Postdoctoral associate Mostafa Hamouda speaks with Washington Post reporter Scott Dance about the recent cold blast that is bringing “frigid air that normally swirls above the North Pole to places much farther south.” Hamouda explains: “You need really cold air in the pole to have a very fast-spinning polar vortex.” Any warming “slows the whole circulation down.”
Prof. John Hansman speaks with Boston Herald reporter Rock Sobey about airline safety after the recent plane and helicopter collision in Washington D.C. “We have an incredibly safe system with very good procedures and good training, but there’s always the small chance that something happens — that someone gets distracted,” says Hansman. “When we have an incident like this, it can be stunning, but I wouldn’t overreact to it. I don’t think it’s an indication of a major problem with the system and air traffic control.”
Prof. Albert Saiz reflects on a recent study from LendingTree which has found that “single women own more homes than single men in the United States,” reports Claudie Bellanger for Boston.com. Saiz, suggests “that education is a factor, especially in Massachusetts,” writes Bellanger. “The demand for labor in Massachusetts is biased toward highly skilled laborers who have a bachelor’s degree or higher,” says Saiz.
Forbes reporter Nina Bambysheva spotlights Michael Saylor '87 and his professional career after co-founding MicroStrategy and his company’s approach to investing in Bitcoin. “We adopted bitcoin out of frustration and desperation, and then it became an opportunity, and then it became a strategy, and then it became an identity, and then it became a mission,” says Saylor.
Graduate students Suhan Kim and Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their work developing insect-sized robots capable of artificial pollination. “Typical drones use electromagnetic motors plus propellers. But, our system is a little different in that we are primarily using an artificial muscle,” explains Kim.
Prof. Jeffrey Grossman speaks with NBC Boston’s Carla Rojo about his new class, “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” which explores the science behind the perfect cup of joe. The course combines chemistry and coffee science to provide students “a hands-on experience to fuel their curiosity.”
Graduate student Chase Hartquist speaks with Engineeringness reporter Hassan Ahmed his work developing a “universal law governing network fracture energy, providing a unifying framework for understanding material toughness across a wide range of material types.” Hartquist explains: “Our discovery also directly impacts the emerging field of architected materials, whose inherent structures drive their unique performance characteristics.” He adds: “By studying and optimizing performance in this class of materials, we can better understand the extent to which this law can apply generally in cutting-edge material design for many practical applications.”
Prof. Desirée Plata speaks with C&EN reporter Prachi Patel about her work “trying to make our chemical processes and industries compatible with human and ecological health.” Says Plata of what she is most proud of in her work: “As professors, we produce papers and patents, but people are the most important thing we produce. The faculty of the world are training the next generation of researchers. There’s a perception right now that AI is going to solve all of our problems, but it cannot without good physical science information. We need a trained workforce. We need patient chemists who want to solve important problems.”
Former postdoctoral associate Wen Shuhao and postdoctoral fellows Ma Jian and Lai Lipeng co-founded Xtalpi, a biotech startup that “uses AI and quantum physics-based calculations to find suitable structures that are fit for drug making,” reports Zinnia Lee for Forbes. The company plans to expand their technology to other industries such as solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.
A study by research specialist Samantha Bray analyzes “the career impact on 460 working women aged 50 to 60 who began caregiving for an aging parent or parent-in-law,” reports Michelle Travis for Forbes. “Parental caregiving may act as a shock to women’s financial health at a critical career stage,” says Brady. “Parental caregiving often begins at a time in an individual’s career when they are at their maximum earning potential.”
Boston Globe reporter Adelaide Parker spotlights “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” a new course Prof. Jeffrey Grossman brewed up to provide students a hands-on experience with materials science in action. “The role of understanding materials … is broader than just our department,” explains Grossman. “You need physics and biology and chemistry to understand materials and how to make them, and then all these other engineering disciplines to do the engineering.” He envisions the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s new Breakerspace lab as somewhere students from all majors can “get excited about understanding materials.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that tariffs “failed to restore jobs to the American heartland,” reports Paul Wiseman for the Associated Press. The study found that “the tariffs ‘neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment’ where they were supposed to protect jobs,” writes Wiseman.
Shiv Bhakta MBA '24, SM '24 and Richard Swartwout SM '18, PhD '21 co-founded Active Surfaces, a solar tech company that has developed “a new kind of solar collector so thin and flexible it can be attached to anything under the sun,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The company prints solar cells onto a plastic sheet, using methods not too different from those used to print newspapers,” explains Bray. “The resulting cells can generate electric power nearly as efficiently as today’s heavy, thick silicon panels.”
Writing for Le Monde, Prof. Arnaud Costinot and Prof. Andrés Rodríguez-Clare of UC Berkeley make the case against the U.S. implementing substantial tariffs on imports. “Retaining its dominance in high-tech sectors, regaining a foothold in new green sectors, and restoring prosperity to lagging regions, to name just a few, are critical goals for US economic policy in the years to come. A richer set of economic policies are needed, with tariffs playing at best an auxiliary role,” writes Costinot. “Pursuing a policy of raising tariffs would most likely lead to a new global trade war. Its consequences, unfortunately, are not hard to predict. It would mean less trade and, most importantly, less international cooperation on the big issues of the day: war, poverty, and climate change.”
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu makes the case for “a new liberalism that is more faithful to its original values but adapted to our times.” Acemoglu emphasizes that “a renewed liberalism must rediscover its most inspiring roots: an energy coming from opposition to the unfair and unrestrained use of power; a commitment to freedom of thought and celebration of different approaches to our common problems; and a concern for the community as well as the individual as the basis of efforts to improve the opportunities of the disadvantaged.”