Susan M. Collins PhD ‘84 has been named the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, reports Michael S. Derby for The Wall Street Journal. “Throughout my career, I have been driven by a commitment to leveraging research, education and public service to improve lives,” says Collins. “I look forward to helping the bank and system pursue the Fed’s dual mandate from Congress – achieving price stability and maximum employment.”
Symmetry Magazine reporter Stephanie Melchor spotlights the work of Sylvester James “Jim” Gates, Jr. ’73, PhD ’77, a theoretical physicist “committed to ensuring young people have access to educational resources.” Melchor notes that during his time at MIT, Gates “started a tutoring program for MIT students called the Black Student Union Tutorial Program. He says it was during this tutoring that he realized he loved teaching.”
The Tyee reporter Andrew Nikiforuk spotlights research conducted by Alex Siegenfeld SB ‘15, PhD ‘22, Yaneer Bar-Yam SB ’78, PhD ’84, and their colleagues to better understand the hesitancy behind accepting the efficacy of mask wearing. “There weren’t any studies that conclusively showed masks were not effective, yet common sense just got undervalued,” says Siegenfeld.
Boston Globe correspondent Rose Pecci spotlights Joseph Applegate, a linguist who was the first appointed Black faculty member at MIT. Applegate “had a 60-year career in languages. By the end of his career, he knew 13 of them and was considered an expert on the Berber tongues of North Africa.”
Quaise Energy, a startup out of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, has developed a millimeter wave drilling system to access layers of rock that reach over 700 degrees Fahrenheit, making geothermal power more accessible, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “Wind and solar [power] take up quite a bit of land,” writes Peters. “If geothermal power can be affordable anywhere, it could help fill an important gap in getting to 100% renewable electricity.”
Yuanming Hu SM’19, PhD ’21 and Ye Kuang co-founded startup Taichi Graphics, a cloud-based platform which aims to make 3D content creation easier to develop, share and collaborate on, reports Rita Liao for TechCrunch. “Undergirding the platform is its open-source programming language Taichi, which offers a high-performance computation on spatially sparse data structures like those from 3D visual graphics,” writes Liao.
Boston Globe Magazine reporter Courtney Humphries spotlights MIT startup Biobot Analytics, co-founded by Mariana Matus ’18 and Newsha Ghaeli ’17, for using their wastewater and sewage tracking technology to identify Covid -19 in communities across the United States. “Because people shed the virus in their stool before they test positive, Biobot’s data are often a leading indicator of where the infection is heading, arriving ahead of case counts by a few days,” writes Humphries.
MIT researchers have found a way to use wastewater testing surveillance as a public health tool to identify infectious diseases, reports Marie Szaniszlo for the Boston Herald. “Wastewater testing first started with a discovery by MIT researchers is being used nationwide as an early warning sign,” writes Szaniszlo.
Olympian Alexis Sablone ’16 will be the new head coach for the United States women’s skateboarding team in the upcoming Olympic Games, reports Michelle Bruton for Forbes. Sablone “has one of the most decorated careers of any female street skater, with seven X games medals and a 2015 World Skateboarding Championship,” writes Bruton.
Assaf Biderman ‘05, associate director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab, discusses his startup Superpedestrian, a transportation robotics company that has developed electric scooters available in over 60 cities across the world. “I think we hit the holy grail of micromobility, which is detecting when you’re on the sidewalk every time and stopping or slowing the vehicle,” said Biderman.
David Rush ‘07 holds over 200 Guinness World Records, and set 52 new records in 2021 alone, reports Nick Mordowanec for Newsweek. “Once he reviewed the various records that exist in the Guinness books and the Guinness World Records website, Rush looked at his own skills and realized he could branch out to dozens of different records per his multiple skill sets – such as juggling, balancing, running and having a fast-twitch response,” writes Mordowanec.
Boston Globe reporter Pranshu Verma spotlights MIT startup Biobot Analytics, co-founded by Mariana Matus ’18 and Newsha Ghaeli ’17, for their work studying sewage data to better predict the spread of Covid-19 in communities. “For health officials, it [the data] confirms whether Covid spikes in the community are real, and not due to increased testing or other factors,” writes Verma. “Moreover, Covid levels in waste water are a leading indicator for new clinical cases, giving health officials a few days’ notice if they’ll see more sick patients showing symptoms.”
Forbes has named Raya Ani ’94, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP PhD ’81, ’78, and former postdoc Shulamit Levenberg to their 50 Over 50 list, which highlights women from Europe, the Middle East and Asia who are leading the way, reports Maggie McGrath for Forbes. “Women around the world are proving that 50 and beyond is the new golden age,” writes McGrath.
Pierre-Oliver Gourinchas PhD ’96 has been appointed chief economist by the International Monetary Fund, reports Ana Monetiro for Bloomberg. “The economist, a French national who is also program director of international finance and macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economics Research, was an IMF visiting scholar and the editor-in-chief of the IMF Economic Review from 2009-2016,” writes Monetiro.
MIT startup Formlabs has announced a new pair of 3D printers featuring an exposure and printing speed increase that is up to 40% faster than previous models, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “The Form 3+ is the next iteration designed to help users go from idea to part in hand as quickly and easily as possible,” says CEO Max Lobovsky MS ’11.