He made linear algebra fun
The following series of numbers might help to summarize the MIT career of MathWorks Professor of Mathematics Gilbert “Gil” Strang ’55, who taught his last class on May 15. 3+2+61=66, or 75% of his life Strang has spent 66 of his 88 years at MIT — as a student, an instructor, and a faculty member. […]
Professor Emeritus Arnoldo Hax, who reprioritized corporate strategy, dies at 87
Arnoldo Hax, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Management Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an operations management expert who introduced a customer-centered approach to competitive strategy with his Delta Model, died April 20. He was 87. Hax joined MIT Sloan in 1973 as a member of the Operations Management group. An […]
CoCo: A real-time co-creative learning platform for young people
CoCo is a new co-creative learning platform that empowers educators to engage children and teens in an endless variety of collaborative creative computing experiences with peers — regardless of whether they are sitting next to one another in a classroom or connecting remotely across continents. The platform supports real-time collaboration across multiple types of interactive […]
Join the Grad Blog editorial team!
The MIT Grad Blog serves as an avenue for MIT students to share their experiences with peers and prospective students. As an editor, you would help bloggers like you hone their story into a compelling post. We are looking for strong writers who can edit and collaborate on organizational work for the blog. You will typically spend […]
Join the Grad Blog editorial team!
Dear MIT grad students, We’re excited to announce that the MIT Grad Blog is searching for several new editors! As you all know, the Grad Blog serves as an avenue for MIT students to share their experiences with peers and prospective students. As an editor, you would help bloggers like you hone their story into […]
Help select Committed to Caring profs!
Do you want to help select the next group of faculty honored as Committed to Caring? This program recognizes faculty members who have gone above and beyond to make a positive impact in the lives of graduate students. By joining the selection committee, you can help keep the process student-driven! Your commitment will be to […]
Nominate your caring prof by July 4th!
Do you know a faculty mentor who goes above and beyond to make an impact in the lives of graduate students? Nominate them as a Committed to Caring professor! This is a wonderful way to say thanks for help with professional development, creating a great work environment, or whatever else they do for you and […]
Celebrating the impact of IDSS
The “interdisciplinary approach” is something that has been lauded for decades for its ability to break down silos and create new integrated approaches to research. For Munther Dahleh, founding director of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), showing the community that data science and statistics can transcend individual disciplines and form a […]
Tackling the MIT campus’s top energy consumers, building by building
When staff in MIT’s Department of Facilities would visualize energy use and carbon-associated emissions by campus buildings, Building 46 always stood out — attributed to its energy intensity, which accounted for 8 percent of MIT’s total campus energy use. This high energy draw was not surprising, as the building is home of the Brain and […]
Kelsey Merrill ’22, MEng ’23 named to 2023 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll
Kelsey Merrill ’22, MEng ’23, a master’s of engineering student in electrical engineering and computer science, has been recognized by the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge (ALL IN) for her outstanding efforts to advance nonpartisan democratic engagement at MIT. She joins 175 students nationwide named to the ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll for promoting […]
Civil discourse project to launch at MIT
A new project on civil discourse aims to promote open and civil discussion of difficult topics on the MIT campus. The project, which will launch this fall, includes a speaker series and curricular activities in MIT’s Concourse program for first-year students. MIT philosophers Alex Byrne and Brad Skow from the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy […]
Escape the lab: Summer fun!
In Cambridge, summer is a season you just can’t beat. The sunshine is fierce, radiant, and clarifying. The heat is a welcome break from the chill, damp months of spring and winter. People bloom from the secret recesses of their homes and step out into the light, tentatively blinking, stretching, unfolding. Yet somehow you find […]
MIT community members who work to eradicate sexual violence recognized at 2023 Change-Maker Awards
On April 24, MIT celebrated outstanding students and employees at the annual Change-Maker Awards for their diligent work to eradicate sexual misconduct and support survivors. These architects of positive change exemplify one of MIT’s core values: striving to make our community a more humane and welcoming place where all can thrive. Hosted by MIT Violence […]
Alvaro Sahagun receives the 2023 OGE Service Award at the RISE Awards
A collaborative effort of the Institute Community and Equity Office, Intercultural Engagement (i.e.), LBGTQ+ Services, Office of the First Year, Office of Graduate Education, Office of Minority Education, and Women and Gender Services — the RISE AWARDS celebrates MIT faculty, staff, and students on their work with diversity, inclusion, and social justice on and off […]
Understanding boiling to help the nuclear industry and space missions
To launch extended missions in space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is borrowing a page from the nuclear engineering industry: It is trying to understand how boiling works. Planning for long-term missions has NASA researching ways of packing the least amount of cryogenic fuel possible for efficient liftoff. One potential solution is to […]
Six ways MIT is taking action on climate
From reuse and recycling to new carbon markets, events during Earth Month at MIT spanned an astonishing range of ideas and approaches to tackling the climate crisis. The MIT Climate Nucleus offered funding to departments and student organizations to develop programming that would showcase the countless initiatives underway to make a better world. Here are […]
First-of-its-kind Indigenous immersive incubator gathers on MIT campus
An historic delegation of 10 Indigenous artists and advisors recently gathered on MIT’s campus to share their work with each other and with the MIT community. The theme of the ISO Indigenous Incubator at MIT gathering was “Indigenous Knowledge and Immersive Technologies.” Led by the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO) of Canada and hosted by the […]
George Clark, professor emeritus and X-ray astronomy leader, dies at 94
MIT Professor Emeritus George Whipple Clark PhD ’52, an astrophysicist who was highly influential in X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, died on April 6 in Boston. He was 94. Clark employed buckets, balloons, rockets, and satellites in his nearly lifelong pursuit to understand the nature and origins of cosmic rays, gamma rays, and X-rays. Clark discovered […]
3 Questions: Can disused croplands help mitigate climate change?
As the world struggles to meet internationally agreed targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, methods of removing carbon dioxide such as reforestation of cleared areas have become an increasingly important strategy. But little attention has been paid to the potential for abandoned or marginal croplands to be restored to natural vegetation as an additional carbon […]
Architectural heritage like you haven’t seen it before
The shrine of Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa is a spectacular mosque in Balkh, Afghanistan. Also known as the “Green Mosque” due to the brilliant color of its tiled and painted dome, the intricately decorated building dates to the 16th century. If it were more accessible, the Green Mosque would attract many visitors. But Balkh is […]
Six MIT SHASS educators receive 2023 Levitan Teaching Awards
Six individuals have received the James A. and Ruth Levitan Teaching Award for 2023. The award, given annually by the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), honors superlative teachers across the school, who have been nominated by MIT students. The 2023 winners are: Nicholas Ackert in the Department of Political Science, Nilma […]
Toward more flexible and rapid prototyping of electronic devices
Whether you are a new employee, a gymnast, or a bendy straw manufacturer, one trait is ideal across the board: flexibility. The same can now be said about prototyping electronic devices. While designers typically test out their designs on “breadboards,” or thin plastic boards that can hold together electronic components, they are often stiff and […]
Poetechnics: A podcast at the intersection of poetic and technical knowledge
If you’re searching for a podcast about the intersections between poetic and technical knowledge, look no further. Poetechnics is a new audio series from the MIT Literature Section produced by Lecturer Michael Lutz, whose scholarly interests include early modern British literature and culture; media studies, including digital media and videogames; philosophy and literature; and the […]
Is medicine ready for AI? Doctors, computer scientists, and policymakers are cautiously optimistic
The advent of generative artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT has prompted renewed calls for AI in health care, and its support base only appears to be broadening. The second annual MIT-MGB AI Cures Conference, hosted on April 24 by the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic), saw its attendance nearly […]
Paula Hammond wins faculty’s Killian Award for 2023-24
Paula Hammond, a leading innovator in nanotechnology and head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2023-2024 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award. Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor, was honored for her work designing novel polymers and nanomaterials, which have extensive applications in fields including medicine and energy. […]
J-WAFS announces 2023 seed grant recipients
Today, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) announced its ninth round of seed grants to support innovative research projects at MIT. The grants are designed to fund research efforts that tackle challenges related to water and food for human use, with the ultimate goal of creating meaningful impact as the world […]
John Hart named head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
John Hart, MIT professor of mechanical engineering, has been named the new head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, effective July 1. “John has played a vital role shaping MIT’s manufacturing ecosystem over the past decade. He is also tremendously dedicated to the mechanical engineering community at MIT,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT […]
MIT School of Science announces 2023 Infinite Mile Awards
Since 2001, the MIT School of Science has awarded Infinite Mile Awards to staff members who go the extra mile to make the Institute a better place. Nominated by their colleagues, the winners receive a monetary award and are invited to attend a celebratory event with family, friends, nominators, and recipients of the Infinite Expansion […]
Mike Barrett: Climate goals may take longer, but we’ll get there
The Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, and the war in Ukraine have combined to cause unavoidable delays in implementation of Massachusetts’s ambitious goals to tackle climate change, state Senator Mike Barrett said during his April 19 presentation at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Earth Day Colloquium. But, he added, he remains optimistic that the goals will be […]
Thirteen from MIT win 2023 Fulbright fellowships
Thirteen MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have been awarded Fulbright fellowships and will embark on projects overseas in the 2023-24 grant year. Four other MIT affiliates were offered awards but declined them to pursue other opportunities. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers American citizen students and recent […]
Four researchers with MIT ties earn 2023 Schmidt Science Fellowships
Four researchers with ties to MIT have been named Schmidt Science Fellows this year. Lillian Chin ’17, SM ’19; Neil Dalvie PD ’22, PhD ’22; Suong Nguyen, and Yirui Zhang SM ’19, PhD ’23 are among the 32 exceptional early-career scientists worldwide chosen to receive the prestigious fellowships. “History provides powerful examples of what happens […]
Five MIT faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences for 2023
The National Academy of Sciences has elected 120 members and 23 international members, including five faculty members from MIT. Joshua Angrist, Gang Chen, Catherine Drennan, Dina Katabi, and Gregory Stephanopoulos were elected in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Membership to the National Academy of Sciences is one of the highest […]
Adventures in the Pappalardo Lab
In about 2010, working as a principal and director of mechanical engineering at Continuum, a global innovation firm, Daniel Braunstein says he felt that what he was providing wasn’t as meaningful as he would like. Luckily for MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE), he found an ideal next step. “I’m kind of cautious about telling […]
3 Questions: Jacob Andreas on large language models
Words, data, and algorithms combine, An article about LLMs, so divine. A glimpse into a linguistic world, Where language machines are unfurled. It was a natural inclination to task a large language model (LLM) like CHATGPT with creating a poem that delves into the topic of large language models, and subsequently utilize said poem as […]
2023: Hope Dargan
“Warm and engaging,” Hope Dargan is considered “a role model for all teaching assistants” by her fellow teaching assistants and an overall “rockstar instructor” in computer science by her students. In honor of Hope’s intuitive and skillful teaching, she was honored with the 2023 Goodwin Medal. She reaches students at all levels of experience, from […]
Success at the intersection of technology and finance
Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin had some free advice for an at-capacity crowd of MIT students at the Wong Auditorium during a campus visit in April. “If you find yourself in a career where you’re not learning,” he told them, “it’s time to change jobs. In this world, if you’re not learning, you can […]
