C2ST Event: Women in Science Symposium May 11-12, 2012

Women in Science 2012: Big Ideas Big Impact, builds on the successful 2010 Women in Science: Building an Identity, during which more than 200 women scientists attended an exciting day of plenary talks,
panel discussions and breakout sessions.

Specifically the Women in Science Symposium 2012 will focus on:
    • Highlighting innovative, game-changing women in diverse science and engineering fields
    • Discussing modern approaches to research practice, work-life balance, entrepreneurship and        administration
    • Providing meaningful opportunities for discourse and networking

Who should attend? This event will convene women scientists and engineers interested in sharing ideas and learning from leading women in –
academia, industry, government, business and the nonprofit sectors – to share ideas and experiences critical for the 21st century.

Friday, May 11, 2012
School of the Art Institute of Chicago; 112 S. Michigan Avenue – 1st Floor Ballroom
           5:30PM – 7:00PM Reception & Registration
           7:00pm – Key Note Speaker – Alice Huang Senior Faculty Associate in Biology at            the California Institute of Technology, and Past President of the American            Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
           RSVP required
           Google Map

Saturday, May 12, 2012
Northwestern University –Lurie Medical Center; 303 E Superior St., Chicago, IL
           8:30am – 9:30am Registration & Continental Breakfast
           9:30am – 4:00pm Full-Day Symposium
           RSVP required

Registration fees. Options to attend one or both days.
Student: Friday $25 / Saturday $75 / Friday & Saturday $100
General: Friday $50 / Saturday $100 / Friday & Saturday $150

Discounted parking will be made available at the 222 E. Huron St. garage: Parking Map

For full Women in Science Symposium 2012: Big Ideas Big Impact Program Agenda – click here.

CSEP Hours & Thanks

CSEP will be open its normal hours 9-5, Monday -Friday during the summer, so please feel free to stop in and use our resources. 

The IIT Ethics Bowl team just had its final meeting over dinner last night and talked philosophy and summer plans. We will be meeting again during the fall semester, and shall be diving directly into preparing for the regional competition. If you are interested in joining the ethics bowl, or just attending a meeting or two to see what its all about, please send an email to cseplibrary@iit.edu, and we can add you to our listserv, over which we shall be making plans for the upcoming semester. 

Congratulations to our graduating students, and for all of you taking off for the summer, safe travels and have a relaxing break! 

The Latest from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill...U.S. arrests BP engineer on criminal charges stemming from oil spill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-arrests-bp-engineer-on-criminal-charges-stemming-from-oil-spill/2012/04/24/gIQA7TsoeT_story.html?hpid=z1

According to the Washington Post, a former BP Engineer was arrested today for destroying a number of text messages sought by federal investigators who are investigating the BP oil spill of April 20, 2010. BP has stated that it repeatedly notified engineer Kurt Mix that he should preserve all evidence from the event, and that he disregarded these notices. But his actions do raise some questions about

After the blowout on BP's Macondo well, Mr. Mix worked to estimate the amount of oil leaking from the well as well as BP's failed effort to plug the leak, nicknamed Top Kill.. Around October 4, 2010, when Mix learned that his electronic files were going to be collected by a vendor working for BP's lawyers, he deleted a number of  text message from his IPhone between himself and his supervisor. The Justice Department alleges that, judging from some of the deleted texts recovered forensically, the messages contained information that showed that Mix and others at BP knew that the Top Kill effort was likely to fail. Before the Top Kill effort, Mix and other engineers had concluded that this approach was likely to fail if the flow rate was greater than 15,000 barrels a day. In his text messages, Mix reports that the flow rate was indeed too high for Top Kill to work.  At this same time,  BP was reporting that the flow was about 5,000 barrels a day, though in the end federal regulators estimated that the flow was closer to 50,000 barrels a day.

It is hard to know why Kurt Mix decided to delete these text messages even after receiving notices to be sure and preserve any digital evidence related to the spill, but it does raise some interesting questions about how much BP knew about the rate of oil flow during this time, and what it was actually reporting to regulators and the public.  It also highlights some of the responsibilities of engineers when working within a large organization, and what to, and not to do, in these kinds of situations..

C2ST Event : Oceans’ Health: An Ecosystem on the Brink

The Chicago Council on Science and Technology and the John G. Shedd Aquarium present:

Oceans’ Health: An Ecosystem on the Brink

When: Thursday, April 19, 2012. 5:00pm Registration & Reception, 6:00pm Presentation

Where: Northwestern University Chicago Campus, Hughes Auditorium, 303 East Superior

Who: Allen LaPointe, Vice President of Environmental Quality, John G. Shedd Aquarium and Kassia Perpich, Sustainable Seafood Manager, John G. Shedd Aquarium

Abstract: There are many serious threats facing our oceans today. Oceans’ Health: An Ecosystem on the Brink will explore two of these merging issues. First, ocean acidification: over the last decade scientists have shown that human-caused increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are affecting the chemistry of our oceans, altering the main food web and proving harmful for many forms of marine life. Second, commercial fishing: in recent years scientists have also estimated that the global supply of wild-caught seafood will run out by the year of 2048 unless stronger fishery management practices are implemented. Join C2ST and leading area marine scientists as they discuss these two ocean issues and what we as consumers can do to have a positive impact in addressing them

Nonmember Fees: $10 Advance Registration / $15 Door / $5 Student. Please visit www.c2st.org for registration and detailed program description

Parking: Discounted parking will be made available at the 222 E. Huron St. garage.

At the Center we spent time in all of our engineering ethics sessions thinking about how man-made systems impact the environment over the short and long term, and how these effects can be prevented or at least mitigated. Its likely that both consumers and engineers are and will in the future be involved in finding solutions to these issues, so check it out !

IIT Ethics Bowl Open Meeting, April 11th

Join the IIT Ethics Bowl for our Meet and Greet meeting on April 11, in Siegel Hall at 12:40.

Come and discuss interesting cases, meet new people, and learn more about how to be part of the Ethics Bowl team for the fall 2012 semester.

We will also be providing free pizza for all who attend.

Please RSVP if you plan on joining us at iitethicsbowl@gmail.com.

Hope to see you there!

C2ST Event, March 29th - China's Clean Energy

Chicago Council on Science and Technology presents:

CHINA’S CLEAN ENERGY: CURRENT RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Northwestern University, Hughes Auditorium

303 East Superior, Chicago

5:00pm Registration & Reception

6:00pm Program

Speakers: Mr. Jianye Cao, Conselor and Director of Science & Technology Office and Mr. Qingqing Zhao, Consul at The Consulate General of The People's Republic of China in Chicago

Diplomats of the Chinese Consulate General in Chicago will discuss China’s current research and development program to produce energy in an environmentally benign fashion. The discussion will cover Chinese activities in the alternative energy arena including hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, clean coal and other green energy production endeavors. The program will also highlight China’s objectives and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions by 2020 as well as China – US intergovernmental cooperation in clean energy production, particular attention paid to collaborative activities in the Greater Chicago area.

Nonmember Fees: $10 Advance Reg / $15 Door / $5 Student

Parking: Discounted parking will be made available at the 222 E. Huron St. garage

General Info: Please visit www.c2st.org for detailed program description and registration. 

What kinds of online information should an employer have access to?

I was sitting having dinner yesterday when a story on NPR made me pause. Robert Collins was re-applying for his job with the Maryland Department of Corrections after taking a leave of absence, and during the interview he was asked for his Facebook username and password. The interviewer told him that this had become a part of the interview process because they had become concerned that some staff may have gang affiliations, and these ties had led to gang infiltration in its facilities.

Collins gave the interviewer the information requested and the interviewer looked over his profile with the screen facing away from Collins. Since then, the Maryland has suspended the practice and changed its policy so that is no longer mandatory for job applicants to supply their Facebook username and password. Collins and the  American Civil Liberties Union are now working with state legislators to pass a bill that would prevent employers from even requesting that kind of information.

Facebook profiles fall somewhere in the middle of the public/private divide.  On one hand, most students I have talked to seem to take it for granted that any employer is likely to do a Google search of them before they are hired, and if they left their Facebook profile settings as public, then it is fair game. In a recent discussion about an ethics bowl case with IIT's ethics bowl team, however, many students took a different view, arguing that in a job interview an applicant should have a chance to put their best face forward, and employers should not be digging into an applicants personal life that happens away from the office.

This case, of course, goes a step farther. While a Facebook profile seems not to be as private as, say, a phone conversation, allowing a prospective employer to access your account seems to in some way violate not only your own privacy but also all your Facebook friends' privacy, as the majority may have their profile set to be viewed only by other Facebook friends.

Should this kind of practice be banned for all employers, or is it just an extension of the more routine online search that is already being performed by many companies?

When interviewing for a position that normally requires background checks or involves some level of security clearance, are practices such as this allowable?

What do you think?

 "A Job at What Cost? When Employers Log in to Dig In" NPR, All TecConsidered Blog . Interview by Robert Siegel, Article by Dana Farrington. March 21, 2012.