AROUND TOWN

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You can get to know a city—its history, people, and peculiarities—by wandering its streets. Or its galleries. Each of Boston’s art museums offers something distinct.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner feels like walking through a mind as much as a museum. Modeled after a 15th century Venetian palace, its three oors contain over 16,000 objects—paintings, sculptures, correspondences, and textiles—that were the private collection of a Boston philanthropist, the museum’s namesake. In 1990, the Gardner was the target of the single largest property theft in the world, when 13 works of art were stolen. Though these frames still sit empty, the museum has no shortage of rare, storied, and eccentric art to explore. Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Founded in 1870 and home to the second largest collection of art in North America, the Museum of Fine Arts celebrates a special relationship with Tufts’ School of the Museum of Fine Arts. All Tufts students can visit the MFA free of charge and easily spend hours wandering through permanent and traveling exhibitions alike—from the art of Ancient Greece to the paintings of Monet. Our advice for a visit to the museum is counterintuitive: stay put. Find a bench in front of a work of art that piques your interest, and observe it for as long as your schedule allows. Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) This museum in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood is known for its stunning views of the water, which would seemingly rival the views within. But with an evolving collection of dynamic and relevant contemporary art, including Kusama’s Love Is Calling and Kjartansson’s The Visitors, the views within always win. Admission is free every Thursday from 5 to 9 PM—a college student’s

dream! No two visits are the same, so come back often. Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) Tucked into the basement of the Somerville Theatre in nearby Davis Square, the Museum of Bad Art is what its name suggests—a museum (the world’s only!) dedicated to the preservation and celebration of “bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.” And while it’s fun to take a gander at unapologetically bad art and deem it as such, our favorite suggestion for a visit to the MOBA is to nd a work of art and, against all odds, fall in love with it.

Social psychologist Keith Maddox uses his research to understand the roots of racial stereotyping—and how we can counter it.

KEITH MADDOX

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND DIRECTOR OF THE TUFTS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL COGNITION LAB

“You have to take his class before you graduate, or you will really regret it.” Students seem to say this about every class Professor Keith Maddox teaches. His lectures are engaging and thought provoking, and his research centers on topics in social psychology that are relevant and important today—topics like stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

Professor Maddox’s interest in these issues began early on. “I grew up outside of Detroit, in a white, suburban environment,” he says. “I remember as a kid always seeing this contrast between what my experience was like compared to [that of] some of my cousins who lived in Detroit, which was majority Black. [But I didn’t] really have a framework for understanding it.”

That framework came later on, in a psychology class he took in college. “I started looking at my own experience through this lens,” he explains, “and this eld ultimately spoke to me with respect to how I can look at the world.” But Professor

Maddox’s research goes a step further than perception; he is interested in having an impact. The work he is doing in the Tufts University Social Cognition Lab (TUSC), which he directs, can be used to promote mutual understanding in a diverse but divided society, foster nuanced conversation, and allow for effective action to be taken against racial discrimination and anti-Blackness.

In exploring the role of social categories, TUSC looks at spatial and cognitive representation, seeking to “understand how people try to mentally represent the world, especially in regards to how people represent other people.” His lab focuses on how we group people together, the stereotypes we have about those groups, and how those stereotypes manifest in everyday life. One research project, for example, examines whether humor can help people to engage in stressful interracial and intergroup interactions. Another project looks at how variations in racial appearance—skin tone, for example—affect how people are viewed and judged.

Professor Maddox rst started working at Tufts as a lecturer while earning his PhD and hasn’t left since. Naturally, I am curious what he has liked most about Tufts over the past 20 years. “I really like the small size and the intimacy of Tufts,” he tells me. “Opportunities to get to know the students better and interact with them on a one-on-one basis or in a group are the best.”

In his lab, he uses team-building exercises and games during meetings to highlight social cognition concepts and holds year-end celebrations for the graduating seniors he has mentored. I have a hunch that this personal touch, combined with powerful topics, is why Professor Maddox’s classes are so well loved. —HANNAH STEINBERG ’17

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLAS OGONOSKY

COMMUNITY.

BY CHRIS PANELLA ’21

BRINGING A BUZZWORD TO LIFE

ON MARCH 10, PRESIDENT MONACO ANNOUNCED THAT THE END OF THE SPRING SEMESTER would look a lot different than its beginning: online classes, empty residence halls, and plenty of uncertainties regarding the future of instruction and life on the Hill. When I look back at the swift decision, however harrowing it might’ve felt at the time, I now recognize how necessary it was. President Monaco took the COVID-19 outbreak seriously and instilled that same attitude in Tufts’ faculty, staff, and students.

And how that attitude manifested itself during the initial campus closing—fundraising projects, food pantries, emergency on-campus housing—is awe inspiring. Margot Cardamone, the director of the FIRST Resource Center, put that sentiment into words while talking to TuftsNow in March. “We have seen so many people committed to coming together during this challenging time and supporting each other,” she said. I’ve thought a lot about what Cardamone praises as a “show of strength of community,” especially after President Monaco announced on April 6 that Tufts would make its empty residence halls available for essential workers, medical personnel, and patients with mild coronavirus symptoms.

Since arriving home to Houston, Texas, on March 16, I’ve had a lot of time to reect on that idea of community. Sure, it sometimes seems like a buzzword meant to make us feel included and safe. But during a crisis, the idea of a community becomes palpable. In that week before leaving home, I remember watching RAs like Klea Hysenbelli ’22 and Krithi Ram-Junnarkar ’22 support their residents with moving out of the residence halls and adapting to their new situations. As an RA myself, I had conversations with my residential director, Cyatharine Alias, about supporting students on my hall. Alias was available at any moment to help me, whether it was to answer a logistical question or be a shoulder to cry on. I also recall reading important updates in The Tufts Daily, the university’s daily newspaper. Even as crisis struck, student journalists were hard at work, tirelessly publishing stories and updates.

Across Tufts, the community priority became supporting students through an unprecedented transition in whatever way necessary. Out of this need came Tufts Mutual Aid, an organized network to coordinate resources for students. “Marley Hillman had posted on Facebook about helping other students,” Monique Dubois ’21 tells me, “and then they made a group of everyone who had reached out to help. It became a Messenger group of people who were all trying to address these concerns.” The concerns ranged from students needing a car to help move their belongings into storage, to money for bus tickets and emergency off-campus housing.

“We began as a way of connecting students to each other,” Evan Schwartz ’21 adds. “We were a facilitator of connections and streamlining community response.” Schwartz, Dubois, and Nikhil Nandagopal ’20 are all on a Zoom call with me, something that might’ve felt so foreign two months ago but now feels as commonplace as checking emails. The Mutual Aid effort sought to organize what students and community members were offering—Dubois notes an amazing number of offers for transportation and housing from Medford and Somerville residents, as well—and provide those offerings for other students to use.

Nandagopal adds that these connections included other Tufts resources that were difcult to parse through. “It’s no easy job, because there are so many people and so many resources,” he says, “and to link and connect those two together, it required a lot of communication and organization skills.” Nandagopal explains how impressive these efforts were, noting he’d “never seen a group this large, in terms of the kind of resources we’re working with and the amount of people we’re coordinating, come together in such a collaborative way.” Tufts Mutual Aid impresses me, too. I remember feeling relieved that there was such a thoughtful, student-led effort available in case I needed help during those stressful days.

The group is also unique in its structure, in which, as Dubois puts it, “anyone can jump in and do a task at any given time.” There are no requirements or chair positions. Everyone helps everyone, when they can and how they can. But the network relied, especially in the rst weeks after the campus’ closing, on Facebook for communication and outreach. “Tufts, like a lot of other colleges, happens to be a community that’s really connected by Facebook,” Schwartz says. People were already posting on the social media platform, offering and seeking help. There was no real channel to organize all of those efforts, which is why Tufts Mutual Aid arose. “We just happened to engage in the community at the right time, in the right place, in the right way,” Schwartz concludes.

As we transition into the summer and eventually the fall, Tufts Mutual Aid will remain a presence for students and community members in need. “One of the things we’ve been talking about is keeping the food pantry stocked and available,” Dubois explains, adding that the group’s summer plans include connecting students to affordable housing and other mutual funds. Nandagopal also sees the group achieving bigger goals of “cultivating a culture of communally sharing responsibility and resources and having a really welcoming and supporting space.”

Beyond reecting about the campus’ initial response to COVID-19, I’ve also thought about what came after those rst few weeks. For Tufts students, online learning became the norm—we transitioned to asynchronous lecture slides and Zoom recitations. I remember asking my professors the same questions they were trying to answer for themselves, questions about what online learning would look like and how we would maintain our connections and relationships from thousands of miles away. Now, I look back in admiration at one of my instructors, Professor Frank Lehman, in particular.

“I had a few inklings before the ofcial announcement,” Lehman says over Zoom, “but I feel as though we were able to move fairly quickly online.” That relatively seamless transition didn’t come without Lehman’s initial reactions. “I was upset and confused just as any of us were, but I felt that because the nature of the course was heavily reliant on multimedia aspects, this would be easier to transition to an asynchronous class.”

Lehman, an associate professor of music and the director of undergraduate studies in the Music Department, taught The Music of John Williams and Star Wars this past semester. It was his rst time teaching the class, which was a comprehensive overview of Williams’ life and work, with the nal weeks focusing on the scores of the Star Wars saga. “Pretty quickly, I knew that we weren’t going to cover everything on the syllabus, and that was okay.”

He stresses that it felt impossible to teach the course as he had planned, given the various environments his students would be learning from. Lehman faced that difculty himself, with a four-year-old daughter at home. “My wife is also a teacher,” he adds, “and it’s just difcult, there’s no way around it. This is draining to logistically handle, even with a class I’ve already planned out.”

What Professor Lehman developed were streamlined, asynchronous lectures and fewer assignments, in order to alleviate the burden on students. He reects that he’s “pretty pleased with what was accomplished.” And he should be. His virtual lectures were made with love and his email updates were consistent and caring, focused on supporting students above all. The course’s nal assignment, writing a cue breakdown for one of the stand-alone Star Wars anthology lms, was both fun and a culmination of everything Lehman had taught. He brought the exciting atmosphere of his classroom to us in our homes.

As the spring semester ended and we logged off our last Zoom lectures, the graduating Class of 2020 faced a new challenge: navigating the last few weeks of their college careers and their graduation. After hearing concerns from seniors and their families about the prospect of having a virtual Commencement, President Monaco announced that the university would hold “in-person, oncampus, university-wide Commencement events for all of this year’s graduates when it is safe to do so.” This exciting change came as seniors, like Carter Silvey, were volunteering their time to repair over 6,000 old N95 face masks at the Tufts Medical Center.

“They were going to use the masks for nurses and doctors,” Silvey explains, “but they found that they were old, and the elastic was breaking every time they tried to put them on. So, they had to gure out what materials were needed to redesign around this breaking elastic.” Silvey became involved with the monumental project through a Slack channel that was originally made for the NOLOP Fast Facility, Tufts’ makerspace that Silvey frequents. “I, and a few other people in that channel, were like, ‘Yes, let’s do this. We can really make a difference.’”

He tells me that the project helped him feel like he had a purpose during the pandemic. We’re talking on the phone, just after Silvey has nished his nal classes of his Tufts career. He jokes that he’s “technically graduated now.” For about two weeks—most of that time spent waiting for the around 18,000 feet of elastic cord and 6,000 elastic clips and stoppers to arrive—the volunteers dedicated their time to retrotting the masks. Silvey thinks it was about four or ve days in total of working in an assembly line structure.

Hearing Silvey talk about the group’s efforts is nothing short of inspiring. “We are helping people in this situation where we really can’t do all that much,” he says. It gave him a feeling of control in a larger context in which there is none—with over 6,000 masks done and usable, Silvey and other volunteers feel accomplished. “It was really exciting when we nished. We had social-distanced high-ves and celebrations.”

He also tells me that this project isn’t just a diamond in the rough. “There are other projects that have been popping up around Tufts,” he says, which involve laser-cutting masks and developing better face shields for medical personnel. After the group nished their efforts on the N95 masks, they uploaded their mask repair instructions and the breakdown of the project on Google Drive for others to use in the future.

With all of these stories, I’m reminded of how deeply connected the Tufts community really is. In this time of crisis, Jumbos weren’t selsh or shallow: they were caring and warm, making the online transition easier for students who might be struggling, volunteering their time to connect Tufts community members to essential resources, and looking towards our broader communities to see how they could effect positive change there, as well. These are important initial responses that make me proud to be a Jumbo, now more than ever.

Erica Kemmerling uses mechanical engineering to examine a different kind of machine—the human body.

ERICA KEMMERLING

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

I’ll be honest: when I think of mechanical engineering, I usually think about things like car or airplane manufacturing. But as I sit down to speak with Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Erica Kemmerling, I begin to realize that this eld of engineering can extend far beyond man-made machinery to another type of machine entirely: the human body.

Professor Kemmerling’s team researches the human circulatory system and creates models of the body to accurately reproduce blood ow with the goal of advancing health care. By knowing more about the “proper” ow rate of the body, she tells me, medical professionals can build better devices to aid the human circulatory system.

Medical devices are constantly changing and developing, and Professor Kemmerling’s research can provide the data for exactly how these devices should evolve. Her research could lead to better stents, for example, which are designed to hold open arteries that are occluded. She also uses the example of aneurysm clips and coils, which treat the bulging of vessels that occurs during an aneurysm.

“There are new generations of these products every year. We’re trying to gure out how to make them better, and possibly how to make new devices that solve the same problems but in better ways,” she explains.

For instance, one of Professor Kemmerling’s students extracted the geometry of an aorta, the biggest artery in your body, to study its ow.

“[With our 3D printer], we were able to make a model that looks just like a human aorta,” she says. “It’s okay to take any measurement on that. [For example], we can puncture holes in it for pressure measurements or take any sort of velocity measurements without worrying about hurting the patient.”

Professor Kemmerling chose this research because she wanted to work in an area where she felt she could make the most difference. “I’ve always been interested in uid mechanics,” she tells me. “I wanted to pick an area of uid mechanics where I could have the greatest impact on people. I thought that health was a good way to do that.”

Professor Kemmerling makes it clear that she doesn’t want to leave any part of the body unstudied. “Ultimately, I’d want to develop a complete synthetic model of a person,” she says. “So, the entire circulatory system, and maybe some synthetic lungs, and then [I’d] take really detailed measurements of every aspect of the ow in that person.”

I suppose the connection between mechanical engineering and health should have been more intuitive for me. After all, mechanical engineering is about designing and manufacturing mechanical systems, and what machine is more complex than the human body? —CHARLOTTE GILLILAND ’16