As the mountains and trees of California’s Napa Valley drift past the car window, 6-year-old David Kastner is deep in conversation with his father. The conversation is a familiar one, shifting naturally from gravity to electromagnetism. For as long as he can remember, scientific curiosity has been a key part of his conversations on these […]
Hamsa Balakrishnan, the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) at MIT, has been appointed associate dean of the MIT School of Engineering effective Aug. 1. As associate dean, Balakrishnan will focus on efforts to attract, retain, and support top talent across all academic levels in the School of […]
No one is born a world-class scientist. Instead, their skills are built over many years of education, networking, mentorship, and work in laboratories or in the field. That’s the fundamental insight behind the not-for-profit organization Future African Scientist, which is seeking to unleash the scientific potential of the continent by providing African students and early-career […]
Seen from a distance, MIT’s Cecil and Ida Green Building (Building 54) — designed by renowned architect and MIT alumnus I.M. Pei ’40 — is one of the most iconic buildings on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, skyline. Home to the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), the 21-story concrete structure soars over campus, […]
Dean Agustín Rayo and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences recently welcomed nine new professors to the MIT community. They arrive with diverse backgrounds and vast knowledge in their areas of research. Sonya Atalay joins the Anthropology Section as a professor. She is a public anthropologist and archaeologist who studies Indigenous science protocols, […]
Each year, new MIT graduate students are tasked with the momentous decision of choosing a research group that will serve as their home for the next several years. Among many questions they face: join an established research effort, or work with a new faculty member in a growing group? Professors Cynthia Breazeal, leading a group […]
Nathanael Jenkins had always wanted to study aerospace engineering, he just hadn’t quite found the right place for it. He had explored options close to his home in Hampshire, U.K., but had never considered studying in the United States. That changed when a family vacation brought him to the MIT campus in 2018. “MIT felt […]
This summer, a group of MIT students traveled to Sicily’s southeastern coast to learn about threats to local communities related to sea level rise. They visited ancient archeological sites that are in danger of being wiped out, and worked with local college students on preservation and adaptation techniques. This past January, another group of MIT […]
It’s one of the paradoxes of economic development: Many countries currently offer large subsidies to their industrial fishing fleets, even though the harms of overfishing are well-known. Governments might be willing to end this practice, if they saw that its costs outweighed its benefits. But each country, acting individually, faces an incentive to keep subsidies […]
The Climate Project at MIT has appointed leaders for each of its six focal areas, or Climate Missions, President Sally Kornbluth announced in a letter to the MIT community today. Introduced in February, the Climate Project at MIT is a major new effort to change the trajectory of global climate outcomes for the better over […]
