Wall Street Journal reporters Robbie Whelan and Amrith Ramkumar spotlight Lisa Su '90, SM '91, PhD '94, chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, and her impact leading the company into the center of the global AI race. “At the heart of Su’s strategy is her belief that there is ‘insatiable demand’ for computing power, and that as the market for AI grows, the companies offering the best and most reliable AI infrastructure will thrive,” they write.
MIT has been named the No. 1 university according to the Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Ranking 2026 in association with Schmidt Science Fellows, reports Sara Custer for Times Higher Education. “The rankings were created to improve scientific excellence and collaboration across disciplines and to help universities benchmark their interdisciplinary scientific work,” explains Custer
Prof. Hugh Herr speaks with Bloomberg Businessweek Daily host Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec about his work developing technology that combines human physiology with electromechanics. “I really realized how limited the current prosthetic technology was and I really dedicated my life as a young man to really advance the field and enable extraordinary technology that will allow people to do what they want again, to move again and have the bodies that they seek," says Herr.
Research by Kelsey Moran PhD '25 and her colleagues have found that immigrant health care workers are crucial to helping older Americans live independently at home, reports Stuart Anderson for Forbes. “The study found a 10 percentage point increase in the less-educated immigrant population in an area reduces by 29% the probability someone 65 years or older would live in a nursing home or other institutional setting,” explains Anderson.
Writing for Forbes, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota 08, SM '16, MBA '16 explains the CARES framework, a new model for founders looking to integrate ethics into their company. “Biotechnology can cure, extend and transform life,” writes Hayes-Mota. “But based on my experiences, its full potential can only be realized when innovation and ethics advance together. To every scientist-founder at the edge of discovery: How can your business plan not only explain how you’ll succeed, but also why your success should exist?”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new “system that uses a vibrating ceramic ring to produce clean drinking water from humid air in several minutes,” reports Matthew Burgos for DesignBoom. Burgos explains that with the system developed by MIT researchers, "clean water-making can take a few minutes versus the tens of minutes or hours required by thermal designs. In their system, the engineers use ultrasonic waves to shake the water out of the material that can absorb moisture from the air.”
Philadelphia Inquirer reporterMaggie Prosser spotlights senior Alice Hall, who was selected as one of the 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “Never stop trying to learn, especially from the people around you,” says Hall. “You don’t have to be a Rhodes scholar to change the world. Just be yourself.”
Prof. Emeritus Kerry Emanuel speaks with Washington Post reporters Ben Noll and Ruby Mellen about the 2025 hurricane season. “The thing that really powers the hurricane is how fast you can transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. The bigger the temperature difference, the faster you can transfer heat. The faster you can transfer heat, the more powerful the hurricane can be,” says Emanuel. “This past summer, the sea surface temperatures across much of the tropical Atlantic were warmer than normal, which is part of what led people to predict that there would be a very busy season.”
Visiting scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Gizmodo reporter Ellyn Lapointe about how sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) could bring wintry temperatures to parts of the northern hemisphere next week. According to Cohen “this explains why forecasters expect western states to bear the brunt of next week’s cold temperatures, but that could still change,” writes Lapointe.
A new study by researchers from MIT and elsewhere describes “agentic AI as a ‘new class of systems’ that ‘can plan, act, and learn on their own,’” reports Matt O’Brien for the Associated Press.
The MIT Sailing Pavilion will house the floating wetland - a pilot project aimed at finding ways to improve Charles River water quality and restore biodiversity - l for the winter season, reports Brianna Borghi for NBC Boston. “The Charles River Conservancy installed the 730-square-foot floating wetland in 2020 following years of research and development,” Borghi explains. “Under the surface, the floating wetland serves as a feeding ground for zooplankton, which help keep toxic algae blooms under control.”
George Smoot '66, PhD '70, who was honored for his work in cosmology with the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, has died at the age of 80, reports Douglas Scott, Joseph Silk and Tom Broadhurst for Nature. Smoot’s work “contributed to our understanding of the Universe on the largest scales and at the earliest observable times by measuring temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background,” they explain.
Visiting Scientist Judah Cohen speaks with Newsweek reporter Amanda Greenwood about how a disruption of the polar vortex can impact the 2025-2026 winter outlook. “A sudden stratospheric warming [is] the largest type of disruption that occurs to the polar vortex,” says Cohen. “It is named because of the dramatic warming that occurs in the polar stratosphere (warming near the North Pole can exceed 100 degrees in just a few days). The warming displaces the polar vortex much further south than normal.”
Boston 25 spotlights Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 who have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars. “The students will attend the University of Oxford as part of the Rhodes scholar program, which awards more than 100 scholarships worldwide each year for students to pursue two to three years of graduate studies.”
Vivian Chinoda '25, Alice Hall, Sofia Lara, and Sophia Wang '24 have been named 2026 Rhodes Scholars, reports Michael Nietzel for Forbes. “This class of U.S .Rhodes Scholars will pursue studies across the social sciences, humanities, and biological and physical sciences,” writes Nietzel.