Engineering for Humanity, an interdisciplinary engineering design and anthropology course at Olin College of Engineering, is a semester-long service-learning partnership between the college and nearby Councils on Aging. This paper examines the effects of this service learning on our students and their partners. Our research suggests that this experience has positively impacted students' and elder partners' behavior and attitudes. We collected data from student and partner surveys, from interviews with the community partners, and from student reflections. By comparing student behavior and attitudes before and after this course, we have observed the following behavioral and attitudinal changes: 1) development of empathetic knowledge and understanding, 2) increased appreciation for user-centered design, 3) redefinition of career trajectories. We also saw transformations in the lives of the community partners. Outcomes for elders were related to quality of life and wellbeing, including 1) decreases in isolation, 2) increased purpose and meaning, and 3) improved feelings of wellbeing. Lasting effects included continuation of decreased isolation through a sustained increase in social engagement, as well as positive thoughts about and mechanisms for aging in place. This paper briefly describes the curriculum and reports on these trends over three years of coursework.

In the Sri Lankan garment industry the term "good girls" refers to moral character and industrial productivity: a good girl both embodies Sinhala Buddhist traditions and is an efficient and productive factory worker. The "good girl" concept symbolizes a conjuncture of nationalist and capitalist gender ideals during this time of ethnic conflict and industrial development in the country. Although the women workers agree with many of the gendered characterizations implied by the term "good girls," they do not uncritically follow nationalist and capitalist moral scripts. Rather, they mobilize the good girl identity for advantages inside and outside the factory. This essay brings together an account of the ways in which gender is configured in relation to discourses of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and practices of capitalism in Sri Lanka with an analysis of how female village garment workers make these discourses and practices meaningful in their own lives.

The pace of the net-zero transition required to meet the Paris Agreement objectives puts the value of existing carbon-dependent capital at risk of premature depreciation.1–3 A policy debate has emerged over whether such substantial financial loss affects market valuation and stability.4–6 Here, we quantify the current value of existing global human and produced capital, sector by sector, and compare the rate at which it naturally depreciates with that at which it would be required to depreciate to achieve climate targets. Comparison allows us to determine the human and produced capital value at risk across the economy by sector. We find that stopping the production of carbon intensive capital and the training of carbon intensive occupations in 2020 allows a better than 50 percent chance to achieve a 2°C target. However, achieving net-zero in 2050 implies capital value at risk approaching 50 T$, three quarters of which is human capital. We conclude that intervention in both the financial and educational systems may be warranted in order to reduce these risks, where training a workforce for occupations that may soon cease to exist could be avoided.

No abstract

This paper engages with filmic portrayals of older adults in the U.S. in order to ask questions about the impacts of mass media on reproducing, critiquing, or interrogating mainstream values and assumptions about aging. The study considers the recent Hollywood works The Expendables (2010) and R. E.D. (2010), as well as the independent documentary Young@Heart (2007). We forefront questions of visibility, invisibility, and recognition both in terms of what experiences and realities are rendered visible or invisible by mass media, but also in terms of the subjective experiences of many older adults in the United States.

No abstract

Her research interests lie at the intersection of project-based learning and gender studies with specific emphasis on the curricula and pedagogies implemented in the first-year engineering programs.

Responses to commentary, “Toward a Gerontoludic Manifesto,” by Bob De Schutter and Vero Vanden Abeele in Anthropology & Aging Vol36, no.2, the special issue on “Aging the Technoscape,” followed by a reply by the commentary authors.