A Special Lecture Series Presented by the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Knight Science Journalism Program

Join us on Wednesday, March 19th, from 5:15-6:45 pm in E51-395 for a special talk by Bina Venkataraman.

Fear, Truth & Wonder: How Stories about Science and Technology Change the World – and Why We Need Them More than Ever

Former Boston Globe Editorial Page Editor and the inaugural “Columnist of the Future” at The Washington Post, Bina Venkataraman will showcase the powerful role that rigorous science and technology journalism plays in society and examine the growing threats faced by arbiters of truth in both science and the media. She’ll explore how we can rise to the profound challenges ahead –  and the role the MIT community can play in charting the future.

About Bina Venkataraman

Bina Venkataraman is an American journalist, science policy expert, and author. She is currently Editor-at-Large for Strategy and Innovation and the inaugural Columnist of the Future at The Washington Post. From 2019 to 2022, she served as Editorial Page Editor of The Boston Globe, overseeing the news organization’s opinion coverage and editorial board during two presidential impeachment trials, the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd, the Capitol insurrection, and Boston’s historic 2021 mayoral election. During her tenure, the Globe had two Pulitzer finalists for editorial writing. She is the author of The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age (Riverhead, 2019), named a top book by The Financial Times and a best book of the year by National Public Radio. Bina formerly served in the Obama White House as Senior Advisor for Climate Change Innovation, and she helped shape national policy on a range of issues from outbreak response to STEM education as the Director of Global Policy Initiatives at the Broad Institute for a decade and as a policy advisor to PCAST under President Obama. 

Bina has taught courses in STS at MIT; she also teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School. She serves on the Advisory Board of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Media, Politics, and Public Policy; on the Getty Museum’s PST ART advisory council; on the jury of the Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting; and on the MIT Corporation’s Visiting Committee on the Humanities. She is learning — very slowly — how to surf.

To Attend the Lecture

Please fill out this RSVP form if you plan to attend in-person. The talk is free and open to all members of the MIT community. We hope to see you there!