MIT’s top research stories of 2021
The year’s popular research stories include a promising new approach to cancer immunotherapy, the confirmation of a 50-year-old theorem, and a major fusion breakthrough.
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Q&A: John Dozier on the Strategic Action Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
MIT’s Institute community and equity officer discusses the opportunities and challenges of building consensus, the tensions between short and long-term planning, and the processes for bringing the MIT community together.
Q&A: Cathy Wu on developing algorithms to safely integrate robots into our world
Assistant professor of civil engineering describes her career in robotics as well as challenges and promises of human-robot interactions.
Systems scientists find clues to why false news snowballs on social media
A new model shows that the more polarized and hyperconnected a social network is, the more likely misinformation will spread.
Q&A: David Autor on the long afterlife of the “China shock”
MIT economist’s new research shows U.S. locales hammered by open trade with China have not rebounded, even a decade or more later.
Chemist and MLK Jr. Scholar Robert Gilliard explores new frontiers in synthetic chemistry
MIT visiting scholar is motivated by foundational science at the edges of the periodic table.
Ronald Kurtz, philanthropist and MIT Corporation life member emeritus, dies at 89
Alumnus, materials manufacturer, and passionate photography collector forged connections between art, science, and technology at the Institute.
Q&A: John Harbison on his new album, “Diotima”
The MIT composer endows his orchestral works with “unexpected” musical elements, while evoking aspiration, hope, and loss.
Q&A: Options for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant
Researchers argue the plant could provide multiple benefits for California, including desalinated water and clean hydrogen fuel.
Task Force 2021 and Beyond submits final “blueprints for building a better MIT”
Recommendations from the Institute-wide effort aim to benefit all segments of the community.
3 Questions: Administering elections in a hyper-partisan era
MIT professor of political science Charles Stewart III discusses the status of US election administration.
MIT to put unexpected gains to work immediately
Rise in endowment will enable greater support for undergraduate and graduate students, and a stronger MIT.
Making data visualizations more accessible
Researchers find blind and sighted readers have sharply different takes on what content is most useful to include in a chart caption.
MIT economist Joshua Angrist shares Nobel Prize
Cited for work building the foundations of “natural experiments” in economic research, Angrist is honored along with David Card and Guido Imbens.
3 Questions: Kalyan Veeramachaneni on hurdles preventing fully automated machine learning
Researchers hope more user-friendly machine-learning systems will enable nonexperts to analyze big data — but can such systems ever be completely autonomous?