TechCrunch reporter Ron Miller highlights MIT’s role as a driving force behind the Greater Boston area’s success as a hub for startups. Emily Knight, president of The Engine Accelerator, notes that universities are breeding grounds for new ideas. “There is a lot of research and a lot of infant innovation being translated into companies coming out of these [Greater Boston area] universities,” Knight explains.
Boston.com reporters Zipporah Osei, Alex Svenson, Annie Jonas, and Kristina DaPonte spotlight the MIT Press Bookstore in their guide to independent bookstores in the Greater Boston area. “In the heart of Kendall Square, MIT Press Bookstore is ‘one of the only retail bookstores owned and operated by a university press,’” they write. “Part of the MIT Kendall Gateway, you’ll also find the MIT Museum, which ‘seeks to demystify some of the school’s opaque inner workings.’”
Domingo Godoy '14 speaks with WCVB reporter Emily Maher about running the 2024 Boston Marathon as a member of Team Brookline and his quest to raise money for the Brookline Education Foundation, which provides grants to teachers in the town’s public schools. Godoy, who ran the Boston Marathon in 2014 on the MIT Strong team in honor of Officer Sean Collier, recalls that seeing a lot of people the year after the Marathon bombing show up “to run, people that were basically injured at these events was pretty overwhelming.” This year, he’s looking forward to supporting his community and seeing his family and friends cheer him on. “They will be there with huge signs,” Godoy said. “I’m super pumped to get to Beacon Street, hopefully strong, and say hi to them."
Milena Pagán '11 speaks with Boston.com reporter Linda Laban about re-opening her bagel shop, Rebelle Bagels, in Kendall Square. Pagán, who earned a degree in chemical engineering before diving into the culinary world, explains that she felt it was a natural transition from engineering to food. “It’s not a traditional path, but they do have a lot in common,” Pagán explains. “Making bagels feels a lot like engineering.”
Boston.com reporter Natalie Gale spotlights the upcoming MIT Sustainability Summit, which will be held this year on April 26. The event, called ‘Systems Change,’ “aims to help bridge the ‘collaboration gap’ on climate solutions, bringing together ideas from different sectors like science, business, and policy making speed up solutions,” writes Gale.
Jared Sadoian ’10 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kara Baskin about his work as director of operations for Cambridge Street Hospitality. “My day consists of email and spreadsheets, and budgeting and planning and analysis,” says Sadoian. “At the same time, it’s very firmly rooted in guest-facing hospitality that most readers might be more familiar with: talking to guests and taking reservations and making sure that folks are happy in the restaurants, and solving problems. Maybe it’s making a drink. This job is all-encompassing, and I love it for that reason, because I ran away from the office life.”
The Engine Accelerator, a spinoff from The Engine, is a new unit designed to help early startups “get off the ground with a deeper level of support, including office and lab space,” reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Real estate is actually a big need of a company that is doing tough tech, but they need different types of real estate,” says Emily Knight, president of the Engine Accelerator.
Maya Levy '21 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear about “The 24-Hour T Ride,” a play written by Levy and friends as part of their work with the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble group. The group is “known to produce 24-hour shows in which only the title is decided on beforehand,” explains Levy. “You can expect silly incredibly local scenes that would not hold up if you performed it anywhere else. You can expect the actors to be having a wonderful time.”
Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay writes that Michael John Gorman, “a museum professional who has created and run several organizations devoted to science and the arts,” has been named the next director of the MIT Museum. At the MIT Museum, "Gorman inherits a dynamic new cultural venue replete with gallery space, forum areas, learning labs, a public maker hub, and collection of some 1.5 million objects,” Gay writes.
WBUR reporter Solon Kelleher spotlights “List Projects 29” – the final show in a series at the MIT List Visual Arts Center that focuses on “collaborations between artists.” The show features work from Brittni Ann Harvey and Harry Gould Harvey IV. “The artists co-founded the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art and share a vision for artist-led spaces and art that engages with the wider community,” writes Kelleher.
Keelin Caldwell, director of engagement for the MIT Museum, speaks with GBH host Jared Bowen about the MIT Museum’s After Dark series, including their upcoming event, “Beyond The Fold,” which will allow participants to explore the art and science of folding. Caldwell explains that the After Dark series happens monthly, noting “there is always a different theme, and that theme is an opportunity to both narrow in but stay broad, and we really try to have activities that appeal to a lot of different people.”
Architectural Record senior editor Leopoldo Villardi spotlights the new Kendall/MIT MBTA gateway. “Falling under the jurisdiction of the MBTA are three precisely canted volumes—one enclosing a staircase, another accommodating an escalator, and the last housing an elevator—that peek up above the ground plane and lead to the station below," writes Villardi. "But beyond these access points, the street level is ostensibly MIT’s campus. A sleek, streamlined canopy, supported by a field of 26-foot-tall columns, hovers over the three prismatic kiosks to unify the composition.”
Lecturer James Aloisi and several students from his urban planning and policy course write for Commonwealth Beacon about their proposals for creating a better public transportation connection between Kendall Square and Logan Airport. “It should not be acceptable that, in greater Boston in the 21st Century, a traveler cannot easily and conveniently connect by transit from one of the nation’s most important innovation and academic centers to the international airport, a mere three miles away,” writes Aloisi. “We can do better, and we must do better if we want to do more than just pretend that we live in a livable, sustainable region.”
Grace Colón PhD '95, a board member of the MIT Corporation, writes for The Hill about how to transform cities into biotech innovations hubs. “The best path to biotech success will be different for each city,” writes Colón. “But by building on institutional strengths, investing in workers, and knocking down barriers to success, there’s no reason more of them can’t get there.”
In a cartoon for The Boston Globe, Sage Stossel spotlights how during the Cambridge Science Festival researchers from the MIT AgeLab spoke about their work during a special presentation at the Cambridge Senior Center. As part of an effort to spur innovations aimed at improving the quality of life for people in their later years, AgeLab researchers have “pursued an array of projects, from researching safer, more automated driving systems to collaborating on ‘smart home’ innovations for facilitating aging in place to the development of interactive robo-pets.”