The Cornelia Clapp Auditorium

Join us in-person in the Cornelia Clapp (formerly Lillie) Auditorium or attend virtually. Social distancing and masking will be required for in-person attendance. Limited seating available. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation does many things for which it is well-known around the world, including the MacArthur Fellows program and support for public media. Some of these fellows make their professional home at the MBL and NPR reaches listeners in Woods Hole every day. The president of MacArthur Foundation,…

The brain is a learning machine, storing information about the statistical relationships between events in the world, and using that information to guide behavior. In this lecture, Raymond will share insights about the neural mechanisms of learning from her research on the cerebellum, or “little brain.” The cerebellum is well known for its role in motor skill learning and is increasingly implicated in cognitive functions ranging from navigation to emotion, social behavior, and reward prediction. Yet the circuit architecture of…

Lecture Abstract: Light microscopy remains a central tool for disease diagnosis. Direct imaging of pathogens in blood, sputum, and stool can enable rapid screening and diagnosis of multiple diseases and has been in use since the earliest days of the microscope. However, modern microscopy requires advanced equipment and skilled users typically not available outside of well-equipped laboratories and hospitals. In recent years, mobile phones have emerged as powerful tools for capturing clinically useful data. This talk will describe ongoing work…

Greg Watson and his family moved to Cape Cod in 1980 when he was hired as education director at the New Alchemy Institute. New Alchemy was a revolutionary “think-do tank” located on 12 acres in Falmouth, MA that became world renowned for its systems approach to the development environmentally sound and socially just approaches to meeting basic human needs. Watson’s lecture will focus on the lessons he learned during his four years there and how he has applied New Alchemy’s…