The ThinkND Podcast

Episode Topic: Why Care? - Crafting a Leadership Grounded in Truth and Empathy Why care? It may seem inherent to health care, but that’s not always the case. To learn more, join us for Inspiring Conversations with Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Chief Experience Officer of the Cleveland Clinic Health System, staff neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis, and recognized though...

Episode Topic: Fake News, Real Costs: How Disinformation and Deep Fakes Impact Business In the wake of the Capitol riot and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many of us are aware of the threat that disinformation can pose to democracy. Less explored but equally troubling is the threat that it can pose to the private sector, a topic which Matthew Ferraro, Counsel at Wilme...

Episode Topic: Visual Investigations: Innovation in Storytelling A picture’s worth a thousand words. So goes the old adage, which is as true in the disinformation sphere as it is in any other. Visuals are a uniquely powerful medium to convey information to humans, which makes them a uniquely powerful tool for bad-faith actors out to manipulate the public. As media and journalism shift toward a gre...

Episode Topic: Disinformation and Democracy As was evident from its interference in the 2016 presidential election, no country has done more to actively sow distrust and undermine faith in U.S. democracy than Russia. The Kremlin disinformation threat to U.S. public trust and faith in its institutions, and how Washington can counter that threat, is the topic of the third lecture in ND’s Ten Years H...

Episode Topic: Making America Competitive Again in the Information Space During the dark days of the height of the Cold War, when the free flow of information was a rare and precious commodity for those behind the Iron Curtain, the selling point of U.S.-sponsored media outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was that it told the truth to millions who desperately wanted to hear it. Now, 30-...

Episode Topic: Trust and Truth in the Age of Deep Fakes By now, many of us are familiar with the problem of “deep fake” images and videos, inauthentic creations designed to look like the real thing used for a variety of purposes, some benign and entertaining, others malicious and harmful. But how are these images created? And how can we detect them in order to distinguish fact from fiction?  Featu...

Episode Topic: Automated Approaches to Detecting, Attributing, and Characterizing Falsified Media The U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency most often referred to by its acronym DARPA, was formed in response to the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, a feat which took the U.S. government by surprise and which it could not match technologically...

Episode Topic: Disinformation, China, and Beijing’s Broader Global Media Influence When people think of foreign disinformation campaigns, the textbook example that comes to mind is usually that of social media accounts run out of government-sponsored troll farms in Russia sowing fake news and division during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. When it comes to this specific tactic of disinformati...

Episode Topic: The End of Privacy: How Intimacy Became Data and How to Stop It From time immemorial, privacy has been an important, necessary condition for human development. The ability to experiment with who we are, explore our innermost thoughts and desires, and to set boundaries around relationships allows us to develop as full persons engaging in and with greater society. Unfortunately, techn...

Episode Topic: How Social Media’s Obsession with Scale Supercharged Disinformation Conspiracy theories and other false claims have always been part of our discourse, even (and perhaps especially) our politics. But modern technologies seem to have changed the scale of the problem, with profound implications for our culture and for democracy. This series focuses on the role of technology in promotin...

Episode Topic: What Do We Value? The Ethics of Tech Accountability Listen to the discussion recorded on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, with Mark McKenna, Elizabeth M. Renieris, and special guests Ifeoma Ozoma and Roger McNamee. Featured Speakers:  Roger McNamee, Author of Zucked  Ifeoma Ozoma, Founder and Principal, Earthseed Mark McKenna '97, John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law; Founding D...

Episode topic:  Section 230 - Online Speech and Tech Responsibility The third talk in our TEC Talks series called “Section 230: Online Speech and Tech Responsibility,” features Danielle Citron, Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and Yaël Eisenstat, Researcher-in-Residence at Betalab. Listen to the discussion recorded on Monday...

Episode Topic: A Guide for Handling Mis- and Disinformation Few contemporary problems can be addressed by reference to a single discipline. Misinformation — a critical issue of our time — is no different. Join us for a conversation between Center for an Informed Public co-founder Ryan Calo, AI for the People founder and CEO Mutale Nkonde, Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center Director Mark McKenna,...

Episode topic: The Ethics of Verification, Identity, and Anonymity on the Internet This session will feature David Magerman, co-founder and managing partner at Differential Ventures and an advocate for internet reform, and Jillian C. York, Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Join us as we dive into questions around identity and its relationship to...

Episode Topic:  What Can Smaller Platforms Learn from Ethical Challenges at Scale? The session "Learning from Our Mistakes: What can smaller platforms learn from ethical challenges at scale?" features Julie Owono, founder of Internet Sans Frontières and a member of the Facebook Oversight Board, and Clint Smith, Chief Legal Officer at Discord. As debates around the responsibilities — and...

Episode Topic: The Catholic Church in Africa Today This first of three parts of the Church in Africa will examine the Catholic Church in Africa today. Listen to the discussion recorded on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, with Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C. '84, '90 M.Div., and Rev. David Lyimo Eliaona, C.S.C., '14 M.T.S., '20 Ph. D. Fr. Lyimo, a native of Tanzania who grew up on the slopes o...

Episode Topic: The History of Christianity in Africa This second of the three parts of The Church in Africa will focus on the history of Christianity on the continent. View the discussion recorded on Tuesday, April 13, 2021, with Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C., and Rev. Kenneth Amadi, a Nigerian priest of the archdiocese of Abuja in Nigeria and a doctoral student in Liturgical Studies in ND’s Theology...

Episode topic:  The Future of the Catholic Church in Africa This third part of The Church in Africa will focus on the future of the Catholic Church in Africa. View the discussion recorded on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, with Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C., and guest Sister Edelquine Shivachi, LSOSF, a Kenyan member of the Little Sisters of Saint Francis, a Catholic religious congregation founded in Uganda...

Episode Topic: What is neuroscience, and why are relationships so important? What is neuroscience, and why are relationships so important to how our brains function? Researchers who study neuroscience and behavior have discovered that one of the biggest moderators of human health is having good human relationships. After a brief overview of what neuroscience is, Notre Dame faculty members Nancy Mi...

Episode Topic:  How experiences influence brain function and long-term health It has been said that “it takes a village to raise a child” and understanding neuroscience can be one of the building blocks for that village. How important are relationships, social privilege, and early stressors in the formation and development of the brain? Faculty members Kristin Valentino and Elizabeth Archie will s...

Episode Topic: Using neuroscience to build a healthy community While it might sound strange at first, a child's developing brain has certain expectations from its environment. Consistent and responsive care are important for a healthy child and later a healthy adult. Through responsive, consistent care, older humans become powerful protective factors to buffer the stresses of daily life for o...

Episode Topic:  Praying With One Voice, Gregorian Chant We’ll start our learning journey through Lenten music with Gregorian Chant — this is the earliest music of the Church. We don’t really know exactly what this music sounded like, but we know that song was a part of culture. What we have now are fossils, the remains of a musical culture. In reality, music develops through practice, by people wh...

Episode Topic:   From One Voice to Many, Renaissance Polyphony During the early Renaissance, musicians started to experiment with singing different musical lines at the same time. You might even say that boredom was the catalyst for polyphony! The earliest forms of polyphony are the singing of Gregorian melodies homophonically — two lines sung at an interval of perfect 4th or 5th. By the end of th...

Episode Topic:  All Together Now, Sacred Music of the Baroque In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the tides of sacred music began to turn. Reformation ideals shaped much of the music in northern Europe, and these changes were matched by a growing Counter-Reformation movement in Italy, especially in Rome. Church leaders began placing a renewed emphasis on clarity in sacred music, which contr...

Episode Topic: The Notre Dame Folk Choir’s Passion Project When we talk about the Passion, we’re first and foremost referring to the last days of Jesus’s life, from the Last Supper through his death on the cross. The story of Jesus’s Passion has captivated musicians for centuries, from the earliest chanted melodies of scripture to "Jesus Christ Superstar." What is it about the Passion th...