We had a nice start to the weekend, and while strolling around with the dogs I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great talk by Yulia Sandamirskaya on neuromorphic computing at the Soft Robotics Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGXdyFyw08E

Next was an amazing talk by Kris L. Dorsey on sensor design for soft robots at the Soft Robotics Lab. Dorsey presents a suite of fascinating, compelling sensor designs that importantly are both robust and replicable. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAEYKp9HJas

Last was the "Routledge Handbook of High-Performance Workplaces," edited by Christhina Candido, Iva Durakovic, and Samin Marzban. This is a good collection of essays on different aspects of workplace design, stretching a bit beyond the physical office with sections on HR and IT issues as well. I particularly liked the chapters on universal design (Imogen Howe and Andrew Martel) and acoustic privacy (Manuj Yadav and Densil Cabrera). This is very Australia-centric, which is a problem insofar as that region isn't globally representative. Beyond that, the lack of any chapter that interrogates the responsibility of the field to challenge companies and clients on exclusionary/unethical design choices was disappointing. Overall, this book is likely most useful as an academically-inflected intro to workplace related topics and as a gateway to the references each chapter contains https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-High-Performance-Workplaces/Candido-Durakovic-Marzban/p/book/9781032358130