Prof. Esther Duflo speaks with Francesca Donner of The New York Times about her views on G.D.P., financial incentives, and how to encourage women to pursue careers in economics. “One of the mistakes made by economists in general was to agree collectively that G.D.P., and perhaps the stock market, is how we acknowledge success in a country,” says Duflo. “G.D.P. measures the value added in a country, but life is so much more than that.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, senior lecturer Frederick Salvucci and research scientist James Aloisi underscore the importance of federal investment in infrastructure to help create a more equitable and sustainable transportation network in the future. “A federal infrastructure initiative that becomes more of the same won’t effectively respond to the urgent need to build back better, which means providing states and cities with the funding and programmatic support they need to provide the essential transportation services that make our economy work equitably,” they write.
A study co-authored by MIT researchers examining the short and long-term effects of Boston’s universal public preschool program finds that pre-K has a substantial impact on student behavior, reports David Leonhardt for The New York Times. “Preschool attendees were less likely to be suspended in high school and less likely to be sentenced to juvenile incarceration,” writes Leonhardt. He adds that pre-K seems to “improve children’s social and emotional skills and help them mature more than it helps in a narrow academic sense.”
Senior lecturer Edward Golding speaks with NPR’s Code Switch about how risk-based pricing has impacted Black homebuyers and their wealth. "It's inherently unfair that basically we raised the prices during the financial crisis so that these people who were hurt by the financial crisis could bail out the financial institutions," he says.
Writing for The New York Times, Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo underscore the importance of helping other countries avoid a repeat of the coronavirus surge India is facing. “The world needs to look beyond India and avoid yet another mistake of timing,” they write. “We cannot afford to repeat the experience of the first wave, when we didn’t realize just how quickly a virus can travel. Neither should nations be lulled into a sense of false security by the progress of vaccination campaigns in the United States and Europe.”
In an editorial for Science, Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia, Prof. Emerita Nancy Hopkins and President Emerita Susan Hockfield underscore the importance of addressing the underrepresentation of women and minorities in tech transfer. “The discoveries women and minority researchers are making today have great potential as a force for good in the world,” they write, “but reaching that potential is only possible if paths to real-world applications are open to everybody.”
Principal research scientist Leo Anthony Celi speaks with STAT reporter Katie Palmer about the importance of open data sharing in medical research, his new role as editor of PLOS Digital Health, and the challenges facing machine learning in medicine. “With digitization, we’re hoping each country will have an opportunity to create their own medical knowledge system,” says Celi.
Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno speaks with National Geographic reporter Lois Parshley about the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. and western Europe. “Our analysis shows a big share of nuclear, a big share of renewables, and some storage is the best mix that is low-carbon, reliable, and at the lowest cost,” says Buongiorno of an MIT report showing the most cost-efficient, reliable grid comes from an energy mix.
Washington Post reporter Dalvin Brown spotlights Nextiles, a company spun out of MIT and the NSF that has crafted machine-washable smart fabrics that capture biometric data. “Just imagine all the biochemicals that come out of you and get released into your clothes,” says Prof. Yoel Fink of the future of e-textiles. “Today, all of that stuff gets erased in the washing machine. But at some point, your fabric could learn, listen to subtle changes, and alert you to go to the doctor for a checkup.”
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed a hair-brushing robot, reports Mashable. “Thanks to a robotic arm and a sensorized brush plus computer vision for analyzing the curliness of hair, the robot’s brushing method is meant to minimize pain.”
Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) have found that twisting crystal films can be used to control light emissions from materials, reports Steve Bush for ElectronicsWeekly.com.
In an article for Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim writes that “Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn,” a book by Sanjay Sarma, MIT’s vice president for open learning, and research associate Luke Yoquinto is “an important contribution to the literature on learning science and higher education change.” Kim adds that “Grasp can provide the foundations of what learning science-informed teaching might look like, with some fantastic real-world examples of constructivist theory in pedagogical action.”
Lecturer Karilyn Crockett is joining the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as a research and program consultant, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “Crockett will help the chamber and the broader business community address economic and racial inequities and related barriers to opportunity, particularly in the areas of transportation, housing, education, and climate change,” Chesto writes.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal about a new book, “The Secret History of Home Economics,” Barbara Spindel spotlights alumna Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to attend MIT and the institute’s first female instructor. The book’s author, Danielle Dreilinger writes that Richards “believed fervently in the power of science to free women from ‘drudgery.’”
Boston Globe reporter Jeremy Fox memorializes the life and work of Eli Broad, “whose philanthropy enabled the creation of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, one of the most influential scientific research centers in the country.”