Avatars. Avatars are images that represent either a person or some other sentient guide to a program. Avatars are used across a variety of settings, from IKEA’s Anna (who will helpfully guide you to their bedroom department if you complain about your saggy mattress) to the iPhone’s Siri. In healthcare, one intriguing use of avatars has […]

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama surprised a Northeastern University a cappella group this week when the two unexpectedly showed up to a White House holiday party to watch the students sing. All 15 members of The Nor’easters traveled to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to perform for guests at a holiday party, but the group was never […]

Yet, the state’s situation is far from dire, said Northeastern University economics professor Alan Clayton-Matthews. The state unemployment rate is estimated from a survey of households, but a separate survey of employers also released Thursday showed that the state added 6,500 jobs in November, after gaining 9,400 in October. The data from both surveys are […]

In the article, titled “Mass Shootings in America: Moving Beyond Newtown,” Northeastern University criminologists James Alan Fox and Monica J. DeLateur examine existing research and data to refute 11 common assumptions about mass murder—which the FBI defines as any single, sustained incident that takes the lives of four or more victims. Many of their points seem like […]

By Michele Simon and Cara Wilking Looking back at 2013, while the food movement made progress in certain areas (such asschool food and GMO labeling), when it comes to exploitative food marketing to children meaningful change remains elusive. Let’s Move director and White House chef Sam Kass recently acknowledged the obvious when he said this issue was […]

Fiore, a Salem native fresh out of Northeastern University, in her early 20s was determined to become a lawyer. Her younger sister, Athena, helped to change her path. In 2002, Athena enlisted her sister’s help working on a high school fund-raiser. Malita’s job was to cook and serve food to 300 people. At first, Fiore […]

Tonight’s commute home is almost guaranteed to be better than last night’s. Yesterday’s snow storm lasted through the evening commute, snarling traffic across the Greater Boston area. Many of you were stuck in cars inching along snowy roadways or diverted because of accidents or waiting in the cold for MBTA trains and buses — some […]

Buying Better Abhi Nangia has one simple mission: to reweave the way we buy, for good. In an effort to make that mission a reality, Nangia and his team launched reweave.org in June as an alternative marketplace for people who want to purchase fair and direct trade products. “It’s not an easy choice to start making,” insists […]

As Ben Schmidt, assistant professor of history at Northeastern University, has shown in a series of great graphs, women’s choices of major really explain most of the drop. Starting in the late 1970s, women became the majority of the undergraduate student body at colleges and universities in the United States. By the 2000s, women made up […]

According to Gary Young, an author of the article and a professor at Northeastern University, “Nonprofit hospitals may have been founded on the basis of community need, but that doesn’t mean they’re not very profitable. Towns are hurting, and they see this affluent institution in their midst on lots of land and say, ‘Hey, cough […]

When people were rioting on the streets of Egypt two years ago, Northeastern University senior David Muench was missing out on the action. “My brother called me one night and asked if I had heard about the protests going on in Egypt, but I had to tell him ‘no,’” said Muench, who was working on […]

“I tend to believe that what is going on is a queueing process, where employers rank individuals like they’re sitting in the queue, and they go with the short-term [unemployed],” says Rand Ghayad, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Northeastern University and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “The only way […]