French as Apple Pie

In Paris this winter, with the weather seesawing between frigid and mild, I found myself baking with apples. I made pandowdy, twice. I made a few apple crisps, one with a gingerbread spice that I liked a lot. I made an apple tart that had a layer of applesauce and a pinwheel of sliced apples.…

The persistence of pay inequality: The gender pay gap in an anonymous online labor market

March 4, 2020 — The U.S. is witnessing a dramatic rise in nontraditional ‘gig economy’ labor markets where workers are hired for single projects often on a short-term basis. An estimated 0.4% of U.S. adults are currently receiving income from such platforms each month. Research conducted based on collaboration between Columbia University Mailman School of…

Design, power, and justice

When Sasha Costanza-Chock goes through airport security, it is an unusually uncomfortable experience. Costanza-Chock, an MIT associate professor, is transgender and nonbinary. They use the pronouns they/them, and their body does not match binary norms. But airport security millimeter wave scanners are set up with binary, male/female configurations. To operate the machine, agents press a…