News

Winter break activities & connections

December 11, 2025

Note: If you need support while the Institute is closed, please don’t hesitate to use these resources. Free or discounted tickets to museums and arts events Take some time to feed your soul! If you plan ahead a little, MITAC (MIT Activities Committee) and Arts Access offer discounted tickets to concerts, museums, theater performances, ski […]

A day in the life of MIT PhD student Alex Busch

December 10, 2025

“As a student of both sociology and economics, MIT Sloan was the ideal place for me to combine both disciplines,” says Alex Busch, a PhD student. “MIT Sloan is unique in the freedom it offers its PhD students to become the researchers they aspire to be: I take classes in management, economics, and sociology, all […]

MIT’s Science Policy Initiative holds 15th annual Executive Visit Days

December 9, 2025

“To really understand science policy, you have to step outside the lab and see it in action,” says Jack Fletcher, an MIT PhD student in nuclear science and engineering and chair of the 15th annual Executive Visit Days (ExVD). Inspired by this mindset, ExVD — jointly organized by the MIT Science Policy Initiative (SPI) and the MIT Washington […]

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya visits MIT

December 8, 2025

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya visited MIT on Friday, engaging in a wide-ranging discussion about policy issues and research aims at an event also featuring Rep. Jake Auchincloss MBA ’16 of Massachusetts. The forum consisted of a dialogue between Auchincloss and Bhattacharya, followed by a question-and-answer session with an audience that included […]

Paula Hammond named dean of the School of Engineering

December 5, 2025

Paula Hammond ’84, PhD ’93, an Institute Professor and MIT’s executive vice provost, has been named dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, effective Jan. 16. She will succeed Anantha Chandrakasan, the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, who was appointed MIT’s provost in July. Hammond, who was head of the Department of Chemical […]

MADMEC winners develop spray-on coating to protect power lines from ice

December 5, 2025

A spray-on coating to keep power lines standing through an ice storm may not be the obvious fix for winter outages — but it’s exactly the kind of innovation that happens when MIT students tackle a sustainability challenge. “The big threat to the power line network is winter icing that causes huge amounts of downed […]

Cultivating confidence and craft across disciplines

December 5, 2025

Both Rohit Karnik and Nathan Wilmers personify the type of mentorship that any student would be fortunate to receive — one rooted in intellectual rigor and grounded in humility, empathy, and personal support. They show that transformative academic guidance is not only about solving research problems, but about lifting up the people working on them. […]

MIT researchers “speak objects into existence” using AI and robotics

December 5, 2025

Generative AI and robotics are moving us ever closer to the day when we can ask for an object and have it created within a few minutes. In fact, MIT researchers have developed a speech-to-reality system, an AI-driven workflow that allows them to provide input to a robotic arm and “speak objects into existence,” creating […]

Exploring how AI will shape the future of work

December 1, 2025

“MIT hasn’t just prepared me for the future of work — it’s pushed me to study it. As AI systems become more capable, more of our online activity will be carried out by artificial agents. That raises big questions: How should we design these systems to understand our preferences? What happens when AI begins making […]

The unsung role of logistics in the US military

December 1, 2025

The U.S. military is mighty, formidable, and singular in influence, stationed in at least 128 overseas bases across 51 countries. Concealed beneath the United States’ biggest investment is a surprise: The military was responsible for the birth of an industry. Today, that industry is essential for its operations. “If you think about it, logistics started […]