Robert L. Matthews stepped down from his post as the director of the Child and Family Services Agency last month. Matthews led the child welfare agency with a checkered history for the past three years. His chief of staff, Tanya Torres Trice, will take over as the interim director as the search for a permanent leader is underway.

“CFSA, thank you for an incredible 11 years,” Matthews says in a video announcing his departure. “I thank you more that I’m able to leave on my own terms, and that I’m able to leave feeling happy and blessed to have served as your director.”

Matthews says he will be the inaugural chief program officer at Think of Us, a nonprofit that focuses on foster care. 

Matthews took over CFSA in 2021, after the agency settled a lawsuit that spanned 30 years and six mayoral administrations. During the case, CFSA was under court-appointed monitoring, and, for a time, under receivership.

In 1989, civil rights attorneys filed LaShawn v. Marion Barry (the case name was updated with each administration) over allegations of mismanagement, a lack of mental health services for kids, and neglect in D.C.’s foster care system. A judge said the system was in “shambles” and ordered a complete overhaul. As the case lingered in the court system for decades, and the District failed to make improvements, a judge took the drastic step of appointing a receiver.

Receivership ended in 2001 when the District agreed to implement several reforms, including designating CFSA as an cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the mayor.

But in 2008, investigations revealed that alerts of abuse and neglect to the CFSA went uninvestigated in several instances before children were found dead—including the four kids killed in the Banita Jacks tragedy after CFSA employees did not respond properly to warnings. 

CFSA finally settled the class action LaShawn lawsuit under former Director Brenda Donald, though, as City Paper previously reported, several employees believe the agency cut corners in order to get out from under court supervision.

Matthews officially took over as director of CFSA in 2021 after serving as a deputy director. As director, Matthews prioritized kinship care, where children and youths go to live with relatives when their home environment is unsafe, rather than entering the formal foster system. In his exit video, Matthews said he led the agency to a kin-first model.

The agency decreased its reliance on the foster care system from 1,024 youths in 2013 to 427 in 2022. Part of the decline is due to CFSA’s increased referrals to other agencies substantiating fewer investigations.

According to the CFSA public dashboard, from 2022 to 2023, the agency received 30,000 calls, 30 percent of which were screened out, meaning callers were referred to another agency or CFSA took no further action. Total hotline calls increased by nearly 4,000 in 2023, but the number of substantiated claims of abuse or neglect and investigations decreased. In 2023, 70 percent of referrals from other agencies were screened out as well, and hotline staff substantiated fewer referrals despite receiving approximately 4,000 more referral calls than the previous year.

The raw numbers, however, do not show whether a case was closed too early or if a call should have been substantiated when it was not. A court monitor and the agency’s ombudsman have revealed that CFSA manipulated caseload data to make the agency appear that it was making progress toward exiting the class action lawsuit. 

DC KinCare Alliance Director Marla Spindel says the way CFSA has conducted its kinship care model is problematic. Although kinship parents meet all the licensing requirements to become foster parents, CFSA has told relatives that if they don’t take care of a child informally, the child would go to foster care with a stranger. This practice is known as “hidden foster care,” and it allows agencies to skirt their obligations by not providing financial assistance to these caregivers. Spindel says kin caregivers are at risk of homelessness because of it.

“It doesn’t ensure the safety of the child,” Spindel says. “They’re just, in our view, trying to shirk their responsibility to make sure these children are safe. When they’re sending them to live with other people other than their parents, they [should] make sure that that’s a successful arrangement.”

DC KinCare Alliance filed eight federal lawsuits—including two in July alone—against the agency. The cases argue that instead of removing children from neglectful or abusive households and placing them in foster care, the agency placed them with relative caregivers without giving them the option to become licensed foster parents. 

Spindel feels that the agency hasn’t improved under Matthews’ leadership.

“We find he uses a lot of rhetoric about doing right by families, but in our experience dealing with him, we haven’t found them to be keeping families together or providing the support services needed to keep families together,” she says.

Spindel hopes Trice and whomever the next director will be is “more willing to really listen to constituents.”

The DC Abortion Fund has been forced to cut back its services due to budget cuts at Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation. Abortion funds pay for travel and care costs for abortion seekers, and now the national funds can only cover up to 30 percent of those costs, down from 50 percent.

That means a patient who needs $2,000 for a procedure, for example, must find a way to make up a $1,400 gap, rather than $1,000.

The budget cuts, which went into effect July 1, have left DCAF and other local abortion funds throughout the country scrambling to support the growing demand for service while covering more costs than before. As Republican-controlled states, such as Florida, Texas, and Iowa, implement abortion bans at six weeks (typically at the first sign of embryonic cardiac activity), abortion clinics in less restrictive states have seen an influx of patients traveling from out of state for care.

As a donation-based organization, DCAF operates on a weekly budget based on fundraising projections. With more costs to cover, operations have become more difficult for all local abortion funds.

DCAF is already seeing the impact. During the first week of the adjusted services, DCAF went $4,000 over budget by Tuesday. Now, everytime DCAF’s weekly budget runs out, it will immediately close its phone lines, even if the service week hasn’t ended. Active cases that are in the process of receiving funding will not be dropped, according to DCAF development director Alisha Dingus.

DCAF also provides financial aid to people who are ineligible for funding from the NAF or Planned Parenthood due to income requirements. Local funds typically have few or no eligibility requirements.

“Everyone is out of money. And there’s really nothing left for people to do,” Dingus says. “That’s the really tough reality that we’ve been trying not to talk about because we’ve been trying to be that resilience movement, where we will get people the care they need no matter what. But there’s always a limitation when the dollars run out.”

In D.C., abortion is legal at all stages of pregnancy, and with 15 clinics across the metro area,  it’s a popular location for out-of-state abortion seekers. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case that removed the constitutional right to abortion, DCAF has assisted an increasing number of patients traveling from outside of the D.C. area, according to Dingus. The number of patients grew by nearly 200 people in fiscal year 2022 and another 250 in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.  

DCAF is now only providing funding for patients who have appointments at clinics in the D.C. metro area. "I think it impacts people who are traveling here the most,” says Dingus. “At the end of the day, when we have to make hard decisions, we are the DC Abortion Fund.”

DCAF is scaling back its service line and intake form hours from Monday through Friday to Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s also extending its callback time from 24 to 48 hours; this is the second time this year that the fund cut its hours due to budget constraints. Some abortion funds throughout the country were forced to temporarily shut down services due to budget constraints, according to Dingus.

Dingus says DCAF caseworkers are now seeking to collaborate with other funds on fundraising efforts, especially for cases of second or third-trimester abortions, which can be more expensive. Patients who need funding for next-day or same-day appointments have increased in the past year as well, Dingus says, because patients who were not able to get appointments due to increased demand are getting called in to fill last-minute cancellations. 

DCAF is funded entirely by private donations, which, according to Dingus, peaked during the months following the Dobbs decision. But they have dwindled since.

From June 2022 to June 2023, DCAF raised more than $3 million and redistributed $2.7 million—the most the fund has raised in its history. From June 2023 to June 2024, DCAF raised half of that sum, $1.8 million, and redistributed $1.6 million. 

In anticipation of these cuts, DCAF allocated $50,000, courtesy of a private donor, for emergency situations such as out-of-state patients who need a third-trimester abortion. But those funds will likely only last for a few months, Dingus says. 

Dingus says DCAF is currently looking for institutional support from foundations that have previously donated directly to the fund. She believes DCAF will always have a stable donor base within D.C., but says donor attention is too focused on long-term legislative aims and not enough on funding immediate access to abortion care.

“I think there’s the idea that if we work on advocacy, we do the legal strategy, we fix that, then people will be able to get their abortions,” she says. “What we always say is, if you leave access behind, none of the other stuff really matters. If people aren’t getting their abortions, they’re forced to give birth, and that for us is a failure.”

Real estate group AIR Communities agreed not to unlawfully discriminate against housing voucher recipients and will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees as part of a settlement agreement announced this week.

The real estate group settled a lawsuit sparked by an investigation by the Equal Rights Center that alleges applicants were unlawfully denied rental housing because they paid their rent with government subsidies. AIR Communities agreed to pay $235,000 in legal fees and damages to settle the case. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs represented the Equal Rights Center in the case. The ERC is a nonprofit organization that focuses on enforcing fair housing laws in D.C.

The suit against AIR Communities, referred to as AIR Property Management in the settlement, filed in D.C. Superior Court in January, alleges that the real estate group illegally denied housing to applicants using housing vouchers at the Latrobe Apartment Homes in Ward 2 and Vaughan Place in Ward 3. ERC also alleges that AIR Communities implemented an unlawful application process that imposed minimum credit scores and income requirements for voucher holders. AIR Communities additionally checked eviction and criminal records beyond what D.C. law allows, according to court records.

D.C. law prohibits discrimination based on an applicant’s source of income, prohibits requiring voucher holders to meet certain credit and income requirements, and protects prospective tenants from overbroad screening of criminal records. The suit also is among the first to enforce a 2022 D.C. law that seals eviction records that are more than three years old.

Kate Scott, executive director of the Equal Rights Center, says she has seen a rise in the use of technology that makes it easier for housing providers to screen potential tenants, which violates the law.

“D.C. law is really saying … you’re not allowed to do that in the same way that you have been doing it,” Scott says. “As a landlord, you need to apply the basic requirements of the law, but also engage in a more individualized view of tenants, to make sure that you’re not continuing to replicate patterns of various forms of discrimination that have been harmful to the city.”

In its complaint, ERC describes how it investigated AIR Communities’ leasing procedures with fair housing tests. The nonprofit would have its investigators call the rental offices using aliases and ask if those with vouchers—who have evictions on their records or who have had contact with the criminal legal system—were eligible to apply. 

The AIR Communities representative advised ERC’s covert investigator not to apply outright because they would probably be denied, or said that the company’s screening system would automatically disqualify them, according to the court documents.

In one case, a representative told the caller that Vaughan Place did not have “Section 8 units.” The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, once referred to as “Section 8,” is a reference to the Housing Act of 1937.

The program is aimed at assisting low-income, disabled, and elderly tenants afford suitable housing and, in theory, allows participants to choose from almost any unit in the rental market as long as it doesn’t exceed rental limit amounts. About 11,500 low-income families in D.C. use HCVP, which aims to eliminate barriers for families to get secure housing in areas with significant access to public transportation, grocery stores, and well-performing schools.

ERC’s investigation began after the organization noticed discriminatory statements on AIR Communities websites. “We screen for criminal background, and applicants may be disqualified based on history,” one statement said, according to the court records. “We do not allow renters with felony convictions to live at our community … Renters may not have had previous evictions.” 

“Initially, I think it was fairly easy for people to recognize when it was happening to them. For example, a landlord would just say, ‘We don’t accept vouchers,’ and that was very easily recognized as illegal voucher discrimination in the District,” says Joanna Wasik, deputy legal director for economic justice for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “Over time, the way that the discrimination plays out has become much more subtle in nature and more difficult for people to recognize when it’s happening to them as a result.”

According to the cooperation agreement, AIR Communities’ D.C. properties—including Latrobe Apartment Homes, Vaughan Place, and Upton Place East—must now request all prospective applicants to disclose their voucher status prior to income and credit checks and may not consider eviction history beyond three months and criminal history beyond seven years. Disclosing the use of a housing voucher prevents applicants from being rejected for failing to meet an income or credit requirement.

AIR Communities staff must also undergo annual training on fair housing laws and designate a voucher advocate, and ERC will conduct 30 compliance tests on the various properties.

“We are committed to complying with all fair housing laws and regulations, and we regularly review our standards and processes and train our team to ensure compliance,” Stephanie Joslin, AIR Communities’ communications manager, says in an emailed statement. “While a review by the Equal Rights Center (ERC) identified some shortcomings in our processes, we want to emphasize that these were not errors of intentional commission but rather unintentional omission.

“Upon our own review, we addressed the identified issues promptly, many of them before the ERC filed its complaint,” Joslin adds. “We are pleased to cooperate with the ERC going forward to deliver training and processes that the ERC provides and has sanctioned.” 

The settlement makes headway in enforcing D.C.’s laws on voucher discrimination, which Scott says is an ongoing issue since source-of-income protections were enacted in 2005. 

“When you look at the data, voucher discrimination is tantamount to race discrimination in D.C. because the vast majority of voucher holders in D.C. are Black,” Scott says. “And so that’s been a really important focus of what we’ve been doing in regards to source-of-income discrimination or voucher discrimination overall.”

About 95 percent of those who receive housing vouchers in D.C. are Black, despite Black households comprising less than half of the District’s total population, according to 2023 Census data.

“We’re really hopeful that by entering into cooperation agreements … we’re chipping away at issues of noncompliance in the District and making it easier for individual tenants to be able to find the housing that they need,” Scott says.

This story originally misattributed a quote from Kate Scott. This version has been corrected.

When Taniya Bowling was a freshman in high school, she regularly missed class because she had to take care of her baby sister while her mom was working. She was considered truant, or absent from school without a valid excuse for 10 days. At 14 years old, Bowling struggled to keep up with her schoolwork while raising her sister and adjusting to a new online learning environment brought on by the 2020 lockdown.

“A lot of students or kids in general suffer with the same type of story as me where they … can’t go to school,” Bowling said during a D.C. Council hearing Wednesday. “They don’t have the luxury of homeschool because they don’t have people to assist them with home life. Where they don’t have people to help them understand what they’re doing in class. Where they don’t have ways to actually understand the material being given to them.”

Bowling, now an incoming senior, said she was able to find ways to attend class and stay on top of her schoolwork thanks to the counselors at Friendship Tech Prep High School. But her case isn’t the standard; it’s the exception. Chronic absenteeism, when students are absent for at least 10 percent of the school year, is up by 14 percent in D.C. since prepandemic rates.

In the 2022-23 school year, 43 percent of K-12 D.C. students were chronically absent, and 37 percent were truant, according to a report from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. Significantly, 60 percent of D.C. high schoolers were considered chronically absent.

“We know that there are a whole host of reasons for why students might miss class ranging from arriving late due to taking a sibling to the campus, lack of reliable public transit, … trouble in the home, or violence in the neighborhood,” Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen said. “But here’s something I think we can all agree on. Students need to be in school.”

Councilmembers and Mayor Muriel Bowser have authored a total of four bills to address D.C.’s chronic absenteeism and truancy problem—all of which were the topic of Wednesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. Collectively, the bills would require the OSSE to publish monthly absenteeism data on its website, expand the set of valid excuses for absences, provide additional funding to address chronic absenteeism, and designate schools that reach a chronic absenteeism rate of 20 percent or higher as priority zones for the Safe Passage Safe Blocks program.

“This is more than just about attendance. This is also about public safety,” Council Chair Phil Mendelson said. “It’s about protecting kids from becoming victims. It’s also about protecting society from youth who are missing school and go on to commit violent crime.”

Bowser’s bill, Utilizing Partnerships and Local Interventions for Truancy and Safety Amendment Act, attracted special scrutiny during the hearing. Bowser’s bill would direct the Department of Human Services to intervene before a truant student is referred to the Child and Family Services Agency—effectively shifting the responsibility of addressing the underlying causes of truancy from one agency to the other. 

Mendelson, Allen and Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George questioned DHS’s capacity to take on referrals that are currently handled by CFSA, given the agency’s other commitments. 

DHS Director Laura Zeilinger defended the department’s capacity to take on the role. She highlighted its Parent and Adolescent Support Services Intensive Case Management program, a voluntary early intervention support service. She also said DHS could launch a pilot education program for high school students involved in violent crime to get personalized support at an alternative school site staffed with social workers.

Eduardo Ferrer, policy director of Georgetown’s Juvenile Justice Initiative, agrees that DHS is better suited to address truant and chronically absent children.

“The child welfare system is often seen as being very punitive and often can be punitive. And so families don’t trust it, they don’t engage with it,” Ferrer said in an interview. “The Department of Human Services does have very high-quality programming when it comes to young people.”

CFSA Director Robert Matthews departed from his predecessor’s stance in asserting that DHS is better suited to support truancy cases than CFSA. Although Mendelson argued to keep the status quo and that it’s within CFSA’s responsibility to provide support services, Matthews believes CFSA’s involvement does more harm than good and has historically referred support services to community-based organizations.

“The involvement of child welfare has not moved the needle in improving chronic absenteeism nationally,” Matthews said. “We do have a supportive agency in doing our work. But I want to be very clear that when we come knocking at the door, it is not as if families are welcoming CFSA in their home by virtue of what could result in their child getting separated from them.”

Bowser’s bill would also direct the attorney general’s office to prosecute parents of students who’ve accrued 25 or more absences. They could alternatively receive a referral to mandatory participation with DHS for a family conference or the Alternatives to the Court Experience Diversionary program.

First Assistant Attorney General Lauren Haggerty asserted that prosecution is not the answer to truancy and that early intervention handled by a central agency should be a key provision in the forthcoming legislation. 

“While prosecution of students or parents may seem appealing in the abstract it makes little sense when applied to truancy,” Haggerty said. “When we prosecute a child or their parent for truancy, the court cannot help the parent find a job or department nor can order tutoring services or put a stop to bullying. The court cannot provide any of the social services and support needed to remove barriers to attendance.

“Ultimately, the child or parent will likely be referred back to the same report support services at other district agencies except this time we send them with a criminal record,” Haggerty said.

Illness, trauma, transportation, housing, and community violence are all barriers that can stop students from coming to school, several public witnesses noted. They might also struggle academically, socially or behaviorally, be disengaged, or have misconceptions, such as not understanding the impact of absences. 

Councilmembers and witnesses were largely supportive of the Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy Reduction Amendment Act’s provisions that require data collection (though some expressed concerns over increased workload for teachers) with the goal of identifying the root causes of why some kids miss so much school.

“Let’s make sure we get the right solution to this complex problem because all of our students have a lot of good stuff in them,” Washington Teachers Union Vice President Regina Bell said.

Thursday: Mdou Moctar at the 9:30 Club

The Nigerien guitarist has come a long way from his first U.S. tour in 2017, when his whirlwind immersion in Washington culture included a gig at the Library of Congress and a three-day residency at Episcopal High School before culminating in a headlining performance at the Black Cat. In May, Moctar released Funeral for Justice, his second album on Matador Records, graduating from small stages and, at times, restrained folkish rock to a huge, positively head-banging rock sound. And to think he learned how to play on a homemade instrument. Moctar is modest about his distinct musical voice, explaining, “I don’t know what rock is exactly … I only know how to play in my style.” With his latest album, Moctar lends his love for ZZ Top to a crucial message. In “Funeral for Justice,” he pleads (in translation), “African leaders, hear my burning question, Why does your ear only heed France and America?” Mdou Moctar plays at 7:30 p.m. on June 27 at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. 930.com. $28. —Pat Padua

Friday: Pride Poem-a-Day Reading at Little District Books

Get ready to work those philosophical cogs like Aristotle on a sunny day in ancient Greece, because summer is the perfect time to grab one of those poetry collections gathering dust on your bookshelf for an afternoon visit to your favorite park bench. But D.C. doesn’t have the dry, mild Mediterranean climate the philosopher king enjoyed. You might find yourself desperately scanning for meaning in prose, searching for when line-breaking hyphens are stylistic or functional, wracking the last cells in your brain to grasp Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” as the heat numbs all sensibilities. Yeah, hot reader summer is not going so well. Don’t lose faith, weary reader! There’s a better way to immerse yourself in literature: Hear it from the poets themselves—in an air-conditioned room! The annual DC Pride Poems project is holding its Poem-a-Day Reading on June 28, with four of D.C.’s accomplished LGBTQIA poets. For the uninitiated, DC Pride Poems releases a video of a poem reading every day for the 30 days of June in honor of Pride Month; some of those featured poets will be reading at the event. Listen to the free-form of Richard Hamilton, author of Rest Us and Discordant, and Kim Roberts, author of six poetry books and guidebook A Literary Guide to Washington, D.C.: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston. Or indulge in the critical lens of Natasha Sajé, author of five poetry books including The Future Will Call You Something Else, and Dan Vera, author of two poetry collections and co-editor of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands. The diversity and richness of D.C.’s queer poets will be celebrated this Friday. The four poets perform at 7 p.m. on June 28 at Little District Books, 737 8th St. SE. littledistrictbooks.com. Free. —Lizzy Rager

Saturday: FIGHTMASTER at the Atlantis

E.R. Fightmaster is most recognizable for their star turn in Grey’s Anatomy, a two-season stint on Hulu’s Shrill, and their cameo in Lucy Dacus’ “Night Shift” music video. An accomplished and history-making actor, they’re now embracing being a multihyphenate artist, creating music under their surname FIGHTMASTER. Their debut EP, Violence, came out last year and their sophomore project, Bloodshed Baby, was released earlier this month. Both EP names misleadingly evoke an aggressive intensity that their music doesn’t possess. FIGHTMASTER’s music is tender, twangy, and, above all, explicitly queer. Dancing on the tiled floor of the Atlantis as FIGHTMASTER croons onstage sounds like the perfect closing to Pride … or the perfect precursor to Orville Peck at the Anthem the following night (see next City Light). FIGHTMASTER plays at 8 p.m. on June 29 at the Atlantis, 2047 9th St. NW. theatlantis.com. $18. —Serena Zets 

Sunday: Orville Peck at the Anthem 

Orville Peck, the masked country singer-songwriter, continues to raise his profile. He’s featured on the new Willie Nelson album and Nelson is featured on his new record for two different versions of “Cowboys Are Secretly Quite Fond of Each Other.” Special guests like Diplo and Kylie Minogue are featured on Peck’s newest single, “Midnight Ride.” Elton John and Midland are some of the guests on his May EP of duets. But bigger doesn’t entirely mean better. Other than “Miénteme” with Bu Cuaron, Stampede: Vol 1. is a skippable entry into his otherwise stellar catalog. The genre hopping may be an important exercise for the 36-year-old musician, but he tends to be at his best when focused. Fingers crossed the LP version of Stampede, due to be released August 2, will be on par with the sonically ambitious Bronco from 2022 and his utterly fantastic 2019 debut record, Pony. On just two full-lengths, the South African musician who first made waves as a drummer in a Canadian indie rock band before pivoting to a new sound and persona, has proven to be one of the best modern frontpersons. Though his trajectory sounds like a Mad Libs-inspired parlor trick, there’s nothing gimmicky about his music. The sound is steeped in what initially made country music fantastic and his vocal delivery is superior to some of his 1990s country icons turned 2020s collaborators. Orville Peck may be a stage name from a seasoned performer, but his material is both powerful and easy to relate to. Based on the first few weeks of the Stampede tour, expect a healthy amount of the first two records. This is a performer playing larger and larger rooms with each tour cycle (he was at the 9:30 Club for two nights in 2022 and Union Stage in 2019), and if his star continues to rise, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him in an amphitheater or arena the next time he’s in the DMV. Orville Peck plays at 7 p.m. on June 30 at the Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. theanthemdc.com. $60–$85. —Brandon Wetherbee

Ongoing: Neuroland by Michal Gavish at the American Association for the Advancement of Science

The scientifically inclined art of Michal Gavish, a D.C.-based multimedia artist, is informed by her previous career as a research chemist. In her exhibit Neuroland, Gavish seeks to answer, “How do you picture a brain”—not the wrinkly pink organ per se, but rather the “network of neurons that extend through the body and make up a person’s thoughts and personality—the chemical and electrical webs that make us all both similar and unique?” Gavish’s works include myriad portrayals of dendritic shapes, some in stand-alone paintings on canvas or paper, and some blowing gently on veils of shiny, diaphanous fabric. Indeed, the more layers of translucent, satiny fabric she uses—up to four ply in some works—the more convincing the illusion of motion within the neural system. For a layperson, it’s hard to know how true-to-life Gavish’s biological portrayals are; dopamine is rendered in violet, adrenaline in green, and serotonin in magenta. One of her more intricate paintings, of melatonin, calls to mind a twin-peaked blue mountain with white waterfalls flowing into a blue green pool. Whether or not this depiction is literal, it certainly seems like a reasonable metaphor for the hormone that plays a role in sleep. Michal Gavish’s Neuroland runs through Sept. 30 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Ave. NW. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. aaas.org. Free. —Louis Jacobson