Since Francis Cabot Lowell and Paul Moody set the first power looms in motion in 1814, textiles have been at the crossroads of American industry, artisan craft, and functionality. The great textile mills of New England drove the American Industrial Revolution, starting with the Boston Manufacturing Company on this very site in Waltham.

Now two centuries later, designers are forging innovative ways to ‘weave’ textiles using 3D technology and design in virtual space, grounded by the principles of the loom. Award-winning designer, artist, and professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Oren Sherman, will bring us along on his own journey, discovering the cultural meaning and evolving technology embedded in textile design. Pattern traveled on textiles and the availability of locally made affordable woven cloth gave birth to an industry supercharged by the Waltham-Lowell System, including fabric dyeing and pattern design. That scale led to rapid innovation in manufacturing and design.

In exploring the construction of commercial textile patterning, Sherman found himself leaving the world of the ‘repeat’ and exploring in virtual space. He’ll explain how a desire to ‘walk through walls’ lead him to 3D weaving as an inspiration that, ironically, led him back to the first principles of the elegantly complex power loom. Oren’s talk will feature vivid color and vibrant patterns, while simultaneously connecting innovation with cutting-edge technology.

An alumnus and professor specializing in design, marketing and branding at the renowned Rhode Island School Of Design, Oren has partnered with corporations across the country developing original artwork and licensed collections that capture a brand’s identity. His work is sophisticated, contemporary and utterly unique, standing at the cutting edge where art meets commerce. Oren’s versatility and visual intelligence inform his distinctive approach. His art powers brand, creating a multi-level subliminal experience that resonates as an unspoken message everywhere the environment touches the customer.

Courtney Flynn is the co-owner of Trident Booksellers and Cafe, an independent bookstore in the heart of downtown Boston that is in its 41st year of operation. When she is not at the store, she enjoys reading, cooking, and spending time with her kids.

The environmental impact of industrialization is often imagined as belching smokestacks or noxious effluents. But local pollution is only the most obvious impact of industrialization. Often overlooked are the distant impacts and ‘externalities’ that accompanied mechanized production and the growth of modern cities.

The Waltham and Lowell systems which birthed textile manufacturing in America were highly profitable and spurred a massive influx of investment capital into the sector. Between 1830 and 1840, more than 270 textile manufacturers were incorporated in Massachusetts alone, each equipped with hundreds of machine tools and dozens of hydro-turbines.

The tremendous demand for raw materials – wood, cotton, iron, clay, limestone, granite, etc. – transformed landscape and watershed. The dramatic rise in demand for raw cotton in America and Britain intensified the brutality of forced labor in the American South, expanded the plantation system into Alabama and Mississippi, and prompted war against Mexico. The growing network of factory sites co-produced an extensive network of railroads and canals. The first twenty years of factory building in Lowell alone required clearing more than 25 square miles of forest for structural timber.

In this talk, historical archaeologist Kevin Coffee shares his research on the standing structures commissioned by the Lowell manufacturers and explores some of the most significant wide-area impacts produced by the new industry.

Kevin Coffee is an archaeologist and museologist whose research explores the materiality of late-modern societal development, especially urbanization and industrialization. From 2018 into 2023, he was the chief interpretation and education officer at Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell MA. He has published about urban development and industrialization in Industrial Archaeology Review, Post-Medieval Archaeology, Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, and in the Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics.

Lt. Col. Thomas Kenney, outgoing commander of the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) on Camp Pendleton North, San Diego, CA and Fellow at the Belfer Center shares his view and work with artificial intelligence and what is at stake for the United States national security.

He compares the nuclear arms races of the 20th century to the fast, new, distributed and pervasive "AI arms race" happening now.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas A. Kenney is the outgoing commander of the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) on Camp Pendleton North, San Diego, CA. Prior to assuming command, LTC Kenney served as a cyber and information operations officer supporting the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. As an artificial intelligence subject matter expert, LTC Kenney also stood up and led the AI practice for the 75th Innovation Command prior to joining the Joint Staff.

Dark matter accounts for some 27 percent of the universe but is invisible. One promising technique to reveal it is the analysis of gravitational lensing that very occasionally aligns galaxy clusters.

The much-noted “cosmic question mark” image for this event is the result of a rare alignment between two distant galaxies due to gravitational lensing. Professor Jacqueline McCleary explains how cosmologists use such examples of weak gravitational lensing between galaxy clusters to explore the nature of elusive dark matter and its interaction with galaxies. She discusses how cosmologists gather and analyze data from observatories on mountaintops, in the stratosphere, and in space.

Dr. McCleary is a collaborator in the Local Volume Complete Cluster Survey (LoVoCCS), the SuperpressureBalloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), and COSMOS-Web (a JWST collaboration).

Jacqueline McCleary is an observational cosmologist who uses galaxy clusters as a laboratory in which to explore the nature of dark matter and its interaction with galaxies. She received her Ph.D. in physics at Brown University and served as a post-doctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before joining Northeastern University. She is a collaborator in the Local Volume Complete Cluster Survey (LoVoCCS), the SuperpressureBalloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), and COSMOS-Web (a JWST collaboration).

Judith Rosen worked in publishing and bookselling for a dozen years before writing about them both as the long-time bookselling editor and New England correspondent for Publishers Weekly. Some of her interviews and articles have been collected in Writing for Your Life and in The Writer's Handbook.