News

Presidential Fellowship Moves Innovation and Research Forward

March 27, 2025

In fields as varied as computer architecture, behavioral economics, data activism, and planetary science, MIT Presidential Fellowship recipients and alumni credit the prestigious award with improving their research, expanding their opportunities, and broadening their academic network. The donor-supported program, administered by the Office of Graduate Education in coordination with the Office of the Provost, provides fellows with tuition, a monthly […]

MIT affiliates named 2024 AAAS Fellows

March 27, 2025

Six current MIT affiliates and 27 additional MIT alumni have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  The 2024 class of AAAS Fellows includes 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators, spanning all 24 of AAAS disciplinary sections, who are being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements. Noubar […]

Women’s swimming and diving wins first NCAA Division III National Championship

March 25, 2025

The MIT women’s swimming and diving team won the program’s first national championship, jumping ahead of New York University by erasing a 20-point deficit as the Engineers finished with 497 points at the 2025 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championships, hosted by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference March 19-22 at the Greensboro Aquatic Center […]

A new way to make graphs more accessible to blind and low-vision readers

March 25, 2025

Bar graphs and other charts provide a simple way to communicate data, but are, by definition, difficult to translate for readers who are blind or low-vision. Designers have developed methods for converting these visuals into “tactile charts,” but guidelines for doing so are extensive (for example, the Braille Authority of North America’s 2022 guidebook is […]

New platform lets anyone rapidly prototype large, sturdy interactive structures

March 18, 2025

Prototyping large structures with integrated electronics, like a chair that can monitor someone’s sitting posture, is typically a laborious and wasteful process. One might need to fabricate multiple versions of the chair structure via 3D printing and laser cutting, generating a great deal of waste, before assembling the frame, grafting sensors and other fragile electronics […]

Three economists with MIT ties win BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award

March 17, 2025

Olivier Blanchard PhD ’77, the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics Emeritus, has been named a winner of the 2025 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management for “profoundly influencing modern macroeconomic analysis by establishing rigorous foundations for the study of business cycle fluctuations,” as described in the BBVA Foundation’s award […]

Making airfield assessments automatic, remote, and safe

March 13, 2025

In 2022, Randall Pietersen, a civil engineer in the U.S. Air Force, set out on a training mission to assess damage at an airfield runway, practicing “base recovery” protocol after a simulated attack. For hours, his team walked over the area in chemical protection gear, radioing in geocoordinates as they documented damage and looked for […]

Compassionate leadership

March 13, 2025

Professors Emery Brown and Hamsa Balakrishnan work in vastly different fields, but are united by their deep commitment to mentoring students. While each has contributed to major advancements in their respective areas — statistical neuroscience for Brown, and large-scale transportation systems for Balakrishnan — their students might argue that their greatest impact comes from the […]

Why rationality can push people in different directions

March 5, 2025

It’s not a stretch to suggest that when we disagree with other people, we often regard them as being irrational. Kevin Dorst PhD ’19 has developed a body of research with surprising things to say about that. Dorst, an associate professor of philosophy at MIT, studies rationality: how we apply it, or think we do, […]

Developing materials for stellar performance in fusion power plants

March 4, 2025

When Zoe Fisher was in fourth grade, her art teacher asked her to draw her vision of a dream job on paper. At the time, those goals changed like the flavor of the week in an ice cream shop — “zookeeper” featured prominently for a while — but Zoe immediately knew what she wanted to […]