Alumni/ae

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has nominated Dalila Argaez Wendlandt SM ’93 to the Supreme Judicial Court, reports Katie Lannan for WBUR. "Engineering requires you to look at the data and follow it where it goes, and to roll up your sleeves when there's a problem that looks like it's unsolvable," says Wendlandt. "For me the law is very similar especially when you do high-end legal work. Often, the answer is not clear, but if you're confident in your skills, you roll up your sleeves, you bring out the big guns and you just do your job."

Forbes contributor Monica Haider writes about Droplette, a startup founded by MIT alumnae Madhavi Gavini and Rathi Srinivas. Droplette has developed an “innovative device [that] delivers over the counter skincare actives such as vitamin C, retinol, collagen and peptides by penetrating the skin with a fast-moving mist.”

TechCrunch reporter Danny Crichton spotlights r2C, a startup founded by three MIT alums that is aimed at analyzing and improving lines of code. “With r2c’s technology, developers can scan their codebases on-demand or enforce a regular code check through their continuous integration platform,” writes Crichton.

STAT reporter Kate Sheridan spotlights the work of Kartik Ramamoorthi PhD ’14 and his gene therapy company Encoded. Sheridan explains that Encoded’s first gene therapy will “target Dravet syndrome — a rare condition that can cause seizures, cognitive deficits, and mobility problems.”

Cometeer, an MIT startup, offers a new way to deliver and consume craft coffee at home, reports Elizabeth Segran for Fast Company. The coffee arrives in the form of frozen pucks to help "retain all the complex flavors of the bean, as if a coffee expert had brewed it for you.”

IEEE Spectrum reporter Daniel Dern spotlights the work of alumna Merryl Gross, an information architect and senior UX designer for a company that develops web-based software that helps nurses and doctors manage the care of patients with dialysis and other conditions. Gross explains that user design is basically, “applying human psychology to the design of made objects.” 

Popular Mechanics reporter Jim Allen explores what inspired Amar Bose ’51, SM ’52, ScD ’56, a former member of the MIT faculty and the founder of Bose Corporation, to develop noise cancelling headphones.

CBS Boston spotlights how Andrea Ghez ’87 has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for her work discovering a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. “It really represents the basic research - you don’t always know how it is going to affect our lives here on Earth, but it is pushing the frontier of our knowledge forward," says Ghez, "both from the point of view of pure physics (understanding what a black hole is), and then also their astrophysical world in the formation and evolution of galaxies.”

Andrea Ghez ’87 has been selected as one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for her work advancing our understanding of black holes. "Black holes, because they are so hard to understand, is what makes them so appealing,'' says Ghez. “I really think of science as a big, giant puzzle.”

A new center established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research is aimed at accelerating the development of novel therapies and technologies, writes Katie Jennings for Forbes. The hope is that “we can identify common pathways, either a common molecular pathway that's a chokepoint for a therapy or a common group of neurons or neural systems,” says Prof. Robert DeSimone, director of the McGovern Institute.

Boston Globe reporter Felice Freyer writes about the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience, which was established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research thanks to a $28 million gift from philanthropist Lisa Yang and MIT alumnus Hock Tan ’75. “The center will develop tools to precisely target the malfunctioning genes and neurons underpinning brain disorders,” writes Freyer.

Prof. Lisa Piccirillo, The Engine CEO Katie Rae, and several MIT alumni are among the community members honored as part of Wired25, an annual list compiled by Wired that spotlights people who are working to make the world a better place.

Emily Calandrelli SM ’13 speaks with STAT reporter Pratibha Gopalakrishna about her work aimed at getting children interested in science, the importance of representation in the STEM fields, and her new Netflix show. “I don’t shy away from the science because I think kids are very clever and know way more than a lot of people give them credit for,” says Calandrelli.

MIT alumnus Dario Gil, SM ’00, PhD ’03, director of research for IBM, writes for Scientific American about why it is essential that the U.S. retain its ability to attract foreign students. “Continuing to attract foreign highly skilled scientists to the United States and retaining them is crucial for building a bright future that relies on emerging technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI),” writes Gil.

Writing for The New York Times, Anthony Doerr reviews “The Smallest Lights in the Universe” and “The Sirens of Mars,” new books from Professor Sara Seager and alumna Sarah Stewart Johnson ’08, respectively. Doerr notes that “both writers exemplify the humanity of science: Seager and Johnson laugh, grieve, hope, fail, try, fail and try again.”