, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Dan Boneh: Still in early days, Blockchain is rich with possibility"
Digital security expert Dan Boneh offers a primer on blockchain, the much-talked-about foundation for Bitcoin and other next-gen apps.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Gopi Shah Goda: You’re probably not saving enough for retirement "
On the Future of Everything radio show, economist Gopi Shah Goda says few Americans are, and fewer still know what to do about it.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Improving education Across America with guest Linda Darling-Hammond"
Linda Darling-Hammond, President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute and Professor Emeritus at Stanford, shares her top five suggestions to improve America’s schools and prepare students to compete for 21st century jobs.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Legacy of Justice Anthony Kennedy with guest Jeff Fisher"
Stanford law professor and co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic Jeff Fisher discusses the career of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, his legacy, and the potential for many of his centrist decisions to be undone by the next court.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Religion, Schools, and Learning with guest Ari Kelman"
Ari Kelman, the Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education discusses religion in schools, the sense of belonging faith creates, and how people learn about religion following an epiphany.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Cities for Workers with guest Michelle Wilde Anderson"
Stanford Law School Professor Michelle Wilde Anderson discusses her research into concentrated rural and urban poverty, which has taken her across the country to the many “dying” communities that no longer have a base of middle-class jobs. Here, she shares her view of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, the impact on urban areas, and families and how we as a nation might help to solve this growing challenge.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jeffrey Pfeffer: Your job is killing you"
On the Future of Everything radio show, a professor of organizational behavior discusses what's gone wrong at the workplace … and what we can do about it.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 14, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman" "Sarah Billington: How we shape our buildings — and how they shape us "
A professor of civil and environmental engineering discusses the relationship between built spaces and human well-being.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 14, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Identifying & Treating Mental Illness in our Schools w/ guest Shashank Joshi"
Dr. Shashank Joshi, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral sciences, discusses how schools are tackling mental health issues and how teachers and school staff are being trained to identify at risk students.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 7, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Funding Schools with guest Mike Kirst"
California State Board of Education President and Stanford Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration, Mike Kirst shares his insights on how schools are funded and why they are financed that way.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 7, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Purging Voter Rolls with guest Nathaniel Persily"
Stanford Law Professor Nathaniel Persily discusses important recent Supreme Court decisions on voting rights including one that allows Ohio to take the names of certain voters off its roles. Will this and other decisions impact one party’s voters disproportionately?
Originally aired on SiriusXm on July 7, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Anna Grzymala-Busse: Lessons from the rise of global populism"
Russ Altman and political scientist Anna Grzymala-Busse examine populism’s roots — and how to prevent its worst tendencies
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 30, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Controversial Wedding Cakes with guest Pam Karlan"
Stanford Law Professor and Stanford Legal co-host Pam Karlan discusses the Supreme Court’s decision to side with a Colorado cake shop owner who denied service to a gay couple who wanted him to bake a cake for their wedding.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 23, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Working on Peace with North Korea w/ guests Allen Weiner & Scott Sagan"
Allen Weiner, Director of the Stanford Program on International and Comparative Law, and Scott Sagan, Political Science Professor at Stanford and Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, talk about the nuclear summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and whether the agreement they hashed out will lead to a decline in tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 23, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The future of collegiate athletics with guest Ken Shropshire"
Global Sport Institute CEO and adidas Distinguished Professor of Global Sport at Arizona State University, Ken Shropshire discusses the current state of college athletics and changes that need to be implemented to ensure that athletes get the most out of their college experience.
Originally aired June 16, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Anna Lembke: How do we fight the disease of addiction? "
Stanford medical doctors Russ Altman and Anna Lembke discuss the rise of the opioid crisis and new ways the medical profession is fighting all forms of addiction
Originally aired June 16, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Andrew Grotto: Combating cyberthreats in the age of the cloud "
Host Russ Altman and security expert Andrew Grotto explore the growing risks and responses to international cyberattack.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 16, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Making sense of tribal sovereignty w/ guests Gregory Ablavsky & Jared Crum"
Stanford Law Professor Gregory Ablavsky, an instructor with Stanford’s Native American Amicus Brief Project and law student Jared Crum, president of Stanford’s Native American Law Student Association; discuss their work with tribal court systems, legal issues related to tribal sovereignty, and why that sovereignty exists.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 9, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The birth & growth of American colleges w/ guest David Labaree"
Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor David Labaree gives us a historical perspective how and why America’s college and university systems developed from the Pre-Revolutionary War times into the present.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 9, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf" "Redefining What It Means to be an Elder w/ guest Chip Conley"
Entrepreneur and author Chip conley talks about his journey from hotelier to Airbnb and his quest to help business leaders rethink the value of elders in the workforce. His new book, “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” is due out later this year.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on June 2, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Martha Crenshaw: Fighting terrorism in the age of social media "
A look at the evolution of extremism in the era of instantaneous global communication.
Originally aired on Jun 2, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Strategies for Making Teacher Professional Development Work w/ Janet Carlson"
Janet Carlson, Associate Professor with Stanford's Graduate School of Education, talks about her work to improve education in the classroom through professional development offerings for teachers.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 26, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Educating the Whole Child w/ Jim Shelton of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative"
Jim Shelton, head of the education arm of the Chan-Zuckerberg initiative, discusses that organization's efforts to improve education through smart investment.
Originally aired on May 26, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The First Amendment on Campus with guest Michael McConnell"
Law professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford, Michael McConnell talks about the First Amendment and where it begins and ends on different types of college campuses.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 26, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The legality of Truth Detection w/ guests Hank Greely & Bob Weisberg"
Stanford Law professors Hank Greely and Bob Weisberg discuss advances in truth detecting technology and how those technologies intersect with the legal system and societal ethics now and in the not too distant future.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 26, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Preparing Students for the Future with guest Keith Coleman"
A conversation with Keith Coleman, Chief Strategy Officer at the Tesla Foundation, a science and tech think tank dealing with autonomous innovations in our culture.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 12, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Maya Rossin-Slater: Health policy and its impact on families"
On ‘The Future of Everything’ radio show and podcast, two Stanford professors discuss how public policy decisions affect families and how the poor may be especially vulnerable.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 19, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Fred Turner: The 60s counterculture roots of today’s social networks "
A Stanford professor of communication, Turner explains how the Utopian ideals born in 1960s communes made today’s Silicon Valley possible.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 19, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Real American" with guest Julie Lythcott-Haims
This week on Pathfinders we talk to Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of “Real American,” a memoir about growing up bi-racial in America.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 19, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "What is Service Learning? with guest Thomas Schnaubelt"
Thomas Schnaubelt, the executive director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford, explains how service learning differs from community service, and what benefits students get from combing service and scholarship.
Originally aired on May 12, 2018, on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jeremy Bailenson: Taking a grand tour of the latest in virtual reality"
What’s next in VR? Jeremy Bailenson and Russ Altman discuss the fast-growing field in this episode of the Future of Everything radio show.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 5, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Sarah Heilshorn: Building replacement parts for the human body"
Stanford professors Russ Altman and Sarah Heilshorn discuss the promise and the complexities of engineering new tissues to replace damaged parts of the human body.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 5, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Keeping Up w/ the Changing Face of America w/ guest Tristan Walker"
Walker and Company CEO Tristan Walker talks about the ambitions that lead him from humble beginnings to becoming the founder of a company that’s poised to change the way health and beauty products are created, marketed, and sold.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 5, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Where Global Education Rankings Get It Wrong w/ Martin Carnoy"
Stanford Professor Martin Carnoy says international rankings can mislead the public into believing that America has a terrible education system. Carnoy explains how to understand the rankings, including what to believe and what to be skeptical about.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Baby Talk: How Kids Learn Language with Anne Fernald"
Stanford Professor Anne Fernald, a developmental psychologist who directs the Language Learning Lab at the University, explains why it's important to talk to your kids, even when they are infants. Fernald's research shows that babies who are spoken to in an engaging and nurturing way tend to develop faster word processing skills, which helps their development more generally.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Coming to America with guests Matt Ball & Qismat Amin"
Stanford Law School student and Afghanistan War Veteran Matt Ball developed a friendship with Afghan native and translator Qismat Amin. The two describe meeting and working together in Afghanistan and how Qismat overcame legal obstacles and ISIS threats before finally arriving safely in the United States.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Artificial Intelligence & the Law w/ guests Mark Lemley & Michelle Lee"
Stanford law professor and Director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, Mark Lemley and visiting law professor Michelle Lee join Pam and Joe for a discussion on some of the legal issues that are likely to arise as Artificial intelligence becomes an integral part of our daily lives.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 28, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Roz Naylor: Changing how — and what — the world eats"
The challenge of feeding a growing planet is on the table as food security expert Roz Naylor and host Russ Altman discuss the rapidly changing landscape of agriculture.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Combating Workplace Harassment with guest Gretchen Carlson"
Author and Television commentator Gretchen Carlson discusses her role as a vocal proponent of the #MeToo movement and how men can be allies in the effort to shut down sexual harassment. The current executive chairwoman of the Miss America pageant also talks about how she intends to change the competition. Her new book, “Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back” is available now.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Michal Kosinski: Living in a post-privacy world"
Algorithms that dig into our digital lives to predict behavior have become a hot topic. Michal Kosinski talks about the pros and cons of life in a hyper-connected world
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 21, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "States Rights w/ guests Ed Dumont, Debbie Sivas, & David Freeman Engstrom"
California Solicitor General Ed Dumont talks about the rise in blue state federalism and California’s role in defending the values of its citizens in the face of an increasingly difficult to work with federal government. Law professor and director of Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic, Debbie Sivas shares her expertise on what could be a federal-state standoff over California’s auto emissions standards. Stanford law professor and associate dean for strategic planning, David Freeman Engstrom talks about the extent at which states can create their own foreign policy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 14, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Trade wars with guest Alan Sykes"
Stanford Law professor and Director of the Masters Program in International Economic Law, Business and Policy Alan Sykes discusses the benefits and drawbacks of a trade war and what it would look like if President Trump decides to engage in one.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 14, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Craig Criddle: Redefining waste treatment
An environmental engineer looks at our aging waste-treatment infrastructure and explores how engineers are taking a different tack to the future of managing waste.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 7, 20181.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Michael Fischbach: Making sense of the gut biome"
Two bioengineers talk about why a better understanding of the relationship between humans and bacteria could be the future of medicine.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 7, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The State of Journalism & Democracy with guest Ted Koppel"
Veteran journalist and former host of ABC’s Nightline Ted Koppel shares his insights on how journalism has evolved over his career and the impact that has on producing an informed electorate.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 7, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning from the Outdoors with guest Nicole Ardoin"
Graduate School of Education and Woods Institute for the Environment Professor Nicole Ardoin discusses how learning about the outdoors and environment can have a positive impact on kids in the classroom and beyond.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 31, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "The impact of Nature Vs. Nurture on Learning w/ guest Benjamin Domingue"
Assistant Professor Benjamin Domingue joins Dan and Denise to talk about his research into the impact your genes might have on your education.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 31, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Inspiring the Next Generation of Leaders with guest Sylvia Acevedo"
This week on Stanford Pathfinders, Alumni Director and host Howard Wolf talks with CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, Sylvia Acevedo, about the impact being a Girl Scout had on her life, her career as a rocket propulsion scientist, and the Girl Scouts' emphasis on civics, math, technology and enterprise continues to shape America's girls into the leaders of tomorrow.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 24, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Paul Wise: Saving the children, on the frontlines of war
Stanford’s Paul Wise and Russ Altman discuss the challenges of bringing medical care to children in some of the world’s most war-torn regions
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 24, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Michael Bernstein: Welcome to the future of crowdsourcing"
On The Future of Everything radio show, a computer scientist explores the rise of automation, crowdsourcing communities and the ethical implications of the gig economy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 24, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Community Colleges as Pathways to Success with guest Deborah Budd"
Dr. Deborah Budd, chancellor of the San José-Evergreen Community College District, discusses the importance of community colleges in helping students build the educational and technical skills necessary to compete in an evolving economy
Originally aired on March 17, 2018, on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Transgender in School: New ways to Talk abt Sexuality & Gender w/ guest Inge Hansen"
Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Weiland Health Initiative at Stanford, Dr. Inge Hansen, shares her expertise on gender and sexuality and provides tips for how schools can meet the needs of all students.
Originally aired March 17, 2018 on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Building the Legal Foundation of Democracy w/ guests Erik Jensen & Sean Rosenberg"
Erik Jensen, director of Stanford’s Rule of Law program, is joined by Sean Rosenberg, JD/MBA student and West Point grad who served in Afghanistan, who works with Jensen in the Afghanistan Legal Ed Project designed to help nations deal with the challenges of building a new democratic system of government after experiencing periods of upheaval.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Figuring out what voters want with guest Jon Krosnick"
Jon Krosnick is a Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Communication, and Political Science at Stanford. Jon shares his work on what voters say they want in a politician and how they expect their elected officials to vote and behave while in office.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "What Unites Us with Professor Emeritus David Kennedy"
David Kennedy - Historian, faculty and Stanford citizen shares insights about where expertise in history meets love of country and the new film from Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice, American Creed
Originally aired March 10, 2018 on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope : "Ethics and Civic Engagement with guest Rob Reich"
Stanford Political Science Professor Rob Reich shares his thoughts on ethics in the classroom and what the school’s role should be in encouraging civic engagement.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Learning Language as a Social Construct w/ guest Guadalupe Valdes"
The Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education at Stanford, Guadalupe Valdes, discusses successful ways to help students improve English skills, learning a new language, and preparing them for a world where being bilingual will be a benefit in the workforce.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Talking About Guns with guest John Donohue III"
Stanford Law Professor John J. Donohue III joins us for a conversation about gun violence in America, and how the law is developing in the wake of mass shootings in Florida and Nevada.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Pushing Back Against Sexual Harassment w/ guests Emily Murphy & Deborah Rhode"
Emily Murphy, Stanford Law graduate and Associate Law Professor at UC Hastings, shares her story of harassment at the hands of former U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski. She also discusses what little protections law clerks have if they are harassed. Stanford Law professor and director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Deborah Rhode joins the conversation to discuss the recent wave of sexual harassment allegations and what people can do if they are harassed at work.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on March 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman : "Maneesh Agrawala: Artificial intelligence comes to multimedia"
Stanford professors Russ Altman and Maneesh Agrawala explore advances in media where AI handles the rough cut, and editing becomes like using word processors for images and sound.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 24, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Building New Body Parts with guest Sarah Heilshorn"
Sarah Heilshorn, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, tells us about tissue engineering and the science of creating new tissues to help the human body recover and regenerate more effectively.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 24, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Privacy and Body Cameras with guest Robert Weisberg"
Stanford Law Professor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center Robert Weisberg discusses how technology is changing the laws designed to protect you from police searches and the use of police body cameras.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Fake news w/ guests Nathaniel Persily & Deepa Seetharaman"
Stanford Law Professor Nathaniel Persily shares his expertise on American election law and what can be done to combat the Fake News problem. Reporter Deepa Seetharaman covers Facebook and other social media sites for The Wall Street Journal. She discusses some of her insights on how fabricated news stories are created and spread over online platforms.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Finding Purpose with guest Bill Damon"
Graduate School of Education Professor Bill Damon talks about the importance of purpose, how to find purpose, and harness it to achieve goals.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Getting into College with guest Richard Shaw"
Stanford Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw discusses the college admissions process and how it works.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 17, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman" "Manu Prakash: The physics of biology"
In this episode of The Future of Everything radio show, bioengineer Manu Prakash discusses how he uses physics to explore the way life functions at the microscopic level.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 10, 2018.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman : "Jennifer Cochran: Guided missiles target cancer"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Jennifer Cochran examine the “renaissance” in cancer treatment that uses biochemical “guided missiles” to target malignant cells in the body.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 10, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Everything You Wanted to know About Wine but Were Afraid to Ask w/ Wine Expert Mark Oldman"
Mark Oldman – Former internet entrepreneur and current wine expert and personality on everything you need to know about buying, drinking and enjoying wine… but were afraid to ask.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 10, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "How Stereotypes Can Impact School Performance w/ guest Claude Steele"
Stanford Emeritus Professor Claude Steele discusses stereotype threat, how preconceived notions can impact academic performance, and what students, parents and teachers can do to address the issues that arise because of it.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 3, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Thinking Creatively Using Design Learning w/ guest Shelley Goldman"
Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Shelley Goldman explains design learning and how it is being used in the classroom to encourage a more creative thinking process
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 3, 2017.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Enforcing Immigration Laws w/ guests Jayashri Srikantiah & Kavita Narayan"
Founding Director of Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and Professor of Law Jayashri Srikantiah joins Pam and Joe for a discussion about federal immigration enforcement and issues surrounding undocumented immigrants targeted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Kavita Narayan also shares her experiences working with the federal government as lead deputy county counsel for Santa Clara County, one of the nation's many sanctuary counties.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Helping Our Veterans w/ guests Stephen Manley & Joe Reed"
Should veterans who come home from combat and find themselves caught in the criminal justice system be offered special help? In this episode, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley, who has launched special treatment courts for veterans and the mentally ill, discuss the need for special courts that offer treatment options to veterans and the mentally ill, including help for substance abuse, trauma, and PTSD, with the aim of keeping them out of prison. Stanford Law student Joe Reed, himself a Marine who served two tours in Afghanistan and has studied Veterans Courts, joins the conversation.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on February 3, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf : "Silicon Valley and the Future of Tech with Google/Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat"
Ruth Porat – Silicon Valley business leader and CFO of Google/Alphabet on Google, the current state of affairs in Silicon Valley and what excites her about the future of technology.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 27, 2018.
Recorded by Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "David Relman: What dolphins can teach us about our own health"
On the Future of Everything radio show, an infectious disease expert discusses how the microbes in the sea mammal’s mouths help us understand our own relationship with bacteria.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 27, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Sanjay Basu: The power of healthy eating"
When humans roamed as hunters and gatherers, the ability to retain calories likely determined who lived and who died in times of famine.
Today, that evolutionary advantage may make us prone to diabetes.
Join host Russ Altman, professor of bioengineering, and guest Sanjay Basu, a foremost expert in disease prevention, for a broad-ranging discussion of what works, what doesn’t and what new approaches—including an emphasis on community gardens and healthier diets—are on the horizon as society battles this deadly disease.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 27, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Untangling the New Tax Bill with guest Joe Bankman"
Pam and Joe talk about the recently passed GOP tax law. Joe reveals who he thinks are the big winners and losers are and how individuals, corporations, and states are looking to reap maximum benefits.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 20, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Pushing Back Against Sexual Harassment w/ guests Emily Murphy & Deborah Rhode"
Emily Murphy, Stanford Law graduate and Associate Law Professor at UC Hastings, shares her story of harassment at the hands of former U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski. She also discusses what little protections law clerks have if they are harassed. Stanford Law professor and director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Deborah Rhode joins the conversation to discuss the recent wave of sexual harassment allegations and what people can do if they are harassed at work.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 20, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "US/Russia relations with former US ambassador Mike McFaul"
Mike McFaul – Current Stanford University professor and former US Ambassador to Russia on the state of U.S./Russia relations and why Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 13, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Checking up on Adolescent Health with guest Neville Golden"
Marron and Mary Elizabeth Kendrick Professor in Pediatrics, Dr. Neville Golden talks about adolescent health and doctors' roles in keeping parents informed about the health of their children.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 6, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope: "Supporting School Leaders with guest Gay Hoagland"
Gay Hoagland, the Stanford Graduate School of Education's Director of Leadership programs, discusses the importance of good leadership at schools, how students benefit, and what parents and teachers can do to support principals.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 6, 2018.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "The Sharing Economy with guests Nora Freeman Engstrom and Steve Siger"
Stanford Law Professor and Associate Dean of Curriculum, Nora Freeman Engstrom shares her expertise on tort law as it relates to the gig economy. Steve Siger, managing counsel at Thumbtack and a former attorney for Uber, talks about how companies are navigating the emerging sharing economy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 6.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Power of the Prosecutor with guest David Sklansky"
David Sklansky, law professor and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, discusses how prosecutors make decisions about which cases to pursue and what changes can be implemented for a more just criminal justice system.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on January 6.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Addressing Problems Facing the US w/ Progressive Political Activist Tom Steyer"
Tom Steyer – Former hedge fund manager and current progressive political activist, as well as founder of NextGen America, on his ideas for how to address the many problems facing the U.S.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 30, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman : "Arguing Before the Supreme Court with guest Jeffrey Fisher"
Law professor and co-director of Stanford's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic Jeffrey Fisher, shares his extensive experience arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, including what it is like to prepare for and present a case.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 23, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Trump's Travel Ban w/ guests Jayashri Srikantiah & Shirin Sinnar"
Law professor and founding director of Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Jayashri Srikantiah and Associate Professor Shirin Sinnar discuss the legal issues surrounding the Trump administrations multiple attempts at restricting travel from several mostly Muslim majority nations to the U.S.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 23, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "The Internet Revolutions of Yesterday & Today w/ Yahoo Founder Jerry Yang"
Jerry Yang –Yahoo founder, internet pioneer/entrepreneur and investor on what it was like to found a company at the beginning of the internet revolution, and where he sees opportunities today.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 16, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Web extra: Net neutrality with guest Barbara van Schewick"
Law School professor Barbara van Schewick discusses net neutrality as the FCC plans to vote on changing those rules.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope "Fostering Diversity in Computer Science w/ guest Allison Scott"
Kapor Center Chief Research Officer Allison Scott talks about her organization's drive to expand computer science classes to more schools.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 9, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope "Using Data to Measure School Effectiveness w/ guest Sean Reardon"
Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Sean Reardon shares how he is using big data from standardized test scores to measure the impact schools are having on learning.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 9, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Commercializing marijuana w/ guests Robert MacCoun & Hadley Ford"
Stanford Law Professor Robert MacCoun describes the legal future for recreational marijuana. Hadley Ford, CEO of iAnthus Capital, discusses the barriers to financing marijuana business ventures and bringing pot to market.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 9, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Stanford Legal with Pam Karlan & Joe Bankman: "Talking about guns with guest John Donohue III"
Stanford Law Professor John J. Donohue III joins us for a conversation about gun violence in America, and how the law is developing in the wake of mass shootings in Texas and Nevada and five years after the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings in Newtown, Connecticut
Originally aired on SiriusXM on December 9, 2017.
Stanford Pathfinders with Howard Wolf: "Building a Successful Business with Nike co-founder Phil Knight"
Phil Knight - Nike founder, entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist on the trials and tribulations in building a successful business.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 25, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Stanford Associate Professor Jelena Obradovic shares her discoveries on finding resiliencies in children, how kids respond to stress and what parents can do to help their children deal with stress.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 18, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Stanford Music Professor Mark Applebaum discusses the importance of discovering your own path when it comes to learning music.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 1, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Megan Palmer: How do we solve the security challenges in biotech?"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Megan Palmer explore the complex challenge of ensuring that our ever-growing ability to engineer biology is used only for positive purposes.
Originally aired on November 11, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Susanna Loeb, associate professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education, discusses Tips by Text, a program designed to help parents set aside time to engage their kids in learning activities.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 4, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope "Personalizing Education with guest Adam Carter"
Adam Carter, Chief Academic Officer at Summit Schools, shares how personalized learning is being designed to help students thrive and reinvigorate teachers.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 4, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Marco Pavone: How autonomy is shaping the future of space exploration"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Marco Pavone discuss how we can apply what we’ve learned about autonomous vehicles here on Earth to the mysterious reaches of space.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 28, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Audrey Shafer: Why Frankenstein still holds a mirror to modern science"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Audrey Shafer reflect on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and how it illuminates the moral and ethical challenges of modern science.
Episode Notes On the eve of the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, medical doctor and bioengineer Russ Altman and Stanford anesthesiologist Audrey Shafer reflect on the enduring relevance of the book many call the first science fiction novel.
From artificial intelligence to stem cells, climate change to organ transplantation, Frankenstein’s monster seems more relevant than ever before as a mirror on the moral and ethical implications of modern science and its creations.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 28, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Allison Okamura: Exploring the next big thing in modern robotics"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Allison Okamura discuss how touch, long one of the most overlooked of the five senses in engineering, is the next frontier in robotics.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 21, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Jenny Suckale: A Better Plan B for Managing Disasters"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Jenny Suckale explore how society can better prepare for a future with more frequent and more dangerous storms.
Episode Notes Living in quake-prone California, Russ Altman is no stranger to the impending threat of natural disaster, but watching a devastating hurricane season in full force, he's wondered whether there’s anything society can do to better prepare for — or even lessen— the impact of severe storms.
Geophysicist and engineer Jenny Suckale says that, while there is much we do not know about the future, there are ways we can work with — and not against — nature to defend ourselves from disaster. All it takes, she says, is a better Plan B.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 21, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Antero Garcia, Assistant Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and author of Good Reception: Teens, Teachers, and Mobile Media at Los Angeles High School shares some of the the benefits and pitfalls of technology in the classroom.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 14, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "David Lentink: What small birds teach us about the physics of flight"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and David Lentink discuss what engineers can learn about small aircraft design by studying the flight efficiency of birds
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 7, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Debbie Senesky: Developing electronics for the extremes of space"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Debbie Senesky discuss why silicon, the bedrock of terrestrial electronics, doesn't have the right stuff to help us explore hot spots like Venus.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 7, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Eamonn Callan talks about the importance of listening and trying to develop an understanding of people who you disagree with in order to build successful working relationships.
Originally aired on September 30, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Stanford Graduate School of Education Associate Professor Bryan Brown discusses the importance of communicating science to students and how the words you use can make a big difference for students trying to learn new scientific ideas.
Originally aired on September 30, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Thomas Dee, Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, talks about how to tell whether redshirting is the right thing to do for your kid.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 16, 2017.
Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Euan Ashley: Exploring a new age of medical diagnostics"
Stanford’s Russ Altman and Euan Ashley discuss wearable technology, data and the extraordinary challenges of undiagnosed disease.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 9, 2017.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Director of the Stanford Humanities Center Caroline Winterer talks about the importance of humanities education and why learning about the past is important for our collective future.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 2, 2017.
Schools In with Dan Schwartz & Denise Pope
Stanford Graduate School of Education Assistant Professor Sarah Levine discusses the importance of literature and why multiple choice exams aren't the best way to measure students' reading comprehension.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on September 2, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Kwabena Boahen: What does the next generation of computers look like?"
A professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering discusses the “neuromorphic computer” — the computer that acts a lot like the human brain.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 26, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Per Enge: How safe and secure is GPS?"
Getting lost seems to be a thing of the past. But who controls the satellite system the world relies on, what are the threats to the system and what can we do about it?
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 26, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Emmanuel Mignot: Sleep impacts our lives in ways we might not even recognize"
Getting a good night’s rest can be a struggle for many, yet it is critical to health. Bioengineer Russ Altman and psychiatrist Emmanuel Mignot discuss.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 19, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Amy Zegart: How vulnerable are we to cyber attacks?"
An international security expert assesses the growing risks at home and abroad.
In the Future of Everything radio show, Amy Zegart explains just how worried we need to be about cyber threats.
Among the threats: the security of our nation and the safety of our children. “The cyber threat landscape is changing at the speed of cyber,” she says. “And our responses are changing at the speed of government. So there's a velocity problem.”
Zegart, co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), is also the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and directs the Cyber Policy Program.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 19, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope
Philip Zimbardo, psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford, drops in for a conversation about bullying, overcoming shyness, and helping people in need.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 12, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jure Leskovec: The power of social networks"
What’s most likely to go viral? Where do online trolls come from? How do recommendation engines work? What do fitness apps tell us about the world? A computer scientist explains.
What’s most likely to go viral? Where do online trolls come from? How do recommendation engines work? What do fitness apps tell us about the world?
In the Future of Everything radio show, Jure Leskovec, Stanford associate professor of computer science and Pinterest chief scientist discusses the power of social media.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 5, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Pamela Hinds: How do you get the most out of a global team?"
The professor of management science & engineering explains how employees at multinational companies can best work across borders and time zones.
Originally aired on SiriuxSM on August 5, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope "Tackling School Related Stress with guest Kelly McGonigal"
Kelly McGonigal, PhD, health psychologist, Stanford lecturer, and the author of The Upside of Stress shares her insights on stress and why it isn't necessarily something to be avoided.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 29, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope
Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University, discusses school reform and why some communities are resistant to making changes.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 29, 2017.
Bruce McCandliss from Stanford's Graduate School of Education tells us about how recent discoveries in neuroscience are reshaping our understanding of how our brains work and the impact that is having on classrooms.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 15, 2017.
Khan Academy founder Sal Khan shares insights on how online materials will shape future classrooms.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 1, 2017.
Deborah Stipek, the Judy Koch Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, gives us tips on what to look for in a preschool and managing early childhood learning at home.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on July 1, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Pat Brown: Where’s the beef? How plants could be used to build a better burger."
Episode Summary
In the Future of Everything radio show, bioengineer Russ Altman and biochemist Pat Brown discuss how plants might be used to engineer a tasty, environmentally friendly meat.
Episode Notes
In the Future of Everything radio show, bioengineer Russ Altman and food entrepreneur Pat Brown discuss the creation of a better meat.
Brown, a Stanford professor of biochemistry, emeritus, devoted years to formulating meat from plant products that tastes and feels just like the real thing. Here’s how..
Originally aired on June 17, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Stanford Professor of Research Medicine Christopher Gardner discusses the importance of diet when it comes to learning, efforts to improve cafeteria selections in schools, and shares his tips on how to get picky eaters to try something new at the dinner table.
Originally aired on June 10, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford, is working to show teachers, parents, and students that there is no such thing as "not being a math person". She shares her insights on how to improve math instruction and discusses the importance of creating a math curriculum for the 21st century.
Originally aired June 10, 2017, on SiriusXM.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jennifer Dionne: The power of light"
A materials scientist discusses how light could be used for less invasive medical procedures, improving solar cells, and cloaks of invisibility.
Originally aired on June 3, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "David Eagleman: Adding to the senses"
David Eagleman, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, discusses sensory addition through wearable technology.
Originally aired on June 3, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Drew Endy: Exploring the biotechnology revolution"
On the Future of Everything radio show, the Stanford bioengineering professor says the bio-economy already exists. Here's where it’s headed next.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 20, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Fei Fei Li, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Vision Lab tells us how AI has developed into what it is today and about some of the advances in healthcare and eldercare that will be made in the near future thanks to machine learning. Chris Gerdes, Director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford shares his thoughts on the future of autonomous vehicles and their impact on traffic and our economy.
Recorded live in front of an audience on May 2, 2017, at Cubberly Auditorium.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on May 6, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "How to grow better painkillers and other medications "
In the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford bioengineers Russ Altman and Christina Smolke discuss advances in synthetic biology and the rise of opioids made from yeast.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 29, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Bringing a new revolution in robotics"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Oussama Khatib, the computer scientist discusses a future in which robots and humans work together to solve some of humanity’s most difficult challenges.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 29, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Palo Alto Unified School District Chief Academic Officer of Secondary Education Sharon Ofek discusses looking at homework differently.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 15, 2017.
Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford helps us understand the value of VR for students, teachers, athletes, and parents.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 15, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "John Dabiri: Technology inspired by nature"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford’s Russ Altman and John Dabiri discuss what fish, birds, and other creatures have to teach us about renewable energy.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 8, 2017.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Carolyn Bertozzi: How the sugars on the surface of human cells affect our health"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford’s Russ Altman and Carolyn Bertozzi discuss the sugars on human cells and how understanding them can yield new medical treatments. Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 08, 2017.
Originally aired on SiriusXM on April 08, 2017.
Once seen as a summertime stand in for school, summer camps have changed in many ways in recent years. Glen Tripp, founder and CEO of Camp Galileo, shares how the camp experience can lead to success outside of summer vacation and has advice on how to pick a camp that is right for your child.
Originally aired April 1, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Helping your kids to develop into well adjusted adults is arguably a parent's most important job. Former Stanford Dean of Freshmen and author Julie Lythcott-Haims tells us about the dangers of over parenting and shares advice on how to avoid it.
Originally aired April 1, 2017, on SiriusXM.
The Future of Everything With Russ Altman "Audrey Bowden: What is the future of medical diagnostics?"
On the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford’s Russ Altman and electrical engineering professor Audrey Bowden discuss at-home urinalysis, bladder cancer diagnosis, and how hearing works.
Originally aired on March 25, 2017 on SiriusXM.
The Future of Everything With Russ Altman: "David Camarillo: What can we do to protect ourselves from concussions?"
Episode Summary
In the Future of Everything radio show, Russ Altman talks to bioengineer David Camarillo about head injuries and what we can do protect our brains. Originally aired March 25, 2017 on SiriusXM.
Originally aired March 25, 2017 on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
Dan Klein, Lecturer in Management in Stanford's Drama Department and the Graduate School of Business shares some of the benefits that improv training can bring to our school, home, and professional lives.
Originally aired on March 18, 2017, on SiriusXM.
Bill Koski, Director of the Stanford Law School 's Youth and Education Law Project joins Dan and Denise for a discussion about the rights of students and parents when it comes to bullying, discipline, and ensuring a proper education for students with disabilities.
Originally aired on March 18, 2017, on SiriusXM.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Bendable Electronics"
Stanford Chemical Engineering Professor Zhenan Bao discusses innovations in bendable electronics, and how they will be used in the next generation of cell phones and even help amputees regain their sense of touch.
Originally aired March 11, 2017 on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Janine Zacharia: What is the future of media?"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford’s Russ Altman and Janine Zacharia discuss journalism, fake news, and how to become an informed media consumer.
Originally aired March 11, 2017 on SiriusXM.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope" "Group Work with guest Rachel Lotan"
Dan Schwartz (Dean, Graduate School of Education) and Denise Pope (Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Education) explore whether working with groups helps students learn and how that translates to the workplace with Emeritus Professor Rachel Lotan.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on March 3, 2017
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope Games and Task Switching Aired originally on SiriusXM on March 3, 2017
In this edition of School's In with Dan Schwartz (Dean, Graduate School of Education) and Denise Pope (Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Education) talk with Communication Professor Byron Reeves about the benefits and drawbacks of task switching and whether gamification is a helpful skill building tool.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope Active Learning Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 18, 2017
Is the old style college lecture dead? Dan Schwartz (Dean, Graduate School of Education) and Denise Pope (Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Education) talk with Nobel Laurate Dr. Carl Weiman about revolutionizing the classroom.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Andrea Goldsmith: What is the future of wireless networking and communications?"
In the Future of Everything radio show, two engineers discuss the high-powered wireless networks we need for widespread autonomous vehicles, smart garbage pick-up, and much more.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 25, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jennifer Granick: Our digital fingerprints are everywhere. How do we protect ourselves?"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Stanford’s Russ Altman and Jennifer Granick discuss cyber surveillance, hacking, security, and American civil liberties.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 11, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Hank Greely: How babies (will) get made"
On the Future of Everything radio show, a bioengineer and law professor discuss the future of human reproduction and its significant implications for society.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 25, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.
School's In with Dan Schwartz and Denise Pope "Go for a Walk with guest Marily Oppezzo"
Dan Schwartz (Dean, Graduate School of Education) and Denise Pope (Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Education) discuss the impact that walking has on the learning process with Adjunct Professor Marily Oppezzo.
Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 18, 2017.
Recorded at Stanford Video.
The Future of Everything with Russ Altman "Marc Salit: What is the future of genome measurement?"
In the Future of Everything radio show, Russ Altman and Marc Salit show how measuring biology is critical to the advancement of human health and the bio-economy.
Episode Notes
In the not too distant future, our ability to measure very tiny things will change the way we fight diseases ranging from cancer to the common cold. Aired originally on SiriusXM on February 11, 2017
Recorded at Stanford Video.