Category: Universities

MIL-OSI: New Payscale Report Reveals Rising Risk to Top Talent Retention Amid Widespread Misperceptions Around Fair Pay
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)
- 68% of employees believe they’re underpaid, even when their compensation is at or above market rates
- Employees who believe they’re paid unfairly are 45% more likely to look for a new role, regardless of their actual compensation
- Employees who work for organizations with high levels of pay transparency are 59% less likely to leave
BOSTON, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Payscale Inc., the leading provider of compensation intelligence solutions, today released its 2025 Fair Pay Impact Report, highlighting a growing gap between employee perceptions of fair pay and reality. More than two thirds (68%) of employees report being underpaid, even when earning at or above market rates. As a result, many employers are exposing themselves to an increased risk of losing top talent. Payscale’s analysis shows that employees who think they’re paid unfairly are 45% more likely to look for a new job, regardless of their actual compensation.

The gap between perceptions of fair pay and reality has grown significantly since 2021, when just half (51%) of employees earning at or above market felt underpaid. Despite rising salaries and improved pay transparency, employee misperceptions of unfair pay have surged. This suggests that employers’ current communication strategies around compensation are falling short.

Pay transparency is an important factor in combatting pay misperceptions and boosting employee retention. Employees who work for organizations with high levels of pay transparency are 59% less likely to leave relative to non-transparent organizations. Amid a growing wave of pay transparency legislation in states and cities across the US, one in three US employees is now covered by regulations requiring greater pay disclosure. While compliance is essential, the report’s findings suggest there is more work for employers to do internally to communicate transparently about compensation.

“Pay misinformation and ineffective communication are undermining employer efforts to build trust among employees. This pay perception gap poses a real threat to retaining high performers,” said Ruth Thomas, chief compensation strategist, Payscale. “While more employees are covered by pay transparency laws than ever before, compliance alone is not enough. Employers must build transparent compensation strategies rooted in data so they can communicate with confidence, consistency, and clarity to help employees understand what fair pay looks like for their role and prevent regrettable attrition. Employers must treat retention of key talent as an always-on priority, regardless of whether it’s an employer or employee market – waiting until the market shifts could put top performers at risk. By the time signs of attrition appear, it may already be too late.”

The research shows most employees don’t know whether they’re being paid fairly. Of those employees who reported being paid unfairly, only a third (32%) are actually below market. Among employees who are paid above market, almost half (47%) believe they are underpaid. This rises to almost two thirds (63%) among employees paid at market. Among job seekers, almost two thirds (65%) have a poor perception of their current pay, further highlighting the critical role that employee perceptions of fair pay play in retention.

Despite the spike in inflation from 2020 through 2022, cumulative wage growth has outpaced inflation since 2019, rising 30% compared to a 27% increase in cumulative inflation. This is true across industries. However, salary increases are not equally applied across all jobs and low wage earners in particular are more likely to be disproportionately impacted by the rising cost of living.

“Even when pay is fair, many employees don’t believe it because perceptions around fair compensation are deeply subjective. These misperceptions are common, and leaders must prioritize building trust to retain their top performing employees,” said Lexi Clarke, chief people officer, Payscale. “That starts with confidence in their pay data, structures, and strategy, and requires clearly communicating the rationale behind pay decisions, understanding the factors that influence compensation, and equipping managers to have better pay conversations. The goal is for employees to not only understand whys behind how their pay is calculated, but ideally how they can increase their compensation and grow within the organization, helping support long-term retention and prevent top talent from walking out the door.”

The 2025 Fair Pay Impact Report analyzes data from more than 325,000 respondents to Payscale’s online salary survey taken between January 1, 2021 and January 1, 2025. The full report and its methodology can be accessed at: https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/fair-pay-impact/.

About Payscale

Payscale stands at the forefront of compensation data technology, pioneering an innovative approach that harnesses advanced AI and up-to-date and reliable market data to align employee and employer expectations. With its suite of solutions—Payfactors, Marketpay, and Paycycle—Payscale empowers 65% of Fortune 500 companies to make strategic compensation decisions. Organizations like Panasonic, ZoomInfo, Chipotle, AccentCare, University of Washington, American Airlines, and Rite Aid rely on its unique combination of actionable data and insights, experienced compensation services, and scalable software to drive business success. By partnering with Payscale, businesses can make confident compensation decisions that fuel growth for both their organization and their people.

Create confidence in your compensation. Payscale.

To learn more, visit www.payscale.com.

Contact: Press@Payscale.com

The MIL Network –
June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Guaranteed Rate Affinity Appoints Linda Vo as Regional Manager in North Texas

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

CHICAGO, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Guaranteed Rate Affinity, a leading mortgage provider offering unparalleled lending services through its partnership with Coldwell Banker, has appointed Linda Vo as Regional Manager in North Texas, highlighting the company’s commitment to expanding its reach in a key growth market.

Vo brings more than 20 years of experience across nearly every corner of the mortgage industry, including wholesale, loan origination, sales management, REO loan servicing, corporate strategy, and business development. Her wide-ranging expertise, coupled with her passion for team building and relationship management, makes her a natural fit to lead Guaranteed Rate Affinity’s growth and recruiting efforts across North Texas.

“After being in this industry for over two decades, I have learned that you can find work anywhere, but very few places offer a place where you feel welcomed, supported, and like-minded—a workplace that feels like a home,” said Vo. “I feel like I have come home to Guaranteed Rate Affinity. I am among my people with growth mindset individuals.”

In her new role, Vo will focus on empowering loan officers to own their markets while scaling the company’s presence and recruiting efforts throughout the region. She joins Guaranteed Rate Affinity during a time of strategic expansion and culture-focused leadership development.

“Linda’s extensive professional background, combined with her industry expertise and passion, makes her the ideal leader to attract the best-of-the-best talent that aligns with our culture,” said Dave Dickey, President and Chief Production Officer at Guaranteed Rate Affinity. “I’ve had the good fortune of being teammates with Linda and have known her for over 20 years. I’ve seen her remarkable work ethic, positive mindset, and genuine enthusiasm for the mortgage industry firsthand, all of which make her a natural fit at Guaranteed Rate Affinity. I can’t wait to see Linda fuel our continued growth and empower our loan officers to own their markets.”

Vo holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business and a bachelor of science in international business from Oklahoma City University. She earned her Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) designation from the Mortgage Bankers Association in 2022 and received her John Maxwell Team Certificate in 2018. A longtime leader in the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA), Vo has been an active member of the Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter since 2014 and served as its president in 2024.

About Guaranteed Rate Affinity

Guaranteed Rate Affinity is a joint venture between Guaranteed Rate, Inc. and Anywhere Integrated Services (NYSE: HOUS), which owns some of the industry’s most recognized and respected real estate brands. The innovative JV has funded over $100 billion in loans since its inception. Guaranteed Rate Affinity originates and markets its mortgage lending services to Anywhere’s real estate, brokerage, and relocation subsidiaries.

Guaranteed Rate Affinity provides unmatched support to Anywhere brokers coast-to-coast, ensuring their customers receive fast pre-approvals, appraisals, and loan closings, creating the ability for buyers to move quickly and confidently when purchasing homes in today’s competitive market. The company also provides the same services to the public and other real estate brokerage and relocation companies across the country—helping employers improve their employees’ relocation experience by prioritizing customer service, digital mortgage ease, and competitive rates.

Disclosures: Guaranteed Rate owns a controlling 50.1% stake in Guaranteed Rate Affinity, and Anywhere owns 49.9%. Availability of reverse mortgage products varies by state and may not be offered in all areas. Contact a Guaranteed Rate Affinity loan officer for details on current state availability.

Visit grarate.com for more information.

Media Contact:
press@rate.com

The MIL Network –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: Companies haven’t stopped hiring, but they’re more cautious, according to the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Murugan Anandarajan, Professor of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems, Drexel University

Recent college grads face a tough job market in 2025, but employers are still hiring. sturti/E+ via Getty Images

Every year, I tell my students in my business analytics class the same thing: “Don’t just apply for a job. Audition for it.”

This advice seems particularly relevant this year. In today’s turbulent economy, companies are still hiring, but they’re doing it a bit more carefully. More places are offering candidates short-term work experiences like internships and co-op programs in order to evaluate them before making them full-time offers.

This is just one of the findings of the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report. This annual report tracks trends in the job market and offers valuable insights for both job seekers and employers. It is based on a national survey conducted in September 2024, with responses from 1,322 employers spanning all major industries and company sizes, from small firms to large enterprises. The survey looks at employer perspectives on entry-level hiring trends, skills demand and talent development strategies.

I am a professor of information systems at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, and I co-authored this report along with a team of colleagues at the Center for Career Readiness.

Here’s what we found:

Employers are rethinking talent pipelines

Only 21% of the 1,322 employers we surveyed rated the current college hiring market as “excellent” or “very good,” which is a dramatic drop from 61% in 2023. This indicates that companies are becoming increasingly cautious about how they recruit and select new talent.

While confidence in full-time hiring has declined, employers are not stepping away from hiring altogether. Instead, they’re shifting to paid and unpaid internships, co-ops and contract-to-hire roles as a less risky route to identify talent and “de-risk” full-time hiring.

Employers we surveyed described internships as a cost-effective talent pipeline, and 70% told us they plan to maintain or increase their co-op and intern hiring in 2025. At a time when many companies are tightening their belts, hiring someone who’s already proved themselves saves on onboarding reduces turnover and minimizes potentially costly mishires.

For job seekers, this makes every internship or short-term role more than a foot in the door. It’s an extended audition. Even with the general market looking unstable, interest in co-op and internship programs appears steady, especially among recent graduates facing fewer full-time opportunities.

These programs aren’t just about trying out a job. They let employers see if a candidate shows initiative, good judgment and the ability to work well on a team, which we found are traits employers value even more than technical skills.

What employers want

We found that employers increasingly prioritize self-management skills like adaptability, ethical reasoning and communication over technical skills such as digital literacy and cybersecurity. Employers are paying attention to how candidates behave during internships, how they take feedback, and whether they bring the mindset needed to grow with the company.

This reflects what I have observed in classrooms and in conversations with hiring managers: Credentials matter, but what truly sets candidates apart is how they present themselves and what they contribute to a company.

Based on co-op and internship data we’ve collected at Drexel, however, many students continue to believe that technical proficiency is the key to getting a job.

In my opinion, this disconnect reveals a critical gap in expectations: While students focus on hard skills to differentiate themselves, employers are looking for the human skills that indicate long-term potential, resilience and professionalism. This is especially true in the face of economic uncertainty and the ambiguous, fast-changing nature of today’s workplace.

Technology is changing how hiring happens

Employers also told us that artificial intelligence is now central to how both applicants and employers navigate the hiring process.

Some companies are increasingly using AI-powered platforms to transform their hiring processes. For example, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia uses platforms like HireVue to conduct asynchronous video interviews. HR-focused firms like Phenom and JJ Staffing Services also leverage technologies such as AI-based resume ranking, automated interview scheduling and one-way video assessments.

Not only do these tools speed up the hiring process, but they also reshape how employers and candidates interact. In our survey, large employers said they are increasingly relying on AI tools like resume screeners and one-way video interviews to manage large numbers of job applicants. As a result, the candidate’s presence, clarity in communication and authenticity are being evaluated even before a human recruiter becomes involved.

At the same time, job seekers are using generative AI tools to write cover letters, practice interviews or reformat resumes. These tools can help with preparation, but overreliance on them can backfire. Employers want authenticity, and many employers we surveyed mentioned they notice when applications seem overly robotic.

In my experience as a professor, the key is teaching students to use AI to enhance their effort and not replace it. I encourage them to leverage AI tools but always emphasize that the final output and the impression it makes should reflect their own thinking and professionalism. The bottom line is that hiring is still a human decision, and the personal impression you make matters.

This isn’t just about new grads

While our research focuses on early-career hiring, these findings apply to other audiences as well, such as career changers, returning professionals and even mid-career workers. These workers are increasingly being evaluated on their adaptability, behavior and collaborative ability – not just their experience.

Many companies now offer project-based assignments and trial roles that let them evaluate performance before making a permanent hire.

At the same time, employers are investing in internal reskilling and upskilling programs. Reskilling refers to training workers for entirely new roles, often in response to job changes or automation, while upskilling means helping employees deepen their current skills to stay effective and advance in their existing roles. Our report indicates that approximately 88% of large companies now offer structured upskilling and reskilling programs. For job seekers and workers alike, staying competitive means taking the initiative and demonstrating a commitment to learning and growth.

Show up early, and show up well

So what can students, or anyone entering or reentering the workforce, do to prepare?
- Start early. Don’t wait until senior year. First- and second-year internships are growing in importance.
- Sharpen your soft skills. Communication, time management, problem-solving and ethical behavior are top priorities for employers.
- Understand where work is happening. Over 50% of entry-level jobs are fully in-person. Only 4% are fully remote. Show up ready to engage.
- Use AI strategically. It’s a useful tool for research and practice, not a shortcut to connection or clarity.
- Stay curious. Most large employers now offer reskilling or upskilling opportunities – and they expect employees to take initiative.
One of the clearest takeaways from this year’s report is that hiring is no longer a one-time decision. It’s a performance process that often begins before an interview is even scheduled.

Whether you’re still in school, transitioning in your career or returning to the workforce after a break, the same principle applies: Every opportunity is an audition. Treat it like one.

Murugan Anandarajan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Companies haven’t stopped hiring, but they’re more cautious, according to the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report – https://theconversation.com/companies-havent-stopped-hiring-but-theyre-more-cautious-according-to-the-2025-college-hiring-outlook-report-257870
MIL OSI Analysis –
June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: Observers of workplace mistreatment react as strongly as the victims − at times with a surprising amount of victim blaming

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jason Colquitt, Professor of Management, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

Workplace mistreatment harms observers, too. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Picture this: On your way out of the office, you notice a manager berating an employee. You assume the worker made some sort of mistake, but the manager’s behavior seems unprofessional. Later, as you’re preparing dinner, is the scene still weighing on you – or is it out of sight, out of mind?

If you think you’d still be bothered, you’re not alone. It turns out that simply observing mistreatment at work can have a surprisingly strong impact on people, even for those not directly involved. That’s according to new research led by Edwyna Hill, co-authored by Rachel Burgess, Manuela Priesemuth, Jefferson McClain and me, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Using a method called meta-analysis – which takes results from many different studies and combines them to produce an overall set of findings – we reviewed the growing body of research on what management professors like me call “third-party perceptions of mistreatment.” In this context, “third parties” are people who observe mistreatment between a perpetrator and the victim, who are the first and second parties.

We looked at 158 studies published in 105 journal articles involving thousands of participants. Those studies explored a number of different forms of workplace mistreatment ranging from incivility to abusive supervision and sexual harassment. Some of those studies took part in actual workplaces, while others examined mistreatment in tightly controlled laboratory settings.

The results were striking: We found that observing a co-worker being mistreated on the job has significant effects on the observers’ emotions. In fact, we found that observers of mistreatment may be as affected by what happened as the people actually involved in the event.

These reactions fall along a spectrum – some helpful, others less so. On the encouraging side, we found that observers tend to judge perpetrators and feel empathy for victims. These reactions discourage mistreatment by creating a climate that favors the victim. On the other hand, we found that observers may also enjoy seeing their co-workers suffer – an emotion called “schadenfreude” – or blame the victim. These sorts of reactions damage team dynamics and discourage people from reporting mistreatment.

Why it matters

These findings matter because mistreatment in the workplace is disturbingly common – and even more frequently observed than experienced. One recent study found that 34% of employees have experienced workplace mistreatment firsthand, but 44% have observed it happening to someone else. In other words, nearly half of workers have likely seen a scenario like the one described at the start of this article.

Unfortunately, the human resources playbook on workplace mistreatment rarely takes third parties into account. Some investigation occurs, potentially resulting in some punishment for the perpetrator and some support for the victim. A more effective response to workplace mistreatment would recognize that the harm often extends beyond the victim – and that observers, too, may need support.

What still isn’t known

What’s needed now is a better understanding of the nuances involved in observing mistreatment. Why do some observers react with empathy, while others derive pleasure from the suffering of others? And why might observers feel empathy for the victim but still respond by judging or blaming them? Answering these questions is a crucial next step for researchers and leaders seeking to design more effective workplace policies.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Jason Colquitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Observers of workplace mistreatment react as strongly as the victims − at times with a surprising amount of victim blaming – https://theconversation.com/observers-of-workplace-mistreatment-react-as-strongly-as-the-victims-at-times-with-a-surprising-amount-of-victim-blaming-255761

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: The hidden bias in college admissions tests: How standardized exams can favor privilege over potential

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Zarrina Talan Azizova, Associate Professor of Education, Health and Behavior, University of North Dakota

At first glance, calls from members of Congress to restore academic merit in college admissions might sound like a neutral policy.

In our view, these campaigns often cherry-pick evidence and mask a coordinated effort that targets access and diversity in American colleges.

As scholars who study access to higher education, we have found that when these efforts are paired with pressure to reinstate standardized tests, they amount to a rollback of inclusive practices.

A Department of Education letter sent to congressional offices from Feb. 14, 2025, stated that is “unlawful for an educational institution to eliminate standardized testing to achieve a desired racial balance or to increase racial diversity.” The letter also claimed that the most widely used admissions tests, the SAT and ACT, are objective measures of merit.

In our recent peer-reviewed article, we analyzed more than 70 empirical studies about the SAT’s and ACT’s roles in college admissions. Our work found several flaws in how these exams function, especially for historically underserved students.

Measuring college readiness

Supporters of admissions tests contend that they are objective tools for measuring whether students are ready for college-level coursework.
The Good Brigade/Digital Vision via Getty Images

Several elite universities – including Yale, Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – have reinstated SAT or ACT requirements, reversing test-optional policies that institutions expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These changes have reignited debates about how well these tests measure students’ academic preparedness and how colleges should weigh them in admissions decisions.

During a May 21, 2025, hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, some witnesses argued that using test scores allows colleges to admit students based on merit. Others maintained that test scores can function as barriers to higher education.

Our research shows that while these tests are statistically reliable – that is, they produce consistent results for students across subjects and during multiple attempts under similar conditions – they are not as valid as some argue.

High school grade-point averages are typically better predictors of students’ success in college than either test.

In addition, the tests are not equitable or similarly predictive for all students, especially given gender, race and socioeconomic demographics.

That is because they systematically favor those with more access to high-quality schooling, stable socioeconomic conditions and opportunities to engage with test prep coaches and courses. That test prep can cost thousands of dollars.

In short, both tests tend to reflect privilege more than potential.

For example, students from higher-income households routinely outperform their peers on the ACT and SAT.

This isn’t surprising, considering wealthier families can afford test prep services, private tutoring and test retakes. These advantages translate into higher scores and open doors to selective colleges and scholarship opportunities.

Meanwhile, students from low-income families often face challenges – such as less experienced instructors and less access to high-level science, math and advanced placement courses – that test scores do not factor in.

Reflecting deep inequities

In the U.S., high school GPA can be a better predictor than standardized tests of college success.
Clerkenwell/Vetta via Getty Images

In our published review, we found that these disparities aren’t incidental – they’re systemic.

Our review revealed long-standing evidence of bias in test design and differences in average scores along lines of race, gender and language background.

These outcomes don’t just reflect academic differences; they reflect inequities that shape how students prepare for and perform on these tests.

We also found that high school GPA outperforms standardized tests in predicting college success. GPA captures years of classroom performance, effort and teacher feedback. It reflects how students navigate real-world challenges, not just how they perform on a single timed exam.

For many students, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, grades can offer a better indication of how prepared they are for college-level work.

This issue matters because admissions decisions aren’t just technical evaluations – they are value statements. Choosing to center test scores in admissions rewards certain kinds of knowledge, experiences and preparation.

The American Council on Education defines equity as opportunities for success. It means building educational environments that recognize diverse forms of potential and equip all learners to thrive.

It’s worth noting that research on testing often focuses on elite institutions, where standardized test scores are more likely to be used as high-stakes screening tools. Our systematic review found that, even in elite schools, the tests’ ability to accurately predict college academic performance is often limited (moderate in statistical terms).

But most college students attend state universities, public regional universities, minority-serving institutions, or colleges that accept most applicants. Our study found that at these institutions, standardized test scores are even less likely to predict how students will do.

This may be because state universities and public regional universities are more likely to serve highly diverse student populations, including older, part-time and first-generation students and those who are balancing work and family responsibilities.

Where does higher ed go from here?

Prioritizing standardized tests in college admissions could close the doors of opportunity for some capable students.
David Schaffer/istock via Getty Images Plus

With the debate over the role of standardized tests in the admissions process, higher education stands at a crossroads: Will colleges yield to political pressure and narrow definitions of merit and ignore equity? Or will institutions reaffirm their mission by embracing broader, fairer tools for recognizing talent and supporting student success?

The answer depends on what values are prioritized.

Our research and that of others make it clear that standardized tests should not be the gatekeepers of opportunity.

If universities define merit on test scores alone, they risk closing the doors of opportunity to capable students.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The hidden bias in college admissions tests: How standardized exams can favor privilege over potential – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-bias-in-college-admissions-tests-how-standardized-exams-can-favor-privilege-over-potential-256967

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: A radical proposal to abolish state government and strengthen American democracy

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen Legomsky, John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus, Washington University in St. Louis

Abolish all the states? Zoonar/Getty Images Plus

Get rid of states? Legal scholar Stephen Legomsky, who taught for 34 years at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, has just published a book, “Reimagining the American Union,” that proposes a radical idea: Abolish state government. The Conversation’s politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit – a former statehouse reporter herself – interviewed Legomsky about the provocative idea behind his book, in which he advocates moving most of the functions of state government down to the local level, closer to those represented and governed by it.

You propose abolishing states. Why?

The book is a thought experiment. The proposal I’m offering is long term. I realize we need states during the current political moment.

I think the states are the root cause of many, if not most, of the current dangers faced by U.S. democracy. I also see the states as a significant source of fiscal waste. We don’t need three levels of government – national, state and local – all regulating us and all taxing us. Two would do just fine. And after careful, detailed analysis, I concluded that every benefit ever claimed for state government could be achieved at least as well, and in many cases better, by the local governments.

I’m imagining the framers sitting in Independence Hall. And you go back in time and suggest to them not having states. I think most of them would drop dead at the thought, because it ultimately implies a much more powerful federal government. What would you say to them?

After they stop laughing, I would emphasize that I’m not proposing a wholesale transfer of power from the states to an all-powerful, all-knowing central government. Yes, some of the functions currently performed by the states could better be performed at the national level, but I’m proposing that the lion’s share devolve down to the local governments, which are even closer to the people they represent than the state legislatures can ever be.

Some of the most ardent Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, referred to the states as “artificial beings” or “imaginary beings.” They accepted the states only because keeping them was politically essential to getting the required nine state ratifications, not because they thought states were a good idea.

George Washington’s working copy of the Constitution from Aug. 6, 1787.
National Archives, Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention

What functions would your plan hand over to the federal government?

A prime example is licensing. I looked up all the different occupations that require state licenses. I was astonished: practically every health care profession, barbers, engineers, lawyers, architects, the list is endless.

If you live near a state line, you can’t practice in both states unless you get two licenses. If you move to another state, you have to get another license. This seems silly. The human anatomy, human hair, engineering principles, don’t change as you cross from New York to New Jersey. Nor do we need 50 different state driver’s licenses; a single national license administered through local agencies would be more efficient.

You say states are the root cause of the greatest threats to American democracy. What are those threats?

The structural threats are those that are baked into the Constitution itself. The Electoral College is one. On five occasions, the Electoral College has awarded the presidency to the candidate whom the voters rejected nationwide. And there were many, many near misses where the popular vote loser almost became president, making many such future instances a statistical certainty.

Perhaps even more important, every state, no matter how large or how small, gets the same number of U.S. senators. In fact, a majority of the U.S. population is represented by only about 18% of the Senate. The minority gets the other 82%.

These counter-majoritarian defects in the elections of both presidents and senators have a ripple effect. They skew the composition, and thus the decisions, of the federal courts. Three of the current Supreme Court justices were appointed by President Donald Trump after he had lost the national popular vote; five of the current Supreme Court justices were confirmed by senators who collectively represented only a minority of the U.S. population.

Here’s one especially jarring statistic: From 1969 until today, the Democratic presidential nominees won the national popular vote in a slight majority of the elections. Yet, during the presidential terms that resulted from those elections, Republican presidents have gotten to make 15 of the 20 Supreme Court appointments.

The Constitution also gives the states broad powers to regulate and run national elections. State legislatures have used those powers to pass gerrymandering, voter suppression and other counter-majoritarian laws.

If you devolve these functions and services to localities, wouldn’t you end up with a mirror of the current state-level structure? Wouldn’t this just send a lot of state personnel down to the local level?

Yes, much of that structure would devolve. However, I see that as a good thing. Devolution is unavoidable in a country this size. Not everything can be done by the central government. The question for me is, do we need two levels of subordinate political subdivisions or one? One seems more efficient. And when problems are too big for one local government to handle on its own, it can partner with other local governments or with the national government, just as many local governments do today.

Abolishing state government means no more meetings of the state legislature, like this one in the Maine House of Representatives on Jan. 4, 2023, at the State House in Augusta.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

If there were no states to gerrymander or pass voter-suppression laws, wouldn’t some national government agency just do it instead?

Redistricting would be performed by a nonpartisan redistricting commission that I propose be made up of technicians, mainly demographers, statisticians and geographers, under broad, general principles enacted by Congress. That’s what almost every other democracy in the world does today.

Why did you write this book?

For a long time, I’ve been distressed about so many of the dangers to our democracy. So, one day, I found myself compiling what ended up becoming a fairly long mental list of all of my democracy-related grievances.

A list of grievances like in the Declaration of Independence!

That’s a nice analogy. And as I thought about that list, it suddenly struck me that the vast majority of these problems couldn’t occur without states. That got me thinking about whether we really need states in the first place.

If it’s just a thought experiment, something that’s not going to happen, why would you think it’s worthwhile spending time writing this?

And why would I be so vain as to think anybody would want to waste their time reading it?

And your answer is, ‘Because I’m an academic!’

It’s that, plus more. I do hope there’s some scholarly value in this. But I’m also writing for the long term. States are secure for now, but history teaches us that the more distant future is full of surprises.

Stephen Legomsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A radical proposal to abolish state government and strengthen American democracy – https://theconversation.com/a-radical-proposal-to-abolish-state-government-and-strengthen-american-democracy-256955

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: The use of federal troops to quell Los Angles protests recalls militarized law enforcement during the Civil Rights Movement

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Justin Randolph, Assistant Professor of U.S. History, Texas A&M University

The National Guard and protesters stand off outside of a downtown jail in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

President Donald Trump activated 4,000 National Guard troops on June 10, 2025, to quell protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids – without the normal request from the state. He has also sent to Los Angeles hundreds of U.S. Marines, with the goal of protecting the unprecedented deportation operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

If this all feels exceptional, it should. Governors typically activate their own state troops, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would do on June 11 ahead of expected immigration protests.

California quickly sued the president. A federal court has sided with the state, but an appeals court will weigh the Trump administration’s use of the U.S. code on armed services to activate the National Guard, which relies on protesters constituting either an “invasion” or “rebellion.”

“What we’re witnessing is not law enforcement – it’s authoritarianism,”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on June 10.

Protesters report violent responses from Los Angeles police, too. Nonetheless, Newsom’s invocation of authoritarianism is apt.

The last example of a president federalizing troops over the objection of a state government dates to Jim Crow segregation, a period marked by legal practices that routinely denied due process and citizenship rights to Black Americans in the South. In the 1960s, numerous Black freedom struggles took stands against this authoritarianism backed by militarized law enforcement.

As a scholar of U.S. history, I’ve just completed a book on Jim Crow policing and the ways Black Americans fought back against racist law and order. I think the militarization of policing in Los Angeles opens important questions about democracy and state violence.

Jim Crow dreams

During the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government activated National Guard troops over Southern state objections when those states would neither enforce court orders nor protect protesters.

In those cases, presidents protected people with the help of troops. In Trump’s case, he’s using troops to protect the government from protesters.

The Trump administration’s vision of law enforcement aims for the type of militarized authority that state governments institutionalized under Jim Crow policing. If your political enemy is perceived more like an enemy combatant, the rules of legal procedure, especially due process, might not apply. Policing becomes war.

When you see the words “Jim Crow,” your mind may jump to photos of racially segregated water fountains. But Jim Crow was far more than that. It was homegrown racial authoritarianism, or the repression of freedom of thought and action.

Before troops enforced civil rights, Black Southerners saw the National Guard as an enemy rather than a friend.

In the words of Ida B. Wells-Barnett after a white riot against Black residents in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1917, “The police were either indifferent or encouraged the barbarities. … The major part of the National Guard was indifferent or inactive. No organized effort was made to protect the Negroes or disperse the murdering groups.”

Eisenhower sends in the troops

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education changed things. It overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized racial segregation and ruled that segregated public school education was unconstitutional. This significantly altered the federal government’s responsibility in the South’s legal system of white supremacy.

The first test came in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Though numerous school districts across the South quietly desegregated, Southern governors such as Arkansas’ Orville Faubus resisted the planned desegregation of Little Rock Central High School.

Seven of nine Black students walk onto the campus of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., with a National Guard officer as an escort on Oct. 15, 1957.
AP Photo/File

Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to stop Black children at the door. For nearly three weeks, Guardsmen blocked the small group of Black students – known as the “Little Rock Nine” – who were supposed to attend the school before President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to stand down.

Eisenhower deployed U.S. Army riot troops to Little Rock under the Insurrection Act. In the end, the Little Rock Nine began their studies at Central High despite the much-photographed spitting from the white mob that surrounded the school.

State troops, state rights

Next came the desegregation of interstate transportation.

In spring 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights advocacy group, sent buses of integrated passengers through the Deep South. White terrorists attacked Freedom Riders, as these activists became known, three times in Alabama.

But state authorities had learned from the Little Rock experience. Southern governors in Alabama and Mississippi deployed the National Guard themselves. This time they intended to only minimally protect Freedom Riders to block federal law enforcement. In Mississippi, police arrested and prison guards tortured Freedom Riders in the state penitentiary. Mob violence killed no one.

James Meredith, center, is escorted by federal marshals as he appears for his first day of class at the previously all-white University of Mississippi on Oct. 1, 1962.
AP Photo, File

The same was not true during the desegregation of public universities.

When U.S. marshals arrived to enforce the court order enrolling James Meredith at the University of Mississippi in September 1962, a white riot erupted. State law enforcement withdrew from the scene. Two men died, and many more were injured.

President John F. Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard and sent them in to restore order. The next summer, he did the same in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to preemptively halt a riot at the University of Alabama.

The occasion became a publicity stunt for Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace. He temporarily blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium, intent on stopping the court-ordered registration of three Black students.

“I stand before you here today in place of thousands of other Alabamians whose presence would have confronted you,” Wallace said to federal authorities. A National Guard general said, “Sir, it is my sad duty to ask you to step aside under the orders of the President of the United States.”

A National Guard general informs Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace that the guard was under federal control, as the two meet at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on June 11, 1963.
AP Photo, File

Wallace also triggered the last federal use – until now – of the National Guard. Alabama’s Selma-to-Montgomery march began as a memorial to Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young Black civil rights activist who was killed by police on Feb. 26, 1965. The march became primarily a symbol for the year’s Voting Rights Act.

In an important change, President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the National Guard to protect marchers. State troopers and sheriff’s deputies had terrorized marchers, including John Lewis, who was almost beaten to death on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

Democracy is in the streets

The history of the National Guard in the South is an important part of what’s unfolding in Los Angeles and across the nation.

For most of the National Guard’s history in the South, political leaders used domestic military power to preserve the interests of racial authoritarians, not racial egalitarians. Little Rock, Tuscaloosa, Selma: Those moments when troops protected racial justice protesters at home stand out as some of America’s most hopeful moments.

Recent statements by Trump administration officials help illustrate how it envisions using military power in domestic law enforcement. On June 8, 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “to arrest rioters” – a request beyond the original order to protect ICE agents.

And on June 12, Noem said that “the military people that are working on this operation … are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country.”

The National Guard and Marines are reportedly protecting immigration enforcement. But what might happen if they directly interact with protests?

With diverse tactics, protesters are halting business as usual because they see a mass-deportation regime terrorizing and disappearing people in their communities. U.S. courts tend to agree with their analysis but seem powerless to enforce even basic due process rights for those detained by ICE.

These activists show the messy work of American social change. Their work may look like “anarchy” to even some Democrats. It may be maligned as “invasion” and “rebellion” by the Trump administration.

But the calls to constrain ICE follow an American tradition of fighting authoritarianism.

Justin Randolph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The use of federal troops to quell Los Angles protests recalls militarized law enforcement during the Civil Rights Movement – https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-federal-troops-to-quell-los-angles-protests-recalls-militarized-law-enforcement-during-the-civil-rights-movement-258866

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

This screenshot of an AI-generated video depicts Christopher Pelkey, who was killed in 2021. Screenshot: Stacey Wales/YouTube

Christopher Pelkey was shot and killed in a road range incident in 2021. On May 8, 2025, at the sentencing hearing for his killer, an AI video reconstruction of Pelkey delivered a victim impact statement. The trial judge reported being deeply moved by this performance and issued the maximum sentence for manslaughter.

As part of the ceremonies to mark Israel’s 77th year of independence on April 30, 2025, officials had planned to host a concert featuring four iconic Israeli singers. All four had died years earlier. The plan was to conjure them using AI-generated sound and video. The dead performers were supposed to sing alongside Yardena Arazi, a famous and still very much alive artist. In the end Arazi pulled out, citing the political atmosphere, and the event didn’t happen.

In April, the BBC created a deep-fake version of the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie to teach a “maestro course on writing.” Fake Agatha would instruct aspiring murder mystery authors and “inspire” their “writing journey.”

The use of artificial intelligence to “reanimate” the dead for a variety of purposes is quickly gaining traction. Over the past few years, we’ve been studying the moral implications of AI at the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and we find these AI reanimations to be morally problematic.

Before we address the moral challenges the technology raises, it’s important to distinguish AI reanimations, or deepfakes, from so-called griefbots. Griefbots are chatbots trained on large swaths of data the dead leave behind – social media posts, texts, emails, videos. These chatbots mimic how the departed used to communicate and are meant to make life easier for surviving relations. The deepfakes we are discussing here have other aims; they are meant to promote legal, political and educational causes.

Chris Pelkey was shot and killed in 2021. This AI ‘reanimation’ of him was presented in court as a victim impact statement.

Moral quandaries

The first moral quandary the technology raises has to do with consent: Would the deceased have agreed to do what their likeness is doing? Would the dead Israeli singers have wanted to sing at an Independence ceremony organized by the nation’s current government? Would Pelkey, the road-rage victim, be comfortable with the script his family wrote for his avatar to recite? What would Christie think about her AI double teaching that class?

The answers to these questions can only be deduced circumstantially – from examining the kinds of things the dead did and the views they expressed when alive. And one could ask if the answers even matter. If those in charge of the estates agree to the reanimations, isn’t the question settled? After all, such trustees are the legal representatives of the departed.

But putting aside the question of consent, a more fundamental question remains.

What do these reanimations do to the legacy and reputation of the dead? Doesn’t their reputation depend, to some extent, on the scarcity of appearance, on the fact that the dead can’t show up anymore? Dying can have a salutary effect on the reputation of prominent people; it was good for John F. Kennedy, and it was good for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The fifth-century B.C. Athenian leader Pericles understood this well. In his famous Funeral Oration, delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, he asserts that a noble death can elevate one’s reputation and wash away their petty misdeeds. That is because the dead are beyond reach and their mystique grows postmortem. “Even extreme virtue will scarcely win you a reputation equal to” that of the dead, he insists.

Do AI reanimations devalue the currency of the dead by forcing them to keep popping up? Do they cheapen and destabilize their reputation by having them comment on events that happened long after their demise?

In addition, these AI representations can be a powerful tool to influence audiences for political or legal purposes. Bringing back a popular dead singer to legitimize a political event and reanimating a dead victim to offer testimony are acts intended to sway an audience’s judgment.

It’s one thing to channel a Churchill or a Roosevelt during a political speech by quoting them or even trying to sound like them. It’s another thing to have “them” speak alongside you. The potential of harnessing nostalgia is supercharged by this technology. Imagine, for example, what the Soviets, who literally worshipped Lenin’s dead body, would have done with a deep fake of their old icon.

Good intentions

You could argue that because these reanimations are uniquely engaging, they can be used for virtuous purposes. Consider a reanimated Martin Luther King Jr., speaking to our currently polarized and divided nation, urging moderation and unity. Wouldn’t that be grand? Or what about a reanimated Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, speaking at the trial of a Holocaust denier like David Irving?

But do we know what MLK would have thought about our current political divisions? Do we know what Anielewicz would have thought about restrictions on pernicious speech? Does bravely campaigning for civil rights mean we should call upon the digital ghost of King to comment on the impact of populism? Does fearlessly fighting the Nazis mean we should dredge up the AI shadow of an old hero to comment on free speech in the digital age?

No one can know with certainty what Martin Luther King Jr. would say about today’s society.
AP Photo/Chick Harrity

Even if the political projects these AI avatars served were consistent with the deceased’s views, the problem of manipulation – of using the psychological power of deepfakes to appeal to emotions – remains.

But what about enlisting AI Agatha Christie to teach a writing class? Deep fakes may indeed have salutary uses in educational settings. The likeness of Christie could make students more enthusiastic about writing. Fake Aristotle could improve the chances that students engage with his austere Nicomachean Ethics. AI Einstein could help those who want to study physics get their heads around general relativity.

But producing these fakes comes with a great deal of responsibility. After all, given how engaging they can be, it’s possible that the interactions with these representations will be all that students pay attention to, rather than serving as a gateway to exploring the subject further.

Living on in the living

In a poem written in memory of W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden tells us that, after the poet’s death, Yeats “became his admirers.” His memory was now “scattered among a hundred cities,” and his work subject to endless interpretation: “the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.”

The dead live on in the many ways we reinterpret their words and works. Auden did that to Yeats, and we’re doing it to Auden right here. That’s how people stay in touch with those who are gone. In the end, we believe that using technological prowess to concretely bring them back disrespects them and, perhaps more importantly, is an act of disrespect to ourselves – to our capacity to abstract, think and imagine.

Nir Eisikovits directs UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center, which receives funding from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He’s also a data ethics advisor to mindguard.com

Daniel J. Feldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries – https://theconversation.com/ai-reanimations-making-facsimiles-of-the-dead-raises-ethical-quandaries-256771

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: Precise measurement standards have revolutionized museum science, helping nail down where artifacts are from

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Edward Vicenzi, Research Scientist, Museum Conservation Institute, Smithsonian Institution

Museums and their bountiful collections are research bastions. Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images

On a cool February morning in 1904, a spark ignited a fire in the heart of downtown Baltimore. Within hours, a raging inferno swept eastward across the harbor district, consuming everything in its path. By evening, the local firefighters were overwhelmed, and the city sent telegrams to the fire chiefs of major Northeastern cities pleading for help in battling the blaze.

Washington, Philadelphia and New York, along with other cities, responded quickly with dozens of engine companies. Yet when they arrived at the scene, many responders could not hook up to Baltimore’s hydrants since each city had its own threading standards to connect fire hoses.

The fire resulted in damages of over US$3.5 billion in today’s dollars. It created a call for a national standard of threads for hoses and fire hydrant outlets. These standards now improve emergency responses across the country – and the same concept of standardization allows for consistency and replicability in scientific research.

An illustration of the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire in February 1904.
Fred Pridham/Wikimedia Commons

In science, the ideal way to evaluate data is related to the concept driving the calls for uniform fire hose equipment. When scientists compare their results to those obtained in other laboratories, or with previously published data, the comparisons are most meaningful if all datasets were made with standardized practices and reference materials.

Museum scientists like us provide compelling insights into the natural world, prehistory and historical culture heritage. Like that of many other scientists, our work, and the measurements we take day to day, depends upon standard references.

Here we offer two fascinating stories from the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute that highlight how scientific measurement standards allow for exciting new discoveries:

You are what you drink

In 2007, the New Mexico Bureau of Reclamation exhumed the remains of dozens of Civil War-era soldiers from the ruins of Fort Craig. They had been left behind when the fort was abandoned in 1885.

A historical view of Fort Craig, N.M.
Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico, CC BY-NC-SA

Anthropologists from the Smithsonian and the Bureau of Reclamation in New Mexico identified the remains as belonging to a diverse range of people – including a few dozen African American Buffalo Soldiers, a group that made up a relatively small percentage of the U.S. military at that time.

Historical records tell researchers that most of the military units at Fort Craig mobilized out of Kentucky and Virginia, but official records don’t always tell the full story. The group of project scientists, which included one of us, Christine France, needed a way to confirm the origin of these individuals and restore some identity to these forgotten soldiers.

The researchers decided to use stable isotope analysis on the bones. This technique counts the number of atoms of a particular element in the sample that have one or more extra neutrons – this is the “heavy” isotope – and compares it with the number of atoms that have a normal number of neutrons – this is the “light” isotope.

Drinking water in southern latitudes has more naturally occurring heavy oxygen atoms compared with northern latitudes. If a soldier’s bones had a relatively high ratio of the heavy to the light oxygen atoms, that soldier likely spent more time drinking water from the South.

Researchers have measured oxygen isotopes in other archaeological remains and in water all over North America, giving us a water “isotope map.” But matching the bone isotope values to the water map is like comparing apples to oranges, and every lab has subtle variations in its instruments. The scientists needed to normalize and calibrate the isotope ratios they had measured to a reference standard.

In this case, the standard was the average oxygen isotope value of ocean water, a convention that stable isotope researchers agreed upon as a consistent and readily available value. The researchers now had a uniform way to say how many more – or fewer – heavy oxygen isotopes the bones contained compared to the ocean water standard.

Other archaeology labs and the North American water isotope map use that same standard comparison, allowing them to directly compare all the bone isotope values to one another, and to the North American water isotope map.

Ultimately, the method helped the team identify several soldiers who came from quite far away to join the company, including individuals who likely grew up in the mid-Atlantic, New England and Southeast.

The exact circumstances that brought these soldiers together is lost to history. But the researchers’ ability to assign them geographic provenance with the help of reference standards gave them further insight into this pivotal time in U.S. history.

Volcanic glass mirrors

Humans have always been fascinated by looking at themselves in the mirror. In Mesoamerica – modern-day central and southern Mexico together with northern Central America – archaeologists have found convex round objects so finely polished that they have been termed mirrors.

But instead of using them for vanity, shamans from ancient times likely used them as a tool to access portals to other dimensions.

The oldest Preclassic mirrors (2000 BCE to 250 CE) were fashioned from polished iron ores, but later Postclassic period mirrors (900 CE to 1450 CE) were made from obsidian, a typically black silica-rich volcanic glass.

The collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian contain six large, rectangular obsidian mirrors, purchased in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their labels state they come from the “Valley of Mexico.”

Obsidian tablets, a view of both their front and back sides, found in the National Museum of the American Indian collections.
NMAI, Martinez et al (2022)

Archeologists rarely find rectangular obsidian mirrors like these at pre-Columbian dig sites. So, local artisans skilled in stone polishing likely made these unusually shaped objects upon request by Spanish invaders around the time of European contact. But which Mesoamerican culture did they come from?

Scientists from the Museum Conservation Institute, including two of us, Thomas Lam and Edward Vicenzi, and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, worked with staff at the National Museum of the American Indian on an effort to pinpoint which volcano created the obsidian in the mirrors.

The location of the obsidian source would indicate whether the Aztecs who controlled eastern central Mexico, or the Purépecha who controlled an area west of the Aztecs, produced the objects, as both had ample sources of obsidian in their territories.

To conduct such a study, the researchers required two types of reference materials: obsidian that had erupted from known volcanic locations, and a reference obsidian that scientists already knew the composition of to confirm the quality of the analysis.

The first reference obsidians, from known locations, told the researchers about the differences in geochemistry of the volcanoes in central Mexico. That information allowed them to match the mirror analyses to the known volcanic location analyses and their map coordinates. The second reference obsidian served as a quality control specimen for the analysis.

Museum Conservation Institute scientists used a nondestructive technique called X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to analyze ratios of elements in the obsidians. The process works by “exciting” atoms in the obsidian, and a spectrum of X-ray energies is given off as the atoms “relax.”

Scientists analyzed the obsidian shards to see which elements were present in them in which ratios, and where in Mexico obsidian contained similar elements at similar ratios.
Sharps et al. (2021)

The results showed that all the specimens came from a region controlled by the Purépecha, not the Aztecs. The museum curators updated their records describing the mirrors to include this new information about their origin.

Creating standards

Standardized measurement procedures and reference materials play a central role in museum science. Organizations dedicated to rigorous measurement science, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal government agency, help create some of these standards and research new measurement procedures.

Without their leadership, it would be far more difficult for researchers like us to produce high-quality data and discern the relationships between specimens in the natural and cultural heritage sciences. With quality measurement standards in our toolbox, we are finding new insights into human history and the natural world.

Edward Vicenzi is a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Material Measurement Laboratory.

Christine France and Thomas Lam do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Precise measurement standards have revolutionized museum science, helping nail down where artifacts are from – https://theconversation.com/precise-measurement-standards-have-revolutionized-museum-science-helping-nail-down-where-artifacts-are-from-254025

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Analysis: German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Elisabeth Weber, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Israeli President Isaac Herzog prepare to shake hands in Berlin on May 12, 2025. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Friedrich Merz did something unprecedented for a German chancellor in late May 2025: publicly criticize Israel in unvarnished, unequivocal terms.

“What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand the goal,” he said in a televised interview. He added, “To harm the civilian population in such a way … can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”

A day later, during a summit with prime ministers of Nordic countries in Finland, Merz doubled down. “I take a very, very critical view of what has happened in Gaza,” he said in reference to Israel’s bombing campaign and the blockade of food and other aid.

Merz is not alone in the German government. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also weighed in, noting that Germany’s stance against antisemitism and its “full support” for the right of Israel to exist “must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip.”

Criticism by outside governments of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that killed close to 1,200 people has been present since the war in Gaza began. At first, it was largely confined to countries in the Global South. But more recently it has included countries in the West.

Still, as a scholar of the Shoah – the Hebrew term for the Holocaust – I know that this rebuke from Germany hits differently. Post-war Germany has a long-standing political commitment to Israel’s security. It is a commitment rooted in the nation’s historical responsibility for the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jews and that has been staunchly reaffirmed by German governments since the 1952 agreement of reparations between the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, and the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion.

‘Staatsräson’ and its critics

In 2008, then-chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to call this commitment to Israel’s security Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” In a speech she gave to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on March 18, 2008, Merkel emphasized that “only if Germany acknowledges its perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe of German history can we shape the future humanely.” She went on to assert that Germany’s “historic responsibility” is “part of my country’s raison d’état.” She added: “Israel’s security is never negotiable for me as German chancellor.”

The argument that Israeli security is Germany’s “reason of state” was reiterated by Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, during his visit to Israel on Oct. 17, 2023 – just 10 days after the Hamas attack. Standing next to Scholz, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian militant group “the new Nazis.”

Tracing back the term’s origins and history, renowned historian Enzo Traverso recently noted that theorists and practitioners of “reason of state” agree that the concept “denotes the violation by a political power of its own ethical principles in service to a higher interest, generally the safeguarding of its own power.”

The problem with Germany’s invocation of the “Staatsräson” as prioritizing the security of Israel above other concerns is that it implies defending policies even if they contravene Germany’s foundational ethical principles, such as those declared in its constitution. Article 1 asserts that the German people “acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.”

Such principles were born out of the recognition of the horrendous violation of human rights under the Nazi regime and the acknowledgment of Germany’s “perpetual responsibility,” as Merkel put it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks ahead of a special session of the Israeli parliament on March 18, 2008.
Sebastian Scheiner/Pool/Getty Images

In Germany’s public discourse, as well as school curricula, the Shoah is always described as absolutely unique.

But as Israeli-American genocide and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has argued, this assertion is also open to criticism:

“Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Holocaust, from which it also derives its unique commitment to Israel, has arguably put it in a morally highly dubious position of both long denying its own past colonial crimes [in Namibia] and of denying Israel’s culpability in the present destruction of Gaza, including the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.”

Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Shoah also leaves little room for an acknowledgment of the Nakba – the violent expulsion of around 800,000 Palestinians before, during and after the foundation of the state of Israel.

And it leaves no room for a recognition of how both catastrophes, the Shoah and the Nakba, are, as Bartov insists, “inextricably entangled.”

Antisemitism definitions — and their critics

As a consequence of Germany’s responsibility for the Shoah and its commitment to its uniqueness, the country has some of the strictest laws to combat antisemitism in the world. But critics also note widespread conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.

Germany, like the United States,
has adopted a definition of antisemitism authored in 2004 by American lawyer Kenneth Stern and espoused in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition includes 11 examples of antisemitism, seven of which pertain to Israel.

It has been criticized for being too vague, leading to the labeling of Jewish and non-Jewish people who oppose the current Israeli war in Gaza as “antisemitic.”

Stern, who describes himself as Zionist, has sharply criticized the misuse of his definition to stifle academic freedom and criticism of the actions of the Israeli nation.

In an article for the conservative Germany newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Israeli legal scholar Itamar Mann
argued that Germany “needs a new definition of antisemitism.”

He applauded the recent adoption, by the German leftist party Die Linke, of a separate definition of antisemitism laid out in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Formulated in 2021 by more than 350 respected scholars, many of them Jewish, the declaration rejects labeling as antisemitic political speech that “criticizes or opposes Zionism as a form of nationalism.”

Mann calls on the German government to implement policies to “protect all Jews, including those who … reject the current Israeli government and insist on a vocabulary that allows us to be Jewish and to criticize Israel.”

A historic shift?

The recent remarks of Merz may represent a subtle but sure shift in Germany’s “Staatsräson” and how it engages with its historical debt, Israel and antisemitism.

And that may be a first step in moving away from a “Staatsräson” that, in the words of scholar of Middle Eastern politics Lena Obermaier, is “detrimental for Palestinians and progressive Jews” and gives Israel international cover when accused of massive violations of international law.

What Merkel called Germany’s “perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe” of the Holocaust would, from my perspective as a scholar of the Shoah, demand nothing less.

Elisabeth Weber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds – https://theconversation.com/german-chancellors-rebuke-of-israel-marks-a-shift-in-state-policy-that-has-long-put-such-criticism-out-of-bounds-258156

MIL OSI Analysis –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Elisabeth Weber, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Israeli President Isaac Herzog prepare to shake hands in Berlin on May 12, 2025. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Friedrich Merz did something unprecedented for a German chancellor in late May 2025: publicly criticize Israel in unvarnished, unequivocal terms.

“What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand the goal,” he said in a televised interview. He added, “To harm the civilian population in such a way … can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”

A day later, during a summit with prime ministers of Nordic countries in Finland, Merz doubled down. “I take a very, very critical view of what has happened in Gaza,” he said in reference to Israel’s bombing campaign and the blockade of food and other aid.

Merz is not alone in the German government. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also weighed in, noting that Germany’s stance against antisemitism and its “full support” for the right of Israel to exist “must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip.”

Criticism by outside governments of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that killed close to 1,200 people has been present since the war in Gaza began. At first, it was largely confined to countries in the Global South. But more recently it has included countries in the West.

Still, as a scholar of the Shoah – the Hebrew term for the Holocaust – I know that this rebuke from Germany hits differently. Post-war Germany has a long-standing political commitment to Israel’s security. It is a commitment rooted in the nation’s historical responsibility for the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jews and that has been staunchly reaffirmed by German governments since the 1952 agreement of reparations between the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, and the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion.

‘Staatsräson’ and its critics

In 2008, then-chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to call this commitment to Israel’s security Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” In a speech she gave to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on March 18, 2008, Merkel emphasized that “only if Germany acknowledges its perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe of German history can we shape the future humanely.” She went on to assert that Germany’s “historic responsibility” is “part of my country’s raison d’état.” She added: “Israel’s security is never negotiable for me as German chancellor.”

The argument that Israeli security is Germany’s “reason of state” was reiterated by Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, during his visit to Israel on Oct. 17, 2023 – just 10 days after the Hamas attack. Standing next to Scholz, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian militant group “the new Nazis.”

Tracing back the term’s origins and history, renowned historian Enzo Traverso recently noted that theorists and practitioners of “reason of state” agree that the concept “denotes the violation by a political power of its own ethical principles in service to a higher interest, generally the safeguarding of its own power.”

The problem with Germany’s invocation of the “Staatsräson” as prioritizing the security of Israel above other concerns is that it implies defending policies even if they contravene Germany’s foundational ethical principles, such as those declared in its constitution. Article 1 asserts that the German people “acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.”

Such principles were born out of the recognition of the horrendous violation of human rights under the Nazi regime and the acknowledgment of Germany’s “perpetual responsibility,” as Merkel put it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks ahead of a special session of the Israeli parliament on March 18, 2008.
Sebastian Scheiner/Pool/Getty Images

In Germany’s public discourse, as well as school curricula, the Shoah is always described as absolutely unique.

But as Israeli-American genocide and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has argued, this assertion is also open to criticism:

“Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Holocaust, from which it also derives its unique commitment to Israel, has arguably put it in a morally highly dubious position of both long denying its own past colonial crimes [in Namibia] and of denying Israel’s culpability in the present destruction of Gaza, including the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.”

Germany’s commitment to the uniqueness of the Shoah also leaves little room for an acknowledgment of the Nakba – the violent expulsion of around 800,000 Palestinians before, during and after the foundation of the state of Israel.

And it leaves no room for a recognition of how both catastrophes, the Shoah and the Nakba, are, as Bartov insists, “inextricably entangled.”

Antisemitism definitions — and their critics

As a consequence of Germany’s responsibility for the Shoah and its commitment to its uniqueness, the country has some of the strictest laws to combat antisemitism in the world. But critics also note widespread conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.

Germany, like the United States,
has adopted a definition of antisemitism authored in 2004 by American lawyer Kenneth Stern and espoused in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition includes 11 examples of antisemitism, seven of which pertain to Israel.

It has been criticized for being too vague, leading to the labeling of Jewish and non-Jewish people who oppose the current Israeli war in Gaza as “antisemitic.”

Stern, who describes himself as Zionist, has sharply criticized the misuse of his definition to stifle academic freedom and criticism of the actions of the Israeli nation.

In an article for the conservative Germany newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Israeli legal scholar Itamar Mann
argued that Germany “needs a new definition of antisemitism.”

He applauded the recent adoption, by the German leftist party Die Linke, of a separate definition of antisemitism laid out in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Formulated in 2021 by more than 350 respected scholars, many of them Jewish, the declaration rejects labeling as antisemitic political speech that “criticizes or opposes Zionism as a form of nationalism.”

Mann calls on the German government to implement policies to “protect all Jews, including those who … reject the current Israeli government and insist on a vocabulary that allows us to be Jewish and to criticize Israel.”

A historic shift?

The recent remarks of Merz may represent a subtle but sure shift in Germany’s “Staatsräson” and how it engages with its historical debt, Israel and antisemitism.

And that may be a first step in moving away from a “Staatsräson” that, in the words of scholar of Middle Eastern politics Lena Obermaier, is “detrimental for Palestinians and progressive Jews” and gives Israel international cover when accused of massive violations of international law.

What Merkel called Germany’s “perpetual responsibility for the moral catastrophe” of the Holocaust would, from my perspective as a scholar of the Shoah, demand nothing less.

Elisabeth Weber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. German chancellor’s rebuke of Israel marks a shift in state policy that has long put such criticism out of bounds – https://theconversation.com/german-chancellors-rebuke-of-israel-marks-a-shift-in-state-policy-that-has-long-put-such-criticism-out-of-bounds-258156

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Willis appoints new leader for law firms in North America

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

NEW YORK, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Willis, a WTW business (Nasdaq: WTW), has announced the appointment of Linda Fisher as the sub-vertical leader for law firms within the Financial Services and Professional Services (FIPS) industry vertical division within North America.

Based in Chicago and reporting directly to Brad Messinger, FIPS Leader, Fisher will leverage her extensive industry experience to drive growth in the legal sector. Her responsibilities will include business development, creating intellectual capital, representing Willis at industry events, and enhancing the full suite of services and solutions for law firm clients.

Prior to joining Willis, Fisher was with Marsh McLennan Agency, where she was a Managing Director in their national law firm vertical. She was also a leader in Gallagher’s law firm group and the law firm practice leader at Old Republic Professional. Fisher holds a B.S. degree from the University of Alabama, has her RPLU and CPLP designations, and is a frequent conference and panel speaker.

Messinger commented, “I am thrilled to welcome Linda to the team. Her deep understanding of the legal landscape and passion for law firms is second to none in the industry, and her expertise will guide us in deepening our business within the legal sector. I look forward to welcoming her to the team.”

About WTW
At WTW (NASDAQ: WTW), we provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital. Leveraging the global view and local expertise of our colleagues serving 140 countries and markets, we help organizations sharpen their strategy, enhance organizational resilience, motivate their workforce and maximize performance.

Working shoulder to shoulder with our clients, we uncover opportunities for sustainable success—and provide perspective that moves you.

Learn more at wtwco.com.

Media Contact
Arnelle Sullivan +1 (718) 208-0474 | Arnelle.Sullivan@wtwco.com

The MIL Network –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Willis appoints new leader for law firms in North America

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

NEW YORK, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Willis, a WTW business (Nasdaq: WTW), has announced the appointment of Linda Fisher as the sub-vertical leader for law firms within the Financial Services and Professional Services (FIPS) industry vertical division within North America.

Based in Chicago and reporting directly to Brad Messinger, FIPS Leader, Fisher will leverage her extensive industry experience to drive growth in the legal sector. Her responsibilities will include business development, creating intellectual capital, representing Willis at industry events, and enhancing the full suite of services and solutions for law firm clients.

Prior to joining Willis, Fisher was with Marsh McLennan Agency, where she was a Managing Director in their national law firm vertical. She was also a leader in Gallagher’s law firm group and the law firm practice leader at Old Republic Professional. Fisher holds a B.S. degree from the University of Alabama, has her RPLU and CPLP designations, and is a frequent conference and panel speaker.

Messinger commented, “I am thrilled to welcome Linda to the team. Her deep understanding of the legal landscape and passion for law firms is second to none in the industry, and her expertise will guide us in deepening our business within the legal sector. I look forward to welcoming her to the team.”

About WTW
At WTW (NASDAQ: WTW), we provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital. Leveraging the global view and local expertise of our colleagues serving 140 countries and markets, we help organizations sharpen their strategy, enhance organizational resilience, motivate their workforce and maximize performance.

Working shoulder to shoulder with our clients, we uncover opportunities for sustainable success—and provide perspective that moves you.

Learn more at wtwco.com.

Media Contact
Arnelle Sullivan +1 (718) 208-0474 | Arnelle.Sullivan@wtwco.com

The MIL Network –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Fengate Asset Management and Tilbury Properties achieve financial close on new student residence in Ontario

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SARNIA, Ontario, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Fengate Asset Management (Fengate), in partnership with Tilbury Properties (Tilbury), today announced financial close on a new student residence at Lambton College in Sarnia. The residence will provide much-needed accommodation to 311 college students when it opens in September 2027.

Fengate and Tilbury were selected to design, construct, finance, operate, and maintain the new on-campus residence following a competitive procurement process. Fengate is managing the investment on behalf of the Fengate Infrastructure Yield Fund and its affiliated entities, including an investment by LiUNA’s Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada.

Located in the heart of Lambton County, Lambton College is a globally recognized leader in education, innovation, and applied research. As the sole post-secondary institution in the region, the College plays a vital role in the community, driving economic development and diversification, propelling social and environmental innovation, and providing quality education to domestic and international students to ensure a thriving skilled workforce.

“Fengate looks forward to bringing its deep institutional project experience to this new campus residence to provide modern, sustainable accommodation opportunities to Lambton College students in 2027,” said Mac Bell, Managing Director, Infrastructure Investments at Fengate.

Fengate delivered and is operating the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in British Columbia (B.C.) – the only specialized post-secondary institution in B.C. In 2023, the firm also completed a public-private partnership bundle of six schools in Prince George’s County, Maryland, to provide state-of-the-art schools and 8,000 new desks for K-8 and middle school students.

“Tilbury is proud to partner with Lambton College on this exciting new student residence,” said Michael Kaye, Founding Partner at Tilbury. “This thoughtfully designed project will modernize the College’s on-campus housing and support the academic and personal success of students for decades to come.”

Specializing in purpose-built student accommodation, Tilbury takes a collaborative, hands-on approach with its post-secondary partners. The company prides itself on tailoring each project to meet the unique needs of academic institutions, creating exceptional living and learning environments. In September 2025, Tilbury will open a 452-bed residence and dining hall at the University of Windsor, further demonstrating its leadership in on-campus housing development.

The new campus residence at Lambton College will incorporate energy-efficient systems and sustainable building materials to minimize environmental footprint and will include landscaped green spaces to enhance the campus environment.

Construction is scheduled to start later this month.

About Fengate

Fengate is a leading alternative investment manager focused on infrastructure, private equity and real estate strategies, with more than $10 billion of capital commitments under management. The firm has been investing in infrastructure since 2006 with a focus on mid-market greenfield and brownfield infrastructure assets in the transportation, social, energy transition and digital sectors. Fengate is one of North America’s most active infrastructure investors and developers with a portfolio of more than 50 assets. Learn more at www.fengate.com.

About Tilbury

Tilbury Properties is a Canadian real estate development firm focused on purpose-built student housing. Founded in 2020, the company has over 1,000 student beds in various stages of development, making it one of the leading developers in Canada’s student housing sector. Learn more at www.tilburyprop.com.

Media Contact

Maddison Sharples
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
Fengate Asset Management
+1 416-254-3326
Maddison.Sharples@fengate.com

The MIL Network –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Fengate Asset Management and Tilbury Properties achieve financial close on new student residence in Ontario

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SARNIA, Ontario, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Fengate Asset Management (Fengate), in partnership with Tilbury Properties (Tilbury), today announced financial close on a new student residence at Lambton College in Sarnia. The residence will provide much-needed accommodation to 311 college students when it opens in September 2027.

Fengate and Tilbury were selected to design, construct, finance, operate, and maintain the new on-campus residence following a competitive procurement process. Fengate is managing the investment on behalf of the Fengate Infrastructure Yield Fund and its affiliated entities, including an investment by LiUNA’s Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada.

Located in the heart of Lambton County, Lambton College is a globally recognized leader in education, innovation, and applied research. As the sole post-secondary institution in the region, the College plays a vital role in the community, driving economic development and diversification, propelling social and environmental innovation, and providing quality education to domestic and international students to ensure a thriving skilled workforce.

“Fengate looks forward to bringing its deep institutional project experience to this new campus residence to provide modern, sustainable accommodation opportunities to Lambton College students in 2027,” said Mac Bell, Managing Director, Infrastructure Investments at Fengate.

Fengate delivered and is operating the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in British Columbia (B.C.) – the only specialized post-secondary institution in B.C. In 2023, the firm also completed a public-private partnership bundle of six schools in Prince George’s County, Maryland, to provide state-of-the-art schools and 8,000 new desks for K-8 and middle school students.

“Tilbury is proud to partner with Lambton College on this exciting new student residence,” said Michael Kaye, Founding Partner at Tilbury. “This thoughtfully designed project will modernize the College’s on-campus housing and support the academic and personal success of students for decades to come.”

Specializing in purpose-built student accommodation, Tilbury takes a collaborative, hands-on approach with its post-secondary partners. The company prides itself on tailoring each project to meet the unique needs of academic institutions, creating exceptional living and learning environments. In September 2025, Tilbury will open a 452-bed residence and dining hall at the University of Windsor, further demonstrating its leadership in on-campus housing development.

The new campus residence at Lambton College will incorporate energy-efficient systems and sustainable building materials to minimize environmental footprint and will include landscaped green spaces to enhance the campus environment.

Construction is scheduled to start later this month.

About Fengate

Fengate is a leading alternative investment manager focused on infrastructure, private equity and real estate strategies, with more than $10 billion of capital commitments under management. The firm has been investing in infrastructure since 2006 with a focus on mid-market greenfield and brownfield infrastructure assets in the transportation, social, energy transition and digital sectors. Fengate is one of North America’s most active infrastructure investors and developers with a portfolio of more than 50 assets. Learn more at www.fengate.com.

About Tilbury

Tilbury Properties is a Canadian real estate development firm focused on purpose-built student housing. Founded in 2020, the company has over 1,000 student beds in various stages of development, making it one of the leading developers in Canada’s student housing sector. Learn more at www.tilburyprop.com.

Media Contact

Maddison Sharples
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
Fengate Asset Management
+1 416-254-3326
Maddison.Sharples@fengate.com

The MIL Network –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI: Duck Creek Technologies Announces Six New Digital Certifications through Duck Creek University
Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

BOSTON, June 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Duck Creek Technologies, the global intelligent solutions provider defining the future of property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance, today announced the release of six new digital certifications through Duck Creek University. These certifications are designed to deepen industry expertise, elevate technical knowledge, and drive success across the insurance technology ecosystem.

The newly launched certifications include:
- Loss Control Certification
- DevOps Certification
- Intelligence Certification
- Suite Certification
- Billing Certification
- Reinsurance Certification
Each certification track delivers a structured, role-based learning experience that equips learners with the practical skills needed to implement and optimize Duck Creek solutions. Developed by industry experts and powered by Duck Creek University’s modern learning platform, these certifications align directly with product capabilities and real-world application.

“We are committed to building the future of insurance through education,” said Jeff Reinholtz, Senior Director, Duck Creek University for Duck Creek Technologies. “These new certifications not only validate key competencies but also empower our customers and partners to deliver value faster with confidence.”

All digital credentials earned include a Credly certificate and badge, enabling learners to share their verified achievements on LinkedIn and other platforms. With a focus on flexibility, accessibility, and hands-on learning, Duck Creek University continues to support the growing demand for skilled professionals across the insurance technology landscape.

Visit Duck Creek University for more information about Duck Creek’s world-class learning experience.

About Duck Creek Technologies
Duck Creek Technologies is the global intelligent solutions provider defining the future of the property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance industry. We are the platform upon which modern insurance systems are built, enabling the industry to capitalize on the power of the cloud to run agile, intelligent, and evergreen operations. Authenticity, purpose, and transparency are core to Duck Creek, and we believe insurance should be there for individuals and businesses when, where, and how they need it most. Our market-leading solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite, and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand. Visit www.duckcreek.com to learn more. Follow Duck Creek on our social channels for the latest information – LinkedIn and X.

Media Contacts:
Marianne Dempsey/Tara Stred
duckcreek@threeringsinc.com

The MIL Network –
June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: UConn to Host 57th North American Power Symposium (NAPS)

Source: US State of Connecticut

The University of Connecticut has been selected to host the 57th North American Power Symposium (NAPS), an annual conference mainly sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The event will be held in October 2025 at Hartford Marriott Downtown, and for the first time will be co-organized with the Clean Energy Summit, an annual gathering organized by UConn’s Eversource Energy Center in partnership with Eversource Energy.

The selection of UConn as the host institution was the result of a competitive proposal process in 2022, completed by Professor Zongjie Wang, associate director from the Eversource Energy Center, who will serve as the general chair for NAPS 2025. She will be joined by Professor Diego Cerrai, the interim director of the Eversource Energy Center, who will serve as co-chair.

Zongjie Wang, associate director, Eversource Energy Center, will serve as the general chair for NAPS 2025 (UConn Photo)

“NAPS has always been a student-centered conference, and for 2025 we are expanding that mission with new undergraduate-focused awards and international student engagement,” says Wang. “In past years, we have successfully supported many UConn undergraduate students to attend NAPS, where some have won Best Paper and Best Presentation awards.”

Wang says she has seen, firsthand, how influential and valuable this platform is in shaping student careers.

“Whether by building confidence, showcasing their research, or opening doors to internships and job offers in the energy sector, this conference provides great value for UConn and our students,” Wang adds. “As the general chair of NAPS 2025, I am committed to further expanding these opportunities by introducing additional undergraduate awards and building stronger academic/industry connections to attract a broader and more diverse pool of future power engineers.”

Founded in 1969, NAPS is one of the longest-running power engineering conferences in North America, drawing students, faculty, and professionals from across the United States, Canada, and abroad. It serves as a launchpad for emerging scholars and a convening ground for frontier research in power systems, electric grid operations, renewable energy integration, and distribution-transmission coordination. The 2025 NAPS in Hartford will feature paper presentations, poster sessions, panel discussions, technical tutorials, and industry networking opportunities.

NAPS 2025 will maintain its core academic focus on power systems research while creating stronger bridges to industry. UConn’s College of Engineering (CoE) enhances student experiences through new networking opportunities, career panels, and mentorship sessions involving local, regional, and national partners. The Clean Energy Summit component will showcase innovations in grid modernization, grid resilience, and workforce development, highlighting Connecticut’s leadership in energy policy and utility engagement.

According to Emmanouil Anagnostou, executive director of UConn Tech Park, integrating the Clean Energy Summit with NAPs further establishes UConn’s key role as a leader in promoting energy conservation, utilization and research.

“This combined event reflects UConn’s growing role as a regional hub for clean-energy research and workforce development through the Eversource Energy Center, which serves as a bridge between academic research and practical deployment across New England’s energy infrastructure,” Anagnostou says. “The summit will feature the third cohort of students participating in the Eversource-sponsored Clean Energy and Sustainability Innovation Program (CESIP). As part of this program, students research and design solutions centered around a UConn campus-focused initiative or to assist a Connecticut municipality reach their sustainable energy goals.”

Further details—including speaker announcements, program schedule, and registration—will be posted at the official NAPS 2025 website: Summary – 57th North American Power Symposium 2025. Registration is now open.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Why is there so much concern over Iran’s nuclear program? And where could it go from here?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Benjamin Zala, Senior Lecturer, Politics & International Relations, Monash University

Maxar satellite imagery overview of the Fordow enrichment facility located southwest of Tehran. Maxar/Contributor/Getty Images

Conflict between Israel and Iran is intensifying, after Israeli airstrikes on key nuclear sites and targeted assassinations last week were followed by counter-strikes by Iran on Israel.

These attacks have come at a moment of growing concern over Iran’s nuclear program, and have prompted larger questions over what this means for the global non-proliferation regime.

The short answer: it’s not good.

Where was uranium being enriched in Iran?

There are two main enrichment sites: one at Natanz and one at Fordow. There’s also a facility at Isfahan, which, among other things, is focused on producing important materials for the enrichment process.

Natanz has a hall of centrifuges, which are cylindrical devices that spin incredibly quickly to enrich uranium for creating either the fuel for a nuclear power program or the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon.

Much the same is happening at Fordow, as far as we know. It is a smaller facility than Natanz but much of it is buried deep under a mountain.

To make it weapons grade, uranium ought to be close to 90% purity. It is possible to create a bomb with uranium enriched to a lower level, but it is a much less efficient method. So around 90% is the target.

The key nuclear sites being targeted by Israel.
Maxxar Technologies/AP, Planet Labs/AP, The Conversation, CC BY-NC

The Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran signed in 2015 (in exchange for the US lifting sanctions) limited Iran’s enrichment capacities and its stockpile of enriched uranium. But Trump ripped up that deal in 2018.

Iran remained in compliance for a while, even while the US resumed its economic sanctions, but in recent years, has started to enrich to higher levels – up to about 60%. We know Iran still hasn’t got weapons-grade enriched uranium, but it’s a lot closer than it was to being able to build a bomb.

And worse, much of their stockpile of enriched uranium will now be effectively unaccounted for because of the strikes by Israel. There are no inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) happening there now and probably won’t be for some time.

Iran could also say some of its stockpile was destroyed in the strikes – and we’ve got no way of knowing if that’s true or not.

Both Natanz and Fordow have extensive, hardened, underground facilties. The above-ground facility at Natanz, at least, appears to have been badly damaged, based on satellite photos.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, said the centrifuges at Natanz were likely to have been “severely damaged if not destroyed altogether”. This was likely caused by power cuts, despite the fact the underground facility was not directly hit.

Grossi said there was no visible damage to the underground facilities at Fordow, which is hidden some 80–90 metres beneath a mountain.

Unlike the United States, Israel doesn’t have the very deep penetrating ordinance that can totally destroy such deeply buried structures.

So a key question is: has Israel done enough damage to the centrifuges inside? Or have Iran’s efforts at fortifying these facilities been successful? We may not know for some time.

Was Iran trying to hide its activities?

In the past, Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program laying out the foundation of how it would build a bomb.

We know that because, as part of the diplomatic process associated with the previous nuclear deal that Trump killed off, the IAEA had issued an assessment confirming that Iran previously had this plan in breach of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Iran hadn’t actually built weapons or done a test, but it had a plan. And that plan, Project AMAD, was shelved in 2003. We also know that thanks to Israel. In 2018, Israeli special forces undertook a raid in downtown Tehran and stole secret documents revealing this.

When the Obama administration managed to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, part of the deal was Iran had to accept greater oversight of its nuclear facilities. It had to accept restrictions, limit the number of centrifuges and couldn’t maintain large stockpiles of enriched uranium. This was in exchange for the US lifting sanctions.

These restrictions didn’t make it impossible for Iran to build a weapon. But it made it extremely difficult, particularly without being detected.

What did the IAEA announce last week and why was it concerning?

Last week, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution saying that Iran was in breach of its obligations under the NPT.

This related to Iran being unable to answer questions from inspectors about nuclear activities being undertaken at undeclared sites.

That’s the first time in 20 years the IAEA has come to this finding. This is not why Israel attacked Iran. But it helps explain the exact timing. It gives Israel a degree of cover, perhaps even legitimacy. That legitimacy is surely limited however, given that Israel itself is not a signatory of the NPT and has maintained its own nuclear arsenal for more than half a century.

In response to the IAEA announcement last week, Iran announced it would plan to build a third enrichment site in addition to Fordow and Natanz.

Can a militarised approach to counter-proliferation backfire?

Yes.

When Israel hit the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, it put Iraq’s nuclear program back by a few years. But the Iraqis redoubled their efforts. By the end of that decade, Iraq was very close to a fully-fledged nuclear weapons program.

Presumably, Israel’s thinking is it will have to redo these strikes – “mowing the grass”, as they say – in an effort to hinder Iran’s attempts to reconstitute the program.

Overnight, Iranian lawmakers also drafted a bill urging Iran to withdraw from the NPT. That is entirely legal under the treaty. Article X of the treaty allows that if “extraordinary events” jeopardise a state party’s “supreme interests” then there’s a legal process for withdrawal.

Only one state has done that since the NPT was opened for signature in 1968: North Korea. Now, North Korea is a nuclear-armed state.

Iran seems likely to withdraw from the treaty under this article. It has experienced a full-scale attack from another country, including strikes on key infrastructure and targeted assassinations of its top leaders and nuclear scientists. If that doesn’t count as a risk to your supreme interests, then I don’t know what does.

Iran’s withdrawal would pose a significant challenge to the wider non-proliferation regime. It may even trigger more withdrawals from other countries.

If Iran withdraws from the NPT, the next big questions are how much damage has Israel done to the centrifuge facilities? How quickly can Iran enrich its uranium stockpile up to weapons grade?

And, ultimately, how much damage has been done to the ever-fragile nuclear non-proliferation regime based around the NPT?

Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.

– ref. Why is there so much concern over Iran’s nuclear program? And where could it go from here? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-there-so-much-concern-over-irans-nuclear-program-and-where-could-it-go-from-here-259052

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Regime change wouldn’t likely bring democracy to Iran. A more threatening force could fill the vacuum

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin University

The timing and targets of Israel’s attacks on Iran tell us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s short-term goal is to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to severely diminish its weapons program.

But Netanyahu has made clear another goal: he said the war with Iran “could certainly” lead to regime change in the Islamic republic.

These comments came after an Israeli plan to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reportedly rebuffed by United States President Donald Trump.

It’s no secret Israel has wanted to see the current government of Iran fall for some time, as have many government officials in the US.

But what would things look like if the government did topple?

How is power wielded in today’s Iran?

Founded in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has democratic, theocratic and authoritarian elements to its governing structure.

The founding figure of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, envisioned a state run by Islamic clerics and jurists who ensured all policies adhered to Islamic law.

As Iran was a constitutional monarchy before the revolution, theocratic elements were effectively grafted on top of the existing republican ones, such as the parliament, executive and judiciary.

Iran has a unicameral legislature (one house of parliament), called the Majles, and a president (currently Masoud Pezeshkian). There are regular elections for both.

But while there are democratic elements within this system, in practice it is a “closed loop” that keeps the clerical elite in power and prevents challenges to the supreme leader. There is a clear hierarchy, with the supreme leader at the top.

Khamenei has been in power for more than 35 years, taking office following Khomeini’s death in 1989. The former president of Iran, he was chosen to become supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of Islamic jurists.

While members of the assembly are elected by the public, candidates must be vetted by the powerful 12-member Guardian Council (also known as the Constitutional Council). Half of this body is selected by the supreme leader, while the other half is approved by the Majles.

The council also has the power to vet all candidates for president and the parliament.

In last year’s elections, the Guardian Council disqualified many candidates from running for president, as well as the Majles and Assembly of Experts, including the moderate former president Hassan Rouhani.

As such, the supreme leader is increasingly facing a crisis of legitimacy with the public. Elections routinely have low turnout. Even with a reformist presidential candidate in last year’s field – the eventual winner, Masoud Pezeshkian – turnout was below 40% in the first round.

Freedom House gives Iran a global freedom score of just 11 out of 100.

The supreme leader also directly appoints the leaders in key governance structures, such as the judiciary, the armed forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The all-powerful IRGC

So, Iran is far from a democracy. But the idea that regime change would lead to a full democracy that is aligned with Israel and the US is very unlikely.

Iranian politics is extremely factional. Ideological factions, such as the reformists, moderates and conservatives, often disagree vehemently on key policy areas. They also jockey for influence with the supreme leader and the rest of the clerical elite. None of these factions is particularly friendly with the US, and especially not Israel.

There are also institutional factions. The most powerful group in the country is the clerical elite, led by the supreme leader. The next most powerful faction would be the IRGC.

Originally formed as a kind of personal guard for the supreme leader, the IRGC’s fighting strength now rivals that of the regular army.

The IRGC is extremely hardline politically. At times, the IRGC’s influence domestically has outstripped that of presidents, exerting significant pressure on their policies. The guard only vocally supports presidents in lockstep with Islamic revolutionary doctrine.

In addition to its control over military hardware and its political influence, the guard is also entwined with the Iranian economy.

The IRGC is heavily enriched by the status quo, with some describing it as a “kleptocratic” institution. IRGC officials are often awarded state contracts, and are allegedly involved in managing the “black economy” used to evade sanctions.

Given all of this, the IRGC would be the most likely political institution to take control of Iran if the clerical elite were removed from power.

In peacetime, the general consensus is the IRGC would not have the resources to orchestrate a coup if the supreme leader died. But in a time of war against a clear enemy, things could be different.

Possible scenarios post-Khamenei

So, what might happen if Israel were to assassinate the supreme leader?

One scenario would be a martial law state led by the IRGC, formed at least in the short term for the purposes of protecting the revolution.

In the unlikely event the entire clerical leadership is decimated, the IRGC could attempt to reform the Assembly of Experts and choose a new supreme leader itself, perhaps even supporting Khamenei’s son’s candidacy.

Needless to say, this outcome would not lead to a state more friendly to Israel or the US. In fact, it could potentially empower a faction that has long argued for a more militant response to both.

Another scenario is a popular uprising. Netanyahu certainly seems to think this is possible, saying in an interview in recent days:

The decision to act, to rise up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people.

Indeed, many Iranians have long been disillusioned with their government – even with more moderate and reformist elements within it. Mass protests have broken out several times in recent decades – most recently in 2022 – despite heavy retaliation from law enforcement.

We’ve seen enough revolutions to know this is possible – after all, modern Iran was formed out of one. But once again, new political leadership being more friendly to Israel and the West is not a foregone conclusion.

It is possible for Iranians to hold contempt in their hearts for both their leaders and the foreign powers that would upend their lives.

Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Regime change wouldn’t likely bring democracy to Iran. A more threatening force could fill the vacuum – https://theconversation.com/regime-change-wouldnt-likely-bring-democracy-to-iran-a-more-threatening-force-could-fill-the-vacuum-259042

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 18, 2025
Researchers creates new robotic “skin” that feels heat, pain, pressure

Source: Government of India

Source: Government of India (4)

Researchers have developed a revolutionary robotic skin that brings machines closer to achieving a human-like sense of touch.

Made from a flexible, low-cost gel material, the skin transforms the entire surface of a robotic hand into a sensitive and intelligent sensor.

Unlike traditional robotic skins that rely on a patchwork of different sensors, this material can detect pressure, temperature, pain, and even distinguish multiple contact points simultaneously.

Developed by researchers from the University of Cambridge and University College London (UCL), the flexible, conductive skin is easy to fabricate and can be melted down and moulded into a wide range of complex shapes.

The technology allows robots to sense and process a variety of physical inputs, enabling more meaningful interactions with the physical world.

Unlike other robotic touch solutions—which typically use embedded sensors limited to small areas and require different sensors for different stimuli—the entirety of this new electronic skin functions as a sensor. This makes it more similar to the human skin, where sensory information is distributed across the surface.

While the robotic skin is not yet as sensitive as human skin, it can detect signals from over 860,000 tiny pathways within the material. This allows it to recognise different types of touch and pressure—such as a finger tap, hot or cold surfaces, damage from cutting or stabbing, or multiple simultaneous contact points—all within a single material.

The researchers used a combination of physical tests and machine learning techniques to help the skin ‘learn’ which of these pathways are most important, enabling it to sense different types of contact more efficiently.

In addition to potential applications in humanoid robots and prosthetics—where a sense of touch is vital—the researchers suggest the robotic skin could be useful in industries such as automotive manufacturing and disaster relief.

The results have been published in the journal Science Robotics.

Electronic skins work by converting physical information—like pressure or temperature—into electronic signals. Traditionally, different types of sensors are needed for different kinds of touch. These sensors are embedded into soft, flexible materials, but they can interfere with one another and are prone to damage.

“Having different sensors for different types of touch leads to materials that are complex to make,” said lead author Dr David Hardman from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering.

“We wanted to develop a solution that can detect multiple types of touch at once, but within a single material,” he added.

“At the same time, we need something that’s cheap and durable, so it’s suitable for widespread use,” said co-author Dr Thomas George Thuruthel from UCL.

In future, the researchers aim to enhance the durability of the electronic skin and conduct further tests in real-world robotic applications.

(ANI)

June 18, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: “Telling the Story of the Arctic”: New Photo Exhibition at HSE

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

The opening of the exhibition “Khatanga. Heritage” took place in the atrium of the HSE building on Pokrovsky Boulevard, organized with the support of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS). As part of the educational project, photo materials with interactive excursions are presented, as well as a series of videos and a podcast, drawing attention to the cultural and environmental aspects of the region.

The project became a logical continuation of a large-scale environmental campaign “Arctic. General cleaning”, during which work was carried out over two years to clean the banks of the village of Khatanga in the Krasnoyarsk Territory from accumulated metal waste. Volunteers from different parts of Russia took part in the expeditions, they carried out research, media and environmental activities. In three shifts, volunteers managed to remove more than 700 tons of industrial waste, which significantly improved the ecological situation in the area and made it possible to create an extensive archive of photo and video materials.

As Andrey Lavrov, Senior Director of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, noted, the Russian Geographical Society has been a partner of the Higher School of Economics since 2022. He recalled that Faculty of Geography and Geoinformation Technologies HSE actively cooperates with the Russian Geographical Society, and the university students work a lot on Arctic topics, including within the framework of the project “Rediscovering Russia”. “It was important for us to tell the story of the Arctic, a strategically important territory for Russia, through such an exhibition,” said Andrei Lavrov.

Russia is a huge country, it is almost impossible to see everything in it, says Professor Fuad Aleskerov, head of Department of Mathematics FEN HSE. “Such exhibitions give an understanding of where and what we have in our homeland. In addition, the photographs describe what our volunteers saw when they came to the Arctic to clean up trash. I myself participate in environmental projects, and support them financially. In this case, we need working hands, and if I were a student now, of course, I would go too,” he emphasized.

Dmitry Kobets, a representative of the Russian Geographical Society and a visiting lecturer at the HSE Department of Mathematics, did not know in his student years that one could spend one’s vacation on an expedition and benefit entire regions. He believes that it is important to tell students about this opportunity by organizing such exhibitions.

“I thought that an expedition was a matter for big scientists, but it turns out that it is not. The Russian Geographical Society (and not only it) provides an opportunity for young specialists who have just started their journey to go on an expedition. And there is no need to do complex scientific work. Maybe you just want to relax and change the intellectual vector of activity that prevailed from September to June. And after the expedition, you also create a good community,” added Dmitry Kobets.

In total, four thematic virtual tours were prepared for the exhibition.

1. “Khatanga. Three suns for luck”, which takes you into the world of creativity, where each photographic work carries its own unique emotion and story.

2. “The cold raised me”, dedicated to the harsh Arctic region, which is currently home to less than 6,000 people: the history of Khatanga, its people, and its natural conditions.

3. “Khatanga – this is us”, which tells about the members of the expedition: young photographers, scientists, journalists, athletes and managers.

4. “A snowflake won’t melt” — a quiz journey for the exhibition’s youngest spectators.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Driven by a Dream: Farah Al Fulfulee’s Quest to Reach the Stars

Source: NASA

Farah Al Fulfulee was just four years old when she started climbing onto the roof of her family’s house in Iraq to gaze at the stars.
“It scared me how vast and quiet the sky was, but it made me very curious. I grew a deep passion for the stars and constellations and what they might represent,” she said.
Her father noticed her interest and began bringing home books and magazines about space. Al Fulfulee first read about NASA in those pages and was fascinated by the agency’s mission to explore the cosmos for the benefit of all humanity.
“Right then I knew I had to be an astronaut! I must go to space myself and get a closer look,” she said. “I knew I must find a way to go and work for NASA and fulfill my dream, working with other people like me who had a passion to explore the universe.”

As a girl growing up in the Middle East, Al Fulfulee had few opportunities to pursue this dream, but she refused to give up. Her dedication to schoolwork and excellence in science and math earned her a spot at the University of Baghdad College of Engineering. She completed a degree in electronic and communication engineering — similar to American electrical and computer engineering programs — and graduated as one of the top 10 students in her class. “We had a graduation party where you dress up as what you want to be in the future,” she recalled. “I wore a spacesuit.”

Al Fulfulee was ready to launch her career, but Iraq did not have a developed space industry and finding work as a female engineer was a challenge. She accepted a project engineer position with a prominent Iraqi engineering firm in the information technology sector and spent four years working for the company in Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan, but she was disappointed to discover that her role involved very little engineering. “I was the only female on the team,” she said. “It was not common for a woman to work in the field or with customers, so I was always left behind to do office work. The job was not fulfilling.”
Still determined to join NASA, Al Fulfulee kept looking for her chance to come to the United States and finally found one in 2016, when she moved to Oklahoma to be near her sister. A new challenge soon rose: Without a degree from an American school or previous work experience in the United States, engineering opportunities were hard to come by. Al Fulfulee spent the next six years working in quality assurance for a human resources software company while she completed a MicroMasters program in software verification and management from the University of Maryland and honed her English and leadership skills.
Her big break came in 2022, when she landed a job with Boeing Defense, Space, and Security as a software quality engineer. “I was so excited,” she said. “I knew I was much closer to my dream since Boeing worked in the space industry and I would be able to apply internally to work on a space program.”

Less than one year later, Al Fulfulee became a system design and analysis engineer for the International Space Station Program and joined the Station Management and Control Team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She helps develop requirements, monitors performance, and validates testing for electrical systems and software supporting space station payloads. She also designs hardware, software, and interface specifications for those systems. Al Fulfulee has served as the team’s point of contact, delivering verification assessment and data assessment reports for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions, as well as the upcoming Axiom Mission 4 flight. She is currently working to support testing and verification for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11.
“I could not be happier,” she declared.
She is also not stopping. “I won’t quit until I wear the blue suit.”

Al Fulfulee has been an enthusiastic volunteer for various NASA studies, including the Exploration Atmosphere Studies that tested spacewalk safety protocols in an analog environment. She is pursuing a master’s degree in Space Operations Engineering from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She is an avid gardener and learning how to grow produce indoors as a volunteer experimental botanist with the Backyard Produce Project, noting that such knowledge might come in handy on Mars.
She is also helping to inspire the next generation. Earlier this year, Al Fulfulee was a guest speaker at the Women in Tech & Business Summit in Iraq – an event designed to encourage Iraqi women to pursue technology careers. “I was the only person representing women in space,” she said. “It was a really moving experience.” Al Fulfulee provided practical advice on breaking barriers in aerospace and shared her story with the crowd.
“I know my path is long and across the continents,” she said, “but I am enjoying my journey.”

MIL OSI USA News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: NSU held a professional development program “Use of high-intensity fixed ultrasound (HIFU) in mammology”

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University – As part of the implementation of the project on innovations in communication, from May 15 to June 9, the Center for Postgraduate Medical Education Institute of Medicine and Medical Technologies NSU He conducted a program for advanced training for oncologists, graduate students and residents in the specialty “Oncology” and medical physicists “Application of high-intensity fixed ultrasound (HIFU) in mammology”.
During interdisciplinary seminars, participants discussed the possibilities of using HIFU for the treatment of neoplasms of the mammary glands. Anatomes, experts in the field of ultrasonic diagnostics, physics, oncologists, practitioners who use the HIFU method in patients, and equipment development engineers acted as experts.
The event was attended by an engineer of the Novosibirsk Instrument -Building Plant (refineries) Alexei Artemov. He spoke about the technical characteristics, creation and introduction of a medical complex for the ablation of the Diater-M neoplasms, the first Russian apparatus of HIFU therapy, which is carried out by the refinery. Alexey Artemov in his speech emphasized the role of universities and research institutes in the introduction of this equipment into clinical practice.
Also, the director of the Praitor LLC, MD, shared his many years of experience using HIFU therapy in practice with listeners. Alexander Firman. Natalya Shlyakhtina, Ph.D., head of the diagnostic department of the State Novosibirsk Regional Clinical Hospital, spoke about the possibilities of using ultrasound to diagnose neoplasms. Denis Karpov, Ph.D., performed on the part of NSU, he made a report on the physical foundations of the method of spreading ultrasound in the tissues.
A lively conversation between participants showed the need to build a closer interaction of universities, scientific laboratories and production. The participants agreed on future possible joint projects.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: The Chinese-Russian-Mongolian tournament on health qigong and wushu has ended in Manzhouli

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

BEIJING, June 17 (Xinhua) — The 2025 China-Russia-Mongolia Health Qigong and Wushu Tournament ended Monday in Manzhouli City, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A total of 367 athletes from 47 teams from three countries took part in the friendly competition over four days.

Ultimately, the team from the Hailar City People’s Fitness Center and the delegation of the Buryatia Wushu Federation won the health qigong and wushu competitions, respectively, the Jintai information and consulting platform on the Renmin Ribao newspaper website reported.

“This is my fourth time competing in Manzhouli and every time I notice the hospitality and energy of this city,” said one of the Mongolian athletes.

Another young athlete from Russia was deeply impressed by the unique architecture in Manzhouli. “I am delighted that here you can both take part in competitions and get acquainted with Chinese culture,” she shared.

During the tournament, a special master class on health qigong was also organized for guests from three countries, where traditional Chinese exercise techniques were demonstrated by professors from Beijing University of Physical Education and Inner Mongolia Normal University.

The China-Russia-Mongolia Health Qigong and Wushu Tournament was established in 2016, and has since become an iconic brand of sports events that promotes sports and cultural exchanges between the three countries. In the future, the border city of Manzhouli will continue the integrated development model of “sports culture tourism” to inject new energy into the deepening friendship of the peoples of the three neighboring countries, said Li Yanjun, chairman of the Wushu and Health Qigong Association of Manzhouli City. -0-

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Government announces second batch of projects supported by RAISe+ Scheme

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Government announces second batch of projects supported by RAISe+ Scheme
The projects supported by the Scheme cover a wide range of innovation and technology (I&T) fields, including health and medical sciences, new materials and new energy, AI and robotics, electrical and electronic engineering, advanced manufacturing, Chinese medicine, and computer science/information technology (see Annex). These projects showcase Hong Kong’s robust research and development (R&D) capability and the diverse development of its I&T ecosystem.

The Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, Professor Sun Dong, welcomed the second batch of projects supported by the RAISe+ Scheme. He said, “The successful approval of the second batch of projects marks the Government’s continued commitment to promote commercialisation of local R&D outcomes through the RAISe+ Scheme. The Scheme fosters effective collaboration among the Government, industry, academia and research sectors, injecting new momentum into local innovation and technology development which in turn expedites the development of Hong Kong into an international I&T centre.”

The ITC will continue to work closely with the universities and industry for the smooth implementation of the projects supported by the RAISe+ Scheme, with the aspiration of nurturing more I&T projects and start-ups with potential through the Scheme, thereby further driving Hong Kong’s high-quality development.

With a funding allocation of $10 billion, the RAISe+ Scheme was launched in 2023 and aims to fund at least 100 research teams, which are from universities funded by the University Grants Committee and have good potential to become successful start-ups on a matching basis. Funding support from $10 million to $100 million will be provided to each approved project. Assessment criteria include the I&T component of the project, the commercial viability of project outcomes, the technical and management capability of the team, relevance of the project with government policies or in the project’s overall interest to the community, as well as the financial considerations of the project. The ITC announced the first batch of 24 projects supported by the RAISe+ Scheme in May 2024 with the total funding amounting to over $1 billion.

Details of the scheme are available on its dedicated website (www.itf.gov.hk/en/raiseplusIssued at HKT 17:00

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CategoriesMIL-OSI

MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: The prospects for urban development were discussed at the A.A. Vysokovsky Forum at the National Research University Higher School of Economics

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

The annual A.A. Vysokovsky Forum, organized by the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, was held at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Should development projects be adjusted to the interests of residents, will New Moscow become a new point of attraction, and what will the opening of the A101 Group basic department give to HSE? All this was discussed by officials, business representatives, teachers and experts.

© Higher School of Economics

As the head of the Higher School of Urban Studies named after A.A. Vysokovsky, Ruslan Goncharov, noted at the beginning of the presentation of the basic department of the A101 Group, education in urban studies at the HSE can be obtained within the framework of a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, a postgraduate degree, and additional professional education. Since the establishment of the school in 2011, more than 600 graduates have completed the educational programs, more than 80% of whom work in their specialty.

“Very often, many educational platforms discuss the gap in competencies, the discrepancy between graduates and the demands of the labor market, and HSE is doing everything it can to overcome this gap. The faculty organizes workshops and summer schools with industry partners for its students, invites expert practitioners to teach, launches partner courses and educational projects with leading industry organizations. The opening of the Basic Department of the A101 company will help HSE prepare highly qualified personnel in the field of development. This will allow, among other things, “to conduct classes on current issues of integrated urban development, regularly organize expert and public events with industry representatives, and conduct interdisciplinary research in the field of integrated urban development in general and New Moscow in particular. As part of practical classes in the faculty’s educational programs, specific cases from the A101 Group portfolio will be analyzed,” noted Ruslan Goncharov.

Ruslan Goncharov expects successful synergy with the new partner of the HSE. One of the areas of work of the new department will be the development of the Urban School program for schoolchildren. As the scientific director of the basic department “A101” Maxim Gurvich noted: “Immersing children in the urban agenda from school is the most correct decision.”

“We are building a city where there are all the opportunities for people to communicate, spend time together, play sports or hobbies, and unite by interests. This creates the very high-quality environment that leads to the growth of social ties. A high-quality environment is created not only by the developer, but also by the people themselves, without them there will be no city. And our task is to help them spend more time with their neighbors, attend cultural and educational events, play sports together – and all this close to their home. This is why we are actively working with district communities. Doing sociology, we found out that a district becomes a real home when you do not just walk from the metro to your apartment, but when you do something together with those who live next to you. And the potential of these connections is huge,” said Dmitry Tsvetov.

Mikhail Blinkin, the academic director of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, who was present at the event, asked whether residents of New Moscow would have to sit in traffic jams to get to work in Moscow. According to Dmitry Tsvetov, 30% of residents already work where they live. But the company has ambitious plans here too. “We want there to be more jobs than residents,” Dmitry Tsvetov sets his goal. In particular, the construction of business centers in New Moscow will contribute to this.

The topic of local community development was continued by Elena Bulin-Sokolova, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Head of the Educational Bureau “A101 Lerniti”: “We build cities in which people want to live, including ourselves. A city is not only comfortable modern housing, it is also a social infrastructure – spaces and events in which you can get involved, finding something to your liking. And a city is also people,” Elena noted.

“A101 Lernity” creates spaces for family centers and neighborhood clubs, open workshops and public lounges, street cinemas and sports grounds, initiating programs, projects and various events, involving residents themselves and local businesses in their organization, whether it is the revival of the culture of yard games or holding children’s maker summer programs; engineering hackathons for or career guidance internships for teenagers, pedagogical lectures or culinary parties, inter-district sports competitions or huge good-neighborly festivals for everyone – all this helps residents get to know the territory and each other, unites them around interesting things, contributes to the formation of communities.

As Kirill Puzanov, associate professor at the Higher School of Urban Studies, noted: “A good city is a city that provides a minimum of necessary and a maximum of possible options for its use. Space should provide various options for use at different times and for different categories of citizens,” he is convinced.

Historian and local historian Denis Romodin, in turn, said that tourism outside the city is currently developing at a rapid pace. In many cities in the Moscow region, new communities have emerged that actively conduct excursions for Muscovites, and they are conducted by young 20-year-olds. “And this is, in general, a very good idea, because it excites such local patriotism, explaining why my region is unique,” says Denis Romodin. At the same time, according to him, such processes are happening not only in historically interesting areas. Such communities interested in their city also exist in New Moscow – for example, in Troitsk.

Dean of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics Evgeny Mikhaylenko emphasized the importance of comprehensive improvement of urban infrastructure and creation of comfortable living conditions on the sidelines of the event. This contributes to both social and economic development of new districts, and also makes them more unique. “The rejection of uniform standards is the main task and guideline of modern urban policy aimed at diversity of the urban environment. This approach allows each district to acquire its own unique individuality, which makes it especially valuable and beloved by residents. Moreover, the uniqueness of new districts attracts the attention of not only local residents, but also neighboring territories, contributing to the formation of additional urban centers,” he explained.

During the discussions within the forum, experts also spoke about what changes city residents can expect in terms of transport. Thus, according to Olga Morozova, Director of Strategic Projects of the Department of Transport and Development of Road Transport Infrastructure of the City of Moscow, the first driverless tram has already successfully started operating in Moscow. It has already covered more than 5 thousand km without a single traffic violation. Last year, the next stage of this test began – the launch of an unmanned tram with passengers under the control of a test driver. Already in the fall of 2025, it is planned to launch a completely unmanned tram for regular trips along the route with passengers.

Continuing the discussion about the transport of the future, Evgeny Mikhailenko shared a forecast for the emergence of new types of real estate and infrastructure related to modern means of mobility, for example, transport hubs for drones, which will contribute to the multifunctionality of urban spaces and the development of a “smart city” that adapts to the demands of the time.

Another significant event of the Forum was the awarding of Professor of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Sergey Sivaev with the departmental award of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Public Utilities of the Russian Federation, the medal “For Impeccable Labor and Diligence” of the 3rd degree.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Polytechnic University Leads in Number of Medals at the “I Am a Professional” Olympiad

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

The results of the VIII season of the All-Russian student Olympiad “I am a professional” of the presidential platform have been summed up “Russia is a country of opportunity”. St. Petersburg entered the top 3 regions in terms of the number of diploma winners. Students of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University won 9 medals: 4 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze. All-Russian Student Olympiad “I am a professional” is being implemented within the framework of the federal project “Russia – the Country of Opportunities” of the national project “Youth and Children” with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia.

In the 8th season, the Olympiad “I am a professional” united 185,610 students from 89 regions of Russia, who competed in 71 areas. Polytechnic organized two of them: “Mechanical engineering” and “Hotel business”.

High results of participation in the Olympiad “I am a professional” – an indicator that competitive personnel are trained in the universities of St. Petersburg. Year after year, students demonstrate an increasingly high level of training. In the VIII season, participants received 708 diplomas of the Olympiad “I am a professional”, and the best results were demonstrated by students of St. Petersburg State University, National Research University ITMO and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, – noted the head of the Olympiad “I am a professional” Valeria Kasamara.

Olympiad diploma winners will be able to complete internships at major companies and take advantage of benefits when entering the next level of education, and medalists will receive cash prizes of up to 300 thousand rubles.

A distinctive feature of the Olympiad is the fact that students can participate in any direction, regardless of their educational profile. This allows them to take a different look at their career track, deepen their knowledge, and gain new experience. This meets the demand from the industry for well-trained multidisciplinary specialists ready to solve the most complex problems. We involved colleagues from the industry in compiling practice-oriented tasks. We are confident that this allowed the participants to get to know their future profession better, – noted Vitaly Drobchik, Advisor to the Rector’s Office of SPbPU and organizer of the Olympiad at the Polytechnic University.

It should be noted that Polytechnic students won medals in such areas as mechanical engineering, hotel business, robotics, oil and gas, thermal power engineering and heat engineering, electric power engineering, and construction.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Results of the University’s Interfaculty Spartakiads

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

For several years now, NSU has been holding two Spartakiads: among faculties and institutes in 15 sports and among first-year students in 7 sports.

The academic year has come to an end, all the results have been calculated and the most athletic faculties have been determined. As in the previous year, the Faculty of Physics and the Faculty of Mathematics and Mathematics fought for the prize places, and this time the physicists won by a good margin. But the economists unexpectedly broke into third place, pushing aside one of the leaders of the previous years – the students of the Faculty of Information Technologies.

The final places were distributed as follows: 1st place – Physics Department, 140 points 2nd place – Mechanics and Mathematics Department, 127 points

3rd place – Faculty of Economics, 124 points

4th place – Faculty of Information Technology, 118 points

5th place – NSU SUNC, 104 points

6th place – Faculty of Natural Sciences, 94 points 7th place – Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, 87 points

8th place – Humanities Institute, 66 points 9th place – Institute of Medicine and Medical Technologies, 65 points 10th place – Higher College of Informatics, 62 points

11th place – Institute of Intelligent Robotics, 60 points

12th place – Institute of Philosophy and Law, 49 points

The Spartakiad of first-year students has also ended, which includes: mini-football, armlifting, track and field cross-country, swimming, strength all-around, cross-country skiing and shooting. The winners of the Spartakiad of first-year students were determined by the sum of places in six types of the program out of seven and they were:

1st place – Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics

2nd place – Faculty of Natural Sciences

3rd place – Faculty of Information Technology

More detailed results can be found in the Spartakiad tables on the page, where all competitions during the academic year were also covered.

Congratulations to the winners on their excellent results! We thank all the participants who represented their faculties in various sports, and the teachers of the Department of Physical Education for organizing and holding sports and mass events throughout the academic year!

We wish students successful passing of exam sessions, defending their diplomas and productive summer holidays, and we look forward to seeing everyone at our sports grounds next academic year!

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New films showcase the landscapes of the South West
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

News story

New films showcase the landscapes of the South West

A series of six films co-funded by Natural England highlight the fragile nature of protected sites and how we can all take steps to help our environment.
Simon Willis filming Prof John Wedgwood Clarke at Kynance. Credit Susan Willis

The stunning beauty of the South West has inspired many writers and artists, but now Natural England has joined forces with a poet and film maker to create a series of six inspiring videos about nature on protected sites in this corner of the country.

Taking in protected sites across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, the films, called “Wild Westcountry Odyssey” are a result of a collaboration between Natural England’s Protected Site Strategies (PSS) Research and Development Programme and the [RENEW Biodiversity project] (https://renewbiodiversity.org.uk/) at the University of Exeter. RENEW (Renewing biodiversity through a people in nature approach) is a collaboration between the University and the  National Trust, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. It also partners with major conservation bodies like the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts.

The aim of future Protected Site Strategies will be to ensure the root causes of environmental issues – often driven by factors beyond the sites themselves – are addressed in ways that guarantee wildlife thrives on those sites, while helping nature recovery beyond their boundaries. All six of the Protected Sites chosen for the films are Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Habitat Sites.

Each film includes two short poems, specially written by John Wedgwood Clarke. The films celebrate the beauty and diversity of nature on the sites and the key achievements and projects that have restored habitats and species and are successfully tackling environmental change and impacts resulting from human activity

David Burton, Natural England’s Principal Officer for the Protected Site Strategies Implementation and Development programme, said:

We supported the production of the films to research how creative media can help re-set the relationships between people and nature within the framework of Protected Site Strategies. The approach is to educate and highlight the need for nature recovery to everyone.

Too often the environment sector has failed to communicate the plight of biodiversity in accessible, positive and thought-provoking ways. For Protected Site Strategies to realise the ambition we have set for them, resetting the relationships between nature and people in ways that build a resilient future for all, we need to harness the power of creative channels for our call to action.

John, Simon, and the rest of the ‘Wild Westcountry Odyssey’ team have created inspirational stories through film and poetry to help set our first few Protected Site Strategies on their way.

Simon Willis, filmmaker, said:

It’s been a privilege to work with all the nature reserves and John. The human effort that goes into keeping them thriving for wildlife is remarkable.

I hope our images and John’s words encourage people to look beyond the picture postcard and really value the wildlife that makes the South West such a great place to visit.

John Wedgwood Clarke, Professor of Poetry at the University of Exeter, said:

The South West’s diverse and beautiful landscapes have been the source of great joy for so many people and have inspired writers and artists over time. But take a closer look and you realise how fragile many of our ecosystems have become and the lengths to which our agencies and charities have to go in order to conserve their biodiversity.

I hope these films, and the visual and verbal poetry they contain, inspire people to explore this beautiful part of the world and think about how they can support, in whatever way they can, the work the goes in to helping people and nature thrive together in these special places.

John Clarke at Kynance. Credit Susan Willis

Professor Rosie Hails, Director of Nature and Science at the National Trust said:

We know that for people to protect nature and our fragile ecosystems, they have to care for it first. By using poetry and creating these films we aim to bring the beauty of these six south-west locations into their homes and onto their mobile devices, and to inspire them to visit and to help look after these special places.

Kynance on the Lizard Peninsula is one of our richest sites for rare and threatened species. The unique geology of granite cliffs with serpentine rocky exposures supports some of our most notable species such as land quilwort, pygmy rush and upright clover amongst the swathes of Cornish heath that make the site a National Nature Reserve.

As part of the Trust’s new strategy we will be targeting the rejuvenation of these important plant varieties through innovative management techniques to ensure the special species thrive into the future.

The first of the films, which features Kynance on The Lizard, is released today on YouTube: https://youtu.be/F4Lpu61T0vM

Others will be released weekly through to 21 July.

Notes to editors

Protected Site Strategies are ambitious and innovative in their approach to addressing the environmental issues impacting Protected Sites. They encourage collaborations with a wide range of stakeholders that operate at a landscape scale. This starts with the understanding that protected sites are representative examples of important places for nature and serve as indicators of healthy, naturally functioning landscapes. If the wildlife and physical environment within sites are compromised by issues such as neglect or pollution, that indicates that the broader landscape is facing challenges that affect both nature and people.

RENEW is a five year programme led by the University of Exeter and the National Trust and around 30 other partners from various sectors. It is funded by the UKRI Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and aims to tackle the challenges of biodiversity renewal through a people-in-nature approach. This initiative involves a wide range of research to understand how people engage with nature and the opportunities and challenges this presents for nature recovery.

As a result, finding ways to balance human activities with efforts for nature recovery is central to the work of both RENEW and PSS.

The short films are being released weekly from Monday, 16 June in the following order

The sites are:

Kynance on the Lizard, Cornwall, 16 June

Goonhilly Downs National Nature Reserve, Cornwall, 23 June

Challacombe Farm, Dartmoor, 30 June

Westhay Moor National Nature Reserve, Somerset, 7 July

Exe Estuary, Devon, 14 July

Otter Estuary, Devon, 21 July

Film one, Kynance: Celebrates the landscape beauty and the unique wildlife in Kynance and the return of the chough to the Lizard peninsular in Cornwall – the focus of a conservation project by Natural England, the National Trust and local farmers.

Film two, Goonhilly: Reveals the hidden richness of nature in a seemingly bleak heath and the abandoned workings of a former quarry while celebrating the collaborative conservation efforts of Natural England and local farmers.

Film three, Challacombe Farm: A film about Challacombe Farm on Dartmoor features a local farmer who has nurtured wildlife habitats across his farm. The farm is part of a future landscape recovery plan to improve conditions for nature across the Moor while helping farms prosper.

Film four, Westhay Moor: Focusses on a large peat bog restoration project being carried out by Somerset Wildlife Trust. It explores the theme of climate change which is bringing about impacts on nature and people highlights how peat restoration is essential in order to mitigate them.

Film five, Exe Estuary: Features the Exe Estuary in Devon, a vital refuge for migratory birds of great conservation concern, whose breeding and feeding grounds are increasingly threatened by intensive agriculture, development, and climate change.

Film six, Otter Estuary: Presents the Lower Otter Restoration Project at Budleigh Salterton and the new wetlands – created by a partnership between Clinton Devon Estates, the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, the Environment Agency and the Interreg (EU) programme – that absorb the impacts of climate change and attract a wealth of wildlife.

Photo credits: Susan Willis.

All footage copyright Simon Willis Films. Clips can be supplied on request.

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Published 17 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 17, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Rector of SPbGASU awarded honorary badge “For services to St. Petersburg”

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Award Ceremony

On the eve of Russia Day, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Dmitrievich Beglov presented state awards of the Russian Federation and Presidential incentives. Outstanding residents of the city were also awarded honorary titles of St. Petersburg. Among the laureates are scientists, teachers, cultural workers, railway transport workers, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and doctors.

For many years of work and outstanding achievements in the field of development of higher education and science in St. Petersburg, the rector of the St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Doctor of Economics, Professor Evgeny Ivanovich Rybnov was awarded the honorary badge “For Services to St. Petersburg”. The award ceremony took place in the assembly hall of Smolny.

We congratulate Evgeny Ivanovich on being awarded the honorary badge. We wish him well-being, high results and further successful work for the benefit of the Russian Federation!

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 17, 2025