Prof. Emeritus Stanley Fischer PhD '69, “one of the most influential economists of recent decades,” has died at age 81, reports Greg Ip for The Wall Street Journal. Through his various roles, “Fischer helped shape how an entire generation of central bankers and economic policymakers do their jobs,” writes Ip.
Prof. Emeritus Stanley Fischer PhD '69, an economist and central banker who helped “guide global economic policies and defuse financial crises for decades,” has died at the age of 81, reports James R. Hagerty for The New York Times. While at MIT, “Mr. Fischer became a magnet for graduate students,” writes Hagerty. “He encouraged them to visit him every week, ‘especially if you have nothing to say.’”
Ankur Gupta SM '14, PhD '17 has been named to the Chemical & Engineering News’ 2025 Talent 12 list, which highlights young scientists using chemistry to create real-world solutions, reports Sam Lemonick for Chemical & Engineering News. “By accounting for the way particles move in a chemical gradient—a phenomenon known as diffusiophoresis… [Gupta and his colleagues have] improved a model that mathematician Alan Turing developed to explain patterns in nature, such as the shape of a zebra’s stripes or the spacing of a jellyfish’s tentacles,” explains Lemonick.
Boston Business Journal reporter Eli Chavez spotlights Sublime Systems, an MIT startup “focused on low-carbon cement production.” “Sublime’s mission is to have a swift and massive impact measured in the amount of cement we produce and sell,” says CEO Leah Ellis, a former MIT postdoc. “We are super-focused on increasing our cement production.”
Diane Hoskins '79, global co-chair of architectural design firm Gensler, speaks with CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin after being named to the CNBC 2025 Changemakers list about “her path to success and lessons learned along the way.” “Solutions need to be framed by more than one discipline,” says Hoskins. “More people in our tech companies would benefit from having been in other domains, bringing more perspective to these tools across our daily lives.”
Christian Lau PhD SM ’20, PhD ’22 and Vaikkunth Mugunthan SM ’19, PhD 22, co-founders of Dynamo AI, have been named to the 2025 Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list, reports Yue Wang, John Kang for Forbes. “Dynamo AI offers software to run tests on AI programs to identify potential risks, and prevent the models from accessing sensitive data,” they write.
Meli Beer, founded by Samara Oster MBA '22, has created the first beer in America made from quinoa, reports Doug Meehan for WCVB. "I think the point is, a beer drink experience that tastes great but also feels great in your body and doesn't feel like you’ve had a loaf of bread, or you have that heaviness or bloat, is for everyone,” explains Oster. “And so, what I really aspire to do is create a drink that everyone can enjoy.”
Emily Young '18, co-founder and CEO of MIT D-Lab spinout Moving Health, speaks with The World’s Jeremy Siegel about her startup’s commitment to transforming “maternal healthcare in rural Ghana, where access to ambulances is severely limited, by creating an emergency transportation network that uses motorized ambulances." Young discovered that “what rural communities needed most was transportation that could actually handle rough terrain while still being cost effective and easy to scale at a local level.”
Prof. John Urschel speaks with Guardian reporter Rich Tenorio about his decision to call an audible and leave his career as a guard for the Baltimore Ravens to focus on his love for math as a student and then a professor at MIT. “I realized I was missing the academic environment,” he says. “I missed talking math with people, learning things, being around other people who like … math-related issues."
Samara Oster MBA '22, founder of Meli, has created the “first beer brewed entirely from quinoa,” reports Eli Chavez for Boston Business Journal. “Part of the journey as of late is, how do we explain this super unique, unexpected thing to people, some of whom are skeptical and really like beers,” says Oster “For me, it's about building this better for you, beer world that kind of doesn't exist in that much of a way, just yet.”
The Boston Globe remembers James Santoro ’23; Karenna Groff ’22, MEng ’23; her father, Michael Groff, MD an executive MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management; and three others who passed away in a plane accident earlier this week. “Both Karenna and James were tremendous contributors to their sport teams, the institution, and their local communities,” says G. Anthony Grant, MIT’s director of athletics and head of the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation, adding: “We offer our sincere condolences and grieve with the Groff and Santoro families as well as their loved ones.” E. Antonio Chiocca, a friend of the Groff family, remembers Dr.Groff as, “Just a really nice guy, great family man. Just an amazing individual.”
Researchers at MIT have concluded that AI does not develop “value systems” over time, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “For me, my biggest takeaway from doing all this research is to now have an understanding of models as not really being systems that have some sort of stable, coherent set of beliefs and preferences,” says graduate student Stephen Casper. “Instead, they are imitators deep down who do all sorts of confabulation and say all sorts of frivolous things.”
Graduate students Chuck Downing and Zhichu Ren PhD '24 highlight the potential uses of AI in the research process, reports Amanda Heidt for Nature. “I didn’t know much going in, but I learnt quite a bit, and so I use these deep dives all the time now,” says Downing on using deep-research tools when approaching unfamiliar topics. “It’s better than anything else I’ve used so far at finding good papers and in presenting the information in a way that I can easily understand.”
Kodiak Brush '17 speaks with Fast Company reporter Jesus Diaz about his work tackling football helmet design. The Apache helmet Brush designed for Light Helmets is the “lightest on the market—and yet it has achieved the highest safety score ever recorded by Virginia Tech’s independent helmet testing lab.” Diaz notes that for Brush, “success isn’t measured by sales figures or accolades—it’s about changing how people think about football safety and avoiding traumatic brain injuries.”
Jon Arizti Sanz PhD '24 and postdoctoral associate Ren Hao Soon have been named to the 2025 cohort of Schmidt Science Fellows, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. “This year’s class of 32 fellows are all recent PhDs who’ve been identified as some of the most outstanding early-career scientists in the world,” explains Nietzel.