November 2018

Brain implants to augment memory used to be the stuff of science fiction, but no longer. Today, brain implants to improve and augment memory is the epicenter of neuroprosthetics R&D and for good reason. Based on current projections, by 2050, persons with various types of dementia, which includes Alzheimer’s disease, will exceed 16 million. Memory loss from traumatic brain injury (TBI) will only raise this number. Some of the largest challenges the neuroprosthetic research continues to face in regards to those developments, are the effective and accurate measurement of brain signals.

Applications for these neuroprosthetics are manifold: from the detection and surveillance of epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or even depression, to the reduction of their symptoms. DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) began research over three decades ago on neurotechnology for military personnel impacted by TBI in the theatre of war, but there are developments in this area of research that should give us pause. DARPA is also employing this same research to support military training and effectiveness by using non-invasive interventions to accelerate and improve the performance of complex, military-relevant skills by healthy individuals.

To discuss these developments in the world of bio-medical neuro-engineering, and the attending moral and ethical questions, Professor Yiannos Manoli, Thomas Mann Fellow and Director of the Fritz Huettinger Chair of Microelectronics, will hold a quintescentially polymathic conversation with USC Associate Professor of Neural Engineering Dong Song and USC Professor of Philosophy Janet Levin. As medical advances continue to lengthen the human life-span, our future depends on the breakthroughs in neuroscience and neural interface devices to improve memory function to recapture our past. But it is imperative we bring the moral and ethical checks alongside these developments.

On November 13, at 6:30 pm, the Goethe-Institut Washington will host German sociologist Jutta Allmendinger and DC-based entrepreneur Kate Godall in a conversation about women in the workplace, and the effect feminism in the 21^st century has had on their careers. Both women have excelled in their respective fields – Jutta Allmendinger has made great strides in her empirical research on social inequality, while Kate Godall has championed women-led businesses in Washington and around the world – and demonstrated their ingenuity as strong women in the world of work. Allmendinger and Godall will discuss how they arrived in their positions, their current projects, and where they see themselves in the future. How has feminism affected their work? In what ways has “digital feminism” impacted their lives? Moderated by Cathleen Fisher.

Dr. Jutta Allmendinger is President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of Educational Sociology and Labor Market Research at Humboldt University. Her research interests focus on gender inequality in the workplace, sociology of the labor market, rising inequality in Europe, and educational reform in Germany. Dr. Allmendinger earned her Ph.D. degree in Social Studies from Harvard University. Currently she is one of the first Fellows at Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles.

Kate Goodall is the Co-Founder and CEO of Halcyon, a non-profit dedicated to solving 21st century problems by providing space and access to emerging leaders in social entrepreneurship and the arts. Goodall continues to grow Halcyon’s offerings with By The People, an international arts and innovation festival in partnership with the Smithsonian and numerous organizations throughout DC. In 2016, Goodall helped establish WE Capital, a consortium of leading businesswomen investing in and supporting women and women-led companies.

Dr. Cathleen Fisher is the President of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She has been engaged in transatlantic and German-American relations for over 25 years. She joined American Friends in 2008 as executive director. From 2002-2006, she was deputy director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), The Johns Hopkins University, where she was centrally involved in management of all operations and programs in support of the Institute’s mission. Before joining AICGS, Fisher served ten years as a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center, where she focused on nuclear arms control, export controls, and transatlantic security issues.

The number of people experiencing homelessness has increased dramatically in Los Angeles as well as in Berlin. As recently as 2015, less than 17,000 people were housed in emergency shelters in Berlin. In the coming years, this number is expected to increase to 47,000. The German authorities are threatened to fail in their search for suitable accommodations.

While homelessness used to be a phenomenon limited to the margins of society, today, even middle-class families can be affected. That also holds true for Los Angeles, the city with the largest number of people experiencing homelessness in the United States. Here, many unsheltered people live in cars, RVs or tents. They are often employed, but unable to afford the high rents.

Jutta Allmendinger (Thomas Mann Fellow, WZB), Ananya Roy (UCLA) and Jürgen Robert von Mahs (The New School) discuss the causes of the lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles and Berlin, contributing legal and cultural factors and what measures and initiatives to be taken, so that both Sister Cities may learn from each other. The discussion will be moderated by journalist Caroline Porter.

Jutta Allmendinger is President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of Educational Sociology and Labor Market Research at Humboldt University Berlin. Her research focusses on social inequality, the sociology of the labor market and social policy. Jutta Allmendinger earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University and is currently one of the first fellows at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.

Ananya Roy is Professor of Urban Planning and Social Welfare and inaugural Director of The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin . She held the Distinguished Chair in Global Poverty and Practice at UC Berkeley. Her most recent publications include Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World (University of California Press, 2016).

Jürgen Robert von Mahs is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the New School in New York City. His research and teaching interests include poverty, homelessness, comparative social policy analyses, globalization processes, and social movements. Most recently, he published Down and Out in Los Angeles and Berlin: The Sociospatial Exclusion of Homeless People (Temple University Press, 2015).