Awards, honors and fellowships

CBS News spotlights how two MIT researchers have been named to key roles on the Biden administration’s science team. Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Zuber said she hopes to "restore trust in science, and pursue breakthroughs that benefit all people."

AP reporter Seth Borenstein writes about how President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Prof. Eric Lander of the Broad Institute to serve as his chief science officer and lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and has selected Maria Zuber, vice president for research at MIT, to co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Francis Collins, director of the NIH, called Lander, “brilliant, visionary, exceptionally creative and highly effective in aspiring others. I predict he will have a profound transformational effect on American science.”

New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer writes that Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to serve as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and to serve as a presidential science advisor. MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Biden will make a Cabinet-level position, reports Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Prof. Giovanni Traverso has been highlighted by Wired as one of 32 innovators who are changing the world, writes Sanjana Varghese for Wired. Prof. Robert Langer notes that Traverso is “transforming how we interact with medications, for example through the development of pills that remain in the body for multiple weeks or months to address medication non-adherence, or the creation of small, swallowable devices enabling the delivery of biologics like insulin.”

Prof. James Fujimoto and research affiliate Eric Swanson have been named recipients of the Sanford and Sue Greenberg Prize to End Blindness, reports Sandrine Ceurstemont for National Geographic. “The winners were chosen based on the strength of their contributions to eliminate blindness, the ambitious aim set out by the prize organizers in 2012,” Ceurstemont explains.

Danielle Grey-Stewart speaks with Robert Brodsky of Newsday about receiving a Rhodes Scholarship. “It will allow me to study how environmental policy is formed from the context of how we look at society and nature,” says Grey-Stewart. “It’s really important that when finding engineering solutions, you can connect with communities… and uplift them as equal thought partners in finding solutions to pervasive problems.”

MIT seniors Danielle Grey-Stewart and Ghadah Alshalan have been selected for the 2021 Rhodes Scholarship program, reports Gal Tziperman Lotan for The Boston Globe.

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.”

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence has awarded Prof. Regina Barzilay a $1 million prize for her work advancing the use of AI in medicine, reports John McCormick for The Wall Street Journal. "Regina is brilliant, has very high standards, and is committed to helping others,” says Prof. James Collins. “And I think her experience with—her personal experience with cancer—has motivated her to apply her intellectual talents to using AI to advance health care.”

The AP highlights how Prof. Regina Barzilay has been named the inaugural winner of a new award given by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence for her work “using computer science to detect cancer and discover new drugs has won a new $1 million award for artificial intelligence.”

Prof. Regina Barzilay has been named the inaugural recipient of the Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Humanity for her work developing new AI techniques to help improve health care, reports Rebecca Robbins for STAT. Robbins writes that Barzilay is focused on turning the “abundance of research on AI in health care into tools that can improve care.”

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.

Prof. Emeritus Daniel Freedman has been awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work devising the theory of supergravity, reports Philip Ball for Scientific American. Freedman notes that the award, “takes the cake—it is the cap of my long career.”