Alumni/ae

Maxime Cohen PhD ‘15 speaks to Forbes’ Karl Moore about his latest book “Pricing in the Age of AI,” that explores how AI is transforming pricing decisions for businesses, consumers and society. “We may be entering an era of agent-to-agent commerce, in which AI systems negotiate directly with one another on behalf of consumers and businesses,” says Cohen. “This could fundamentally reshape how prices are determined and how transactions take place.” 

MIT startup LNK Energies has created a system to efficiently convert heavy-duty trucks from diesel to hydrogen, “slashing pollution and costs while shielding operators from the price spikes that result from geopolitical instability,” writes Tim De Chant for TechCrunch. “A lot of the reactors that LOHC (Liquid organic hydrogen carriers) companies have today are really large. They’re about the size of a shipping container,” says Alexis Huynh ‘24, cofounder of LNK. “We have shrunk that basically to the size of a mini fridge.” 

NPR’s Greg Rosalsky explains how Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83, winners of the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, were honored for their work helping to lay the groundwork for New Keynesian economics, taking a fresh scoop of the field. “Hall and Woodford helped rebuild macroeconomics around the decisions of individual people and businesses. Hall broke new ground in understanding how people's expectations about the future shape their spending today. Woodford built on that work, developing a framework that combined forward-looking spending decisions with sticky prices.”

Forbes’ Michael T. Nietzel spotlights Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83, who were awarded the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their work on economic stabilization policies. “The work of Hall and Woodford has proved beneficial for managing economic shocks like those from the pandemic and the energy crises of recent years,” Nietzel writes. “While recessions and episodes of high inflation have not disappeared, they tend to be less long-lasting.”  

Robert Hall PhD ’67 and Michael Woodford PhD ’83 have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work “developing models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilize their countries, avoiding long recessions and runaway inflation,” writes reporter Graeme Wearden for The Guardian. “The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” says John Hassler, chair of the Nobel Committee. “With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.” 

Christina Qi ‘13 speaks to Entrepreneur’s Sherin Shibu about her experience starting her own hedge fund as an undergraduate, and co-founding and serving as the CEO of Databento, a market data platform. Qi encourages founders to support one another: “You can succeed and raise each other up and support each other, even as competitors in this industry,” she says. “That is absolutely possible. That’s what I have done and strive to do with a lot of our competitors in this space, with other founders.” 

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.”  

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.”  

Hertha Metals, a startup founded by alumna Laureen Meroueh SM ’18, PhD ’20, “has developed a way to produce high-purity iron needed in the magnets used in everything from electric vehicles to humanoid robots,” writes reporter Stephanie Findlay for the Financial Times. “Hertha is breaking ground on a 10,000-tonne-a-year commercial facility today on the outskirts of Houston to produce the metal,” Findlay highlights. “The company plans to produce the first steel-grade iron in the fourth quarter of next year and start producing the high-purity iron by 2028.” 

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.” 

VulcanForms, a 3-D printing manufacturer that produces “complicated metal parts for a variety of industries, at speed and at scale,” founded by Martin C. Feldmann ’14 and Prof. John Hart, is expected to double its workforce within the next year, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “We were born out of MIT, we’ve kind of got our DNA here,” says Kevin Kassekert, chief executive of VulcanForms. “Massachusetts is a place where you can attract the best talent in the world.” 

Forbes’ Afdhel Aziz highlights Extern, a platform that “helps students graduates and career switchers do real projects for companies,” founded by alumnus Matt Wilkerson ‘04, ‘05. “Nearly 90,000 people have used the platform to build experience they can put on a resume and talk about in an interview,” writes Aziz. “I want to work on a problem that really changes someone’s life in a very deep way, says Wilkerson.  

In a video by The Wall Street Journal, alumnus Gabe Dalporto MS ‘95, CEO of Guitar Center, explains how the soft skills he developed from studying nuclear science at MIT helped him reframe Guitar Center “as a destination for higher-end equipment and more experienced players.” Dalporto shares: “I think it’s helpful, particularly in a passion category, to have someone who shares that passion, and understands empathetically what the customer is going through. When I see people playing, it gives me joy.” 

MIT alumni Tom Brown ‘10, co-founder of Anthropic, and Edwin Chen ‘08, founder of Surge AI, are highlighted among the 10 youngest billionaires on the 2026 “Forbes 400 List,” by reporter Alicia Park. Brown “was lead author of the 2020 paper introducing GPT-3, the language model that demonstrated such systems could write fluently and triggered the current investment boom in artificial intelligence,” writes Park. Chen’s Surge AI, “employs people to label data, as well as rate and correct AI-generated answers to train models.”

Good Owners-dogGPT, a chatbot guide designed for dog parents that wasco-founded by alumni Darin Bellisario PhD ‘15 and Raja Rajcic ’20, is featured by The Boston Globe’s Marcela García. “What happens today when [dog owners] go looking for information? They go to Google,” says Bellisario. “You find dozens of videos and blog posts and articles that are either contradictory or outdated or inaccurate, or whatever the algorithm or the ranking wants to show you.”