Note: This course starts with a multi-day, on-campus Residency in late Aug./early Sept. and continues online thereafter.
Knowledge-driven organizations increasingly dominate the economy. What are their attributes? What vision and strategy guides their development? How are they designed? What are the jobs necessary for this new workplace? This course has been designed to give students a grounding that will be important for their future working career. It will focus on how the global economy and all its subsequent ramifications has evolved from a predominantly industrial base to one based on knowledge. The Foundations course will begin by giving students a historical perspective as to how the "knowledge" economy specifically came about. We will be using historical and economic data and models which offer a clear understanding as to how the global economy and organizations evolved into their current state-where value is produced by knowledge and ideas significantly more than the earlier industrial processes and operations. The course will then present detailed and comprehensive treatments of how societies, organizations and individual lives have been changed due to this great shift in the factors of production. The course will also focus on how networks, communities and practices work and have evolved to focus more on knowledge production and transfer than on the more industrial factors of production such as land, labor and capital. In addition, the course will examine the critical role of intangibles such as culture, trust and missions in the workings of organizations in this new era. Insights from anthropology, psychology and sociology as well as economics will be incorporated into the course curriculum. A complex and comprehensive case study on NASA and their knowledge operations will be one of the key learning tools for this course as it proceeds.
IMGT5300PS
The hedge fund industry has continued to grow after the financial crisis, and hedge funds are increasingly important as an investable asset class for institutional investors as well as wealthy individuals. This course will cover hedge funds from the point of view of portfolio managers and investors. We will analyze a number of hedge fund trading strategies, including fixed income arbitrage, global macro, and various equities strategies, with a strong focus on quantitative strategies. We distinguish hedge fund managers from other asset managers, and discuss issues such as fees and incentives, liquidity, performance evaluation, and risk management. We also discuss career development in the hedge fund context.
The goal of this course is to introduce theoretical concepts that are foundational to mathematical and quantitative analysis in biology, with two modules focused on (i) molecular data (particularly proteins and small organic molecules) and (ii) genomics data. The first part of the class will emphasize geometric deep learning, a central component responsible for recent breakthroughs in molecular modeling, most notably the AlphaFold2 system for protein structure prediction. We will also cover applications of geometric deep learning in cheminformatics and protein biology, and discuss geometric aspects of AlphaFold2. The course will also cover random matrix theory and topological data analysis, topics with important applications in genomics analyses. We will also cover topics in population genetics. The course will comprise weekly lectures combined with presentations of research papers by students.
In contemporary bioethics, we find ourselves grappling with practically important, and at the same time, philosophically fundamental questions such as: When does someone’s life begin and how should it end? What is the proper role of physicians, nurses and other health care providers and what are the rights of their patients? What is a just and fair way to provide access to health-care services and resources? Which potential uses of new genetic and reproductive technologies would represent a legitimate advance in medicine and which would signify the beginning of a humanly degrading "brave new world"? Indeed, in a society committed to protecting a diversity of lifestyles and opinions, how can citizens resolve significant policy controversies such as whether there should be public funding of human embryonic stem cell research, or a legally protected right to physician assistance in ending one’s life? The aims of this course are to identify the fundamental ethical questions that underlie contemporary biomedical practice; develop skill in analyzing and clarifying key concepts such as autonomy, justice, health and disease; critically assess the healthcare implications of different ethical outlooks; explore how citizens can reasonably address controversial bioethical issues in a mutually respectful and constructive way. The course meets once a week for an hour and a half. Live-session interaction and post-session discussion forums play a key role as students explore, in a give-and-take spirit, the pros and cons of each position. This course is designed for medical students, nursing students, and other healthcare professionals, as well as for students at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level in biology, philosophy, political science, public health, law, and related fields.
In contemporary bioethics, we find ourselves grappling with practically important, and at the same time, philosophically fundamental questions such as: When does someone’s life begin and how should it end? What is the proper role of physicians, nurses and other health care providers and what are the rights of their patients? What is a just and fair way to provide access to health-care services and resources? Which potential uses of new genetic and reproductive technologies would represent a legitimate advance in medicine and which would signify the beginning of a humanly degrading "brave new world"? Indeed, in a society committed to protecting a diversity of lifestyles and opinions, how can citizens resolve significant policy controversies such as whether there should be public funding of human embryonic stem cell research, or a legally protected right to physician assistance in ending one’s life? The aims of this course are to identify the fundamental ethical questions that underlie contemporary biomedical practice; develop skill in analyzing and clarifying key concepts such as autonomy, justice, health and disease; critically assess the healthcare implications of different ethical outlooks; explore how citizens can reasonably address controversial bioethical issues in a mutually respectful and constructive way. The course meets once a week for an hour and a half. Live-session interaction and post-session discussion forums play a key role as students explore, in a give-and-take spirit, the pros and cons of each position. This course is designed for medical students, nursing students, and other healthcare professionals, as well as for students at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level in biology, philosophy, political science, public health, law, and related fields.
Prerequisites: student expected to be mathematically mature and familiar with probability and statistics, arbitrage pricing theory, and stochastic processes. The course will introduce the notions of financial risk management, review the structure of the markets and the contracts traded, introduce risk measures such as VaR, PFE and EE, overview regulation of financial markets, and study a number of risk management failures. After successfully completing the course, the student will understand the basics of computing parametric VaR, historical VaR, Monte Carlo VaR, cedit exposures and CVA and the issues and computations associated with managing market risk and credit risk. The student will be familiar with the different categories of financial risk, current regulatory practices, and the events of financial crises, especially the most recent one.
This course provides a comprehensive set of financial management tools for nonprofit professionals, including managers and staff, whether they oversee financial statements and reporting or need to translate financial statements and reporting across stakeholders. This course emphasizes the requirements for nonprofits in recording and budgeting the financials to support the organization’s mission. Additionally, the course will provide students with the ability to analyze financial statements and answer financial questions typically asked by stakeholders such as the governing board, donors, the public, beneficiaries, media, and regulators. Finally, the course will identify the risks and opportunities found in an organization's financial information to increase the public's confidence in and understanding of the organization's mission and operations.
This course introduces students to selected legal and policy texts that have addressed issues in bioethics and shaped their development. Students will explore and contrast legal reasoning and bioethical analysis, often of the same issues. By the end of the course, students will understand the legal or regulatory status of selected issues and have begun to independently navigate major legal, regulatory, and policy texts. Individual sessions will be focused around particular issues or questions that have been addressed by (usually) American courts and/or in legislation, regulation or policy, and that have been the subject of scholarship and debate within bioethics. The course begins with a theoretical look at the relationship between law and ethics, and includes a brief introduction to legal decision-making and policy development. We then survey a range of bioethics issues that have been addressed by the courts and/or in legislation, regulation, or significant policy documents, contrasting and comparing legal argument and reasoning with arguments utilized in the bioethics literature.
As digital media increasingly drives the field of strategic communication, leading successful communication efforts also require a platform specific, evidence-based strategic approach. Leaders must know how to use a broad and rapidly changing mix of digital media platforms and tools to connect their message with the right audience. To that end, this course covers major topics in digital media and communication, such as content strategy, digital experience, channel planning, online reputation management, programmatic marketing, audience targeting, artificial intelligence and more. Through in-class lectures, discussion, case studies, guest speakers, group projects and individual writing assignments, students in this course will be introduced to strategic decision-making and communications planning for social media, mobile, digital advertising, search, email, digital out-of-home and interactive media (video, radio, podcasts). Students will also gain an in-depth understanding of how to integrate digital strategies and tactics with traditional communication efforts.
This course covers the major steps in the investigation, assessment and remediation of contaminated sites. The course will introduce the student to the multidisciplinary aspects of environmental remediation, an important background for any environmental career, such as an environmental consultant, a corporate remediation manager or a government regulator. Management and remediation of contaminated sites is an important consideration in sustainable regional development, since failure to control contamination usually yields an ever increasing area of impact, with greater environmental and societal costs. Using US EPA Superfund guidance as a framework, the course will explore the major steps in identifying a site, establishing the degree of contamination, identifying the likely ecological and human receptors, and selecting and implementing a remedial action. The Superfund process has been extensively developed through more than 30 years of legislature and agency guidance, and now provides a robust approach for pollution assessment and remediation. Contaminated sites typically involve a broad spectrum of contaminants across at least two media, including soils, sediments, groundwater, surface water, and air. This course examines the main steps involved in environmental investigation and remediation primarily from a technical perspective, although legal aspects will be incorporated at the major decision points in the process. In particular, the course will focus on the main environmental sampling and analytical techniques needed to conduct a remedial investigation, and cover some of the main remedial engineering considerations for the successful selection and implementation of a remedy. Students will be assigned one of several completed Superfund sites to track the application of the Superfund process to a real world example as the class proceeds, providing a regular link between theory and application.
The ethics of medicine, biology, and psychology deeply influence our ideas about gender and sexuality and how we establish what is “normal” about our sexed bodies. Even the most basic questions about gender identity, for example, or how we distinguish male from female (or that we distinguish at all), have been shaped by the culture of science and medicine. In this class, we will examine traditional gender and sex binaries, including how they have been prescribed and enforced throughout American medical history, up to the present day. For example, people have always been born with intersex traits, and yet only in recent times have physicians intervened to manage such births. Before the 1840s, in the U.S. those born with intersex traits lived their lives the best they could, despite their physical differences, largely without medical interference. Since the 19th century, however, physicians have tried to surgically “correct” people (adults) with atypical genitals, even if that surgical management was medically unnecessary and conflicted with the person’s gender identity. Since the 1950s, providers have sought to “fix” those born with intersex conditions in infancy, before their gender identities had a chance to develop. Though physicians thought they were helping their patients live better lives, the principles we now associate with bioethics (autonomy and informed consent, for example) were too often neglected and took a backseat to physicians’ assumptions about what “better lives” might entail.
This course is about leading boundary-spanning coalitions. An old African proverb tells us that, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." While this advice is especially relevant in our interconnected 21st-century world, we have learned that working together is not always easy to do well. “Collaboration at Scale: Leading Boundary-Spanning Coalitions” takes the study of collaboration into an even wider realm by examining the potential and complexity of large-scale, cross-organizational collaboration, and how to lead it. The concept of scalability is common in the business world and this course demonstrates what it takes to make collaboration scalable and suitable for a variety of challenging contexts larger than a single organization. Inherent in the concept of scalability are the notions of "appropriate scale" and also "at scale." Both of these notions raise valid questions that we will address in this course. (Though our interpretations of scale have evolved with the advent of social media, specific technology selection is not the focus of the course.) Students will learn the characteristics, conditions and dynamics of various large-scale collaborations, as well as how to design and lead them effectively. Course materials will be drawn from the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. Using a balance of practice and theory of networks and large system facilitation, students will demonstrate their mastery of course materials through an assignment in which they diagnose and (re)design a “collaboration at scale.” This could be in the business, scientific, religious, political, or humanitarian domains.
Prerequisites: comfortable with algebra, calculus, probability, statistics, and stochastic calculus. The course covers the fundamentals of fixed income portfolio management. Its goal is to help the students develop concepts and tools for valuation and hedging of fixed income securities within a fixed set of parameters. There will be an emphasis on understanding how an investment professional manages a portfolio given a budget and a set of limits.
This course covers the technical and non-technical aspects of Carbon Utilization and Storage (CCUS), one of our most important and achievable tools to mitigate climate change. The course begins by presenting our global energy needs and the environmental motivation for CCUS and its natural analogues. Students will review the basic concepts and methods involved in CO2 capture, trapping, and monitoring, as well as established methods for modeling the fate of CO2in the subsurface. Students will then consider the needs and implications of CO2 capture from industrial sources (power plants) and directly from ambient air and examine current examples from around the world. This course will go on to discuss integrating CCUS with renewable energy sources (negative emission) and ocean storage options. Students will think through the challenges associated with CCUS, including the transportation of CO2to storage locations, regulations and incentives, and the public view and acceptance of this technology. The course will end with a discussion of where to go from here to find pathways to a carbon neutral future. At the conclusion of this course, each student will have gained a practical understanding of the potential for CCUS solutions to mitigate climate change and gain experience in presenting related technical and non-technical information to their peers. This will critically inform decision making and hone communication skills for future careers in fossil and renewable energy generation, power distribution, manufacturing, environmental policy, and scientific outreach.
OVERVIEW: The IKNS Capstone represents the culmination of learning throughout the IKNS program in which students master business-critical concepts in data, analytics, people, networks, integration, and strategy. Working individually and in small teams, students design and deliver a project for a capstone sponsor seeking IKNS expertise to help solve a real-world problem within the sponsor’s organization. Using what they have learned from across the curriculum, students apply IKNS frameworks and use both qualitative and quantitative research to develop a written business report, oral presentation. and a final product for the sponsor including but not limited to a roadmap, strategic plan, white paper, or minimum viable product (MVP). The Capstone provides a final testing ground for students to apply their learning to real organizational needs and also become familiar with consultative approaches. During this course, students collaborate to complete an assignment specified by their Capstone project sponsor. At the conclusion of the Capstone, students provide a report and a strong integrated presentation to the sponsoring organization. Project activity begins at the end of August, with concrete individual and team assignments during the course culminating in a final report and oral presentation delivered in December. LOGISTICS: Online with on-campus components. Pre-requisites: Students must complete 18 credits towards their degree prior to the start of the course. Open to IKNS only.
Ethical questions about museum activities are legion, yet they are usually only discussed when they become headlines in newspapers. At the same time, people working in museums make decisions with ethical and legal issues regularly and seldom give these judgments even little thought. In part, this is due to the fact that many of these decisions are based upon values that become second nature. This course will explore ethical issues that arise in all areas of a museum's operations from governance and management to collections acquisition, conservation, and deaccessioning. We will examine the issues that arise when the ownership of objects in a museum's are questioned; the ethical considerations involved in retention, restitution and repatriation; and what decolonization means for museums.