Artificial Intimacy: Who Do We Become When We Talk to Machines?
MIT Alumni Association
MIT Alumni Association
Club of Princeton
Thursday, May 1, 6:00pm - 8:00pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
Come meet with fellow alumni/ae at our monthly happy hours on the 1st Thursday of every month!
Contact
Learn MoreClub of Switzerland
Saturday, May 17, 10:00am - 5:00pm (Europe/Zurich)
Event Details
It is again time for the MIT Club of Switzerland’s annual general meeting! The board is excited to welcome you to attend the AGM near Zurich on Saturday, May 17, 2025, hosted at the Umwelt Arena Switzerland, an exhibition and competence center for all things sustainability and environment. The event kicks off with a private behind-the-scenes tour of the sustainable design, architecture, and energy use of the Umwelt Arena building. Afterwards we'll enjoy a relaxed lunch together before heading to a meeting room to discuss the MIT Club. There is time before and after the official program to explore the exhibitions on your own. The event is modular - you can sign up for some or all additional activities as you wish!
As the forms of advanced eduction evolve at MIT and around the world, we too need to keep our club up-to-date. This year we will be considering revisions to our Club Statutes regarding the definition of membership. The AGM is your opportunity to participate in the Club’s review of last year and add your voice to our planning for the future. We hope you’ll join us!
Date: Saturday, May 17
Location: Umwelt Arena Switzerland, 8957 Spreitenbach (near Zurich, maps)
Opening time: 10:00-17:00
Program:
from 10:00 up to 11:00: individual arrival and exploration of the exhibitions
11:00 - 12:00: MIT private tour: "Behind the Scenes at Umwelt Arena" *
12:00 - 14:00: 3-course lunch at Restaurant Klima
14:00 - 16:00: AGM in meeting room "Bircher-Benner" **
16:00 - 17:00: individual exploration and departure
*The tour is limited to 20 participants. Tickets available first-come, first-serve.
**Participation in the AGM is limited to MIT community members. Your guests may continue exploring the exhibitions during this time. Please remember that only alumni who have paid Club dues this or last year (2025 or 2024) may vote at the AGM.
Costs:
Entry Ticket+Tour | Lunch | |
MIT community members who have paid membership fee | free of additional charge | free of additional charge |
MIT community members without active membership and guests | CHF 14.80 per person | CHF 31.55 per person |
Registration:
To attend, sign up via the registration button on the website by Saturday, 3 May 2025. Note that cancellations after this date cannot be refunded.
Accommodation:
If you are coming from further away...
There are plenty of hotels in Zurich, and the venue also highlighted 2 partner hotels nearby:
Our partner hotel “Hilton Garden Inn” offers you favorable rates via this link: Available Rooms - Hilton Garden Inn Zurich Limmattal
Our partner hotel “harry's home” offers you special prices with the booking code: UWA
https://harrys-home.com/zuerich-limmattal/
Attachments:
will be sent by email no fewer than 21 days ahead of the AGM
Contact
Learn MoreClub of France
Tuesday, May 20, 7:00pm - 9:30pm (Europe/Paris)
Event Details
Dear Alumni,
We are very honored to welcome MIT Prof Moungi Bawendi 2023 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moungi_Bawendi
Quantum dots, one of the first engineered nanomaterials, have become ubiquitous in displays and other applications. Professor Bawendi's talk will discuss their origin story, their development, and their applications. This is a story of curiosity-based science driving innovation and technological progress.
Moungi Bawendi is the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry at MIT. His lab focuses on the science and applications of nanocrystals, especially semiconductor nanocrystal (aka quantum dots). Born in Paris, Bawendi emigrated to the United States as a child, and earned his bachelor's and master's Degrees from Harvard University. He went on to achieve a PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago. After conducting postdoctoral research at Bell Labs, he joined the MIT Chemistry faculty in 1990. In 2023, Bawendi was named a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots".
We will have a sitting dinner with a composition of 3 themes to go along with the service - Each theme will have a presentation by the professor to be followed by questions from the assembly
1) Apetizer - the Early life and education
2) Entries - the Researcher life and The Quantum dots
3) Dessert: the Nobel Prize, MIT and the path forward
Frédéric Hannoyer and the MIT CdF Board
Bio:
Professor Moungi Bawendi, born in Paris, France, in 1961, is a distinguished chemist recognized for his groundbreaking work on quantum dots. After spending his early years in France and Tunisia, he moved to the United States, where he pursued higher education. He obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1988 and later conducted postdoctoral research at Bell Labs.
In 1990, Bawendi joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he became a professor in 1996. His most notable scientific contribution is the hot-injection synthesis of quantum dots, a breakthrough that enabled precise control over their size and properties, leading to wide-ranging applications in electronics, photovoltaics, and biomedical imaging.
For his pioneering work, Bawendi was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alongside Louis E. Brus and Alexey Ekimov, for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. These nanomaterials are now essential in high-definition displays, energy-efficient lighting, medical diagnostics, and solar energy technology, revolutionizing modern technology and holding great potential for future innovations in medicine, renewable energy, and quantum computing,
Learn More
Club of France
Thursday, May 22, 7:30pm - 7:30pm (Europe/Paris)
Event Details
Dear Alumni,
Invitation to the HumAIn Salon: Exploring AI, People, and the Future of Work
We are pleased to invite you the 4th edition of our NEW AI event : the HumAIn Salon. This is a recurring series of human-size in-person events dedicated to exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, human factors, including the future of work. This intimate gathering (~30p max) will occur every one to two months, bringing together a small group of participants for in-depth discussions on these critical topics.
Theme: “HumAIn Intelligence: AI, People, and the Future of Work”
Format: Serial meetups featuring a blend of expert presentations and interactive exchanges
Salon Host : Léa Peersman, MIT Sloan graduate, researcher, founder of HI Lab,
Guest Speakers: Every session will feature a guest speaker from the fields of AI research, cognitive sciences, sociology, and startups, sparking the discussions and guiding our exploration.
This is a conference where we expect you to participate and share your vision! The HumAIn Salon is a collaborative forum where every voice matters, and your insights are critical to shaping our understanding of the intersection between AI and human experiences.
Join us for an engaging discussion and dinner
We look forward to welcoming you to this enriching and thought-provoking series.
Specific Mar 25th Event Details:
Date: 25 March 2025
Time: 19:30 – 22:30
Venue: Restaurant Vauban, facing Les Invalides, 7th arrondissement, Paris
Guest Speakers:
This session will explore the core question:
“Rethinking Resilience: Fostering Ingenuity in a World of Crises and AI”
In a world facing crises on every level—wars in Europe, climate change — are we, as a Nation, truly prepared to become resilient? Is our generation ready to invent in a world without abundance? To create using only what is available?
In the era of Artificial Intelligence, what is the defining value of humanity? Is it not creativity, the ability to invent, to be ingenious, to think outside the box? We think through our bodies, our space, our emotions. Our perception is the key to our ability to evolve by acting upon the world—it forces us to confront reality and, therefore, compels us to invent.
I deeply believe that, given the current context, we must rethink our societies — from a model of hyper-specialization of skills to a world of well-rounded individuals. This shift has already begun through the widespread adoption of soft skills training for better collective living. Today, it is time to train our future generations of engineers to become modern-day MacGyvers.
Over an informal dinner, Clement and Lea will share their vision and let us exchange and share.
Registration: To attend, you only pay for your dinner (3 course-meal) - please register on the MIT website. Limited Seating the dinner is at 55€ and you pay forward to reserve your seat - We'll refund you if you cannot attend and tell us upfront.
We look forward to your participation in this important discussion.
Best regards,
Lea Peersman and Frédéric Hannoyer
MIT CdF Board member & MIT CdF President
Learn More
Club of Princeton
Thursday, May 22, 7:00pm - 9:15pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
Buy Tickets Direct Online (Recommended) or @Box Office |
MIT Club of Princeton Use with the General Admission option |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Contact
Learn MoreClub of Princeton
Friday, May 23, 1:45pm - 4:00pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
Buy Tickets Direct Online (Recommended) or @Box Office |
MIT Club of Princeton Use with the General Admission option |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Contact
Learn MoreClub of Princeton
Friday, May 23, 5:00pm - 7:00pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
Join us for our
50th Anniversary Celebration Dinner
Featuring the exquisite flavors, crafted with the finest seasonal ingredients by Princeton's premier Italian Restaurant
La Mezzaluna: A Taste of Italy
5:00 - 7:00 PM, May 23rd, 2025
at the
1 Preservation Place, Princeton
*Seating is limited
Immediately followed by a special guest appearance and keynote by celebrated journalist and author
Sylvia Nasar
A Pulitzer finalist and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the book was adapted into a 2001 film that received four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
![]() |
![]() |
The powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize.
“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” asked the Harvard visitor to the West Virginian with movie-star looks and Olympian manner.
“Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”
Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the intensely human drama of a mathematical genius who, early in life, made an astonishing discovery and stood on the brink of international acclaim when he slipped into madness.
Thanks to the selflessness of his devoted wife, Alicia, and the loyalty of the mathematics community, Nash emerged after decades of a ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution.
Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography, which inspired an Academy Award-winning movie, is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.
"A Beautiful Mind" on Audible, Kindle, and Hardcover
Sylvia Nasar was a New York Times economics correspondent from 1991 to 1999 and the first John H. and L. Knight Professor of Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Nasar broke the story of John Forbes Nash Jr. in the New York Times and achieved international acclaim for her epic biographical study, A Beautiful Mind. Her biography of Nash, a mathematician, game theorist, and winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A drama about the mystery of the human mind in three acts, A Beautiful Mind inspired the eponymous Academy Award-winning movie by Ron Howard. Nasar followed up this triumph with 'The Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius', a sweeping history of the development of modern economics. Sylvia Nasar grew up in Germany and Turkey, the daughter of a German mother and Uzbek father who served as the CIA station chief in Ankara. Nasar's work has appeared in the New Yorker, BusinessWeek, the New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications.
Contact
Learn MoreClub of Princeton
Friday, May 23, 7:00pm - 9:00pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
'John Nash at MIT'
![]() |
Sylvia Nasar was a New York Times economics correspondent and John H. and L. Knight Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is best known for her biographical book of John Forbes Nash Jr., A Beautiful Mind. Nasar broke John Nash's story in the New York Times. Her biography of Nash, A Beautiful Mind, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A drama about the mystery of the human mind in three acts, A Beautiful Mind inspired the eponymous Academy Award-winning movie by Ron Howard. |
Contact
Learn MoreClub of France
Thursday, June 12, 6:30pm - 10:00pm (Europe/Paris)
Event Details
Dear Friends,
You are cordially invited to join us for the American University Clubs of France's Annual Embassy Reception and Summer Cocktail on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at the historic Hôtel Talleyrand. Your presence will contribute to the success and festivity of this AUC signature event.
Location: Hôtel Talleyrand, 2 Rue Saint-Florentin, 75001 Paris
Time: The entrance will be only be between 18:30 to 19:30. Our cocktail with Champagne and aperitif will begin at 19:00 and will end at 22:00. There will be a welcome speech at 19:00.
Security Information: Please remember to bring a valid picture ID with you (Passport or Carte d'Identité only). Your ID is mandatory to enter the reception and admission is by guest list only. All attendees must be on the guest list. For security reasons, the entrance will only be between 18:30 to 19:30. Please do not bring laptop computers.
Registration ends Monday June 2nd at midnight, or when tickets sell out. https://www.helloasso.com/associations/auc-france/evenements/auc-annual-embassy-reception-and-summer-cocktail-2025
Please note that the Hôtel de Talleyrand is a spectacular example of a late 18th-century Parisian mansion. We thank you in advance to take great care of its environment, floors, walls, and furniture.
We are looking forward to seeing you soon!
The AUC Board with the support of the Embassy of the United States of America in France
---
Please note that ticket sales are final and no refunds are possible. Thank you for your understanding.
By registering for this event, you consent to the AUC sharing your details with the AUC Member Presidents of Alumni Clubs for the sole purpose of coordinating and contacting you in relation to this event.
By registering for this event you agree to be filmed or photographed with materials that may be used by the AUC on social media and in the promotion of its activities.
Club of Princeton
Wednesday, June 18, 6:00pm - 8:00pm (America/New_York)
Event Details
Book Club
Wednesday, June 18th
The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose
and the Cost of Genius
Contact
Learn More