Access to Excellence Podcast

Missy Cummings: Artificial intelligence is artificial and not intelligent

Missy Cummings, one of the country’s first female fighter pilots and director of George Mason University's Autonomy and Robotics Center, calls herself a tech futurist, charged with making tech work better and safer. In a conversation with Mason President Gregory Washington, Cummings is unflinching in her critique of AI’s strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings, as well as that of humans. There is a lot to like about AI, Cummings says, but she calls out bad tech where she sees it, including in the vision systems of self-driving cars and Tesla’s Autopilot. There's also a lot to like, Cummings says, about Mason's new Fuse building on its Mason Square Campus. When open in 2025, the building will will house R&D labs, corporate innovation centers, incubators, accelerators which will help advance the digital innovation goals of university, industry and community innovators.

Describing history through the eyes of ordinary people

Helon Habila, a professor of creative writing at George Mason University, and an acclaimed international author, has never shied away from important issues. In a fascinating discussion, Habila, the author of four novels, tells Mason President Gregory Washington about his process of combining compelling narratives and characters with current examples of oppression and exploitation, and how his factual account of the 2014 kidnapping in Nigeria of 276 young girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram forced him to confront his homeland as he had never seen it.

The absurd fallacy of a hierarchy of human value

When Gail Christopher, executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity and a senior scholar in George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, talks about “ensuring a future,” she’s really talking about creating a system of equity that produces opportunities for everyone. In her second podcast with Mason President Gregory Washington, Christopher expands on the idea that academic institutions are essential for shifting the cultural ethos to one that is not racist, and discusses the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Conference recently held at Mason.

Are the midterm elections the most consequential in our time?

Are the midterm elections the most important in our time? Maybe, maybe not. Jennifer Victor, associate professor of political science in George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, and Mason president Gregory Washington wrestle with that, and you might be surprised at the answer. Want more surprises? Then hear why high voter turnout could be a double-edged sword for our democracy and how the parties misread the electorate. And just what is “thermostatic politics?”

His sound is renowned

Dr. Michael Nickens, an associate professor of music in George Mason University’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, tells Mason President Gregory Washington how he transforms from his mild-mannered persona into Doc Nix, the flamboyant leader of the Green Machine, the nation’s No. 1 pep band. The band isn’t a mechanical process, Nix says. There are times its members are collectively “exploring the universe in that moment. And those are the moments that feel like we have really accomplished something.” Actor Bill Murray is a fan of the band, and Nix is pretty good on the tuba.

What it means to build peace

Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, talks to Mason President Gregory Washington about the keys to effective peacebuilding, whether it concerns the war in Ukraine, gun violence or local issues. And don’t miss the discussions about how the Carter School helped broker a peace accord in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and how an alien invasion could help heal the rift between Russia and the West.

Cori Bush: Action must be the reaction

Rep. Cori Bush, Missouri's first Black congresswoman, talks to George Mason University President Gregory Washington about the importance of the class she is teaching this summer at Mason. A pastor, teacher, nurse, and a Black Lives Matter activist in Ferguson, Mo., Bush explains her unusual path to Congress, and doesn’t flinch when discussing issues surrounding race and policing.

Russia’s war in Ukraine tied to corruption, organized crime

Louise Shelley, a University Professor and director of Mason’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center explains to Mason President Gregory Washington the connections between the war in Ukraine and Russian corruption and organized crime, and how criminals and terrorists take advantage in diverse ways of the globalized world in which we live. Shelley’s center exposes that criminality and recently helped take 55 million counterfeit and sub-standard medical masks out of circulation worldwide with the takedown of more than 50,000 online marketplaces and social media posts.

Promoting a scientific worldview

Jim Trefil, a physicist and Robinson Professor at George Mason University, explains to Mason President Gregory Washington the importance of a scientific worldview. The author of more than 50 books and one of the developers of the modern theories about quarks as a fundamental component of the universe, Trefil is helping pioneer a new way of teaching science and says you don’t have to be in a lab to learn. ‘You live in a world full of science. Oh, and just FYI, Trefil says, ‘There is life even if you’ve been rejected by Playboy.’

On Ukraine, Russia, China, and a very messy world

Larry Pfeiffer, director of George Mason University’s Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, explains to Mason President Gregory Washington about Vladimir Putin’s real agenda in Ukraine. He also details why the war in Ukraine matters to the United States, even though the U.S.’s long-term geopolitical, economic and technological challenge is from China. Pfeiffer also asks Americans to guard against autocracy at home, because, as he said, it doesn’t take much for a country’s values to be subverted and freedoms suppressed.