For Hugh Smith, the challenge of building an energy-secure future isn’t about creating the world’s “best” battery. It’s about designing the right battery for the right job.As a fifth-year PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Smith studies sodium-ion batteries, an emerging alternative to the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from smartphones […]
This spring, 25 MIT students and postdocs traveled to Washington to meet with congressional staffers and advocate for sustained federal investment in scientific research. With recent cuts to National Science Foundation programs and continued uncertainty surrounding the federal research budget, these conversations were especially timely. Over the course of just two days, participants met with […]
MIT researchers are set to contribute to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, with 15 collaborative projects among those selected for funding under Genesis Phase I, DOE announced Wednesday. The Genesis Mission, a national initiative, intends to build “the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform” by incentivizing cross-sector collaborations that leverage AI, supercomputing, quantum […]
In Professor Anna-Christina Eilers’ research group, mentorship happens through small, meaningful gestures: thoughtful feedback on a draft, a check-in after a rough week, and a readiness to help when things get tough. For her students, these everyday moments have become a defining feature of her approach. An observational astrophysicist, Eilers studies how the universe evolved […]
For nuclear to be considered as a viable clean energy source, it has to be competitively priced and economical to produce. Lauren Fortier, a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), is helping the cause by developing remote operation protocols for autonomous control of nuclear plants. After an undergraduate degree […]
Growing up in Colombia, Diana Grass had a simple response whenever someone told her something was impossible. “I’ll figure it out.” It’s a phrase that she still lives by today as PhD candidate in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST), as she develops soft bioelectronic devices to study the physiological signals through […]
Engineers often use vision-language models to produce new designs, such as for airplane or automobile components. To simulate how those components will perform in realistic situations, they’ll use tried-and-true computer-aided design (CAD) software to generate 3D models of those designs, which they can put through virtual crash or durability tests. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere […]
Millions of people are now designing their own personalized artificial intelligence companions, yet most have little idea how those creations will actually behave. In a new paper, MIT Media Lab Assistant Professor Pat Pataranutaporn and his graduate student researchers Anthony Baez and Sheer Karny introduce “neural transparency,” a tool that lets everyday users glimpse inside […]
Concrete is the most widely used building material on Earth, and producing it is one of the largest single sources of carbon emissions. One promising way to reduce its environmental footprint is to 3D-print concrete, laying it down bead by bead like a giant icing-piping robot. This process eliminates the labor-intensive formwork of pouring it […]
With Boston serving as a host city for the FIFA World Cup, the whole Bay State has soccer fever, including Henry Wang. As a child growing up in Dallas, sports were everything to him. Today, Wang is working on research that could impact some of the biggest sporting events in the world, including future World […]
