News

“Each of us holds a piece of the solution”

June 10, 2025

MIT has an unparalleled history of bringing together interdisciplinary teams to solve pressing problems — think of the development of radar during World War II, or leading the international coalition that cracked the code of the human genome — but the challenge of climate change could demand a scale of collaboration unlike any that’s come […]

Envisioning a future where health care tech leaves some behind

June 9, 2025

Will the perfect storm of potentially life-changing, artificial intelligence-driven health care and the desire to increase profits through subscription models alienate vulnerable patients? For the third year in a row, MIT’s Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize asked students to describe, in 3,000 words or fewer, how advancements in computing could shape human society for the better […]

The scholar-warrior: How Erik Lin-Greenberg bridges academia and Air Force intelligence

June 6, 2025

At a time when the U.S. Department of Defense increasingly grapples with emerging technologies and their implications for national security, Erik Lin-Greenberg ’09, SM ’09 occupies a rare position at the intersection of theory and practice. The MIT political scientist and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve recently assumed command of the 820th […]

The math of politics and power

June 6, 2025

Every day, students at MIT come together to learn, work, play, and form communities large and small. Community Spotlight stories are intended to provide a glimpse inside the Institute’s classrooms, labs, and other gathering places to show how people come together, and how they share what it means to be part of MIT’s community of […]

Animation technique simulates the motion of squishy objects

June 6, 2025

Animators could create more realistic bouncy, stretchy, and squishy characters for movies and video games thanks to a new simulation method developed by researchers at MIT. Their approach allows animators to simulate rubbery and elastic materials in a way that preserves the physical properties of the material and avoids pitfalls like instability. The technique simulates […]

Scene at MIT: Reflecting on a shared journey toward MIT PhDs

June 5, 2025

“My wife, Erin Tevonian, and I both graduated last week with our PhDs in biological engineering, a program we started together when we arrived at MIT in fall 2019. At the time, we had already been dating for three years, having met as classmates in the bioengineering program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign […]

Guardian Ag’s crop-spraying drone is replacing dangerous pilot missions

June 5, 2025

Every year during the growing season, thousands of pilots across the country climb into small planes loaded with hundreds of pounds of pesticides and fly extremely close to the ground at upward of 140 miles an hour, unloading their cargo onto rows of corn, cotton, and soybeans. The world of agricultural aviation is as dangerous […]

Highlights from MIT’s first-ever Artfinity festival

June 4, 2025

When people think of MIT, they may first think of code, circuits, and cutting-edge science. But the school has a rich history of interweaving art, science, and technology in unexpected and innovative ways — and that’s never been more clear than with the Institute’s latest festival, Artfinity: A Celebration of Creativity and Community at MIT. After […]

Teaching AI models what they don’t know

June 3, 2025

Artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT provide plausible-sounding answers to any question you might ask. But they don’t always reveal the gaps in their knowledge or areas where they’re uncertain. That problem can have huge consequences as AI systems are increasingly used to do things like develop drugs, synthesize information, and drive autonomous cars. Now, the […]

MIT students and postdoc explore the inner workings of Capitol Hill

June 2, 2025

This spring, 25 MIT students and a postdoc traveled to Washington, where they met with congressional offices to advocate for federal science funding and specific, science-based policies based on insights from their research on pressing issues — including artificial intelligence, health, climate and ocean science, energy, and industrial decarbonization. Organized annually by the Science Policy […]