Alumni/ae

Alumnus Benjamin Rapoport co-founded Precision Neuroscience, a brain-computer interface company, that is developing technology that will allow “paralyzed patients the ability to operate a computer with their thoughts,” reports Jo Craven McGinty for The Wall Street Journal. “In order to be a citizen of the world in 2024, to communicate with loved ones, to make a living, the ability to work with a digital system is indispensable,” says Rapoport. “To operate a word processor is totally transformative.”

Radia, an energy startup founded by Mark Lundstrom '91, SM '93, MBA '93, has developed the “Windrunner,” an airplane designed to deliver 300-foot-blades directly to wind farms, reports Maureen O’Hare for CNN. The plane will “help the world meet its decarbonization targets, it’ll use sustainable aviation fuel and need only a simple packed-dirt or gravel runway to land on,” writes O’Hare.

Bloomer Tech, a health tech startup founded by Alicia Chong Rodriguez SM ‘17, SM ’18, is working to “address the gender gap in health care, which has led to less clinical trial representation and fewer resources to diagnose and treat women with various diseases,” reports Steph Solis for Axios. The startup is prepared “to launch a clinical trial for bras that could help detect heart irregularities and other conditions that can lead to heart disease,” writes Solis.

Harry Rein '15, MEng '16 and Chris Tinsley MBA '20 co-founded ShopMy, a marketing platform designed to connect content creators with brands and monetize their content, reports Laruen Forristal for TechCrunch. “ShopMy’s marketing platform equips creators with the tools they need to earn from their product recommendations, like building digital storefronts, accessing a catalog of millions of products, making commissionable links and chatting directly with companies via mobile app,” explains Forristal.

Emily Calandrelli SM '13 speaks with NPR host Adam Bearne about using her science background to encourage children to explore the world of science. Calandrelli has just published a new book of family friendly experiments called, “Stay Curious and Keep Exploring: Next Level.” 

Reflex Robotics, a startup co-founded by several MIT alumni, has developed a remotely-operated humanoid robot capable of handling tasks such as grabbing an item off a shelf, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. The robot’s hardware “is an in-house design, featuring a ‘torso’ mounted to a base that allows the arms and sensors to dynamically move up and down,” explains Heater. “It makes for a surprisingly dexterous robot that can access shelves at a variety of heights, while maneuvering tight spaces. The system has a wheeled base, which is perfectly effective for navigating these kinds of layouts.”

Radia – a startup founded by Mark Lundstrom '91, SM '93, MBA '93 – has unveiled the “WindRunner,” a large cargo plane equipped with wind turbine blades aimed at transforming wind energy across the United States, reports Jennifer Hiller and Brian McGill for The Washington Post. “Radia estimates the larger turbines could reduce the cost of energy by up to 35% and increase the consistency of power generation by 20% compared with today’s onshore turbines,” they write. 

Paris Smalls PhD '22 founded Eden GeoPower – a startup that uses “a new kind of fracking that uses jolts of electricity, rather than blasts of water, to shatter underground rocks,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “While the process can work for extracting oil and natural gas, Smalls mainly wants to tap into a squeaky-clean energy source — the natural heat of the planet’s crust,” writes Bray.

Birago Jones SM '12 and Karthik Dinakar SM '12, PhD '17 co-founded Pienso – an AI platform that “lets users build and deploy models without having to write code,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “Pienso’s flexible, no-code interface allows teams to train models directly using their own company’s data,” says Jones. “This alleviates the privacy concerns of using … models, and also is more accurate, capturing the nuances of each individual company.”

Gabriel Klein MBA '18 – senior director at EY-Parthenon, and a “beloved husband, son, brother, friend and colleague” – has died at the age of 35, reports Jeremy C. Fox for The Boston Globe. “He taught me what it meant to be a good person, to be a mensch,” says Gabriel’s brother, Noah Klein. “He taught me that you have to always be a loyal friend, and you always have to be a good son, and that means putting other people in front of yourself.”

Bingxu Liu PhD '23 speaks with Science reporter Christie Wilcox about his work  studying STING, an immune protein that plays a key role in defending the human body against viruses, bacteria, and tumors. “STING is actually one of the most promising cancer immunotherapy targets,” explains Wilcox. “If you activate the STING pathway, it triggers a very strong immune response. But when it’s too strong, it can actually kill your T cells. Initial evidence suggest that T cells die because of some ion impact. Which begs the question: Can we just use STING to activate some parts of the immune response, like interferon, but also block the ion flow [that’s harming T cells]?” 

Prof. Emeritus Donald Sadoway co-founded Boston Metal, an MIT startup that has developed a carbon-free steel manufacturing process, reports Amy Feldman for Forbes. “Boston Metal’s process – which uses an electricity conducting, molten-metal proof anode to liquify iron ore, separating the pure metal without harmful byproducts – allows factories to create carbon-free steel as long as they use a clean energy source, such as hydroelectric power,” explains Feldman. “It also can create steel from lower-grade ores rather than relying on scarce high-grade ones. That’s an important advantage in terms of both cost and availability compared to other methods of making green steel, according to the company.”

Christina “Chris” Birch PhD '15 is among NASA’s newest class of astronauts, reports Norah O’Donnell for CBS Evening News. “These new astronauts could one day be part of the team that brings the first woman and first person of color to the surface of the moon and beyond.”

Wardah Inam SM '12, PhD '16 founded Overjet, an AI platform that helps dentists “diagnose diseases from scans and other data,” reports Saritha Rai for Bloomberg. “Dentistry was more art than science, and I wanted to bring technology and AI to help dentists make objective decisions,” says Inam. “We began building and then improving our AI systems with tens of millions of pieces of data, including X-rays, historical information, dentist notes, and periodontal charts.”

BioBot - a public health research, data and analytics firm co-founded by Mariana Matus PhD '18 and Newsha Ghaeli PhD '17 - is using wastewater testing to provide insights into growing infection rates and diseases across the country, reports Soledad O’Brien for WCVB-TV.