News

Charting the landscape at MIT

July 6, 2022

Norman Magnuson’s MIT career — culminating in his role as manager of grounds services in the Department of Facilities for the past 20 years — started in 1974 with a summer job. Fresh out of high school and unsure of his next step, Magnuson’s father, Norman Sr., a housing manager at MIT, encouraged him to […]

3 Questions: Marking the 10th anniversary of the Higgs boson discovery

June 30, 2022

This July 4 marks 10 years since the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought particle that imparts mass to all elementary particles. The elusive particle was the last missing piece in the Standard Model of particle physics, which is our most complete model of the universe. In early summer of 2012, signs of the […]

Kerry Emanuel: A climate scientist and meteorologist in the eye of the storm

June 29, 2022

Kerry Emanuel once joked that whenever he retired, he would start a “hurricane safari” so other people could experience what it’s like to fly into the eye of a hurricane. “All of a sudden, the turbulence stops, the sun comes out, bright sunshine, and it’s amazingly calm. And you’re in this grand stadium [of clouds […]

Exploring emerging topics in artificial intelligence policy

June 28, 2022

Members of the public sector, private sector, and academia convened for the second AI Policy Forum Symposium last month to explore critical directions and questions posed by artificial intelligence in our economies and societies. The virtual event, hosted by the AI Policy Forum (AIPF) — an undertaking by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing to […]

MIT-WHOI Joint Program announces new leadership

June 27, 2022

After 13 years as director of the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, Ed Boyle, professor of ocean geochemistry in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), is stepping down at the end of June. Professor Mick Follows, who holds joint appointments in EAPS and […]

Making art through computation

June 26, 2022

Chelsi Cocking is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the human body with the help of computers. For her work, she develops sophisticated software to use as her artistic tools, including facial detection techniques, body tracking software, and machine learning algorithms. Cocking’s interest in the human body stems from her childhood training in modern dance. Growing […]

Mining social media data for social good

June 22, 2022

For Erin Walk, who has loved school since she was a little girl, pursuing a graduate degree always seemed like a given. As a mechanical engineering major at Harvard University with a minor in government, she figured that going to graduate school in engineering would be the next logical step. However, during her senior year, […]

Evan Leppink: Seeking a way to better stabilize the fusion environment

June 15, 2022

“Fusion energy was always one of those kind-of sci-fi technologies that you read about,” says nuclear science and engineering PhD candidate Evan Leppink. He’s recalling the time before fusion became a part of his daily hands-on experience at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he is studying a unique way to drive current in […]

Center for International Studies honors Robert Wilhelm

June 14, 2022

The Center for International Studies (CIS) has long been valued as one of the world’s premier, university-based global research and education centers. A hallmark of the center’s many programs is the opportunity for academics and practitioners to work together on policy-relevant problems. The Robert E. Wilhelm Fellows Program is among the center’s most prestigious fellowships […]

Helping renewable energy projects succeed in local communities

June 12, 2022

Jungwoo Chun makes surprising discoveries about sustainability initiatives by zooming in on local communities. His discoveries lie in understanding how renewable energy infrastructure develops at a local level. With so many stakeholders in a community — citizens, government officials, businesses, and other organizations — the development process gets complicated very quickly. Chun works to unpack […]