Alumna Swati Mohan PhD ’10 served as the mission commentator who confirmed that the NASA Perseverance rover had touched down on Mars last week, reports Mashable. “Mohan led the attitude control system of Mars 2020 during operations, and was the lead systems engineer throughout development. The attitude control system points the vehicle where it needs to be and helps figure out where the spacecraft is oriented in space.”
Fast Company reporter Rachel Raczka spotlights Season Three, a startup founded by three MIT graduates aimed at designing a shoe that fits “practical parameters but performed like a stylish, everyday sneaker that you wouldn’t dread wearing.”
Financial Times reporter Michael Pooler highlights MIT startup Boston Metals, which has devised “a technology for making brand-new steel without emissions using electricity.”
Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 has been selected to lead the WTO, writes David McHugh for the AP. “Her first priority would be quickly addressing the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as by lifting export restrictions on supplies and vaccines and encouraging the manufacturing of vaccines in more countries,” writes McHugh.
New York Times reporter Ana Swanson highlights how MIT alumna Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 has been named the new director-general of the WTO. Okonjo-Iweala will be the first woman and first African to lead the WTO. “It’s been a long and tough road, full of uncertainty, but now it’s the dawn of a new day and the real work can begin,” she said.
Mario Draghj PhD ’76 has been named the new Italian prime minister, reports Giovanni Legorano and Marcus Walker for The Wall Street Journal. “His obsession with the importance of education is rooted in his personal experience. His studies paid off for the next 40 years,” said Mario Baldassarri PhD ‘77, a fellow MIT alumnus.
TIME reporter Justin Worland writes about the selection of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81, an MIT graduate and the former finance minister of Nigeria, as the new director-general of the WTO. Okono-Iweala believe that “global trade can help ease the COVID-19 pandemic, tackle climate change and restore faith in the system of cooperation that has faltered in recent years,” writes Worland.
Alumna Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81, a former Nigerian finance minister, has been named the new director- general of the World Trade Organization, reports William Wallace for the Financial Times. “Okonjo-Iweala sees an opportunity for the organization to rediscover some of its original purpose of raising living standards across the board and to bring its outdated rule book up to date at a time of accelerating change,” notes Wallace.
AP reporter Matthew Lee memorializes the life and work of George Shultz PhD ’49, “a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East.”
George Shultz, an MIT alumnus and former professor of economics who served as a counsel and Cabinet member for two presidents, has died at age 100, reports Michael Abramowitz and David E. Hoffman for The Washington Post. “Mr. Shultz was a policy maven, conservative but curious, patient and determined. He ranged widely over domestic and foreign affairs,” they write.
Boston Globe reporter Mark Feenery writes that George Shultz PhD ’49, who held top positions under President Nixon and was secretary of state for President Regan, “was regarded as a model of managerial dependability: pragmatic, low key, unflappable.”
George Shultz PhD ’49, known for serving as President Regan’s secretary of state has died at 100, reports Malcolm Rutherford and Aime Williams for the Financial Times. Rutherford and Williams note that during Shultz’s tenure as secretary of state, “there were achievements in arms control, in reducing regional conflicts and in placing human rights on the US-Soviet agenda.”
George Schultz PhD ‘49, the former secretary of state under President Regan and an MIT alumnus, has died at 100, reports Michael R. Gordon for The Wall Street Journal. Gordon notes that Schultz’s “diplomacy helped seal the end of the Cold War,” adding that he “remained an active voice on national security, economic and environmental issues after leaving government.”
Prof. Dava Newman speaks with Esther Paniagua of El País about her goals for her new role as director of the MIT Media Lab. “We want to accelerate positive change for people,” says Newman in this interview, which is in Spanish. “Trying to answer the big questions: equity, justice, inequality, climate and sustainability, people and communication, and education and learning.”
Mario Draghi PhD ’76 has been invited to form a new government by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, writes Colleen Barry and David McHugh for the AP. Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, “is credited with helping to save the euro has now been tapped to lead Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy, out of the pandemic and the worst recession since World War II.”