PAST EVENTS

What makes a place home? Is it shelter, memory, family, or something older—an instinct shared across species? From the first human hearths to birds' nests, animal dens, and the landscapes of migration and diaspora, home is both a place we inhabit and an idea we carry with us.

This Catalyst Conversations program brings together photographer Shellburne Thurber, Boston Poet Laureate Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, and paleoanthropologist Amy Clark for an interdisciplinary exploration of belonging, place, and the spaces that shape us. Through photography, poetry, and science, they will consider how humans create homes, how memory transforms them, and why the search for home remains one of our most enduring stories.

Moderated by paleoanthropologist, science writer, and educator Bridget Alex, this conversation invites us to reflect on one of humanity's most enduring questions: What does it mean to belong?

Blending literary conversation, artistic inquiry, and shared meals, the Reading Circle offers space for deeper engagement with ideas and with one another.

Whether you are an artist, writer, curator, collector, or simply curious about how attention shapes the way we experience the world, we welcome you into the conversation.

Anna Von Mertens is an artist and writer whose work explores history, memory, perception, astronomy, and collective experience through textiles, drawing, and research-based practice. Attention Is Discovery reflects on the transformative power of sustained observation and creative attention.

Light shapes how we see the world—and how we understand it. It illuminates, reveals, inspires, and guides. Darkness, by contrast, can obscure, challenge, and invite us to imagine what lies beyond the limits of perception. Together, they have long served as powerful metaphors for discovery, creativity, knowledge, and mystery.

In this Catalyst Conversations event, artist Marsha Wilcox, astrophysicist Sara Seager, and moderator Jennifer Roberts explore light and darkness from strikingly different perspectives. Their conversation spans art and science, from the expressive power of light in visual culture to the search for distant worlds, the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and the ways illumination—both literal and metaphorical—changes how we understand ourselves and the universe.

Join us for an evening that bridges disciplines and invites curiosity, as these distinguished thinkers consider how light reveals what is visible, how darkness expands the boundaries of inquiry, and why both remain essential to discovery.

Speakers:
Shelley Reed, Artist

Frank Wilczek PhD, Theoretical Physicist, Nobel 2004

Moderator: Leonie Bradbury, PhD

May 12, 2026

Artist Shelley Reed  and renowned theoretical physicist  Frank Wilczek,​ are curious. Wilczek asks “Is the world a work of art?” They both are deeply interested in a quest for knowledge, beauty, and the intersection of art and science The world embodies beautiful ideas, beauty in physics is expressed in symmetry. Together, they will address some of these ideas from points of view both aesthetic and scientific. We are thrilled to have them together this evening.

Speakers:
Author, MIT Physicist and professor Alan Lightman

Theologian Russell Powell, Harvard Divinity School

Artist and Mystic Maria Molteni

MODERATOR: Curator Laura Zittrain

Physicist and author Alan Lightman, theologian Russell Powell, and artist Maria Molteni will contemplate the powerful notion that we are hard wired for transcendence as a means to our species’ survival. Lightman calls this the miraculous from the material. This conversation with these two wonderful thinkers is not to be missed!

Speakers:
Christina Agapakis, Ph.D., Synthetic Biologist and Science Writer (past: Creative Director Ginkgo Bioworks)

Jerry Chen, Ph.D., Biology Professor, Boston University 

Skooby Laposky, Sound Designer and Artist

Meg Younger, Ph.D. Neuroscience Professor, Boston University

MODERATOR: Curator Laura Zittrain

Neuroscience meets music, plants, and perfume. How scientists and artists turn life Into sound and scents Catalyst Conversations invites you Inside the Sensorium at the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park featuring brilliant artists and scientists in dialogue.

Scientists are curious, they help us understand the world we live in. Deconstructing a complex process is at the heart of science. How is that like the process of making a painting, or for that matter the creation of any artform?

This notion of curiosity is equally apt to describe what the artist pursues in her practice. In this case, the subject matter, often of donuts, is a way of being interested in something overlooked, transforming a humble object to a monumental scale.

There are many definitions of invasion: invasive species, Colonialism, the usurping of power. How does an artistic approach and a scientific approach both work to mitigate the effects of what harms the culture. Our speakers will be coming at the idea of invasive species from different lenses, allowing us to experience Goldbard’s sculpture in a new and exciting way. (Our program takes place in the final days of the sculpture’s existence before its destruction performance 24 hours later on September 4.)

Speakers:
Jasper Sanchez, Assistant Curator, Boston Public Art Triennial
Peter Wayne, PhD., Harvard Medical School and Founder, Tree of Life Tai Chi Center
Presented in partnership with the Boston Public Art Triennial
June 13, 2025

Speakers:
David Ibbetts, Composer in Residence Center for Astrophyics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Andrew S. Yang, Ph.D. Biologist and Artist.
Presented in partnership with the Manship Artists Residency
May 29, 2025

Speakers:
Emma Gildesgame, Climate Scientist
Jessica Griffin, Ph.D., Marine Ecologist
Rebecca McGee Tuck, Artist and Activist
Presented in partnership with the Nature Conservancy MA. Reception sponsor: Hefring Engineering
March 21, 2025

Speakers:
Graham M. Jones, Anthropology Professor, MIT
Zoe Reiches, Magician
Presented in partnership with the MIT List Visual Arts center
December 11, 2024

Speakers:
Jeremy Couillard, Artist and Coder
Mikael Jakobsson, Research Coordinator, MIT Game Lab
Presented in partnership with the MIT List Visual Arts Center for the Cambridge Science Festival
September 26, 2024

Speakers:
Athulya Aravind, Linguist
Sarah Hulsey, Artist
Presented in partnership with the MIT List Visual Arts Center
April 25, 2024

Speakers:
Raquel Fornasaro, Artist
John Sterman, Director MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative
Michelle Lougee, Artist
William Moomaw, Emeritus Professor of International Environmental Policy, Tufts University
Victor Pacheco, Artist
Paul Kirshen, Professor, School for the Environment, Research Director, Stone Living Lab, UMASS Boston
Moderated by Co-Curators Stephanie Marlin-Curiel and Dr. Linda Booth Sweeney

Speaker:
Dr. Angie Johnston
Presented in partnership with the Catalyst Collaborative @MIT
March 23, 2024

Speakers:
Daniel Chonde, MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Radiology, University of Kentucky and Founder, The People’s heART
Meredith Goldstein Love Letters columnist and features writer, The Boston Globe
Cate McQuaid Arts critic, The Boston Globe
Pradeep Natarajan, MD, MMSc Director of Preventive Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital ad Associate Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Presented in partnership with the Broad Discovery Series
March 28, 2024