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Scenes from former Saturday of Symposia events
Date
December 6, 2025
Time
8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Location
United States
Category
Faculty
Lecture/Reading/Talk
Attendance Policy
Open to students, Open to alumni, Registration required
Accessibility
Wheelchair-accessible event, Wheelchair-accessible parking, Wheelchair-accessible restrooms
Sponsor
Harvard Alumni Association
Harvard Club of Boston
Contact
HAA Alumni Education | haa_alumnieducation@harvard.edu | 617-495-1920
Add to Calendar 12-06-2025 8:30:00 12-06-2025 15:30:00 America/Denver Saturday of Symposia 2025

Saturday of Symposia features Harvard faculty members doing research across the University in fields ranging from social and natural sciences to the humanities for its 45th year.



View more info at https://alumni.harvard.edu/programs-events/saturday-of-symposia-2025

Please be sure to register if you haven't already.
United States
HAA Alumni Education haa_alumnieducation@harvard.edu MM/DD/YYYY

About​

Saturday of Symposia features Harvard faculty members doing research across the University in fields ranging from social and natural sciences to the humanities. This year's 45th program will feature a keynote address and two concurrent morning lectures followed by lunch in Harvard Hall and an optional happy hour at the Club Pub. This year, Saturday of Symposia will offer both in-person and virtual opportunities for learning.

The program is not only a longstanding tradition of the Harvard Club and HAA, but also an enormously popular one. Please make your reservations early.

Programming Speaker Biographies

Program

Harvard Club of Boston, 374 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

Registration and Coffee, Tea, and Muffins

9:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. — Welcome & Keynote Address

A Conversation with Dean David Parkes

David Parkes, John A. Paulson Dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Dean David Parkes will sit in conversation with Sarah Karmon, the Executive Director of the Harvard Alumni Association and Member of the Board of Governors at the Harvard Club of Boston

10:40 a.m. to 11:35 a.m. — Faculty Lectures

How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage

Ranjay Gulati PhD '93, Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Harvard Business School professor and bestselling author Ranjay Gulati as he explores themes from his book, How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage. In a time when uncertainty often pushes us to play it safe, Gulati offers a compelling alternative: boldness. Drawing on over a decade of research and more than 100 real-life stories, he reveals that courage isn’t an innate trait possessed by a fearless few—it’s a learnable skill that anyone can cultivate.

Blending insights from psychology, neuroscience, and sociology, Gulati presents a practical, science-based framework for unlocking courage in our everyday lives. From building confidence and staying calm under pressure to strengthening connection and commitment, his tools are designed to empower individuals and organizations alike. Whether you're leading a team, managing change, or seeking personal growth, this event will equip you with the mindset and strategies to act boldly—and inspire courage in others.

To Be Announced

 

11:45 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. — Faculty Lectures

Digital technologies and public policy in the United States especially on AI policymaking

Marc Aidinoff AB '12, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Science

 

Learn from the Deputy Director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment

Amruta Nori-Sarma, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Population Science

 

12:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. — Lunch, Dessert, and Discussion

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. — Happy Hour in Club Pub (Optional)

In-Person Program Costs

Harvard Club of Boston Member Price per member: $67 (member fees not included)
Non-Member Price per person: $75
Harvard Graduate Student: $55
Optional Happy Hour (limited availability): Additional $10 per person

Livestream Program Costs

Harvard Club of Boston Member Price per member: $22 (member fees not included)
Non-Member Price per person: $40
Harvard Graduate Student: $15

Continental breakfast, all Harvard faculty presentations, and lunch are included for this in-person program at the Harvard Club of Boston.

Register Now

Speaker Biographies

Marc Aidinoff AB '12

Marc Aidinoff headshotMarc Aidinoff AB '12 is a historian of science, technology, and the state, as well as a public policymaker. An assistant professor in the Department of History of Science at Harvard University, Aidinoff researches the interplay between digital technologies and domestic policy in the United States. His forthcoming book, Rebooting Liberalism: The Computerization of the Social Contract, 1974-2004, historicizes seemingly bedrock principles of U.S. governance, including the social contract, by tracing the computerization of welfare administration. In Rebooting Liberalism, he examines the technological and policy work of liberals with a sharp focus on the Southern political context in which their ideas and practices developed. Across his scholarship Aidinoff seeks to recognize both the distinct contemporary reality and long historical trajectory of artificial intelligence and automated systems to structure daily life. 

A strong believer in the value of historical inquiry and the insights of science studies both to analyze and to craft public policy, Aidinoff recently served as Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he helped lead a team of 150 policymakers on key initiatives including the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and guidance to ensure federally funded research is publicly accessible. Previously, Aidinoff served as a domestic policy advisor in the Obama Administration and a strategic consultant for political campaigns. 

Aidinoff is an affiliate of the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and the Digital Due Process Clinic at Cornell University. His work has been supported by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the National Science Foundation, the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress, the Charles Babbage Institute, the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, and others. His writing has appeared in Mastery and Drift: Professional-Class Liberals Since the 1960s (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), First Monday, Internet Histories, The Washington Post, and Issues in Science and Technology. He is the co-author of Auditing AI (MIT Press, 2026) and the National Academy of Science’s Realizing the Promise and Minimizing the Perils of AI for Science and the Scientific Community (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). Aidinoff completed his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

Ranjay Gulati PhD '93

Ranjay Gulati headshotRanjay Gulati AB '93 is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. His pathbreaking research, which focuses on unlocking organizational and unleashing human potential, has shown how winning companies—­those that prosper both in good times and bad—drive growth and prosperity. His recent work explores leadership and strategic challenges for building high growth organizations in turbulent markets. Some of his prior work has focused on the enablers and implications of within-firm and inter-firm collaboration. He has looked at both when and how firms should leverage greater connectivity within and across their boundaries to enhance performance.

Professor Gulati is the recipient of the 2024 CK Prahalad Award for Scholarly Impact on Practice. The award “recognizes excellence in the application of theory and research in practice,” honoring a scholar whose research generates learning from practice, who authors publications that substantively affect the practice of management, and who integrates research and practice. He was ranked as one of the top ten most cited scholars in Economics and Business over a decade by ISI-Incite. The Economist, Financial Times, and the Economist Intelligence Unit have listed him as among the top handful of business school scholars whose work is most relevant to management practice.

Professor Gulati is a prolific author, with his most recent book, How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage (Harper Business, 2025) being released in September 2025. Gulati offers a powerful playbook for becoming bolder and braver than we ever thought possible. Rather than leaving brave deeds to mythological heroes and resigning ourselves to apathy or cowardice, Gulati argues that we can train ourselves to step up and act in the face of uncertainty, and offers a science-backed playbook on how to do so. His previous book, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High Performance Companies (Harper Collins, 2022) offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms get purpose right. It was picked to be among the best business books of 2022 by Forbes, Thinkers 50, the Next Big Idea Club, and Axiom business books.  His previous managerial book,  Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization (Harvard Business Press, 2009), which was a finalist for the George Terry Best Book in Management Award, Professor Gulati explores how "resilient" companies—those that prosper both in good times and bad—drive growth and increase profitability by immersing themselves in the lives of their customers.

Professor Gulati is the past-President of the Business Policy and Strategy Division at the Academy of Management and an elected fellow of the Strategic Management Society. He has been a Harvard MacArthur Fellow and a Sloan Foundation Fellow. His research has been published in leading journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, American Journal of Sociology, Strategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, and Organization Science. He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, strategy+business, and the Financial Times. Professor Gulati advises and speaks to corporations large and small around the globe. He is the former Chair of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He has received a number of awards for his teaching including the Best Professor Award for his teaching in the MBA and executive MBA programs at the Kellogg School where he was on the faculty prior to coming to Harvard.

He has been a frequent guest on CNBC as well as a panelist on several of their series on topics that include: the Business of Innovation, Collaboration, and Leadership Vision.  Professor Gulati holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a Master's Degree in Management from M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, and two Bachelor's Degrees, in Computer Science and Economics, from Washington State University and St. Stephens College, New Delhi, respectively. 

David Parkes

David Parkes headshot David C. Parkes assumed the deanship of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) on October 15, 2023. He is also the George F. Colony Professor of Computer Science. Parkes is the fourth dean to lead SEAS since it was elevated from a division to a school in 2007, the first computer scientist, and the first dean to rise from a faculty position in the school.

A member of the Harvard faculty since 2001, Parkes founded the EconCS research group at SEAS, which conducts theoretical and experimental research at the intersection of economics and computer science, exploring artificial intelligence and algorithms for social and economic impact. Known for his work on incentive engineering for computational systems, early research contributed to the design of combinatorial auctions, procedures for selling complex packages of goods. He has worked on decentralized mechanism design as well as mechanism design in dynamic environments, where resources, participants, and information local to participants vary over time to embrace the real-world uncertainty.

He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. A highly regarded teacher, adviser, and mentor, Parkes was named Harvard College Professor, a 5-year appointment that recognizes exemplary teaching, twice voted one of Harvard College’s Favorite Professors, has received the Roslyn Abramson Award for Teaching, and the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising “for his selfless contributions to creating a welcoming, collaborative, and productive community of scholars in computer science.”

During his tenure at Harvard, Parkes has held leadership positions and helped stand up several initiatives. These include the master’s degree program in Data Science and the Summer Program for Undergraduates in Data Science. He was also the founding faculty co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, a university-wide convening of computer scientists, statisticians, and domain experts from law, business, medicine, public health, and other academic disciplines, and of the Harvard Business Analytics program, a program to train leaders in data analytics to drive policy development and strategy. Through these leadership roles, Parkes has helped to shape the emerging discipline of data science, advancing data-driven policy development and improved understanding of the societal implications of big data.

Following his M. Eng. in Engineering and Computing Science from the University of Oxford, Parkes received a Thouron Award to study at the University of Pennsylvania, earning a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science.

Amruta Nori-Sarma

Amruta Nori-Sarma headshotAmruta Nori-Sarma is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Population Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As an environmental epidemiologist, Dr. Nori-Sarma studies the relationship between environmental exposures associated with climate change and health outcomes in vulnerable communities. Dr. Nori-Sarma aims to understand the impacts of interrelated extreme weather events on mental health across the US utilizing large claims datasets. She also has an interest in evaluating the success of policies put in place to reduce the health impacts of climate change.

Additionally, Dr. Nori-Sarma serves as one of the leads of the CAFE RCC, the research coordinating center of the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative. CAFE, a joint effort with the BU School of Public Health, aims to bring together and amplify the work of a more diverse community of practice in climate and health.