Podcast
Coming to you once a month, MITRE’s Tech Futures Podcast will discuss the impact of an emerging technology – all in the time it takes to walk your dog!
Latest Episodes
Episode 22: Tracking Objects in Cislunar Space
Hosted by Dr. Marcie Zaharee
Guests: Kaitlyn Raub, Dr. Gabrielle Hedrick, Derek Ho, and Dr. Lesley Weitz
Previous Episodes
Episode 21: Exploring Bayesian Conformal Sets
Hosted by Patrick Hinson
Guests: Paul Scemama and Dr. Geoff Warner
Episode 20: MITRE on the international space station
Stefan Doucette has been worked on MITRE research that focuses on neuromorphic sensors on the International Space Station.
Hosted by Sonya Burroughs
Guests: Stefan G. Doucette and Paul G. Hartman
Episode 19: Masked Image Modelings
In November of 2022 Chat GPT was released to the public. Since then it’s popularity has increased dramatically and it has about a hundred million users. This natural language processing tool has been hailed for its intelligence and usefulness by users. If a natural language processing tool could have such an amazing impact on how we learn, what would happen if we applied it to other types of data?
Hosted by Courtney Clark
Guests: Dr. Liya Wang, Dr. Alex Tien, and Eliza Mace
Episode 18: NeRFs
The field of 3D rendering has come a long way from pure trigonometry, key point matching, and simple raytracing. A new family of algorithms called Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) combines classical rendering techniques with powerful Neural Networks to revolutionize missions in the fields of medicine, disaster relief, robotics, and beyond.
Hosted by Eliza Mace
Guests: Dr. Eric Bianchi and Dr. Ryan Cinoman
Episode 17: TRUSTS
In March of 2020 millions of Americans went home on a Friday and didn’t return to the office Monday morning. What followed was months of figuring out society’s new normal. But what happened to critical industries like healthcare? Today, we’re going to talk about the TRUSTS Framework and hear real life examples in the healthcare and defense industry.
Hosted by Courtney Finn Clark
Guests: Dr. Kelly Neville, Steve Dorton, Dr. FX Campion, and Scott Lee
Episode 16: Learning with Graphs
Looking for a way to infuse domain expertise into your big data analysis? Need a fresh way to look at a tricky problem? Give graph theory a try! Tune in to hear what kinds of problems graphs can help solve and how to induce a graph on your own dataset. As an added bonus, we’ll take a peek into graph neural networks (GNNs). Check out not just one, but TWO recent MITRE papers on graph theory and GNNs at techfutures.mitre.org.
Hosted by Eliza Mace
Guests: Dr. Elizabeth Hohman, Dr. James Tanis, and Dr. Joe Hoffman
Episode 15: Advanced Quantum Software Engineering
Want to dive even further into the details of quantum software engineering? In this follow-on to Episode 14, we delve into the principles of superposition, entanglement, and interference – all from the perspective of software engineering. Tune in and then check out guest speaker Richard Preston’s online course on quantum software development at stem.mitre.org/quantum
Hosted by Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Richard Preston and Dr. Gen Clark
Episode 14: Quantum Software Engineering
Many believe we are on the precipice of building the world’s first scalable Quantum computer. But once they’re here, how will we write software for them?
Hosted by Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Richard Preston, Jen Orr
Episode 13: Microweather
Many of us are familiar with the so-called “macro-scale” effects of climate change. But how will climate change impact individual neighborhoods, streets, or your own backyard?
Hosted by Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Thijs Broer, Mike Robinson, Dr. Brian Pettegrew
Episode 12: Imitation Learning
How do humans learn new or complicated tasks? One possible way is by following a demonstration. What if we could train autonomous agents in the same way?
By Eliza Mace
Guests: Amanda Vu, Alex Tapley, Guido Zarella
Episode 11: Space Health
With the democratization of space travel underway, how will we balance the health risks of space with our species’ existential need to explore what lies beyond our little blue planet?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Valerie Gawron, Linda Fischetti, Dr. Kris Rosfjord, Dr. Sybil Russell
Episode 10: Indistinguishability Obfuscation
Back in 2020, there was a quiet breakthrough in cryptography. For computer scientists, Indistinguishability Obfuscation is a game changer. But what will it mean for you and me?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Moses Liskov, Dr. Stan Barr, George Roelke
Episode 9: Crossing Paths with Micromobility
The sudden appearance of ride share e-scooters ignited what some call a transportation revolution and what others call a disastrous experiment in unregulated mobility. So what’s behind our love hate relationship with the (in)famous e-scooter?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Tracy Sanders, Dr. Craig Wanke, Elizabeth Karpinski
Episode 8: Millimeter Waves
As our cellular networks struggle to keep up with increasing demand, two researchers investigate the potential solution to this traffic congestion problem.
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Garry Jacyna, Dr. Bindu Chandna, Kevin Burke
Episode 7: Our Green Future
Just after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its sixth report detailing the dire threats of a warming climate, two MITRE engineers decide it’s time to clarify what a “greener” future will mean.
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Casey Corrado, Dr. Kris Rosfjord, Emily Holt
Episode 6: Delivering CRISPR
With the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, we gained the ability to precisely alter the human genome overnight. But how close are we to using CRISPR to cure diseases like sickle cell anemia and HIV?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Heath Farris, Dr. Sybil Russell, Dr. Shmona Simpson
Episode 5: Can we synthesize personality?
How do we go about designing personalities for machines? We asked the experts and their answers may surprise you.
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Beth Elson, Jeff Stanley, Dr. Ozgur Eris, Dr. Sarah Corley
Episode 4: Mechanical Metamaterials
Metamaterials may one day be used to create more resilient body armor, space vehicles, and invisibility cloaks. What will it take to bring metamaterials out of science fiction and into reality?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. David Hurley, Casey Corrado, Dr. Kris Rosfjord, Dr. Dong-Jin (DJ) Shim
Episode 3: Our 6G Future
As the worldwide rollout of 5th Generation (5G) cellular networks picks up pace, a team of researchers is already looking towards 6G.
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Curtis Watson, Dr. Kelvin Woods, Jim Houchens
Episode 2: Securing our Genomes
With fast, cheap, and universally accessible full genome sequencing on the horizon, the race is on to secure our genomes—but is it possible that our insatiable appetite for information might hinder our ability to protect our most intimate datasets?
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Alex Perez, Frank Vasquez, Dr. Alice Isenberg
Episode 1: NASA at the Edge
Fresh off his PhD, a gifted engineer harnesses the power of Edge Computing to bring NASA onto the web.
By Brinley Macnamara
Guests: Dr. Nitin Naik, Mark Ambrefe, Michael Vincent