Friday, February 20, 10am – 12pm
Location: 3-270
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.
Our relationships with research advisors and professional supervisors have a tremendous effect on our well-being and growth. This workshop will teach communication principles and skills to help you “manage up” your supervisors here at MIT and beyond, creating more positive, productive working relationships. Skills will include identifying the overlap between your interests and your advisor’s, advocating for your own needs, and optimizing your day-to-day interactions.
The workshop will be taught by Dr. Diana Chien and Dr. Jac Goldstein, Senior Program Manager and Instructional Designer of the School of Engineering Communication Lab.
Dr. Diana Chien has worked with the MIT Communication Lab since its launch in 2013, and became program director in the spring of 2017, following the departure of founder Jaime Goldstein. From 2013-2015, Diana was a Biological Engineering (BE) Communication Fellow, while she was a PhD student in the Microbiology graduate program. From 2016-2017, she led the BE Communication Lab and taught the communication curricula for BE’s two communication-intensive undergraduate courses. During that time, she also led the launch of the Communication Lab’s suite of online resources, the CommKit, which she co-designed with BE Communication Fellow alumnus Dr. Scott Olesen.
Diana’s dedication to science communication grows out of her longtime passion for both biology and writing: as an undergraduate at Princeton University, she majored in ecology and evolutionary biology and minored in creative writing. Her poetry has received awards from and been published in major literary magazines. She is thrilled to be able to combine her two passions through her work with the Communication Lab.
Dr. Jac Goldstein (she/her) is the Instructional Designer for the MIT School of Engineering Communication Lab, where she trains researchers in technical communication and peer-coaching best practices. She is particularly interested in using inclusive communication to foster scientific understanding and identity in higher education.
She has led training workshops for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Science Communication Trainers Network, SciCommCon, and the Inclusive SciComm Symposium. She is also a founder of SciCommBites, a research summary blog dedicated to digesting the latest research on science communication.
Dr. Goldstein holds a PhD in Astronomy, with a minor in Life Sciences Communication, from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She holds a BS in Physics from the University of California Santa Cruz.
Friday, February 20, 10am – 12pm
Location: 3-270
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
Explore topics and issues related to building trust in a world shaped by AI
Led by David Niño, Brian Subirana, and Carlos Torres Vila. (Bios below.)
Grad students are welcome to register for either Jan. 22 or Jan. 29 or both.*
Undergrads are welcome to register only for Jan. 29.
*These workshops count toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership. (You must attend at least the first session on January 22 to receive credit.)
Leading Engineering AI and Trust
The central question is no longer only “Do we trust AI?” but, more broadly: “How does AI engineering leadership shape whether others—human or machine—trust us, our work, our organizations, and our brands?”
The Jan. 22 workshop will focus on the trustor:
David Niño and Brian Subirana will lead this workshop. Increasingly, this first question affects all of us—and it is a daunting one. The first workshop addresses it directly. How can we trust AI when it acts as the architect and engineer of record for an entire building? Or when it builds a full software component with thousands of lines of code? What does a meaningful code review look like in such contexts? We will explore how trust is created, led, and engineered in a world shaped by intelligent systems – one increasingly saturated with adversarial attacks and mediated, deepfake, and hallucinated content. Students will engage in interactive leadership activities to develop a practical framework for action, alongside exposure to AI engineering approaches to increase the trustworthiness of end-to-end generative AI applications.
The Jan. 29 workshop will focus on the trustee:
David Niño and Brian Subirana will lead this workshop, which will also feature Carlos Torres Vila (BS ’88, SM ’90), Chairman of BBVA, an $800B global financial group pioneering a large-scale AI transformation. Carlos is among—and very likely—the highest-ranking MIT alumni currently serving in CEO-level leadership within the global financial sector, and he will have just attended the World Economic Forum. As Chairman of BBVA, he recently signed a strategic AI partnership agreement with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. He will address the second question introduced above, offering an executive perspective on leading AI engineering efforts to build trust within and beyond his organization—and on what drives corporate leaders to entrust one AI provider rather than another with their AI engineering stack.
David Niño is a Senior Lecturer in MIT’s Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Engineering Leadership Program. He started the program with a single class and led its expansion into a portfolio of highly-rated academic offerings and a new graduate certificate in engineering leadership. His contributions were recognized with the School of Engineering’s Infinite Mile Award, and in 2022, the program secured a $10 million gift of support.
Niño has designed and delivered MIT leadership programs online to a global audience of more than 1,000 professionals annually, offered in multiple languages. Nationally, he has been a leading figure in the field, serving as Chair of the Engineering Leadership Development Division of the American Society of Engineering Education.
Before joining MIT, he was a Professor of the Practice at Rice University and an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his Ph.D., M.A., B.B.A., and B.A. degrees.
Brian Subirana is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at EADA Business School and a member of the faculty for MIT’s Designing and Building AI Products and Services course, which he conceived and developed. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
He has served on the faculty of the MIT School of Engineering, MIT Sloan and Harvard University. At MIT, he was also Director of the MIT Auto-ID Lab and the founding Director of the MIT–Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology. Before entering academia, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and he has since founded three startups.
Carlos Torres Vila is the current Chair of BBVA, a $800B global financial group pioneering a large-scale AI transformation.
Carlos graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Management from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he later also earned a M.S. at the MIT Sloan School of
Management. He also graduated in Law from UNED (Spain).
He was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 12 years. He joined Endesa in 2002
as Corporate Director of Strategy and member of its Executive Committee, and became company
CFO in 2007.
In September 2008, Carlos joined BBVA as Head of Strategy and Corporate Development, and
member of the bank’s Management Committee. In March 2014 he was appointed Head of Digital
Banking, until May 2015 when he became Chief Executive Officer of the bank.
Carlos was appointed Chair of BBVA and of the BBVA Foundation in December 2018.
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
Location: Room 9-354
How do you get others to act on your ideas?
In this interactive GradEL workshop, you’ll learn and practice persuasive communication strategies that technical leaders use every day – whether it’s advocating for resources, influencing design decisions, or navigating tough conversations. Come ready to experiment with communication frameworks that will sharpen your ability to make your voice heard and your ideas stick.
This workshop offers a preview of the upcoming Spring GradEL course 6.S650 Persuasive Communication for Technical Leaders – giving you the chance to experience the skills in action and discover why you’ll want to master it next semester.
Leader:
Rachel Moore Best is passionate about translating skills, frameworks, and proven theory into actionable guidance for her students’ and clients’ current challenges. Her dynamic, hands-on approach to education has led her to teach in multiple arenas, including graduate-level negotiation courses for MIT, creative university programs, youth conferences, government agencies, and corporate audiences. Along with her work as an educator, Rachel is an experienced strategist and the founder of The Human Factor, a strategy firm focused on equipping organizations to negotiate the challenges of change within complex ecosystems. In this work, Rachel works with individuals from the executional level to the c-suite as they negotiate conflicting goals, organizational complexity, and human dynamics to close deals and form effective, sustainable teams. Her notable clients include Disney, NASA, and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.
Location: Room 32-144
As engineers, we are trained to think about physical systems, but technical leadership involves navigating complex social structures as well. In this workshop, we will explore how systems thinking tools can help leaders to integrate social and technical considerations, and support interdisciplinary collaboration and decision making with a particular focus on sustainability.
Leader:
Dr. Emily Moore is a leader in engineering education and leadership development, serving as the Director of the Troost Institute for Leadership Education (ILead) at the University of Toronto. Before joining U of T, Dr. Moore spent over two decades in industry, first at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada where she scaled lab innovations to manufacturing, and later at Hatch, where she held leadership roles including Director of Technology Development. As a Rhodes Scholar with a BEng in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University and a DPhil in Physical Chemistry from Oxford University, Dr. Moore combines technical depth with leadership insight. Her awards include being named one of “100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining” and receiving the SCI Canada Kalev Pugi Award, highlighting her commitment to equity and innovation in engineering.
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.
Location: Meet at Room 5-234 (Workshop will take place in Rooms 5-134 and 5-234.)
You only get one chance to make the right first impression. Within a few seconds, people judge your level of intelligence, trustworthiness, friendliness and social success. This happens in an instant, yet can impact the way you’re perceived from then on. How can you make sure you never miss, especially when the stakes are high?
This practical workshop will give you concrete tools to make great first impressions both online and IRL, using researched-based science on which actions are effective and why. (References and links to research papers will be shared at the end of the workshop.) You’ll learn exactly how to give a great handshake, avoid the common pitfalls of the “engineer voice profile”, emanate the body language of a good friend, and discover how to select and use the mic and signal-compression technologies of online calls properly.
Leaders:
Dr. Oliver Niebuhr is Associate Professor of Communication and Innovation at the University of Southern Denmark where he heads the Acoustics Lab in the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. His research specializes in charismatic communication. Professor Niebuhr has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications over the course of 20 years of research and is Exec Secretary of the International Phonetic Association.
Olivia Fox Cabane is the bestselling author of The Charisma Myth, which has been translated into 36 languages. Previously Director of Innovative Leadership for Stanford StartX, she has lectured on charisma at Harvard, Yale, the Marine War College and the United Nations. Her clients include Deloitte, UBS, Google, Tiktok, and Airbnb.
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.
Location: Room 32-155
This workshop is co-hosted by MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) which brings together researchers from all over the Institute to find new solutions to challenges in health care.
Explore what it takes to lead in engineering – from the boardroom to the startup garage.
In this interactive GradEL workshop, you’ll dive into the mindsets and skills that unite technically-minded executives and entrepreneurs alike: navigating uncertainty, leading cross-functional teams, and making tough decisions in the face of failure. Through real talk, reflection, and stories from a leader who’s done it all, you’ll uncover what kind of leader you want to become – and how to get there.
Leader:
Rahul Singhvi, Sc.D., MBA, and MIT Course 10 Alum is a globally recognized leader in the life sciences and biomanufacturing space, serving as Co‑Founder and CEO of National Resilience, Inc., where he led a high‑tech, end‑to‑end manufacturing platform for advanced medicines. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, he held executive leadership roles as COO of Takeda’s Vaccine Business Unit and President & CEO of Novavax, where he transformed the company into a leading vaccine developer.
(Dinner is included with this workshop.)
Add this workshop to your calendar using the “Add to Calendar” link below. (That does not register you for the workshop. Use the above link to register.)
This workshop counts toward the requirements for GradEL’s Graduate Certificate in Technical Leadership.