Chris Cassidy SM ’00, who “flew three space missions, commanded the International Space Station, and earned multiple combat awards for his service in Afghanistan,” moderated the USS Constitution Museum's Leadership Forum on Oct. 8, reports WCVB 5. “Cassidy served as NASA’s Chief Astronaut, accumulating 378 days in space, more than 54 hours across 10 spacewalks.”
In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine’s Diane Tedeschi, alumnus Mike Massimino SM ’88, PhD ’92 discusses working on NASA’s space shuttle as a mission specialist and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. “Nothing can really prepare you, though, for the overwhelming beauty that you see—the emotion of it [space],” says Massimino. “When you see the beauty of Earth and the stars and the Moon and everything around you, it’s so inspiring. But as far as your job goes, you’re 100-percent ready.”
Hertha Metals, a startup founded by alumna Laureen Meroueh SM ’18, PhD ’20, “has developed a way to produce high-purity iron needed in the magnets used in everything from electric vehicles to humanoid robots,” writes reporter Stephanie Findlay for the Financial Times. “Hertha is breaking ground on a 10,000-tonne-a-year commercial facility today on the outskirts of Houston to produce the metal,” Findlay highlights. “The company plans to produce the first steel-grade iron in the fourth quarter of next year and start producing the high-purity iron by 2028.”
Joe Romm ‘82, PhD ‘87, “a physicist by training who became one of the most influential voices in the debate over climate change and how to stop it, using his blog to provide deep-dive insights and sharp-elbowed critiques,” died on Sept. 14, reports Clay Risen for The New York Times. “There’s nobody else like Joe Romm,” says Michael Mann, Romm’s colleague at the Penn Center. “There’s nobody else who brought all of these interlocking talents and proclivities together in the way that he did. That gave him such a unique voice, and it’s a voice that we sorely could use today.”
VulcanForms, a 3-D printing manufacturer that produces “complicated metal parts for a variety of industries, at speed and at scale,” founded by Martin C. Feldmann ’14 and Prof. John Hart, is expected to double its workforce within the next year, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “We were born out of MIT, we’ve kind of got our DNA here,” says Kevin Kassekert, chief executive of VulcanForms. “Massachusetts is a place where you can attract the best talent in the world.”
Forbes’ Afdhel Aziz highlights Extern, a platform that “helps students graduates and career switchers do real projects for companies,” founded by alumnus Matt Wilkerson ‘04, ‘05. “Nearly 90,000 people have used the platform to build experience they can put on a resume and talk about in an interview,” writes Aziz. “I want to work on a problem that really changes someone’s life in a very deep way, says Wilkerson.
In a video by The Wall Street Journal, alumnus Gabe Dalporto MS ‘95, CEO of Guitar Center, explains how the soft skills he developed from studying nuclear science at MIT helped him reframe Guitar Center “as a destination for higher-end equipment and more experienced players.” Dalporto shares: “I think it’s helpful, particularly in a passion category, to have someone who shares that passion, and understands empathetically what the customer is going through. When I see people playing, it gives me joy.”
MIT alumni Tom Brown ‘10, co-founder of Anthropic, and Edwin Chen ‘08, founder of Surge AI, are highlighted among the 10 youngest billionaires on the 2026 “Forbes 400 List,” by reporter Alicia Park. Brown “was lead author of the 2020 paper introducing GPT-3, the language model that demonstrated such systems could write fluently and triggered the current investment boom in artificial intelligence,” writes Park. Chen’s Surge AI, “employs people to label data, as well as rate and correct AI-generated answers to train models.”
Good Owners-dogGPT, a chatbot guide designed for dog parents that wasco-founded by alumni Darin Bellisario PhD ‘15 and Raja Rajcic ’20, is featured by The Boston Globe’s Marcela García. “What happens today when [dog owners] go looking for information? They go to Google,” says Bellisario. “You find dozens of videos and blog posts and articles that are either contradictory or outdated or inaccurate, or whatever the algorithm or the ranking wants to show you.”
For The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jennifer Hiller spotlights Xcimer Energy, a fusion startup that is developing technology to defend against drones and other threats, founded by alumni Conner Galloway M.S. ‘09 and Alexander Valys ‘08. “We realized that no one was actually pursuing the approach to fusion that we thought was going to work, and so ultimately that’s what led to Xcimer,” says Valys.
Akamai will honor their late cofounder Danny Lewin SM ’98, a victim of the American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11, by illuminating their headquarters in blue the evening of Sept. 11, write Jon Chesto and Shirley Leung for The Boston Globe. “Lewin remains revered at Akamai; its highest employee award is given out each year in his honor,” Chesto and Leung write.
Priti Paul ‘90, director of Apeejay Surrendra Group, and her sister Priya, chairperson and executive director of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, are honored on Forbes’ list of “Women Hospitality Leaders Who Should’ve Been In The Room,” by Jacques Ledbetter. Paul has led Apeejay’s “real estate and design work and helped shape projects across the family enterprise,” writes Ledbetter. “Together, they [Priti and Priya] represent the ownership, design and operating sides of hospitality in India.”
Timothy Carney ‘66, “a diplomat who relished difficult assignments in war-torn countries and pushed against bureaucratic restrictions,” died on Aug. 10 at age 82, reports The New York Times’ Adam Nossiter. “Tim was very deeply committed everywhere he served,” says his wife, Victoria Butler. “Everywhere we went he got to know the people where we lived. He believed very strongly in soft power versus hard power. He was an old school kind of diplomat.”
MassLive’s “Most Influential Innovators” list, which celebrates inventors from across the Commonwealth, spotlights numerous MIT community members including President Sally Kornbluth, Prof. Russ Tedrake; Noubar Afeyan PhD ‘87 (a member of the MIT Corporation), Visiting Scientist Brandon Sorbom PhD ‘17, Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw SM '17, PhD ‘20, Tye Brady SM '99, Maxim Lobovsky SM ‘11, and Andy Ory. “Kornbluth has been working hard to defend the university, which has long been a major economic engine not just for Massachusetts, but for the country,” writes reporter Scott Kirsner.
Alumni Erin Dawicki MBA ‘24 and Michelle Ewy MBA ‘24 speak to Boston 25 about developing LymeAlert, the first at-home test kit to detect Lyme disease in ticks. “The faster you treat it [Lyme disease], the way easier it is to treat and have complete resolution of symptoms for a lot of people,” says Dawicki. “But the second challenge is the current diagnostics we have miss 64 to 78 percent of early-stage cases.”