Boston Bucks: Money, Markets, and Innovation from Colonial Coin to Crypto

Bob Wright, UATX Visiting Professor of History

As the largest port in New England, Boston has long been one of America's most important financial centers. This course traces its most important innovations, from flat paper money in 1690 and bank clearinghouses in the early 19th century to credit unions and mutual funds in the 20th. It concludes with an overview of Boston's continuing role in crypto, Fintech, and DeFi. 

Robert "Bob" Wright is the (co)author of 25 books, most about the history of finance and innovation in the U.S. since 1750. After receiving his Ph.D. in History from the University of Buffalo in 1997, he taught economics at Temple University, the University of Virginia, NYU's Stern School of Business, Augustana University, and Central Michigan University. Before joining UATX as a visiting Professor of History in 2026, he was also a Julian Simon fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, a Paul Coverdell Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Georgia College and State University, a research fellow for the Andersen Institute for Finance and Economics, and a research fellow for the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). Since 2008, he has served on the editorial board of Financial History, the quarterly publication of the Museum of American Finance, which will open a free museum in Boston in July 2026. Bob was also a board member or treasurer of Historians Against Slavery, an organization dedicated to using insights from the history of slavery and abolitionism to combat modern forms of slavery like sex trafficking, from 2012 until 2025. 

Destination Mars: Survival Not Guaranteed

Eliah Overbey, UATX Assistant Professor of Bioastronautics

Mars is 140 million miles away, and everything between here and there wants to kill you. Cosmic radiation? Check. Bone-melting microgravity? Yup. No oxygen, freezing temperatures, and months if isolation? Absolutely. Follow the global space race as superpowers and billions compete to plant the first flag on Mars and discover how scientists plan to bioengineer the ultimate space-ready human. Your DNA might need an upgrade. 

Eliah Overbey comes to UATX from her position as a research associate at Weill Cornell Medicine. She studies changes in astronaut health during spaceflight with an emphasis on genomic measurements. Her most recent project analyzed genomic changes in astronauts from the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission, and she is currently working on data analysis and sample collection for the Axiom-2 and Polaris Dawn missions. She also serves as Vice Chair of the Cornell Aerospace Medicine Biobank (CAMbank), which is the first biorepository of samples from commercial astronauts, and as Chief Scientific Officer at BioAstra, a nonprofit developing healthcare systems for astronauts. Dr. Overbey received a B.S. in Computer Science from UC San Diego and her Ph.D. in Genome Sciences from the University of Washington.

America’s Founding Principles 

Chris Nadon, UATX Visiting Professor

Read Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence and his famous Letter to Holmes. Together, these works invite us to grapple with the philosophic basis of American political life—its ideals, its contradictions, and its reckoning with slavery.

Christopher Nadon (B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago) writes on the character and history or republican government understood as self-rule in authors such as Herodotus, Xenophon, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Sarpi, Hobbes, Locke, Tocqueville, and Lincoln. He has taught political philosophy and Humanities at Emet Classical Academy, Claremont-McKenna College, Trinity College, and Kiev-Mohyla Academy.

Transhumanism

Allen Porter, UATX Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Delve into the bold promises and perils of transhumanism. Explore visions of technologically enhanced humans and posthumans, and consider the moral, political, and even religious dimensions of this emerging movement.

Allen Porter is a philosopher from New Orleans with interests in phenomenology, ethics, politics, the philosophy of technology, and the history of philosophy. Prior to becoming Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Austin, Dr. Porter was a postdoctoral associate at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Rice University in 2021. He holds a M.A. in Philosophy from Tulane University and a B.A. in German from Princeton University.

Chance, Games, and Decisions

David Ruth, UATX Dean of Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics

Begin to master probability and good decision-making when faced with uncertainty. Topics include counting techniques and probability theory, classic chance problems such as the Monty Hall and Birthday Problems, expected value and variance, and basic decision and game theory. Applications will be stressed through examples. 

Professor David Ruth is Dean of UATX's Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Previously, Ruth held several leadership positions as a Permanent Military Professor of Mathematics at the United States Naval Academy, where he was an award-winning teacher from 2009 until 2022. Ruth has authored several articles in a variety of statistics journals, as well as a book chapter on mathematics in cybersecurity. Prior to his academic work, Ruth led and served as a naval officer with operational experience in submarine and surface warfare, nuclear power, oceanography, and meteorology.