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Professor Hung Cheng pledges $1 million for a new MIT scholarship

Inspired by writing his novel, "Nanjing Never Cries," Cheng hopes scholarship helps MIT students work toward a better world.

November 29, 2016

Members of the MITili and pK-12 Action Group convene to discuss learning and research directions.

Enhancing education from pre-K to MIT and beyond

Two new initiatives take an in-depth look at learning.

November 23, 2016

On Nov. 17, the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, led by Fred Harris, delivered Mark Harvey’s composition “No Walls,” an anthem to inclusiveness inspired by Duke Ellington’s credo of living and making music “beyond category.”

“Uniting through Voice and Song” event celebrates values that connect the MIT community

November 22, 2016

Left to right: Robert Stoner, deputy director of the MIT Energy Initiative and director of the Tata Center for Technology and Design; Maria Zuber, MIT vice president for research; Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab; and John Fernandez, professor of architecture and director of MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative.

Forging ahead on climate action

At UN Climate Change Conference, MIT researchers share insights on implementing climate commitments.

November 22, 2016

“I’m working on bigger questions not only from a scientific perspective, but also from a societal perspective,” says Brian Henderson, Stanton Fellow in Nuclear Science and Security.

Brian Henderson: Experimenting with physics and policy

Nuclear Science and Engineering Stanton Fellow Brian Henderson brings his physics experience to bear on nuclear weapons disarmament policies.

November 21, 2016

Left to right: Xylem CEO Patrick Decker, MIT Associate Provost Karen Gleason, and J-WAFS Director John Lienhard celebrate the signing of the J-WAFS Research Affiliate agreement.

Xylem becomes first J-WAFS Research Affiliate

Global water technology company signs agreement with J-WAFS for directed research and support of student activities and other water-related initiatives.

November 18, 2016

Materials scientist Jeffrey Grossman lectures to a full house of first-year students in his popular version of a core course, 3.091 (Introduction to Solid State Chemistry). Earlier this year, he was honored with a MacVicar Award for exceptional undergraduate teaching.

Solid-state learning

First-year students get a spirited introduction to materials science and chemistry from Professor Jeffrey Grossman.

November 18, 2016

NASA’s New Horizons team has found evidence of any icy, slushy ocean beneath Pluto’s “heart."

Pluto’s icy, slushy heart

Data from New Horizons mission suggest a water-ice ocean lies beneath Pluto’s heart-shaped basin.

November 16, 2016

Common Sensing co-founders Richard Whalley (left) and James White

Data-driven diabetes management

Smart insulin-pen cap lets patients and doctors track dosage data to better manage treatment.

November 16, 2016

CoolThink@JC will target 16,000 students at 32 primary schools across the city of Hong Kong, offering tools and expertise to boost computational thinking abilities. Insights from the initiative, being done in collaboration with MIT and others, will eventually inform the development of curriculum for all Hong Kong teachers and students.

Teaching Hong Kong students to embrace computational thinking

Powered by MIT expertise and regional universities, CoolThink@JC will offer training to primary teachers and students at 32 schools.

November 15, 2016

The TechCon conference, hosted by MIT and USAID's Higher Education Solutions Network from Nov. 10 - 12, convened researchers and innovators to collaborate on solving global issues.

At TechCon, science-based solutions for world issues

Innovators and researchers tackle global issues through actionable research and collaboration.

November 15, 2016

Ali Jadbabaie is the JR East Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the associate director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and the director of one of its parts, the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center. “Our focus is on addressing large societal problems, whether they be power systems and energy systems, or social networks, or...

Tackling society’s big problems with systems theory

Ali Jadbabaie seeks to optimize large-scale systems, from social networks to teams of people or devices.

November 14, 2016

MIT chemists have determined the structure of a bacterial enzyme that can produce biodegradable plastics, an advance that could help chemical engineers tweak the enzyme to make it even more industrially useful.

A step toward biodegradable plastics

Chemists discover structure of bacterial enzyme that generates useful polymers.

November 11, 2016

Information extraction — or automatically classifying data items stored as plain text — is a major topic of artificial-intelligence research.

Artificial-intelligence system surfs web to improve its performance

“Information extraction” system helps turn plain text into data for statistical analysis.

November 10, 2016

Letter to the MIT community regarding the new administration in Washington