The stars and other celestial objects truly aligned on MIT’s campus Monday. After a weekend of rain, the community was treated to clear skies and high temperatures to view the only partial eclipse for the next 20 years. Community members took in the interstellar anomaly in gatherings large and small. Although many traveled north to […]
For Julie E. Greenberg SM ’89, PhD ’94, what began with a middle-of-the-night phone call from overseas became a gratifying career of study, research, mentoring, advocacy, and guiding of the office of a unique program with a mission to educate the next generation of clinician-scientists and engineers. In 1987, Greenberg was a computer engineering graduate […]
The MIT Department of Economics is launching a new program this year that will pair faculty with predoctoral fellows. “MIT economics right now is historically strong,” says Jon Gruber, the Ford Professor of Economics and department head of MIT economics. “To remain in that position involves having the resources to stay on the cutting edge […]
Encouraged by her family, Lavender Tessmer explored various creative pursuits from a young age, particularly textiles, including knitting and crocheting. When she came to MIT, she figured that working with textiles would remain just a hobby; she never expected them to become integral to her career path. However, when she interviewed for a research assistant […]
A growing number of tools enable users to make online data representations, like charts, that are accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. However, most tools require an existing visual chart that can then be converted into an accessible format. This creates barriers that prevent blind and low-vision users from building their […]
This month in the ACM Journal on Responsible Computing, MIT graduate student Jonathan Zong SM ’20 and co-author J. Nathan Matias SM ’13, PhD ’17 of the Cornell Citizens and Technology Lab examine how the notion of refusal can open new avenues in the field of data ethics. In their open-access report, “Data Refusal From Below: A Framework […]
“I want to tell you that you don’t have to be just one thing,” said Katie Eckermann ’03, MEng ’04, director of business development at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) at a networking event for students considering careers in hard technologies. “There is a huge wealth of different jobs and roles within the semiconductor industry.” Eckermann […]
Hydrosocial displacement refers to the idea that resolving water conflict in one area can shift the conflict to a different area. The concept was coined by Scott Odell, a visiting researcher in MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). As part of ESI’s Program on Mining and the Circular Economy, Odell researches the impacts of extractive industries […]
In our current age of artificial intelligence, computers can generate their own “art” by way of diffusion models, iteratively adding structure to a noisy initial state until a clear image or video emerges. Diffusion models have suddenly grabbed a seat at everyone’s table: Enter a few words and experience instantaneous, dopamine-spiking dreamscapes at the intersection […]
MIT has a rich history of productive collaboration between the arts and the sciences, anchored by the conviction that these two conventionally opposed ways of thinking can form a deeply generative symbiosis that serves to advance and humanize new technologies. This ethos was made tangible when the Bauhaus artist and educator György Kepes established the […]
