In the Media

“Groundbreaking computer scientist” Margaret Hamilton, who at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab “led the team that created the onboard flight software for NASA’s moon-bound Apollo program and later in life was celebrated as a powerful symbol of women in technology,” has died at 90, writes Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle. Hamilton “was very much a mathematician and into the abstraction of how to turn thought into software,” notes her daughter, Lauren. 

In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine’s Diane Tedeschi, alumnus Mike Massimino SM ’88, PhD ’92 discusses working on NASA’s space shuttle as a mission specialist and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. “Nothing can really prepare you, though, for the overwhelming beauty that you see—the emotion of it [space],” says Massimino. “When you see the beauty of Earth and the stars and the Moon and everything around you, it’s so inspiring. But as far as your job goes, you’re 100-percent ready.”  

Prof. John Urschel speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Andrew Beaton about how he called an audible and pivoted from the NFL to a career in mathematics, delving into his time playing for the Baltimore Ravens, his graduate studies at MIT and the publication of his latest research, which proves a decades-old mathematical conjecture. “I feel like I bet on myself in a big way,” Urschel says. “I’m living my best life right now.” 

Chris Cassidy SM ’00, who “flew three space missions, commanded the International Space Station, and earned multiple combat awards for his service in Afghanistan,” moderated the USS Constitution Museum's Leadership Forum on Oct. 8, reports WCVB 5. “Cassidy served as NASA’s Chief Astronaut, accumulating 378 days in space, more than 54 hours across 10 spacewalks.”  

TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling highlights Tony Fadell, the “father of the iPod,” and Designer in Residence at MIT’s Morningside Academy for Design, exploring what he learned from working with the first wave of agentic AI technology, in his presentation at the inaugural MIT Future Fest. “It took me a couple of years first to understand how best to utilize [an assistant], and then to trust them with the most sensitive data, and have them be an agent where they’re setting up meetings with people,” says Fadell. “Trust and safety are going to be paramount with anything that we turn over to some kind of intelligence.” 

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Senior Fellow Brian Deese and his colleague Anna Pasnau outline a potential framework for maintaining battery energy storage systems efficiently. Batteries “can reduce the need to run the expensive natural gas ‘peaker’ plants that are used only when demand is high,” Deese and Pasnau write. “And batteries can be deployed quickly—often in months, compared with the years it can take to build new stand-alone electricity generation—meaning they can meet surges in demand.”  

Margaret Hamilton, “who led the 100-person team [at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab] that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon,” died on Sept. 30, reports Trip Gabriel for The New York Times. “Her skills led to her promotion to director of software engineering on the project, which developed the two 70-pound onboard computers for the Apollo flights: one in the command module, which carried the astronauts from Earth, and the second in the lunar module, which set down on the moon’s surface,” writes Gabriel. 

The Guardian’s Uwa Ede-Osifo spotlights the life and legacy of the late Margaret Hamilton, “the computer pioneer whose software powered the first moon landing,” at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab. Prior to the Instrumentation Lab, Hamilton worked “on the software that could detect enemy aircraft,” at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory,” writes Ede-Osifo. “When the institute received a Nasa contract to develop the Apollo onboard flight software, she jumped at the opportunity.”  

“Groundbreaking researcher,” Margaret Hamilton, “whose code helped land NASA’s Apollo astronauts on the moon to win the 20th-century space race has died,” reports CNN’s Jackie Wattles. “Through her work, Hamilton is also credited as one of the founders of the field of software engineering — a term she coined — by helping to establish it as a professional practice,” writes Wattles.  

With help from an artificial intelligence algorithm, MIT researchers have formulated heat-resistant mRNA COVID vaccines that “remain stable even when stored at room temperature for up to a year, or at nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit for two months,” writes Nancy Lapid for Reuters. The heat resistance shots “would lower costs and make them [COVID vaccines] available in regions where ultra-cold storage is not possible,” Lapid notes.  

Joe Romm ‘82, PhD ‘87, “a physicist by training who became one of the most influential voices in the debate over climate change and how to stop it, using his blog to provide deep-dive insights and sharp-elbowed critiques,” died on Sept. 14, reports Clay Risen for The New York Times. “There’s nobody else like Joe Romm,” says Michael Mann, Romm’s colleague at the Penn Center. “There’s nobody else who brought all of these interlocking talents and proclivities together in the way that he did. That gave him such a unique voice, and it’s a voice that we sorely could use today.” 

MIT startup Alsym Energy, cofounded by Prof. Kripa Varanasi, has developed an alternative to lithium-ion batteries using sodium ions, writes Morgan Clendaniel for Fast Company. “The battery is nonflammable and nontoxic, allowing it to be placed in more sensitive areas and saving money on cooling systems that often have to be co-installed with large lithium batteries,” explains Clendaniel.  

MIT researchers have found that the gravitational pull of a red dwarf star is “siphoning material” from a brown dwarf star 300 to 500 light-years from Earth, writes reporter Will Dunham for Reuters. “This is the first observed example of this phenomenon,” says graduate student Aaron Householder. “The two objects are so close together that the entire orbit would fit inside the sun.” 

Prof. Dennis Whyte joins Hakeem Oluseyi, host of GBH’s “Particles of Thought,” to “explore fusion's wildest applications” in space. “There are private companies now looking at ways to exploit fusion for space travel,” says Whyte. “There are also, simultaneously, companies which are looking at using the technology of fusion—particularly the plasma and magnetic technology, which were primarily developed from fusion to get significant improvements in propulsion technology as well.” 

“Structured around key stages in psychological development — childhood, adolescence, love, work, [and] death,” Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” “argues strongly that our new ‘posthuman conversational partners’ [AI chatbots] are inadequate companions for life’s journey,” writes reporter Becky Hogge for the Financial Times. “The more we recognize our vulnerability to the virtual, the more we’ll be able to commit to the real,” explains Turkle. We need to “reinvent sociality.”