The Douglass Annual S.T.E.M. Lecture and Project SUPER Research Symposium was held on October 5, 2018. The evening began with poster presentations by 45 students on topics ranging from Changes to Protein Expression in Repetitive Traumatic Brain Injury to Influenza Vaccination: A Tool for Influenza Prevention and Cancer Immunotherapy.
Months of hard work prepared students to impress their fellow students, faculty, and Douglass alumnae. Over the summer, students completed research in laboratories and research areas all over the world through Project SUPER (Science for Undergraduates: A Program for Excellence in Research), Douglass’ comprehensive STEM-focused enrichment program that supports student participation in academic research. In the spring before their summer of research, they honed their research skills with the guidance of faculty mentors at Rutgers.
After the student presentations, “techno-sociologist” Dr. Zeynep Tufekci presented her lecture entitled Security, Privacy, Surveillance and Gender. Dr. Tufekci spoke about the intersection between technology and society. She explained that computer science and programming are becoming increasingly important in crafting the architecture of the world—to the point where the tech business is also becoming a people business.
“From elections in the United States to violence in other countries to the architecture of our information to our social interactions, more and more of our lives are influenced by the way technology operates,” said Tufekci, an associate professor at University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and regular contributor to the New York Times.
She stressed that there needs to be a diverse group of people working in all stages of design, coding, implementation and management of this technology.
“Be involved, be informed and realize that this is a historic turning point. The world doesn't really work the way it used to, nor have we built the healthy institutions of a new one. It's an exciting time!” said Tufekci, who recently published Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest by Yale University Press.
The “Security, Privacy, Surveillance and Gender” Lecture was sponsored by Eileen L. Poiani DC’65. In addition to her support for the STEM lecture, Douglass Residential College, the Douglass Fund, and the AADC contributed to Project SUPER and the Project SUPER Research Symposium.
