Podcasts about southern california usc

Ep 141. Do you know your top five values? Or even your top three? Often, we think we are making decisions based on our values, but we may be unknowingly making decisions based on our fears. This week, Dr. Molly Burrets, a highly regarded licensed clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Southern California (USC), is breaking down the psychology behind values-based decision-making. If you're someone who often feels at odds when making decisions, like two parts of your brain are arguing and pulling apart from each other? Dr. Molly expertly explains what is happening on a psychological level and how to break the cycle we often find ourselves in when fear creeps into our decision-making. She breaks down the dynamics of control – why we seek control to gain safety and how this can hinder our ability to attain genuine connection in our relationships. Her insights on the pursuit of safety, with control leading to hypervigilance, were truly one of those moments on the podcast that will stop you in your tracks. Dr. Molly is truly brilliant with unwavering emotional intelligence. She breaks down everything from learning your no's to why high-achieving women often struggle with connection. This episode is for anyone who has ever had to make a difficult decision and wondered or doubted if they made the right choice.  HERE'S THE JUICE:   The life-changing knowledge that things are going to go wrong, why practicing radical acceptance in place of avoidance could change your life Why do we often take control in an attempt to gain safety? Is it possible to experience joy and control simultaneously? How to quiet your mind to notice what is meant to you in life – the phone is constantly ringing, but we have to learn to pick up. Breaking down why our unhealthy coping mechanisms are often what is preventing us from following the path that is meant for us in life The importance of noticing your own body daily and learning how to listen to what it is telling you Tangible language to use when exercising a “no” with both the relationships we want to keep and relationships we want to let go of  Why using safe people to practice our “no's” is the key to setting larger boundaries in life.     Connect with Olivia: Watch the full episode on What's The Juice YouTube Channel  To support our ad-free show, shop Olivia's line of herbalist-formulated supplements for digestion, anxiety, thyroid support, and more by visiting www.organicolivia.com.   Connect with What's The Juice: Follow What's The Juice  Leave us a voicemail  Email us: Whatsthejuice@organicolivia.com Connect with Olivia: Follow Organic Olivia  Olivia's personal IG Organic Olivia on TikTok Read Olivia's blog posts   Connect with Dr. Molly Burrets: Follow Dr. Molly Website  

#211: Eric Musselman is the head coach of the University of Southern California (USC) men's basketball team, having taken the helm in April 2024. Prior to joining USC, he spent five seasons at the University of Arkansas, compiling a 111–59 record and leading the Razorbacks to three NCAA Tournament appearances, including two Elite Eight runs. Musselman also served as head coach at Nevada from 2016 to 2019, where he guided the Wolf Pack to three Mountain West Conference titles and three NCAA Tournament berths. His coaching career spans over 30 years and includes stints in both the NBA and international basketball.Coach Musselman played college basketball at the University of San Diego, where he earned All-Academic honors and helped the Toreros reach two NCAA Tournaments. He is the son of Bill Musselman, a former NBA head coach, making them the first father-son duo to both serve as NBA head coaches. Eric Musselman's coaching journey began in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), where he became the youngest head coach in league history at age 24. He later transitioned to the NBA, coaching the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings, and also served as an assistant with several NBA teams. His international experience includes coaching the national teams of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and the United States.On the show he shares his story, thoughts on leadership, continues learning, resilience, energy, adapting, consistency, building excellence, and much more. For more info on Coach Muss check out his social media @ericpmusselman, as well as the USC men's basketball program at usctrojans.com Enjoy the show!

Show Notes: Gideon Yaffe and his then girlfriend-now wife, Sue Chan, drove across the country after graduation to San Francisco, where they had no jobs or prospects. Gideon had applied to graduate school in philosophy but didn't get in anywhere. They got married and his first job was at a pet store, Gideon worked there for a while, then at a computer magazine. Studying Philosophy at Stanford While hanging out in San Francisco, he started reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which he loved and found to be hugely  rewarding. This inspired him to apply to grad school again and this time his application was accepted in a lot of places. He decided to study philosophy at Stanford, where he met Michael Bratman, a professor who worked on philosophy of action and related questions about the nature of action, agency, and intention. Gideon also became interested in the history of philosophy and wrote a dissertation about John Locke and contemporary problems related to the Free Will problem. Gideon went on the job market in academia.  He got some interviews but didn't get a job. The following year, he got a one-year job at UCSD. His wife, Sue, was working in the film industry, so they moved to LA and he commuted down to San Diego. Tenure at the University of Southern California He finally secured a tenure track job at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1999 and taught Philosophy of Law classes. He wrote a paper about addiction, which he found interesting due to his knowledge of addicts and interest in freedom and addiction and how addiction would undermine freedom. When a friend of Gideon's was a victim of a carjacking incident,  he became interested in the legal problem at the center of many carjacking cases that revolves around intention, so he wrote a paper about conditional intention. Gideon explains how carjacking differs from car theft, and the paper questioned whether a conditional intention was enough for the crime when the statute called for unconditional intention. Gideon felt that philosophy of law was important to work on but he needed to know more about the law, so he coerced USC into giving him a year in the law school. Gideon recounts his experience as a law student and how it led to teaching law in law school.  Collaborating on a Neuroscience and Legal Proceedings Think Tank The MacArthur Foundation launched the law and neuroscience project, which aimed to bring together various people from philosophy, law, and neuroscience to discuss the relevance of neuroscience to legal proceedings, particularly in criminal law. Gideon was invited to be part of this think tank. During this time, he collaborated with neuroscientists on various problems and experiments related to neuroscience that could be useful to the legal system. This led to a desire to learn more about neuroscience and he pursued a grant to support the project. He spent another year as a neuroscience student at Cal Tech which allowed him to learn a lot about neuroscience. Gideon also started writing a book about attempted crimes. Gideon talks about the importance of understanding the double failure of attempts, and inherent impossible attempts. He highlights the number of cases where individuals seem incapable of committing crimes. Gideon received a job offer from Yale University after being a part of the MacArthur think tank and his book. He decided to take the position and he and his family moved to New Haven.  Neuroscience, Law, and GenAI Intentions Gideon talks about the challenges faced by those who attempt to escape the harsh realities of the criminal justice system. His experiences highlight the importance of understanding the factors that contribute to attempted crimes. The conversation turns to Gideon's  involvement in generative AI and the potential of AI intentions. He is currently working on a project with neuroscientist Uri Maoz, which aims to understand, for example, the difference between self-driving cars and drones in terms of intentions. Another project involves a group funded by billionaire Sergey Brin, who has a daughter with severe autism. The group aims to build AI models of the brain of a person and use the model to see how it responds to various forms of surgery.  AI, Consciousness, and Intentions Organizing Behavior Gideon discusses the concept of AI consciousness. Gideon states that a lot depends on how consciousness is defined. One  understanding is that consciousness involves self-representation of certain kinds of thoughts. He suggests that understanding consciousness depends on what one thinks about it. One way of understanding consciousness involves self-representation of certain kinds, such as having a second-order thought about the thought. If that's all that's required for consciousness, then these LLMs can be conscious. Another way of understanding consciousness involves qualia, or ways of feeling, such as experiencing a particular sensation or feeling something. However, he acknowledges that it is difficult to know exactly what it is like to be an LLM or a toaster. He acknowledges that there are some similarities between the two, but acknowledges the challenges in determining their exact roles in AI and neuroscience. Gideon explains that intentions serve to organize behavior in various interesting ways. For example, if an AI has intentions, they can make decisions now so they don't have to think about them later. This is relevant for coordinating behavior with each other, as well as interpersonal organization. The question of whether AIs have intentions is more tractable than the question of whether they are conscious. Intentions play a crucial role in various aspects of law, such as contract interpretation and legal texts. Understanding the intentions of AI and their potential impact on these areas is essential for understanding the future of AI and its applications in various fields. Updating Law to Address AI Intention The conversation explores the need to rewrite laws or update them to address the issue of intention in AI. Gideon states that the intention of a person or AI and the textual language, and the interpretation of the text are all areas that need to be explored.  The project Gideon is working on aims to determine the intentions of AI by examining the role their representation plays in guiding their behavior. Gideon suggests that the question is whether inferences can be made about AI's intentions by looking at the role the representations plays from the AI behavior. Gideon talks about a project on criminal activity and neuroscience that he is proud of.  Leniency and Child Criminality Gideon goes on to talk about leniency and child criminality. He argues that the reason to give a break to kids who engage in criminal behavior is disenfranchisement, not neural immaturity. He talks about the age of maturity, lack of political participation. Gideon's book about kids was written after completing his studies at Yale. He also discusses his personal life, including being in a car accident which resulted in a severe brain injury and how he is immensely grateful for his recovery.  Influential Harvard Courses and Professors Gideon mentions a core class on the Baroque period by Simon Schama, which he found to be the most influential. The course focused on famous European paintings from the Baroque period, which he found to be a source of inspiration. Other influential courses include a seminar with Hilary Putnam, Rational Action with Robert Nozick.  Timestamps:  04:50: Philosophy Studies and Academic Challenges  11:18: Legal Philosophy and Collaborative Research  22:25: Transition to Yale and Continued Research  27:22: Philosophical Reflections on AI and Consciousness  39:36: Personal Reflections and Career Highlights  49:52: Courses and Professors at Harvard  52:27: Current Work and Future Directions  52:41: Personal Life and Family  Links: https://law.yale.edu/gideon-yaffe Featured Non-profit: The featured non-profit of this episode of The 92 Report is recommended by Michael Johnson who reports: “Hi. I'm Michael Johnson, class of 1992. The featured nonprofit of this episode of The 92 Report is Son of a Saint. Son of a Saint provides guidance, mentorship and opportunities to young boys in the New Orleans area who did not have a father in the home, usually due to death or incarceration. Founded in 2011 by Sonny Lee, who lost his own father, a defensive back of the saints from a heart attack at the age of 36, Son of a Saint is making a significant impact on the lives of young boys in the New Orleans area. My wife and I have been supporters for many years, as has my firm advantage capital, which recently endowed a scholarship that will cover high school tuition for two boys from the program. Although my circumstances were much different, having lost my own father when I was five years old, I know firsthand how important a male influence can be on a young boy. I luckily had family members and friends who stepped up from me and hope in some small way, my support of Son of a Saint and the work their mentors do can give the boys and their programs similar help. You can learn more about their work at Son of a Saint.org and now here's Will Bachman with this week's episode.” To learn more about their work, visit: www.sonofasaint.org.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found Click On Picture To See Larger Picture Bernie Sanders show the world what a hypocrite he really is in regards to his climate agenda. Gas prices will most likely shoot up in California, rest of the country will see cheaper fuel prices. Fed right on schedule, rate will not move. Trump sets the path forward, deal made with the UK, its happening. The patriots are now making the [DS] feel pain, the D's in DC are panicking, they don't know how to stop it. Kash confirms that the FBI has the Esptein information and they will produce it when the time is right, timing is everything. The [DS] is starting to realize what Trump is actually doing, they hoped he would just reverse Biden's policies withe EOs but he is doing something they never expected and they are realizing he is actually dismantling their system.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1920460778617876678 California Gas Prices Could Rise 75% By End Of 2026: USC Analysis California gas prices could skyrocket by as much as 75 percent by the end of 2026 with the expected shutdown of oil refineries in the state, according to an analysis released May 5 by a researcher at the University of Southern California (USC). Regular gasoline prices could rise from an average of $4.82 in April 2025 to as high as $8.44 a gallon by the end of next year, said the report, authored by Professor Michael Mische at the Marshall School of Business. Two Phillips 66 refineries in Los Angeles—about 8 percent of the state's oil refining capacity—are slated to close by the end of this year. Valero Energy Corp. also announced last month it will shut down or restructure its Benicia refinery in the San Francisco Bay area—which accounts for about 9 percent of refining capacity—by April 2026, increasing concerns over gas prices and supply. The USC analysis states that based on current demand, consumption, state regulations, and other factors, the refinery closures could result in a potential 21 percent drop in refining capacity from 2023 to April 2026. The state of California is currently suing major oil companies over alleged deception regarding the risks of climate change and fossil fuel combustion. New permits have plummeted 97 percent over the last five years, according to data from the California Department of Conservation. New drilling permits in the state dropped from 2,676 in 2019 to 86 in 2024.   Source: zerohedge.com VIDEO: Trump Previews China Negotiations in Switzerland, Says He Will Not Pull Back Tariffs and Signals Major Leverage Ahead of Tariff Talks   Reporter: What do you hope to come out of the talks with China in Switzerland? Trump: We'll see. We were losing a trillion dollars a year, now we're not losing anything. That's the way I look at it. We were losing with China on trade a trillion dollars a year– more actually. But let's say a trillion. You know what we're losing now? Nothing. That's not bad. When asked if he was willing to cease his tariffs against China for the purposes of negotiating, Trump gave a blunt one word answer. NO Per Fox:   Source: thegatewaypundit.com      Political/Rights https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1920181998833856970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1920181998833856970%7Ctwgr%5Efc8bc4152a975d818d6cb1ef937de786822c4a05%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fnick-arama%2F2025%2F05%2F08%2Foh-my-if-cbs-had-any-credibility-left-they-just-killed-it-with-jaw-dropping-remark-about-conclave-n2188814

Shan Mohta is the Co-founder and CEO at Vendra, a US-based marketplace for custom part manufacturing trusted by leading technology and aerospace companies. He is part of the Y Combinator S24 batch, and formerly a hardware engineer at Skydio, Apple, and Microsoft. Shan is an alum of the University of Southern California (USC).

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Pascal Magne Courses: Www.pascalmagne.com Podcast Website Follow @dental_digest_podcast  Instagram Follow @dr.melissa_seibert on Instagram Connect with Melissa on Linkedin Dr. Pascal Magne was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland) in 1966. He grew up and followed his primary education in Neuchâtel then moved to Geneva where he graduated in dentistry in 1989 and completed a Doctoral Thesis in 1992. He taught and continued his postgraduate education in Prosthodontics and Operative Dentistry at the University of Geneva until 1997. Awarded with major grants by the Swiss Science Foundation, the Swiss Foundation for Medical-Biological Grants, and the International Association for Dental Research, he spent two years as a full-time research scholar in Biomaterials and Biomechanics at the University of Minnesota between 1997 and 1999. Back at the University of Geneva, he received his PhD degree in 2002 and served as Senior Lecturer from 1999 to 2004. Since February 2004, he became Associate Professor at the University of Southern California (USC, Los Angeles) where he also serves as Director of the Center for Esthetic Dentistry. He is the author of the textbook -- "Bonded Porcelain Restorations" (Quintessence Publishing, 2002), as well as clinical and research articles on esthetics and adhesive dentistry and is frequently invited to lecture on these topics.

Jennifer Garrison, PhD, is Co-Founder and Director of the Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity and Equality (GCRLE) and an Assistant Professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. She also holds appointments in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California (USC). She is a passionate advocate for women's health and is pioneering a new movement to advance science that is focused on female reproductive aging. Her lab studies the role of mind-body communication in systemic aging, and how changes in the conversation between the ovary and brain during aging may lead to the onset of reproductive decline in females.About Foresight InstituteForesight Institute is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1987 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support.Allison DuettmannThe President and CEO of Foresight Institute, Allison Duettmann directs the Intelligent Cooperation, Molecular Machines, Biotech & Health Extension, Neurotech, and Space Programs, alongside Fellowships, Prizes, and Tech Trees. She has also been pivotal in co-initiating the Longevity Prize, pioneering initiatives like Existentialhope.com, and contributing to notable works like "Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy" and "Gaming the Future".Get Involved with Foresight:Apply to our virtual technical seminars Join our in-person events and workshops Donate: Support Our Work – If you enjoy what we do, please consider this, as we are entirely funded by your donations!Follow Us: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedInNote: Explore every word spoken on this podcast through Fathom.fm, an innovative podcast search engine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton were honored to welcome the team behind Magic Horizons Virtual Reality as our guests to the show.   About Giorgio Koppehele and Martin Koppehele:   The brothers, Giorgio and Martin Koppehele, founded the company Magic Horizons GmbH (LLC) in 2018 for the conception, production and distribution of Virtual Reality applications. With their international team they develop, produce and sell Virtual Reality (VR) applications for a global B2B market: • Stress reduction, resilience strengthening • Patient calming, less anxiety • Employee well-being, mental training • Mental health and regeneration Martin, alongside to his position as Co-CEO, also works as CFO: he has an extreme high-level expertise in sales and licensing business which he earned also in the former companies which Martin & Giorgio have founded: Avenue Music and Classic Arts GmbH (LLC). Giorgio, alongside to his position as Co-CEO, also works as CTO: he has an extreme high-level expertise in stereoscopic, full spherical 3D visuals as well as in surround and binaural audio production. In the past, the productions were released on Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray, as well as they were performed and broadcasted via 360 planetariums, cinemas, internet and TV.   Giorgio and Martin bring to Magic Horizons an extraordinary level of expertise in immersive audiovisual media, which they gained through years of successful productions in their first two companies, Avenue Music and Classic Arts GmbH (LLC). Through these experiences, they won numerous awards of the highest levels. Since 2013, Giorgio and Martin also produced 360° relaxation Planetarium shows in cooperation with Planetarium Hamburg, where they gained extensive experience and pioneered work in the field of 360 visuals and 3D audio with immersive surround sound. In this area, they benefited from their expertise in immersive visuals and audio and collaborated with exceptional partners such as Dolby Atmos, Fraunhofer Institute (inventors of MP3), and many more. As part of Magic Horizons' commitment to the highest quality products, the team is honored to receive scientific advice from gamelab.berlin, a research and development platform of the interdisciplinary laboratory Image Knowledge Design, Cluster of Excellence of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.   With an exceptional design and programming team, Magic Horizons creates VR applications at the highest artistic and technical levels. Magic Horizons also works with King's College London, the University of Southern California (USC) and the NHS Cambridgeshire.    About Todd Keitz:   As founder/CEO of 17 Commerce LLC, Todd Keitz is responsible for leading Magic Horizons in the United States. Todd‘s personal Patient First ethos, which has informed his decades of professional endeavors as a startup founder/CEO, corporate leader, consultant, and mentor, fits perfectly with Magic Horizons mission to help individuals around the world find relief from stress and anxiety. He brings a holistic and humanistic approach to business and life, which mirrors that of Magic Horizons leadership and overall team.   In 2017, Todd first met Magic Horizons co-founder Giorgio Koppehele and his wife Suna at a startup pitch event in San Francisco, California. That meeting led to a friendship forming and two years later they all met up in Paris for a conference where Todd was an unofficial part of the team. A week later he joined Giorgio and Suna in Amsterdam for another conference, where he met co-founder Martin Koppehele and his wife Gabi. It was during these two weeks together where the concept of Magic Horizons USA was hatched.

In today's episode, supported by Revolution Medicines, we had the pleasure of speaking with Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD, about RAS mutations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Dr Lenz is a professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), as well as the J. Terrence Lanni Chair in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, co-director of the USC Center for Molecular Pathway and Drug Discovery, and co-director of the USC Norris Center for Cancer Drug Development in Los Angeles. In our exclusive interview, Dr Lenz discussed the prevalence of RAS mutations in PDAC, the importance of biomarker testing, current treatment strategies for patients with RAS-mutant PDAC, and potential future treatment advances for patients with this disease.

Dr. Guy Young, Director of the Hemostasis and Thrombosis Program, Attending Physician in Hematology-Oncology, and Professor of Pediatrics at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC), is currently serving as co-chair of i3 Health's CME/NCPD activity, Practice-Changing Advances in the Management of Hemophilia. With new developments in the field occurring over recent months, Dr. Young sat down with us to share recent updates in the hemophilia treatment and management. Click the links below for the full activity! Online accredited CME/NCPD activity: https://i3health.com/course-information/practice-changing-advances-in-the-management-of-hemophilia Accredited CME/NCPD podcast: https://i3health.com/course-information/practice-changing-advances-in-the-management-of-hemophilia-podcast

In this episode, Dr. Rex Liu, owner of Family and Cosmetic Dentistry and a Vegas Chamber Trustee, shares his remarkable journey from humble beginnings to becoming a successful dentist, landlord, and community advocate.Dr. Liu grew up in New York, Maryland, Texas, and Las Vegas, where he settled in fifth grade. Raised by Chinese immigrant parents, his early years taught him resilience, adaptability, and the importance of community. Dr. Liu attended the University of Southern California (USC) for undergraduate studies and dental school, inspired by a high school careers class and aptitude tests that guided him toward dentistry. His journey was supported by the WICHE program, which helped fund his education in exchange for serving Nevada's underserved communities.Over the years, Dr. Liu has grown his practice from a solo operation to a group practice, eventually becoming his own landlord. He emphasizes the importance of blending cutting-edge technology, like 3D imaging and printing, with the human touch to provide personalized, life-changing care for his patients. His practice focuses on improving oral health, boosting confidence, and enhancing quality of life—work that has earned numerous accolades, including the Business Excellence Award for Company Culture and Customer Service Excellence Award.Outside of work, Dr. Liu enjoys bodybuilding, boating at Lake Mead, raising German shepherds, and participating in community theater. He encourages young people to stay active in their communities, embrace lifelong learning, and focus on self-improvement. “Prioritize your health and work on becoming the best version of yourself,” he advises.Family and Cosmetic Dentistry:https://www.familycosmeticdentistryinc.com/about

On the 106th episode of What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Mona Sobhani, Ph.D. Mona is a cognitive neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur. A former research scientist at the University of Southern California (USC), she holds a doctorate in neuroscience from USC and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of the Ommie 2022 Best Spiritual Book Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist's Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe, which is also a recipient of the 2023 Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize. In her newsletter, Cosmos, Coffee, & Consciousness, she writes about science & spirituality, altered states of consciousness, emergent phenomena, and self-transformation. She is co-founder of The Phoenix Era, a multidisciplinary coaching practice for those seeking deeper meaning and connection. She is also co-founder of Exploring Consciousness, a community of curious scientists seeking to understand consciousness. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, VOX, and other media outlets.In this enlightening conversation, Mona shares her experience of reconnecting with a sense of a meaningful universe and the impact it has had on her life. We discuss how to find inner peace amidst chaos, the role of synchronicity in shaping meaning, the influence of family and tradition, and the exploration of past lives and emotional release.This whole conversation invites you to explore meaning and reconnect with nature and the universe in a way that brings more flow, curiosity, and flexibility to your life experience.For further content and information check out the following:- Mona's website: https://www.monasobhaniphd.com/- Mona's newsletter: https://monasobhaniphd.substack.com/- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/- The Silent Conversations: https://www.whatisagood.life/p/the-silent-conversationsContact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, take part in my 5-week Silent Conversation group courses, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams, or you simply want to get in touch.00:00 Introduction03:00 How to find peace & serve others07:00 Finding your centre amidst chaos & life16:00 Unravelling sense of control & understanding 21:40 Realising the Universe is a meaningful place28:00 Noting fortune telling moments in the family31:40 Connecting with yourself and the universe41:00 The significance of synchronicity 45:53 Past life regressions01:02:54 What is a good life for Mona? 

51st U.S. State! America's interest in incorporating Canada, in some fashion, is as old as our Republic. In those early days and continuing until almost the end of the 19th century, our relationship with Canada was defined by recurring borders raids and wars, our distrust of Canada and our various plans to gobble up our northern neighbor, which was then an extension of the British Empire. And even though our relationship with Canada began to slowly and positively change after 1903, WWI and certainly WWII, Canada's identity was and, arguably, continues to be shaped in opposition to America. In this interview, my guest, a dual national of U.S. and Canada, tells us about the important differences between Canada and America, and explains "Canadian anti-Americanism". We also talk about Canada's foreign policy and how climate change is dramatically changing Canada's geopolitical importance in the world - this all about the Northwest Passage!

(Airdate 1/9/25) Dr. Melina Abdullah is the Chair of the Council for Racial and Social Justice at the California Faculty Association-Los Angeles. She is also a dedicated mother of three children. Dr. Abdullah serves as a Professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA, and is a Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. Additionally, she is the Director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots. Dr. Abdullah earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California (USC) and her B.A. in African American Studies from Howard University.https://blmgrassroots.org/ https://www.dominiquediprima.com/

It's a new year and we're coming in blazing new trails for the diverse future leaders of our nation! In our first episode of the year, we are joined by Norma Spencer, Director for the Center of Black Student Excellence at Long Beach Unified School District.⁠ Ms. Spencer's unyielding dedication revolves around heightening the standards of student support services, ensuring that every Black student under her guidance receives an outstanding education and gains access to a truly exceptional and equitable learning journey. With the support of the cross-generational community, find out how the center will make Black student success a priority and how she has been able to transform the lives of many students, while informing them about educational opportunities not readily made available.⁠ ⁠ Ms. Spencer is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Education at University of Southern California (USC). As an unwavering leader with a remarkable twenty-eight years of experience in education, she commands a vast network encompassing over 195 schools within two of the nation's largest school districts. Central to her transformative leadership philosophy is the resounding call to nurture the growth of educators and identify visionary leaders who will champion the cause of advancing student academic achievement. In her pivotal role, Ms. Spencer serves not only as a catalyst for change but as a guiding light for all students on their quest for excellence and for educators aspiring to make a profound impact on the future landscape of education. To learn more about Ms. Spencer and her work, visit The Center of Black Student Excellence at LBSchools.net or connect with her on LinkedIn.

In this episode pulled from the Crawlspace, Tim Pilleri & Lance Reenstierna are fortunate enough to be graced by Dr. Michelle Ward. Dr. Ward been called the “real-life Clarice Starling” from Silence of the Lambs, and has starred in several crime documentaries, including Investigation Discovery's “Mind of a Murderer” and “Stalked: Someone's Watching.” Dr. Ward holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Southern California (USC) with a dual emphasis in clinical neuroscience and behavioral genetics. She has devoted her research and professional consulting to the study of predatory criminals and psychopathic behavior. This is a really thought-provoking conversation with a large sprinkle of levity. For more information on Dr. Michelle Ward: https://press.discovery.com/us/id/talent/ward-michelle/ For more information on Dr. Ward's non-profit, The Innocent Lives Foundation: https://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/ Follow Dr. Ward on Instagram: @drmichelleward - https://www.instagram.com/drmichelleward/?hl=en Follow Missing: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@missingcsm. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/missingcsm. IG: https://www.instagram.com/MissingCSM/. Twitter: https://twitter.com/MissingCSM. FB: https://www.facebook.com/MissingCSM. Follow Crawlspace: Twitter: https://twitter.com/crawlspacepod . Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Crawlspacepodcast . Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/Crawlspacepodcast. TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@crawlspacepodcast. Check out our entire network at http://crawlspace-media.com/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For episode 459, Co-founder & CEO Salman Avestimehr joins Brandon Zemp to discuss ChainOpera, a decentralized AI platform and a community-driven generative AI application ecosystem. He is also the Dean's Professor of ECE and CS at the University of Southern California (USC), the inaugural director of the USC-Amazon Center on Trustworthy AI, and co-founder of TensorOpera. He is an expert in machine learning, information theory, security/privacy, and blockchain systems, with more than 10 years of R&D leadership in both academia and industry. He is a United States Presidential award winner for his profound contributions in information technology, and a Fellow of IEEE. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley/EECS in 2008, and has held Advisory positions at various Tech companies, including Amazon. ⏳ Timestamps: 0:00 | Introduction 0:55 | Who is Salman Avestimehr? 5:04 | Web3 interest on College campuses 6:00 | What is ChainOpera? 8:01 | What is the AI Economy? 13:18 | AI Agents 14:14 | ChainOpera's Decentralized AI Platform 17:44 | ChainOpera's infrastructure 20:43 | Security & Privacy of Decentralized AI 25:46 | ChainOpera 2025 Roadmap 27:28 | ChainOpera website, social media & community

The complexities of this life have caused many people to suffer for years with unrealized trauma that has stunted personal growth and prohibited some from actually fulfilling their goals. In this week's episode of Our 4th Annual Divine 9 Series, we are joined by Kharee Hoggs, Theta Epsilon Chapter Initiate of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. Studying Law initially interested Kharee until she discovered a stronger interest in serving youth in the juvenile justice system. She decided to major in Sociology and minor in Social Work at the University of Southern California (USC). As a Teaching Assistant for the USC Prison Education Project, find out why she believes it is important to step away to restore your mental health, and why she believes our due diligence is still key in future elections. ⁠ Kharee will soon complete her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at USC, and she is currently applying to Master of Social Work programs to enhance her knowledge on how to compassionately and respectfully support communities and people in need. In addition to serving as a Teaching Assistant, she is also a Grade Level Coordinator for a book club at Magnolia Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA. With an interest in becoming a therapist, this Spring 2022 Initiate of the Elite Theta Epsilon Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. serves as the chapter's Historian and has dedicated her education to uplifting the voices and spirits of youth affected by the foster care and/or juvenile [in]justice system. To learn more about Kharee, connect with her on IG @khareeree or visit her on LinkedIn.⁠

In this episode of "Benning Bites," host Damon Benning delves into Nebraska football's upcoming game against the University of Southern California (USC). He emphasizes the importance of adopting a winning mindset, moving beyond moral victories, and focusing on securing a win. Benning discusses the team's need to improve red zone efficiency and highlights the coaching staff's commitment to fostering competitive stamina and toughness. He also reflects on recent games, including the loss to UCLA, and the lessons learned as the team prepares for the challenge ahead. Follow Damon on social:  Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/dn9u89yh  Twitter: http://twitter.com/damonbenning    About Benning Bites: Wondering what it would be like to sit down at the breakfast table with Damon Benning? Now you know! Benning Bites is your one-way ticket to exclusive scoops and the latest in sports news.      Follow Hurrdat Sports on social:  Twitter: http://twitter.com/hurrdatsports  Instagram: http://instagram.com/hurrdatsports  Tiktok: http://tiktok.com/hurrdatsports  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HurrdatSports      Hurrdat Sports is a digital production platform dedicated to the new wave of sports media. From podcasting to video interviews along with live events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as we embark on a fascinating exploration of careers within the film industry, with special guest, Anna Halberg: producer, writer, and director. Anna is a 38-year old, Minnesota born and raised woman, who majored in film and television at the School of Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California (USC). You can find one of her projects in THE TOP 4 on Netflix: Tarot, which she wrote, produced and directed. In this episode, we look into the horror movie creation process, inspired by a childhood memory of Anna's, who shares how her passion for horror films was ignited. We uncover the creative process behind her PG-13 rated movie "Tarot," exploring its origins with Sony and Screen Gems, and the importance of understanding the audience in crafting horror. The conversation transitions to the broader landscape of the film industry, where Anna shares her experience of starting a production company right out of college and collaborating with industry giants, like Spielberg. We explore the rise of streaming services and their impact on film production. We also talk about her day to day, costuming within the film industry, and Anna's self-identified super power. Our Non Profit Spotlight is Valkyrie Gives _ Katie Harms @ katie@katieharms.com, www.katieharms.com or Lisa Rubin @ lisa@wardrobeconsulting.net, www.wardrobeconsulting.net . Follow Us On: Instagram LinkedIn Facebook YouTube Please take a moment to rate our podcast wherever you are reading or listening to this! Thank you! We are thankful to our sponsor Sweet Ivy

Professor Gene de Juan Jr has an incredible lifetime of innovations and inventions where great ideas are turned into ophthalmology practice. In this episode we talk about his time at Duke University (with the father of vitrectomy, Prof Robert Machemer), the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California (USC). He is now a professor at UCSF and he leads ForSight Labs. You have certainly enjoyed using his inventions from small gauge vitrectomy, to retinal disease, to glaucoma shunts, and much more. We feature a new podcast every week on Sundays and they are uploaded to all major podcast services (click links here: Apple, Google, Spotify) for enjoying as you drive to work or exercise. I am really excited to share these amazing podcasts with you. The full video of the podcast is here on CataractCoach as well as on our YouTube channel. For 2024 our podcast is sponsored by Harrow, Inc and we are thankful for their support.

Dr. Sabba Quidwai is an innovative educator, thought leader, and passionate problem-solver with a mission to empower individuals to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. Her career journey began during the 2007 recession, a pivotal time that ignited her commitment to preparing students and professionals for a future that is both vibrant and secure. With a background as a high school science teacher, Dr. Quidwai went on to serve in leadership roles such as Education Leadership Executive at Apple and Director of Innovative Learning at the University of Southern California (USC). Throughout her career, she has been dedicated to helping people discover the transformative power of technology and design thinking to solve problems, embrace opportunities, and drive meaningful change. Dr. Quidwai believes in the power of design thinking as a tool to equip individuals with the mindset and skills needed to navigate and thrive in complex environments. Her work goes beyond simply adopting new technologies—she focuses on shifting organizational culture and fostering environments where everyone feels empowered to contribute and make a difference. With a mission to "design the future, today," Dr. Quidwai helps organizations and individuals scaffold challenges into opportunities, facilitating difficult conversations and providing the frameworks to create long-lasting, impactful solutions. Whether through facilitating design sprints or consulting, her approach enables people to design learning experiences that are relevant, engaging, and collaborative, with the power to transform lives. Dr. Quidwai's work is centered on sustainable empowerment, equipping others with the tools and mindset to thrive beyond her consultation, ensuring that they are alive to the possibilities of the future.

Making the most of your college experience requires you to step outside of your comfort zone and open your mind to the various possibilities you may have never thought possible. In this week's episode of Our 4th Annual Divine 9 Series, we are joined by Kennedy McIntosh, Upsilon Chapter Initiate of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. In an effort to be closer to her family during COVID, she left the initial college she committed to, so she could complete a dual enrollment program at the University of Southern California (USC). In addition to completing both her Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and her Master's degree in Studies in Law, she discovered she had another interest in becoming a Chief Pilot. As a result, she recently completed her pilot training at the U.S. Aviation Academy in Denton, Texas. Find out how she used her college experience to explore all of her interests and how her Greek organization has helped her stay emotionally grounded during this election season. ⁠ Kennedy completed both her Master of Studies in Law with an emphasis in Business, and her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science/Engineering at USC. She served as a teaching assistant, Resident Assistant, Gibraltar Intern, and Environmental Science/Engineering Intern at Northrop Grumman. In addition to completing her pilot training through the Southwest Destination 225 Cadet Program, she also plans to explore Senior Executive roles within various sectors of the aviation industry. To support this vision, she is actively involved in organizations such as Women in Aviation and the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals. To learn more about Kennedy, connect with her on IG @kennedyhelenaaa or visit her on LinkedIn.

Welcome to the DMF. Where I try to find out what motivates people behind the scenes in the world of acting and entertainment. Today on the podcast I am talking to Paul Todisco. He is a director and we are talking David Lynch and certain films. As always you can reach me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with my name Justin Younts. Thank you for listening and sit back and enjoy. Welcome to the DMF. I'm Justin Younts. This is part two. I chose to attend the University of Southern California (USC) because it represented an escape from my life in Syracuse. The allure of California, with its golden sunshine and vibrant film industry, was irresistible. I had been accepted to prestigious schools like Cornell and NYU, but USC felt like the right fit for me. It was a place where I could explore my creativity and immerse myself in a community of like-minded individuals. My time at USC was transformative; I embraced my independence and formed lasting friendships with fellow creatives. We still collaborate and support each other to this day. The program itself was solid, though like any university, it had its areas for improvement. However, I believe that the value of a university experience lies in what you make of it. At USC, I was inspired by professors like Drew Casper, who opened my eyes to the artistry of filmmaking. He introduced me to classic films and taught me to appreciate the nuances of visual storytelling. I remember being captivated by Judy Garland's performances and the groundbreaking techniques of directors like Vincent Minnelli. My passion for film grew as I delved into the works of great filmmakers, including David Lynch, whose unique style continues to influence my own work. I believe that creativity thrives in environments that encourage experimentation and authenticity. As I reflect on my journey, I encourage you to pursue your creative passions and seek out experiences that inspire you. Whether it's through formal education or self-exploration, the key is to remain open to new ideas and perspectives. Embrace the journey, and you may just discover your own unique voice in the world of storytelling. 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:05 - Moving to California and Choosing USC 00:01:30 - Influence of David Lynch 00:02:07 - Discussion on Eraserhead 00:03:14 - One Day Like Rainbows 00:06:26 - Experience at USC 00:07:29 - Famous Filmmakers from USC 00:08:30 - Favorite Professor at USC 00:08:59 - Giving up on TV 00:11:02 - Obsession with Judy Garland 00:13:10 - Conclusion

In this episode we have a first for The Treasury Career Corner podcast as we are delighted to be joined by twin brothers Arturo Aguayo and Fidel Aguayo as they share their journey in the field of treasury and their experiences in higher education finance.Arturo Aguayo:Arturo is the Assistant Treasurer at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a renowned research and education institution where he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of Treasury including debt administration, cash management, short-term investments, and merchant services/PCI compliance Prior to joining Caltech, he was a Director of Treasury for the University of Southern California (USC). During his tenure at USC, Arturo developed financing and operational strategies that supported cost containment and revenue generating initiatives for both the University and the Healthcare Enterprise. Before joining USC, Arturo worked as an Investment Banker and Consultant serving municipal clients throughout the State of California.Fidel Aguayo:Fidel is the Vice President of Treasury and Investment/University Treasurer at Loyola Marymount University, a prominent academic institution, where he oversees cash management, debt administration, and the University's endowment.Prior to joining Loyola Marymount University, Fidel served as City Treasurer for the City of Long Beach, California. As Treasurer, he managed all treasury functions. He also established city-wide financial policies and procedures and was responsible for the City's long-term capital financial plan which incorporated enterprise departments.Prior to joining the City, Fidel spent nearly ten years working for a top ten investment bank. During this time, he executed approximately $40 billion of debt for some of the largest agencies in the State of California including airports, seaports, school districts, utilities, and non-profit organizations.Both guests have 20+ years' experience in treasury and public finance and this episode explores the brothers' paths into treasury and their work in higher education finance. They discuss their early experiences in treasury, their passion for public finance, and their transition into higher education. They also touch on the challenges and changes in the treasury field, such as technology and economic conditions.What to expect:Insight into the treasury operations of academic institutions.Discussion on the challenges and changes in the treasury field.Advice on attracting talent and developing a career in treasury.Exploration of the role of treasury in higher education finance.Personal anecdotes and experiences from the twin brothers' treasury careers.You can connect with Arturo Aguayo on LinkedIn. You can connect with Fidel Aguayo on LinkedIn. Are you interested in pursuing a career within Treasury?Whether you've recently graduated, or you want to search for new job opportunities to help develop your treasury career, The Treasury Recruitment Company can help you in your search for the perfect job.

Charles is the co-founder and co-CEO of Crosscourt, a basketball-inspired performance club with its first location in Downtown Los Angeles. Originally from Philadelphia, Charles graduated from the University of Southern California (USC). He gained experience in real estate brokerage, financial structuring, and development projects while working for Cushman & Wakefield and an Andreessen Horowitz-backed real estate startup.Driven by his entrepreneurial spirit and passion for creating a better way to play pickup basketball, Charles co-founded Crosscourt. Leveraging his comprehensive expertise and deep understanding of both the basketball and real estate markets, he continues to lead Crosscourt toward innovative growth and success, with a vision to expand the brand nationwide, enabling adults to enjoy basketball across the country.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/richardlistens/donations

On this episode, I was joined by Maysaa Attar, Senior Vice President of R&D at Bausch + Lomb. On this episode, Maysaa discusses: 00:00 Welcome to Episode 150! 03:00 Challenges and Innovations in Ocular Drug Delivery 09:30 Understanding Intravitreal Injections 13:26 Regulatory Considerations for Ocular Products 20:48 Innovations in Glaucoma Treatment 29:18 The Personal Impact of Vision Loss 35:40 Book Recommendations and Final Thoughts Maysaa Attar is the Senior Vice President of R&D at Bausch & Lomb, leading global pharmaceutical and consumer product research and development. She has held prominent leadership positions at Abbvie and Allergan and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Southern California (USC), where she also serves as a professor.

In this episode, we're diving deep into the college admissions process with two industry experts who have a wealth of experience. Whether you're a returning Dream College Academy student or joining us for the first time, get ready for an insightful discussion that will help you navigate your college journey. Featuring: Claudia Marroquin, Senior Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Student Aid at Bowdoin College, a Bowdoin alum with a fascinating journey from Southern California to the East Coast. Tim Brunold, Chief Admission Officer at the University of Southern California (USC), who has spent his entire career at USC and is deeply invested in the institution's admissions process. In this webinar, Claudia and Tim share their personal stories, insights into the admissions process at their respective schools, and practical advice on what makes an applicant stand out. They discuss the importance of academic preparedness, personal values, and the role of community service in your application. Topics Covered: How admissions decisions are made at Bowdoin and USC What it means to be a competitive applicant The importance of understanding your place in the world and reflecting that in your application Demystifying the process of reading applications and how many people are involved Don't Miss Out: Stay tuned to the end for Claudia's podcast recommendation and additional tips on making the most out of your college application process. Get Involved: Let us know where you're tuning in from and what grade level you're in by typing into the chat! Have questions? Type them in, and we'll answer them during the session.

Today my guest is Jill Steele! She is an author who happens to have been one of my club teammates. She was an outstanding college gymnast at University of Southern California (USC) and she has launched a new book called "Leap Year". A gripping story of ambition and self discovery, Becca grapples with the ultimate question: Can she have it all? https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Year-Jill-Steele-ebook/dp/B0D88D5M6G/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2KS0SIAJUATM1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oHh8Oatm04biPJItBzu1uiLOQNpviztxG6-5YvEbUxbnF7PV98FJcX7vKz63VuR6LXiOjDLORt0fS0km8vJ93SzcsJ-1XycXV-dmMfAVvmvGKJXrRp2wpSBPPvuQpO6Qwl-ySaPR3QlTokAOeU2NHe7NML34MdRW4npE2ALHVou86XLiXZYwn10C1WKpXR017NUbrK4tblLX8Wg573HJwa75Vg0k1Hu7ZUDxDuH69e0.yAzxknUuVfg7UvbdKwPsbODj3s0L9pirI3tfj0gr_40&dib_tag=se&keywords=leap+year+book&qid=1721396078&s=books&sprefix=leap+year+book%2Cstripbooks%2C234&sr=1-2

Iranian born, Dr. Hormoz Shariat founder of Iran Alive. Dr. Shariat grew up in Iran in a Muslim home and became a follower of Jesus after a comparative study of the Bible and Quran. He has a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Southern California (USC) and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible and Theology from Jessup University. Alive Iran utilizes Satellite TV to reach the millions of people of Iran and the rest of the Middle East with God's Word and the Gospel.

It is a pleasure to welcome actress Chantal Nchako to The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.Chantal Nchako's journey from her hometown in Cameroon to the University of Southern California (USC) on a full scholarship is a testament to her determination and talent. Her graduation was marked by the prestigious Ava Greenwald Memorial Scholarship for outstanding MFA Actor at USC. Chantal's success continued as she became the first USC MFA student to be accepted into Williamstown Theatre Festival's Professional Training Program, where she played the lead role of Ella in Sam Shepard's Curse of a Starving Class.  Chantal Nchako's talent and versatility have impressed casting directors, leading to roles in Madame Secretary and major roles in films including Distant Tales and Our Deadly Vows, both of which are streaming on Amazon Prime Video.   Chantal starred as the lead in the short film Beast, which won the South by Southwest Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. She also won the Best Actress Award at the Queen Palm International Film Festival.Chantal guest stars on BET+'s Diarra from Detroit and is starring in Netflix's highly anticipated film Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F with Eddie Murphy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The highly anticipated sequel is expected to premiere on July 3.   Chantal Nchako is also the founder and designer of Choobiz, a luxury, handcrafted, vegan, and cruelty-free shoe line made in Italy. She is also a resident faculty member at the Silva Arte e Danza, a musical theatre academy in Siracusa, Italy. In her free time, Chantal enjoys skiing, equestrian, writing, traveling (especially to Italy, where she splits her time), and spending time with her adorable cat, Lucky.  On this episode of The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Chantal Nchako discussed how she secured her part in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and her creative process when developing shoes for Choobiz.Let's connect on social media! Follow me on:A) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacobElyacharB) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacobelyachar/C) Threads: https://www.threads.net/@JacobElyacharD) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therealjacobelyacE) Twitter: https://x.com/JacobElyacharF) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JacobElyacharBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.

Rubin is the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Peltoma Capital Partners. He and his wife Emily, and their daughter Olive Rae, live in Austin, TX. He has nearly 20 years of investment experience, starting as a commodities and fixed income trader at The Chicago Board of Trade, then as a Regional Director at Dimensional Fund Advisors, and most recently as a Partner, Senior Financial Advisor and Chief Investment Officer at Perspective Wealth Partners. Rubin founded Peltoma Capital Partners, in 2023, to help show people that there's a better way to invest. In addition to being a Forbes contributor, he is the acclaimed writer of the Fortunes & Frictions blog, which has readers in over 125 countries and has earned praise from individuals like Josh Brown (CNBC) and Jason Zweig (WSJ). He's recognized as someone who can demystify complicated investment ideas, and takes the time to ensure investors are aligned on the core ideas of what's being implemented on their behalf. Rubin is a relentless advocate for financial literacy, and a founding committee member of the USC Financial Literacy Festival, which had over 1,000 attendees in its inaugural 2022 event. Most recently he spoke at SXSW in Austin, TX, and at the 2023 Private Wealth Management Summit in San Diego, CA. He graduated from Kenyon College, and received an MBA in Finance from the University of Southern California (USC). Rubin earned the National Chess Master title at age 15. He is a CFA charterholder. www.moneymaestroblog.com/ep-77

Our Fully Pipped Captain The Sistas welcome TV icon, Dawnn Lewis to the show. We geek out about “A Different World” and “Star Trek Lower Decks”. But what we are really excited about is, is Dawnn's A New Day Foundation and the upcoming Focused N F.I.T. For A Different World Conference, Saturday June 15, 2024. The A New Day Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, founded by Award Winning Actress, Musician, Producer & Activist Dawnn Lewis. The foundations mission is to provide financial and programmatic support toward the empowerment and education of underserved youth; provide capacity building pro bono services to assist small/grassroots non-profits; and to provide general support services in underserved communities. https://anewdayfoundation.net/ 2024 Focused N F.I.T. For A Different World Conference Saturday, June 15, 2024 8am-530pm PST University of Southern California (USC) 3351 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089 For College-Bound High School Juniors & Seniors, Parents, and College Freshmen & Sophomores Affecting The Mindset of Today's Youth, While Providing Tools for Life Choices, Technology and Financial Literacy Free Meals provided for all, during the day The opportunity to receive 1 of 8 - $2,000.00 scholarships Register Here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16X5TR0_HYnNfpYUqy9UsEEZKBmTjGfAFDASVd2ARkCE/viewform?edit_requested=true&pli=1 Support the SyFy Sistas podcast on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/syfysistas Thank you Dena Massenburg for our dope logo: @blackbeanz70 Thank you to our sound engineer DoS, the Anonymous: @dos_theanonymous_1 You can find the SyFy Sistas and our family of podcasts on The Trek Geeks Podcast Network https://trekgeeks.com FANSETS - Our pins...have character. We want to thank our friends at FanSets for being the presenting sponsor of the Trek Geeks Podcast Network. https://fansets.com ALL SYFY SISTAS INFO AT YOUR FINGER TIPS https://linktr.ee/syfysistas Please subscribe/Follow/Like

Our Fully Pipped Captain The Sistas welcome TV icon, Dawnn Lewis to the show. We geek out about “A Different World” and “Star Trek Lower Decks”. But what we are really excited about is, is Dawnn's A New Day Foundation and the upcoming Focused N F.I.T. For A Different World Conference, Saturday June 15, 2024. The A New Day Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, founded by Award Winning Actress, Musician, Producer & Activist Dawnn Lewis. The foundations mission is to provide financial and programmatic support toward the empowerment and education of underserved youth; provide capacity building pro bono services to assist small/grassroots non-profits; and to provide general support services in underserved communities. https://anewdayfoundation.net/ 2024 Focused N F.I.T. For A Different World Conference Saturday, June 15, 2024 8am-530pm PST University of Southern California (USC) 3351 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089 For College-Bound High School Juniors & Seniors, Parents, and College Freshmen & Sophomores Affecting The Mindset of Today's Youth, While Providing Tools for Life Choices, Technology and Financial Literacy Free Meals provided for all, during the day The opportunity to receive 1 of 8 - $2,000.00 scholarships Register Here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16X5TR0_HYnNfpYUqy9UsEEZKBmTjGfAFDASVd2ARkCE/viewform?edit_requested=true&pli=1 Support the SyFy Sistas podcast on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/syfysistas Thank you Dena Massenburg for our dope logo: @blackbeanz70 Thank you to our sound engineer DoS, the Anonymous: @dos_theanonymous_1 You can find the SyFy Sistas and our family of podcasts on The Trek Geeks Podcast Network https://trekgeeks.com FANSETS - Our pins...have character. We want to thank our friends at FanSets for being the presenting sponsor of the Trek Geeks Podcast Network. https://fansets.com ALL SYFY SISTAS INFO AT YOUR FINGER TIPS https://linktr.ee/syfysistas Please subscribe/Follow/Like

Roger Divine is the Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations at Pomona College, where he is instrumental in leading the digital transformation of the institution's advancement operations. Roger's journey into advancement is a testament to his diverse interests and relentless curiosity.Born in Detroit, Michigan, and having grown up in the Midwest, Roger's early years were marked by a passion for languages, spurred by a cultural exchange program in Spain during high school. This experience not only honed his Spanish skills but also ignited a lifelong interest in language and culture. Roger pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, where he initially majored in computer engineering before switching to a focus on languages, ultimately studying Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese.Roger's career in IT began at the University of Michigan's Central Information Technology Division. His expertise in data and analytics led him to a pivotal role at the Ross School of Business, where he was instrumental in developing analytics and annual giving programs. This role marked his formal entry into the world of advancement.In 2015, Roger transitioned to the University of Southern California (USC), where he led significant advancements in data-driven decision-making within the university's advancement operations. His leadership at USC was characterized by fostering a culture of data utilization and proactive strategy, contributing to the institution's substantial fundraising achievements.Now at Pomona College, Roger is spearheading the college's CRM conversion to Salesforce, aiming to create a cohesive and integrated advancement ecosystem. His vision is to leverage technology, including AI, to enhance connectivity with alumni, families, and friends, ultimately driving the institution's mission forward.Roger's leadership style is marked by his emphasis on teamwork, continuous learning, and the strategic use of data to inform decision-making. He is passionate about using his skills to support philanthropic efforts and is dedicated to creating meaningful connections within the Pomona College community.In addition to his professional achievements, Roger is an advocate for lifelong learning and encourages others to explore their interests and passions. His journey from the Midwest to California and his varied experiences in language, technology, and education highlight his adaptability and commitment to growth and innovation in the field of advancement.

Never in human history have people had more powerful tools than right now. At the same time, the tools of distraction are everywhere. The quest to reach individual potential is both enhanced and disrupted by these tools. Dr. Jason Womack helps people use the tools that will amplify their performance while teaching them to ignore the noise that prevents them from realizing their potential. In this interview, Dr. Womack discusses the common obstacles that prevent people from performing their best and how people can overcome those obstacles. He dives deep into the power of self-talk and the importance of feedback. Dr. Womack discusses a number of ways that he has helped people work smarter and he gives advice for what can be done when someone is working for a poor leader. In addition, Dr. Womack talks about how people can better manage their time, energy, attention, and tools and resources. Dr. Jason Womack is the Development Branch Chief under the Enterprise Talent Management Office (ETMO) at the United States Space Force (USSF), where he works to strengthen the connection of Guardians to themselves, the mission, and one another. Dr. Womack is a Certified Professional Innovator, an ICF-ACC certified coach, and an emotional intelligence trainer with a doctoral degree in organizational leadership from the University of Southern California (USC). His mission is to help Guardians sharpen their human domain leadership skills which are essential for operating in complex and dynamic environments.

“We haven't invested this much money into an infrastructure like this really until you go back to the pyramids”—Kate CrawfordTranscript with links to audio and external links. Ground Truths podcasts are on Apple and Spotify. The video interviews are on YouTube Eric Topol (00:06):Well, hello, this is Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I'm really delighted today to welcome Kate Crawford, who we're very lucky to have as an Australian here in the United States. And she's multidimensional, as I've learned, not just a scholar of AI, all the dimensions of AI, but also an artist, a musician. We're going to get into all this today, so welcome Kate.Kate Crawford (00:31):Thank you so much, Eric. It's a pleasure to be here.Eric Topol (00:34):Well, I knew of your work coming out of the University of Southern California (USC) as a professor there and at Microsoft Research, and I'm only now learning about all these other things that you've been up to including being recognized in TIME 2023 as one of 100 most influential people in AI and it's really fascinating to see all the things that you've been doing. But I guess I'd start off with one of your recent publications in Nature. It was a world view, and it was about generative AI is guzzling water and energy. And in that you wrote about how these large AI systems, which are getting larger seemingly every day are needing as much energy as entire nations and the water consumption is rampant. So maybe we can just start off with that. You wrote a really compelling piece expressing concerns, and obviously this is not just the beginning of all the different aspects you've been tackling with AI.Exponential Growth, Exponential Concerns Kate Crawford (01:39):Well, we're in a really interesting moment. What I've done as a researcher in this space for a very long time now is really introduce a material analysis of artificial intelligence. So we are often told that AI is a very immaterial technology. It's algorithms in the cloud, it's objective mathematics, but in actual fact, it comes with an enormous material infrastructure. And this is something that I took five years to research for my last book, Atlas of AI. It meant going to the mines where lithium and cobalt are being extracted. It meant going into the Amazon fulfillment warehouses to see how humans collaborate with robotic and AI systems. And it also meant looking at the large-scale labs where training data is being gathered and then labeled by crowd workers. And for me, this really changed my thinking. It meant that going from being a professor for 15 years focusing on AI from a very traditional perspective where we write papers, we're sitting in our offices behind desks, that I really had to go and do these journeys, these field trips, to understand that full extractive infrastructure that is needed to run AI at a planetary scale.(02:58):So I've been keeping a very close eye on what would change with generative AI and what we've seen particularly in the last two years has been an extraordinary expansion of the three core elements that I really write about in Atlas, so the extraction of data of non-renewable resources, and of course hidden labor. So what we've seen, particularly on the resources side, is a gigantic spike both in terms of energy and water and that's often the story that we don't hear. We're not aware that when we're told about the fact that there gigantic hundred billion computers that are now being developed for the next stage of generative AI that has an enormous energy and water footprint. So I've been researching that along with many others who are now increasingly concerned about how we might think about AI more holistically.Eric Topol (03:52):Well, let's go back to your book, which is an extraordinary book, the AI Atlas and how you dissected not just the well power of politics and planetary costs, but that has won awards and it was a few years back, and I wonder so much has changed since then. I mean ChatGPT in late 2022 caught everybody off guard who wasn't into this knowing that this has been incubating for a number of years, and as you said, these base models are just extraordinary in every parameter you can think about, particularly the computing resource and consumption. So your concerns were of course registered then, have they gone to exponential growth now?Kate Crawford (04:45):I love the way you put that. I think you're right. I think my concerns have grown exponentially with the models. But I was like everybody else, even though I've been doing this for a long time and I had something of a heads up in terms of where we were moving with transformer models, I was also quite taken aback at the extraordinary uptake of ChatGPT back in November 2022 in fact, gosh, it still feels like yesterday it's been such an extraordinary timescale. But looking at that shift to a hundred million users in two months and then the sort of rapid competition that was emerging from the major tech companies that I think really took me by surprise, the degree to which everybody was jumping on the bandwagon, applying some form of large language model to everything and anything suddenly the hammer was being applied to every single nail.(05:42):And in all of that sound and fury and excitement, I think there will be some really useful applications of these tools. But I also think there's a risk that we apply it in spaces where it's really not well suited that we are not looking at the societal and political risks that come along with these approaches, particularly next token prediction as a way of generating knowledge. And then finally this bigger set of questions around what is it really costing the planet to build these infrastructures that are really gargantuan? I mean, as a species, we haven't invested this much money into an infrastructure like this really until you go back to the pyramids, you really got to go very far back to say that type of just gargantuan spending in terms of capital, in terms of labor, in terms of all of the things are required to really build these kinds of systems. So for me, that's the moment that we're in right now and perhaps here together in 2024, we can take a breath from that extraordinary 18 month period and hopefully be a little more reflective on what we're building and why and where will it be best used.Propagation of BiasesEric Topol (06:57):Yeah. Well, there's so many aspects of this that I'd like to get into with you. I mean, one of course, you're as a keen observer and activist in this whole space, you've made I think a very clear point about how our culture is mirrored in our AI that is our biases, and people are of course very quick to blame AI per se, but it seems like it's a bigger problem than just that. Maybe you could comment about, obviously biases are a profound concern about propagation of them, and where do you see where the problem is and how it can be attacked?Kate Crawford (07:43):Well, it is an enormous problem, and it has been for many years. I was first really interested in this question in the era that was known as the big data era. So we can think about the mid-2000s, and I really started studying large scale uses of data in scientific applications, but also in what you call social scientific settings using things like social media to detect and predict opinion, movement, the way that people were assessing key issues. And time and time again, I saw the same problem, which is that we have this tendency to assume that with scale comes greater accuracy without looking at the skews from the data sources. Where is that data coming from? What are the potential skews there? Is there a population that's overrepresented compared to others? And so, I began very early on looking at those questions. And then when we had very large-scale data sets start to emerge, like ImageNet, which was really perhaps the most influential dataset behind computer vision that was released in 2009, it was used widely, it was freely available.(09:00):That version was available for over a decade and no one had really looked inside it. And so, working with Trevor Paglen and others, we analyzed how people were being represented in this data set. And it was really quite extraordinary because initially people are labeled with terms that might seem relatively unsurprising, like this is a picture of a nurse, or this is a picture of a doctor, or this is a picture of a CEO. But then you look to see who is the archetypical CEO, and it's all pictures of white men, or if it's a basketball player, it's all pictures of black men. And then the labeling became more and more extreme, and there are terms like, this is an alcoholic, this is a corrupt politician, this is a kleptomaniac, this is a bad person. And then a whole series of labels that are simply not repeatable on your podcast.(09:54):So in finding this, we were absolutely horrified. And again, to know that so many AI models had trained on this as a way of doing visual recognition was so concerning because of course, very few people had even traced who was using this model. So trying to do the reverse engineering of where these really problematic assumptions were being built in hardcoded into how AI models see and interpret the world, that was a giant unknown and remains to this day quite problematic. We did a recent study that just came out a couple of months ago looking at one of the biggest data sets behind generative AI systems that are doing text to image generation. It's called LAION-5B, which stands for 5 billion. It has 5 billion images and text captions drawn from the internet. And you might think, as you said, this will just mirror societal biases, but it's actually far more weird than you might imagine.(10:55):It's not a representative sample even of the internet because particularly for these data sets that are now trying to use the ALT tags that are used around images, who uses ALT tags the most on the internet? Well, it's e-commerce sites and it's often stock image sites. So what you'll see and what we discovered in our study was that the vast majority of images and labels are coming from sites like Shopify and Pinterest, these kind of shopping aspirational collection sites. And that is a very specific way of seeing the world, so it's by no means even a perfect mirror. It's a skewed mirror in multiple ways. And that's something that we need to think of particularly when we turn to more targeted models that might be working in say healthcare or in education or even in criminal justice, where we see all sorts of problems emerge.Exploiting Humans for RLHFEric Topol (11:51):Well, that's really interesting. I wonder to extend that a bit about the human labor side of this. Base models are tweaked, fine-tuned, and one of the ways to do that, of course is getting people to weigh in. And this has been written about quite a bit about how the people that are doing this can be exploited, getting wages that are ridiculously weak. And I wonder if you could comment about that because in the ethics of AI, this seems to be one of the many things that a lot of people don't realize about reinforcement learning.Kate Crawford (12:39):Oh, I completely agree. It's quite an extraordinary story. And of course now we have a new category of crowd labor that's called reinforcement learning with human feedback or RLHF. And what was discovered by multiple investigations was that these laborers are in many cases paid less than $2 an hour in very exploitative conditions, looking at results that in many cases are really quite horrifying. They could be accounts of murder, suicide, trauma, this can be visual material, it can be text-based material. And again, the workers in these working for these companies, and again, it's often contract labor, it's not directly within a tech company, it's contracted out. It's very hidden, it's very hard to research and find. But these laborers have been experiencing trauma and are really now in many cases bringing lawsuits, but also trying to unionize and say, these are not acceptable conditions for people to be working under.(13:44):So in the case of OpenAI, it was found that it was Kenyan workers who were doing this work for just poverty wages, but it's really across the board. It's so common now that humans are doing the hard work behind the scenes to make these systems appear autonomous. And that's the real trap that we're being told that this is the artificial intelligence. But in actual fact, what Jeff Bezos calls Mechanical Turk is that it's artificial, artificial intelligence otherwise known as human beings. So that is a very significant layer in terms of how these systems work that is often unacknowledged. And clearly these workers in many cases are muzzled from speaking, they're not allowed to talk about what they do, they can't even tell their families. They're certainly prevented from collective action, which is why we've seen this push towards unionization. And finally, of course, they're not sharing in any of the profits that are being generated by these extraordinary new systems that are making a very small number of people, very wealthy indeed.Eric Topol (14:51):And do you know if that's improving or is it still just as bad as it has been reported? It's really deeply concerning to see human exploitation, and we all know well about sweatshops and all that, but here's another version, and it's really quite distressing.Kate Crawford (15:09):It really is. And in fact, there have been several people now working to create really almost like fair work guidelines. So Oxford has the sort of fair work initiative looking specifically at crowd work. They also have a rating system where they rate all of the major technology companies for how well they're treating their crowd laborers. And I have to say the numbers aren't looking good in the last 12 months, so I would love to see much more improvement there. We are also starting to see legislation be tabled specifically on this topic. In fact, Germany was one of the most recent to start to explore how they would create a strong legislative backing to make sure that there's fair labor conditions. Also, Chile was actually one of the first to legislate in this space, but you can imagine it's very difficult to do because it's a system that is operating under the radar through sort of multiple contracted chains. And even some of the people within tech companies will tell me it's really hard to know if they're working with a company that's doing this in the right way and paying people well. But frankly, I'd like to see far greater scrutiny otherwise, as you say, we're building on this system, which looks like AI sweatshops.Eric Topol (16:24):Yeah, no, I think people just have this illusion that these machines are doing everything by themselves, and that couldn't be further from the truth, especially when you're trying to take it to the next level. And there's only so much human content you can scrape from the internet, and obviously it needs additional input to take it to that more refined performance. Now, besides your writing and being much of a conscience for AI, you're also a builder. I mean, I first got to know some of your efforts through when you started the AI Now Institute. Maybe you can tell us a bit about that. Now you're onto the Knowing Machines Project and I don't know how many other projects you're working on, so maybe you can tell us about what it's like not just to be a keen observer, but also one to actually get initiatives going.Kate Crawford (17:22):Well, I think it's incredibly important that we start to build interdisciplinary coalitions of researchers, but sometimes even beyond the academic field, which is where I really initially trained in this space, and really thinking about how do we involve journalists, how do we involve filmmakers, how do we involve people who will look at these issues in really different ways and tell these stories more widely? Because clearly this really powerful shift that we're making as a society towards using AI in all sorts of domains is also a public issue. It's a democratic issue and it's an issue where we should all be able to really see into how these systems are working and have a say in how they'll be impacting our lives. So one of the things that I've done is really create research groups that are interdisciplinary, starting at Microsoft Research as one of the co-founders of FATE, a group that stands for fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics, and then the AI Now Institute, which was originally at NYU, and now with Knowing Machines, which is an international group, which I've been really delighted to build, rather than just purely focusing on those in the US because of course these systems are inherently transnational, they will be affecting global populations.(18:42):So we really need to think about how do you bring people from very different perspectives with different training to ask this question around how are these systems being built, who is benefiting and who might be harmed, and how can we address those issues now in order to actually prevent some of those harms and prevent the greatest risks that I see that are possible with this enormous turn to artificial intelligence everywhere?Eric Topol (19:07):Yeah, and it's interesting how you over the years are a key advisor, whether it's the White House, the UN or the European Parliament. And I'm curious about your experience because I didn't know much about the Paris ENS. Can you tell us about you were Visiting Chair, this is AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), I don't know if I pronounce that right. My French is horrible, but this sounds like something really interesting.Kate Crawford (19:42):Well, it was really fascinating because this was the first time that ENS, which is really one of the top research institutions in Europe, had turned to this focus of how do we contend with artificial intelligence, not just as a technical question, but as a sort of a profound question of justice of society of ethics. And so, I was invited to be the first visiting chair, but tragically this corresponded with the start of the pandemic in 2020. And so, it ended up being a two-year virtual professorship, which is really a tragedy when you're thinking about spending time in Paris to be spending it on Zoom. It's not quite the same thing, but I had the great fortune of using that time to assemble a group of scholars around the world who were looking at these questions from very different disciplines. Some were historians of science, others were sociologists, some were philosophers, some were machine learners.(20:39):And really essentially assembled this group to think through some of the leading challenges in terms the potential social impacts and current social impacts of these systems. And so, we just recently published that through the academies of Science and Engineering, and it's been almost like a template for thinking about here are core domains that need more research. And interestingly, we're at that moment, I think now where we can say we have to look in a much more granular fashion beyond the hype cycles, beyond the sense of potential, the enormous potential upside that we're always hearing about to look at, okay, how do these systems actually work now? What kinds of questions can we bring into the research space so that we're really connecting the ideas that come traditionally from the social sciences and the humanistic disciplines into the world of machine learning and AI design. That's where I see the enormous upside that we can no longer stay in these very rigorously patrolled silos and to really use that interdisciplinary awareness to build systems differently and hopefully more sustainably as well.Is Working At Microsoft A Conflict?Eric Topol (21:55):Yeah, no, that's what I especially like about your work is that you're not a doomsday person or force. You're always just trying to make it better, but now that's what gets me to this really interesting question because you are a senior principal researcher at Microsoft and Microsoft might not like some of these things that you're advocating, how does that potential conflict work out?Kate Crawford (22:23):It's interesting. I mean, people often ask me, am I a technology optimist or a technology pessimist? And I always say I'm a technology realist, and we're looking at these systems being used. I think we are not benefited by discourses of AI doomerism nor by AI boosterism. We have to assess the real politic and the political economies into which these systems flow. So obviously part of the way that I've got to know what I know about how systems are designed and how they work at scale is through being at Microsoft Research where I'm working alongside extraordinary colleagues and all of whom come from, in many cases, professorial backgrounds who are deep experts in their fields. And we have this opportunity to work together and to look at these questions very early on in the kinds of production cycles and enormous shifts in the way that we use technology.(23:20):But it is interesting of course that at the moment Microsoft is absolutely at the leading edge of this change, and I've always thought that it's incredibly important for researchers and academics who are in industrial spaces to be able to speak freely, to be able to share what they see and to use that as a way that the industry can, well hopefully keep itself honest, but also share between what it knows and what everybody else knows because there's a giant risk in having those spaces be heavily demarcated and having researchers really be muzzled. I think that's where we see real problems emerge. Of course, one of the great concerns a couple of years ago was when Timnit Gebru and others were fired from Google for speaking openly about the concerns they had about the first-generation large language models. And my hope is that there's been a lesson through that really unfortunate set of decisions made at Google that we need people speaking from the inside about these questions in order to actually make these systems better, as you say, over the medium and long term.Eric Topol (24:26):Yeah, no, that brings me to thought of Peter Lee, who I'm sure because he wrote a book about GPT-4 and healthcare and was very candid about its potential, real benefits and the liabilities, and he's a very humble kind of guy. He's not one that has any bravado that I know of, so it speaks well to at least another colleague of yours there at Microsoft and their ability to see all the different sides here, not just what we'll talk about in a minute the arms race both across companies and countries. But before I get to that, there's this other part of you and I wonder if there's really two or three of you that is as a composer of music and art, I looked at your Anatomy of an AI System, I guess, which is on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and that in itself is amazing, but how do you get into all these other parts, are these hobbies or is this part of a main part of your creative work or where does it fit in?Kate Crawford (25:40):Eric, didn't I mention the cloning program that I participated in early and that there are many Kate's and it's fantastic we all work together. Yeah, that explains it. Look, it's interesting. Way back as a teenager, I was fascinated with technology. Of course, it was the early stages of the web at that moment, and I could see clearly that this was, the internet was going to completely change everything from my generation in terms of what we would do in terms of the way that we would experience the world. And as I was also at that time an electronic musician in bands, I was like, this was a really fantastic combination of bringing together creative practice with a set of much larger concerns and interests around at a systems level, how technology and society are co-constituted, how they evolve together and shape each other. And that's really been the map of how I've always worked across my life.(26:48):And it's interesting, I've always collaborated with artists and Vladan Joler who I worked with on anatomy of an AI system. We actually met at a conference on voice enabled AI systems, and it was really looking at the ethics of could it be possible to build an open source, publicly accessible version of say Alexa rather than purely a private model owned by a corporation, and could that be done in a more public open source way? And we asked a different question, we looked at each other and we're like, oh, I haven't met you yet, but I can see that there are some problems here. One of them is it's not just about the data and it's not just about the technical pipelines, it's about where the components come from. It's about the mining structures that needed to make all of these systems. It's about the entire end of life what happens when we throw these devices out from generally between three to four years of use and how they go into these giant e-waste tips.(27:51):And we basically started looking at this as an enormous sort of life and death of a single AI system, which for us started out by drawing these things on large pieces of butcher's paper, which just expanded and expanded until we had this enormous systems level analysis of what it takes just to ask Alexa what the weather is today. And in doing that, it taught me a couple of things. One that people really want to understand all of the things that go into making an AI system work. This piece has had a very long life. It's been in over a hundred museums around the world. It's traveled further than I have, but it's also very much about that broader political economy that AI systems aren't neutral, they don't just exist to serve us. They are often sort of fed into corporate structures that are using them to generate profits, and that means that they're used in very particular ways and that there are these externalities in terms of how they produced that linger in our environments that have really quite detrimental impacts on systems of labor and how people are recompensed and a whole range of relationships to how data is seen and used as though it's a natural resource that doesn't actually come from people's lives, that doesn't come with risks attached to it.(29:13):So that project was really quite profound for me. So we've continued to do these kinds of, I would call them research art projects, and we just released a new one called Calculating Empires, which looks at a 500 year history of technology and power looking specifically at how empires over time have used new technologies to centralize their power and expand and grow, which of course is part of what we're seeing at the moment in the empires of AI.Eric Topol (29:43):And what about the music side?Kate Crawford (29:45):Well, I have to say I've been a little bit slack on the music side. Things have been busy in AI Eric, I have to say it's kept me away from the music studio, but I always intend to get back there. Fortunately, I have a kid who's very musical and he's always luring me away from my desk and my research saying, let's write some music. And so, he'll keep me honest.Geopolitics and the Arms RacesEric Topol (30:06):Well, I think it's striking just because you have this blend of the humanities and you're so deep into trying to understand and improve our approaches in technology. And it seems like a very unusual, I don't know, too many techies that have these different dimensions, so that's impressive. Now let's get back to the arms race. You just were talking about tracing history over hundreds of years and empires, but right now we have a little problem. We have the big tech titans that are going after each other on a daily basis, and of course you know the group very well. And then you have China and the US that are vying to be the dominant force and problems with China accessing NVIDIA chips and Taiwan sitting there in a potentially very dangerous position, not just for Taiwan, but also for the US. And I wonder if you could just give us your sense about the tensions here. They're US based as well of course, because that's some of the major forces in companies, but then they're also globally. So we have a lot of stuff in the background that people don't like to think about, but it's actually happening right now.Kate Crawford (31:35):I think it's one of the most important things that we can focus on, in fact. I mean and again, this is why I think a materialist analysis of artificial intelligence is so important because not only does it force you to look at the raw components, where does the energy come from? Where does the water come from? But it means you're looking at where the chipsets come from. And you can see that in many cases there are these infrastructural choke points where we are highly dependent on specific components that sit within geopolitical flashpoints. And Taiwan is really the exemplar of this sort of choke point at the moment. And again, several companies are trying to address this by spinning up new factories to build these components, but this takes a lot of time and an enormous amount of resources yet again. So what we're seeing is I think a very difficult moment in the geopolitics of artificial intelligence.(32:31):What we've had certainly for the last decade has been almost a geopolitical duopoly. We've had the US and China not only having enormous power and influence in this space, but also goading each other into producing the most extreme forms of both data extractive and surveillance technologies. And unfortunately, this is just as true in the United States that I commonly hear this in rooms in DC where you'll hear advisors say, well, having any type of guardrails or ethical considerations for our AI systems is a problem if it means that China's going to do it anyway. And that creates this race to the bottom dynamic of do as much of whatever you can do regardless of the ethical and in some cases legal problems that will create. And I think that's been the dynamic that we've seen for some time. And of course the last 18 months to two years, we've seen that really extraordinary AI war happening internally in the United States where again, this race dynamic I think does create unfortunately this tendency to just go as fast as possible without thinking about potential downsides.(33:53):And I think we're seeing the legacy of that right now. And of course, a lot of the conversations from people designing these systems are now starting to say, look, being first is great, but we don't want to be in a situation as we saw recently with Google's Gemini where you have to pull an entire model off the shelves and you have to say, this is not ready. We actually have to remove it and start again. So this is the result I think of that high pressure, high speed dynamic that we've been seeing both inside the US but between the US and China. And of course, what that does to the rest of the world is create this kind of client states where we've got the EU trying to say, alright, well we'll export a regulatory model if we're not going to be treated as an equivalent player here. And then of course, so many other countries who are just seen as spaces to extract low paid labor or the mineralogical layer. So that is the big problem that I see is that that dynamic has only intensified in recent years.A.I. and MedicineEric Topol (34:54):Yeah, I know it's really another level of concern and it seems like it could be pretty volatile if for example, if the US China relations takes another dive and the tensions there go to levels that haven't been seen so far. I guess the other thing, there's so much that is I think controversial, unsettled in this space and so much excitement. I mean, just yesterday for example, was the first AI randomized trial to show that you could save lives. When I wrote that up, it was about the four other studies that showed how it wasn't working. Different studies of course, but there's so much excitement at the same time, there's deep concerns. You've been a master at articulating these deep concerns. What have we missed in our discussion today, I mean we've covered a lot of ground, but what do you see are other things that should be mentioned?Kate Crawford (36:04):Well, one of the things that I've loved in terms of following your work, Eric, is that you very carefully walk that line between allowing the excitement when we see really wonderful studies come out that say, look, there's great potential here, but also articulating concerns where you see them. So I think I'd love to hear, I mean take this opportunity to ask you a question and say what's exciting you about the way that this particularly new generation AI is being used in the medical context and what are the biggest concerns you have there?Eric Topol (36:35):Yeah, and it's interesting because the biggest advance so far in research and medicine was the study yesterday using deep learning without any transformer large language model effort. And that's where that multiplicative of opportunity or potential is still very iffy, it's wobbly. I mean, it needs much more refinement than where we are right now. It's exciting because it is multimodal and it brings in the ability to bring all the layers of a human being to understand our uniqueness and then do much better in terms of, I got a piece coming out soon in Science about medical forecasting and how we could really get to prevention of conditions that people are at high risk. I mean like for example today the US preventive task force said that all women age 40 should have mammograms, 40.Kate Crawford (37:30):I saw that.Eric Topol (37:30):Yeah, and this is just crazy Looney Tunes because here we have the potential to know pretty precisely who are those 12%, only 12% of women who would ever get breast cancer in their lifetime, and why should we put the other 88% through all this no less the fact that there are some women even younger than age 40 that have significantly high risk that are not picked up. But I do think eventually when we get these large language models to actualize their potential, we'll do really great forecasting and we'll be able to not just prevent or forestall cancer, Alzheimer's and so many things. It's quite exciting, but it's the earliest, we're not even at first base yet, but I think I can see our way to get there eventually. And it's interesting because the discussion I had previously with Geoffrey Hinton, and I wonder if you think this as well, that he sees the health medical space as the only really safe space. He thinks most everything else has got more concerns about the downsides is the sweet spot as he called it. But I know that's not particularly an area that you are into, but I wonder if you share that the excitement about your health could be improved in the future with AI.Kate Crawford (38:52):Well, I think it's a space of enormous potential, but again, enormous risk for the same reasons that we discussed earlier, which is we have to look at the training data and where it's coming from. Do we have truly representative sources of data? And this of course has been a consistent problem certainly for the last hundred years and longer. When we look at who are the medical patients whose data is being collected, are we seeing skews? And that has created all sorts of problems, particularly in the last 50 years in terms of misdiagnosing women, people of color, missing and not taking seriously the health complaints of people who are already seen as marginalized populations, thus then further skewing the data that is then used to train AI models. So this is something that we have to take very seriously, and I had the great fortune of being invited by Francis Collins to work with the NIH on their AI advisory board.(39:50):They produced a board to look just at these questions around how can this moment in AI be harnessed in such a way that we can think about the data layer, think about the quality of data and how we train models. And it was a really fascinating sort of year long discussion because in the room we had people who were just technologists who just wanted as much data as possible and just give us all that data and then we'll do something, but we'll figure it out later. Then there were people who had been part of the Human Genome Project and had worked with Francis on questions around the legal and ethical and social questions, which he had really centered in that project very early on. And they said, no, we have to learn these lessons. We have to learn that data comes from somewhere. It's not divorced of context, and we have to think about who's being represented there and also who's not being represented there because that will then be intensified in any model that we train on that data.Humans and Automation Bias(40:48):And then also thinking about what would happen in terms of if those models are only held by a few companies who can profit from them and not more publicly and widely shared. These were the sorts of conversations that I think at the absolute forefront in terms of how we're going to navigate this moment. But if we get that right, if we center those questions, then I think we have far greater potential here than we might imagine. But I'm also really cognizant of the fact that even if you have a perfect AI model, you are always going to have imperfect people applying it. And I'm sure you saw that same study that came out in JAMA back in December last year, which was looking at how AI bias, even slightly biased models can worsen human medical diagnosis. I don't know if you saw this study, but I thought it was really extraordinary.(41:38):It was sort of 450 doctors and physician's assistants and they were really being shown a handful of cases of patients with acute respiratory failure and they really needed come up with some sort of diagnosis and they were getting suggestions from an AI model. One model was trained very carefully with highly accurate data, and the other was a fairly shoddy, shall we say, AI model with quite biased data. And what was interesting is that the clinicians when they were working with very well-trained AI model, we're actually producing a better diagnosis across the board in terms of the cases they were looking at. I think their accuracy went up by almost 4.5 percentage points, but when they were working with the less accurate model, their capacity actually dropped well below their usual diagnostic baseline, something like almost 12 percentage points below their usual diagnostic quality. And so, this really makes me think of the kind of core problem that's been really studied for 40 years by social scientists, which is called automation bias, which is when even an expert, a technical system which is giving a recommendation, our tendency is to believe it and to discard our own knowledge, our own predictions, our own sense.(42:58):And it's been tested with fighter pilots, it's been tested with doctors, it's been tested with judges, and it's the same phenomenon across the board. So one of the things that we're going to need to do collectively, but particularly in the space of medicine and healthcare, is retaining that skepticism, retaining that ability to ask questions of where did this recommendation come from with this AI system and should I trust it? What was it trained on? Where did the data come from? What might those gaps be? Because we're going to need that skepticism if we're going to get through particularly this, as you say, this sort of early stage one period where in many cases these models just haven't had a lot of testing yet and people are going to tend to believe them out of the box.The Large Language Model Copyright IssueEric Topol (43:45):No, it's so true. And one of the key points is that almost every study that's been published in large language models in medicine are contrived. They're using patient actors or they're using case studies, but they're not in the real world. And that's where you have to really learn, as you know, that's a much more complex and messy world than the in silico world of course. Now, before wrapping up, one of the things that's controversial we didn't yet hit is the fact that in order for these base models to get trained, they basically ingest all human content. So they've ingested everything you've ever written, your books, your articles, my books, my articles, and you have the likes of the New York Times suing OpenAI, and soon it's going to run out of human content and just use synthetic content, I guess. But what's your sense about this? Do you feel that that's trespassing or is this another example of exploiting content and people, or is this really what has to be done in order to really make all this work?Kate Crawford (44:59):Well, isn't it a fascinating moment to see this mass grabbing of data, everything that is possibly extractable. I actually just recently published an article in Grey Room with the legal scholar, Jason Schultz, looking at how this is producing a crisis in copyright law because in many ways, copyright law just cannot contend with generative AI in particular because all of the ways in which copyright law and intellectual property more broadly has been understood, has been premised around human ideas of providing an incentive and thus a limited time monopoly based on really inspiring people to create more things. Well, this doesn't apply to algorithms, they don't respond to incentives in this way. The fact that, again, it's a longstanding tradition in copyright that we do not give copyright to non-human authors. So you might remember that there was a very famous monkey selfie case where a monkey had actually stepped on a camera and it had triggered a photograph of the monkey, and could this actually be a copyright image that could be given to the monkey?(46:12):Absolutely not, is what the court's decided. And the same has now happened, of course, for all generative AI systems. So right now, everything that you produce be that in GPT or in Midjourney or in Stable Diffusion, you name it, that does not have copyright protections. So we're in the biggest experiment of production after copyright in world history, and I don't think it's going to last very long. To be clear, I think we're going to start to see some real shifts, I think really in the next 6 to 12 months. But it has been this moment of seeing this gigantic gap in what our legal structures can do that they just haven't been able to contend with this moment. The same thing is true, I think, of ingestion, of this capturing of human content without consent. Clearly, many artists, many writers, many publishing houses like the New York Times are very concerned about this, but the difficulty that they're presented with is this idea of fair use, that you can collect large amounts of data if you are doing something with that, which is sufficiently transformative.(47:17):I'm really interested in the question of whether or not this does constitute sufficiently transformative uses. Certainly if you looked at the way that large language models a year ago, you could really prompt them into sharing their training data, spitting out entire New York Times articles or entire book chapters. That is no longer the case. All of the major companies building these systems have really safeguarded against that now but nonetheless, you have this question of should we be moving towards a system that is based on licensing, where we're really asking people if we can use their data and paying them a license fee? You can see how that could absolutely work and would address a lot of these concerns, but ultimately it will rely on this question of fair use. And I think with the current legal structures that we have in the current case law, that is unlikely to be seen as something that's actionable.(48:10):But I expect what we'll look at is what really happened in the early 20th century around the player piano, which was that I'm sure you remember this extraordinary technology of the player piano. That was one of the first systems that automated the playing of music and you'd have a piano that had a wax cylinder that almost like code had imprinted on a song or a piece of music, and it could be played in the public square or in a bar or in a saloon without having to pay a single artist and artists were terrified. They were furious, they were public hearings, there were sort of congressional hearings and even a Supreme Court case that decided that this was not a copyright infringement. This was a sufficiently transformative use of a piece of music that it could stand. And in the end, it was actually Congress that acted.(49:01):And we from that got the 1908 Copyright Act and from that we got this idea of royalties. And that has become the basis of the music industry itself for a very long time. And now we're facing another moment where I think we have a legislative challenge. How would you actually create a different paradigm for AI that would recognize a new licensing system that would reward artists, writers, musicians, all of the people whose work has been ingested into training data for AI so that they are recognized and in some ways, recompensed by this massive at scale extraction?Eric Topol (49:48):Wow, this has been an exhilarating conversation, Kate. I've learned so much from you over the years, but especially even just our chance to talk today. You articulate these problems so well, and I know you're working on solutions to almost everything, and you're so young, you could probably make a difference in the decades ahead. This is great, so I want to thank you not just for the chance to visit today, but all the work that you've been doing, you and your colleagues to make AI better, make it fulfill the great promise that it has. It is so extraordinary, and hopefully it'll deliver on some of the things that we have big unmet needs, so thanks to you. This has really been fun.Kate Crawford (50:35):This has been wonderful. And likewise, Eric, your work has just been a fantastic influence and I've been delighted to get to know you over the years and let's see what happens. It's going to be a wild ride from now to who knows when.Eric Topol (50:48):No question, but you'll keep us straight, I know that. Thank you so much.Kate Crawford (50:52):Thanks so much, Eric.*******************************Your support of subscribing to Ground Truths, and sharing it with your network of friends and colleagues, is much appreciated.The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Voluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for 2023 and 2024.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff tor audio and video support at Scripps ResearchNote: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in.Comments for this post are welcome from all subscribers. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

 David Fuentes, Campus Reform Correspondent and Senior at the University of Southern California (USC), Emily Sturge, Campus Reform Correspondent and Student at the University of Florida, and Michael Duke, Campus Reform Correspondent and student at Fordham University - talk about the total and complete take over at college campuses by Hamas terrorists an sympathizers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The University of Southern California (USC) has made headlines for how university administrators have handled student protests and on-campus activations in support of Palestine.  We're joined by USC father and activist, Lázaro Aguero, who was present during the protest and police escalation last Wednesday, April 24th. A clip of Aguero went viral after he stated he would be "the happiest daddy" if his daughter were to be arrested while protesting against genocide. In this Spanglish interview, we learn about his experience being on USC's campus during the first day of their Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/locatora_productionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Imagine restoring a 51-mile-long concrete river—running through the heart of the Los Angeles Basin in California—into a vibrant corridor reconnecting fractured communities and ecosystems. In Season 7, Episode 7, host Sarah Thorne and cohost Amanda Tritinger from the US Army Corps of Engineers talk with landscape architects Alex Robinson from University of Southern California (USC) and Leslie Dinkin from the Kounkuey Design Initiative in Los Angeles. They discuss the use of storytelling, augmented reality, and physical modeling tools to engage people along the river in cocreating a new future for themselves and for the river.Leslie recently graduated with dual master's degrees in landscape architecture and heritage conservation from USC, studying under Alex and working with him at the Los Angeles River Integrated Design Lab (LA-RIDL).Alex's work is rooted in his personal experiences with the City of Los Angeles (LA) and its infrastructure, including the LA River, and finding out how people spend their days interacting with these interesting landscapes. Fresh out of graduate school in 2005, Alex worked on the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan, one of the first of many plans for the river that tried to bring different values into the thinking about how to transform the river into something more than just an instrument of flood control. He has continued this focus with the realization that, “We were constrained by so many voices and different constituents, all speaking different languages. I thought, what if we could create a platform where we had a more collective understanding, where people could begin to speak the same language and were able to cocreate something.”This led Alex to reach out to the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), which has hydrology modeling in its toolset. As Amanda notes, “You can see how this just clearly aligns with Engineering with Nature. At ERDC, we have numerical and physical models, but how do we get our models to talk to people? I think Leslie and Alex have done a really great job in not only creating that connection but making it meaningful.”The product of this collaboration with Duncan Bryant, Research Hydraulic Engineer, and his colleagues at ERDC's Coastal Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL), was the development of a physical model of a section of the LA River with adjacent land owned by the city where there is an opportunity for big changes. As Alex explains, “This is the crown-jewel opportunity for changing the LA River.” To take the engagement with the model to the next level and produce something that invites people to participate in the process, Alex and his colleagues developed an augmented reality component to visually overlay information on top of the physical model. “It lets people interact—a community member can come in and make a comment, draw something, and that becomes input an engineer and a landscape architect can consider in their design process.”Thinking about how advanced visualization tools support community engagement, Alex says, “I think the model and all the different tools we've developed have created this incredible common ground for people to have a conversation and have their ideas and values represented in the system.”Amanda truly appreciates the work that Alex and Leslie are doing: “If I could just represent all of engineers for a minute, I'd like to say, thank you. Thank you for helping us communicate.”For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/  •      Amanda Tritinger at LinkedIn•      Alexander Robinson at LinkedIn•      Leslie Dinkin at LinkedIn 

Jennifer Horn and Katie Gorka discuss the cancellation of a valedictorian speech at the University of Southern California (USC) due to concerns about protests. They also explore the broader issue of free speech on college campuses and the rise of anti-Semitism. The conversation then shifts to upcoming movies, including Greta Gerwig's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia and a film about Southern Christian writer Flannery O'Connor. They also mention Percival Everett, the author of the book that inspired the movie American Fiction.Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jennifer Horn and Katie Gorka discuss the cancellation of a valedictorian speech at the University of Southern California (USC) due to concerns about protests. They also explore the broader issue of free speech on college campuses and the rise of anti-Semitism. The conversation then shifts to upcoming movies, including Greta Gerwig's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia and a film about Southern Christian writer Flannery O'Connor. They also mention Percival Everett, the author of the book that inspired the movie American Fiction.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The University of Southern California (USC) will not have commencement speakers at its upcoming ceremony after the institution canceled a speech from its pro-Palestinian valedictorian, the school announced Friday. The real estate market in Los Angeles saw a big increase over the last year. The cost of a home went up by 9.3% in March 2024 compared to the same time last year, according to Zillow. The rule breakers, rule makers and time's that there oughta be a law. Santa Monica residents and parents secured thousands of signatures as they prepared to sue the city to halt Los Angeles County's needle distribution program.

Today on Speaking Out of Place, we have a special extended conversation on the suppression of Palestine solidarity at universities from the U. S. to the U. K. to within Israel itself. We are grateful to be joined by Adi Mansour, a lawyer with Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Neve Gordon, Professor of Human Rights Law at Queen Mary University of London and Vice President of the British Society for Middle East Studies, and Laurie Brandt, former president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and current chair of its Committee on Freedom of Expression. In our conversation we compare and contrast the ways universities in each country have disciplined dissenting speech both within the university and beyond, breaching civil liberties and exacting punishment in forms including harassment and dismissal. In sum, it becomes a question of what is allowed and what is prohibited, and who belongs.Laurie A. Brand is Professor Emerita of Political Science & International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California (USC).  A four-time Fulbright grantee, and the recipient of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and numerous other fellowships, she is author of Palestinians in the Arab World (Columbia, 1988), Jordan's Inter-Arab Relations (Columbia, 1994), Women, the State and Political Transitions (Columbia, 1998), Citizens Abroad (Cambridge, 2006), and Official Stories (Stanford, 2014).  A former president of the Middle East Studies Association (2004), she has chaired its Committee on Academic Freedom since 2007.  After teaching for seventeen years at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Neve Gordon joined the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on international humanitarian law, human rights, the ethics of violence, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is the author of Israel's Occupation (University of California Press 2008) and co-author of The Human Right to Dominate (Oxford University Press, 2015), Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020). Gordon is currently the Vice President of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies and the Chair of its Committee on Academic Freedom.Adi Mansour works in Adalah's civil and political rights unit. He holds an LLB in Law and BA in political science from Tel Aviv University. He is also a founding member and activist of the Haifa Youth Movement, and he served as the head of “Almuntada” – the Arab Law Students Forum, Tel Aviv University. Upon completing his studies, Adi clerked in the national public defender's office in the field of criminal and administrative law. He joined Adalah as a staff attorney in 2021.  

Synopsis: In this episode of the Biotech 2050 podcast, host Rahul Chaturvedi engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Ray Stevens, a prominent figure in the biotech industry who co-founded Structure Therapeutics. Ray's extensive experience and pivotal role in advancing structure-based drug discovery make him a compelling guest for biotech entrepreneurs seeking to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and funding strategies. The episode delves into Ray's journey as a serial entrepreneur, the evolution of structure-based drug discovery, and the strategies employed by Structure Therapeutics to drive innovation and create impactful treatments for global health challenges. Ray's insights into the changing funding environment, the impact of distributed teams on value creation, and the significance of shared passion and mission in a company's success offer valuable knowledge for industry professionals and entrepreneurs. His reflections on the industry's future trends and the personal growth aspect add a relatable and human element to the discussion, making it a valuable resource for individuals at all career stages. Biography: Dr. Stevens helped pioneer the field of structure-based drug discovery. He has been involved in the discovery and development of several therapeutic molecules that have become breakthrough drugs including Palnziq™, which was developed at BioMarin Pharmaceutical and approved in 2018 to treat phenylketonuria. Dr. Stevens also founded Receptos which developed Zeposia™—a GPCR agonist targeting the S1PR1 receptor approved in 2020 for multiple sclerosis and 2021 for ulcerative colitis. Prior to Structure, Dr. Stevens founded the Bridge Institute at the University of Southern California (USC), and the iHuman Institute at ShanghaiTech University. He was previously a tenured chaired chemistry professor at Scripps Research and before that, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Stevens' laboratory and students have launched several successful biotech startups including Syrrx (acquired by Takeda), MemRx (acquired by Chiron/Novartis), Receptos (acquired by Celgene/BMS), and RuiYi (now Bird Rock Bio). A prolific scholar, Dr. Stevens has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and received several academic and industry awards. Dr. Stevens conducted postdoctoral research in structural biology at Harvard University with William Lipscomb, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1976. Dr. Stevens earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from USC with Robert Bau and George Olah, the latter of whom received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1994. He completed his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Southern Maine.

An unconscious young woman in a room full of drugs: that's the scene at the Hotel Constance in Pasadena, California. But when the hotel manager tries to call 911, the woman's much older companion tells him that won't be necessary – he's a doctor. The manager makes the call anyway. And yet, when the police and paramedics arrive, this so-called doctor simply…walks away. And then the hotel manager learns who this man is: his name is Carmen Puliafito, and he's the dean of the medical school at the University of Southern California (USC).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Hansford has his finger on the pulse of filmmaking — the prognosis is excellent. Beginning his career in VFX, Ben moved into directing short films and commercials for the likes of Old Spice, Starfield0, Call of Duty, Nike, and many more. He also teaches AI at the University of Southern California (USC), giving him unfettered access to the minds of a new generation of filmmakers. Ben shares his thoughts on how converging pipelines and creative innovations like AI will create a new kind of filmmaking, in the same way that lightweight cameras enabled the French New Wave and, in turn, New Hollywood. He also talks about the legal and quality issues that surround AI technology, and he finishes with an upbeat vision for the future of filmmaking and telling stories.

This weeks episode explores what is looks like to work for a younger institution and realize exciting potential, the way that our guest combined a variety of skills for his current role, and the critical aspect of leadership along the way. Brandon Baker is the associate senior vice president for University Advancement at the University of Southern California (USC) where he works across campus on principal and transformational gift opportunities. Baker has experience in launching and leading campaigns and prior to joining USC, Brandon spearheaded the $400 million Tomorrow Demands Today Campaign at the RAND Corporation. Baker previously served as assistant dean of external affairs at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He and his team were responsible for a $250 million goal as part of the school's campaign, a component of UCLA's $4.2 billion effort. He has more than sixteen years of experience in both public and private higher education institutions. He also served as a development director at Villanova University and Columbia University Graduate Business School. Baker holds an M.A. in higher education administration from New York University and a B.S. in biology from The University of Tennessee Southern. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/devdebrief/support

If you think of investing in commercial real estate, don't miss this informative conversation with Jaideep Chadha. This episode talks about StackSource and its instrumental role in facilitating commercial investors acquire deals and the value of collaborating with a loan broker. Expand your understanding of deal financing by tuning in today!Key Points & Relevant TopicsWhy do people prefer to work with loan brokers instead of going directly to banks or lenders?The process, fees, and expectations involved in working with StackSourceHow do loan brokers take advantage of the market's volatility?Disadvantages of overleveragingHow deal underwriting works with StackSourceThe importance of having a good conversation and knowing sellers' and buyers' motivationAn essential piece of advice for investors who want to start in commercial real estateResources & LinksApartment Syndication Due Diligence Checklist for Passive InvestorAbout Jaideep ChadhaJaideep is an entrepreneur and problem solver. As a Director, Jaideep is able to assess commercial real estate deals and recommend ideal financing solutions for clients across the country. He has a wide range of experience in management consulting, risk management, financial analysis, and modeling out commercial real estate investments prior to joining Stack Source. His most recent role was at Crowe as a Business Operations and Strategy Consultant. Jaideep holds a BSc. Business Administration degree from University of Southern California (USC) and an MBA at Colorado State University. Jaideep has served as the Board Treasurer for Aurora Cultural Arts District (ACAD), Board Member of the USC Alumni Real Estate Network (AREN), President of the USC Young Alumni Council, and on the USC Board of Governors. Get in Touch with JaideepWebsite: Inner Circle Capital / StackSourceEmail: jaideep@stacksource.com LinkedIn: Jaideep ChadhaPhone: 484-868-8383To Connect With UsPlease visit our website www.bonavestcapital.com and click here to leave a rating and written review!