Accelerating Action for a sustainable future

Join us for a winter foraging walk to learn what wild plants can be foraged and brewed into tea. Visit some of the Arboretum’s tastiest winter plants, from sweet birch and sweet fern to sassafras and spicebush. You may even get to taste some of the teas yourself!

Narges Mahyar is an assistant professor at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose research is situated at the intersection of human-computer interaction, information visualization, social computing, applied machine learning, human-centered artificial intelligence, and design. She applies a community-centered design approach to build novel social computing and visualization tools to empower the general public to engage in real-world sociotechnical issues, such as urban planning and climate change, by enabling them to share their ideas and comments for shaping future policies.

In this lecture, Mahyar will speak about her project to discover innovative techniques to integrate situated visualization, augmented reality, and civic technology to design and build a mobile platform that simulates the localized impact of climate change, thereby providing Boston residents with an immersive experience of climate change visualizations and empowering them to contribute comments and ideas on climate change issues. The platform will benefit the movement towards more equitable resilience by creating new opportunities for the public, especially the underserved communities, to raise their voices and join the discourse.

Her recognition in the field has been repeatedly confirmed through many accolades for her research, including seven best or honorable mention paper awards from top conferences in her field. She holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Victoria. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Computer Science department at the University of British Columbia from 2014 to 2016 and in the Design Lab at the UC San Diego from 2016 to 2018.

Bring your enthusiasm for the natural world and leave with a creative nature journal, inspired by the trees of the Arnold Arboretum. Nature journaling is all about expressing your curiosity and wonder through sketching, calligraphy, writing, or other forms of art-making. Tap into your creativity and let yourself be surprised by the diversity of forms on display in the winter landscape.

HUCE created the Environmental Fellows program to enable recent doctorate recipients to use and expand Harvard’s extraordinary resources to tackle complex environmental issues. The fellowship includes a salary of $87,500 per year, employee health insurance eligibility, up to $2,500 reimbursement for relocation expenses, and a $2,500 annual allowance for travel and other professional expenses. The Environmental Fellows Program is open to anyone with a doctorate or comparable terminal degree awarded between May 2020 and August 2024. HUCE expects to award approximately six fellowships for the 2024 cohort.

The birds that populate the Arnold Arboretum rarely have to go far to find water. In the deserts of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, it’s a different story, and the sandgrouse that lives in these arid environments has developed a fascinating adaptation to stay hydrated: these birds have a unique ability to absorb and hold water inside of their feathers. But how do their feathers hold water so efficiently? Dr. Lorna Gibson, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, has found the answer. Join Dr. Gibson for a lecture to learn about these fascinating birds and the science behind them.