Kealoha Wong ’99, Hawaii’s first poet laureate, shares his excitement at being selected to deliver the keynote address at the graduation celebration for the classes of 2020 and 2021. “It’s a huge honor, I never would have thought in a million years that something like this would happen,” says Kealoha. “I feel as if I am ready to let these words fly.”
Prof. Catherine Elizabeth Tucker speaks with BBC host Ed Butler about her research on effective online advertising. “It turns out that all too often it is not working as well as we were led to believe,” says Tucker.
A new report by researchers from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab “examines the federal government’s history of election spending—and suggests ways it could consider dispersing monies to help underfunded election administrators,” reports Talib Visram for Fast Company. “The federal government not being a full partner in the game, especially given its fiscal resources, contributes mightily to the underfunding of this area,” says Prof. Charles Stewart III.
Researchers from MIT and the University of Waterloo have found a way to test the Unruh effect, a phenomenon predicted to arise from objects moving through empty space, reports Joanna Thompson for Scientific American. “If scientists are able to observe the effect, the feat could confirm some long-held assumptions about the physics of black holes,” writes Thompson.
Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, writes for Forbes about the impact Baby Boomer and Gen X retirement can have on the increasing labor shortage in the United States. “While some millennials can’t wait for the Boomers and older Gen X’ers to step aside in the job market, there are critical labor shortfalls in many key industries that will be sharply felt by Millennials as consumers and as the next generation of leadership in business and government,” writes Coughlin.
VoxDev spotlights the work of Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, Prof. Esther Duflo and graduate student Garima Sharma in studying the long-term effects targeted programs have on helping poor households escape the poverty trap. “Using a randomized controlled trial that tracked these households four, seven and ten years after the intervention, the authors find that ten years later, treated households consume about 20% more than control group households and earn about 30% more,” writes VoxDev.
Tiffany Chu ’10, chief of staff for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, speaks with columnist Jeneé Osterheldt for The Boston Globe’s “A Beautiful Resistance” series about her goals for creating a more inclusive Boston and her AAPI heritage. Chu explains that she believes in “knocking down walls and showing people what is possible."
Former MIT research fellow Robert (Bob) Buderi speaks with Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing about his new book, “Where The Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub,” which explores the history of Kendall Square and its innovation ecosystem. “One of the big chapters is about an effort at MIT by former President Susan Hockfield and two professors Sangeeta Bhatia and Nancy Hopkins to increase the opportunity for women faculty… to get into the stream that creates companies,” explains Buderi.
MIT researchers have solved a geometry problem that explores how to divide n-dimensional spaces into theoretically equal “slices," reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “I can tell you at the beginning, we were a little bit stuck. We made some partial progress, but I guess by hitting those roadblocks we just learned a lot about what we needed at the end,” explains Zilian Jiang, a former Applied Mathematics Instructor at MIT. “That was [a] great experience, because at least for me personally, I feel like doing research is also about the experience.”
MIT researchers have found that zeolite, a material used to soak up odors in kitty litter, can be used to grab methane out of the air, reports Angely Mercado for Gizmodo. “Zeolite has tiny pores that act like sponge, and the clay is pretty multifunctional: It can help improve water retention in soil, and it’s found in natural kitty litter,” explains Mercado.
Prof. Markus Buehler and his lab have been studying the sonification of molecules by capturing their vibrations and using a computer program to turn the mini vibrations into audible sounds, reports Sofia Quaglia for Smithsonian Magazine. “Buehler believes that since creativity has led to such complex varieties of music over the years—from classical to techno—maybe this creativity could be translated from an immaterial, pleasant experience, to scientific knowledge to make something physical,” writes Quaglia.
The Boston Globe honored a number of MIT faculty and alumni in their Tech Power Players 50, a list of the “most influential – and interesting – people in the Massachusetts technology scene.” MIT honorees include Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, Senior Lecturer Brian Halligan, Professor Tom Leighton, Professor Silvio Micali, Katie Rae (CEO and managing partner for The Engine), and Professor Daniela Rus (director of CSAIL and deputy dean of research for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing).
Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert ’77 has been selected as one of The Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players 50 for his work in artificial intelligence and robotics, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. Raibert recalls how his fascination with developing robot legs was cultivated at MIT. “I went to a presentation where someone showed a very slow-moving legged robot,” said Raibert. “I thought, wow, people and animals aren’t anything like that. ... People and animals have such fantastic locomotion. That was a thing to try to emulate and achieve.”
Overjet, co-founded by Wardah Inam SM ’12 PhD ’16, has been awarded landmark clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to use their software aimed at detecting and outlining cavities in patients’ X-rays, reports Alexandra S. Levine for Forbes. “Everybody has had a dental disease,” says Inam. “People have had good and bad experiences. And moving the industry towards making [a] more clinically precise, efficient patient focus is something that will impact every person in the world.”
Boston Globe reporter Aaron Pressman spotlights the work of Prof. Silvio Micali, who has been honored as one of The Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players 50 for his work in computer science and cryptography. “Micali decided to come up with a more elegant version of the underlying [cryptocurrency] technology, the public database of transactions known as the blockchain,” writes Pressman. “He formed a new startup, Algorand, to pursue a blockchain that would go far beyond bitcoin while reducing costs and electricity usage and speeding up transaction processing.”