Alumni/ae

New York Times reporter Conor Dougherty spotlights DUSP graduate student Nick Allen MS '17 and his work advocating for Land-value taxes (LVT) in distressed US cities.

Augmental, an MIT spinoff, has created MouthPad, a tongue-controlled, computer mouse pad designed for people with disabilities, reports Zoya Hasan and Alex York for Forbes. The device is a “hands-free, custom fit mouthpiece for device control,” explains Hasan and York.

Aleena Nadeem '16 founded EduFi, a fintech startup that provides a straightforward process for students in Pakistan to take out loans to help finance their education, reports Kate Park for TechCrunch. “Education offers hope and can change the lives of people. I am one example of millions out there,” says Nadeem.

Lisa Su BS, MS ’91, PhD ’94, the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), has been named to the Forbes 2023 Future of Work list for her, “technological chops and management savvy [techniques that] helped orchestrate a case-study worthy turnaround at AMD,” reports Jena McGregor for Forbes. The Forbes list, “highlights 50 leaders, executives, thinkers and teams rethinking the world of work at a time when everything – from the job market’s future to AI’s impact to a college degree’s value – feels more uncertain than ever.”

Oprah Daily reporter Michael Clinton spotlights Anh Vu Sawyer MBA ‘20 and her personal, professional and academic journey to becoming a successful social entrepreneur. Vu Sawyer’s company, “which she called Anh55 after her name and birth year, is in many ways a natural extension of her own story: engaging immigrant and refugee communities in producing a line of sustainable clothing for women over 40 that’s both affordable and stylish.”

Milena Pagán '11 speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kara Baskin about bringing her Providence-based bagel shop, Reblle, to Kendall Square. “We started the process to move a store to Cambridge about two years ago” says Pagán. “This has really been a long time in the making, to find the right space and to work out a deal. But we’re in a really cool building. We have tenants upstairs. There’s a park across the street that reminds me in a lot of ways of the neighborhood where Rebelle is right now. And being close to MIT is such a dream. That place has really good juju for me, so I’m really excited about it.

Joy Buolamwini PhD '22 writes for The Boston Globe about her experience uncovering bias in artificial intelligence through her academic and professional career. “I critique AI from a place of having been enamored with its promise, as an engineer more eager to work with machines than with people at times, as an aspiring academic turned into an accidental advocate, and also as an artist awakened to the power of the personal when addressing the seemingly technical,” writes Buolamwini. “The option to say no, the option to halt a project, the option to admit to the creation of dangerous and harmful though well-intentioned tools must always be on the table.”

President Biden has awarded Prof. Emeritus Subra Suresh ScD '81, the former dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the National Medal of Science for his “pioneering research across engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences,” reports Alexa Gagosz for The Boston Globe. Prof. James Fujimoto '79, SM '81, PhD '84, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM '84, and David Huang '85, SM '89, PhD '93 were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, “the nation’s highest award for technical achievement.”

DUSP Lecturer Bruno Verdini PhD ’15 speaks with Jenn Williams of Foreign Policy’s “The Negotiators” podcast to discuss the 2012 Colorado River agreement between the United States and Mexico, and his book, “Winning Together: The Natural Resource Negotiation Playbook.” “If you are recognizing that the feedback loops in natural resource negotiations are going to be complex and unexpected as time goes by, you only have an ability to monitor, be flexible, and address new challenges if you’ve created a mechanism of trust, and in that mechanism implementation follows, even across different political perspectives,” says Verdini. “Because it is in your interest to keep complying.”

Joseph J. Kohn ’53, “who played a key role in extending the mathematics of calculus,” has died at 91, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. “Dr. Kohn studied how mathematical functions behave in the realm of complex numbers,” writes Chang. “This field is esoteric, even to many mathematicians. But the techniques that Dr. Kohn developed have found use in tackling a wide range of problems in mathematics as well as fundamental equations in physics, including Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”

Roofscapes Studio, an MIT startup co-founded by Olivier Faber MArch ’23, Tim Cousin MArch ’23 and Eytan Levi MArch/MSRED ’21, transforms rooftops into greenspaces as part of an effort to combat climate change and provide green spaces in cities, reports Kim Willsher for The Guardian. The team is looking to add, “wooden platforms fixed across the sloping panes to create roof gardens, terraces and even walkways,” in Paris to help prevent the city from overheating. 

“Brief Tender Light,” a documentary by Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05, spotlights four African-born MIT students and their experiences with adapting to the culture and challenges in and out of the classroom, reports Celina Colby for The Bay State Banner. “The story of international students, or specifically African students, in the U.S. hadn’t really been told,” says Musah. “Stats that I’ve learned more recently say there are about a million international students in any given year studying in the U.S., of which about 40,000 are African. That seems like a substantial portion of the fabric of American society.”

Institute Prof. Robert Langer speaks with Freakonomics host Stephen Dubner about his approach to failure and perseverance in his professional career. Langer recalls how despite early failures with developing new drug delivery methods, “I really believed that if we could do this, it would make a big difference in science, and I hoped a big difference in medicine.”

Arthur Musah '04, MEng '05 and graduate student Philip Abel Adama speak with WBUR host Tiziana Dearing about Musah’s documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” which follows the lives of four African-born MIT students, who “were driven to study in the U.S. and create change at home.” Musah explains, “I made this film because I felt having gone through the experience of studying in the U.S. and gone through a transformative experience, I felt that there were questions that were unanswered that I didn’t know I would have after the experience and so it was a way to go back and answer those questions or look for answers.” 

Milena Pagán '11 bringing her Providence-based bagel shop, Rebelle, to Kendall Square this winter, reports Kara Baskin for The Boston Globe. “Pagán was a 2023 Best Chef: Northeast James Beard semifinalist for her Puerto Rican café, Little Sister, also based in Providence,” writes Baskin.