Classes and programs

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. Jeffrey Grossman speaks with NBC Boston’s Carla Rojo about his new class, “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” which explores the science behind the perfect cup of joe. The course combines chemistry and coffee science to provide students “a hands-on experience to fuel their curiosity.” 

Boston Globe reporter Adelaide Parker spotlights “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” a new course Prof. Jeffrey Grossman brewed up to provide students a hands-on experience with materials science in action. “The role of understanding materials … is broader than just our department,” explains Grossman. “You need physics and biology and chemistry to understand materials and how to make them, and then all these other engineering disciplines to do the engineering.” He envisions the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s new Breakerspace lab as somewhere students from all majors can “get excited about understanding materials.”

Cipher News editor Amy Harder spotlights the MIT Renewable Energy Clinic, a new course developed by Prof. Larry Susskind aimed at training students to be mediators in conflicts over clean energy projects. Harder notes that the course is focused on creating “collaboration that may slow down projects initially by incorporating more input but ultimately speed them up by avoiding later-stage conflicts.”

Graduate students Martin Nisser and Marisa Gaetz co-founded Brave Behind Bars, a program designed to provide incarcerated individuals with coding and digital literacy skills to better prepare them for life after prison, reports Morgan Radford for MSNBC. Computers and coding skills “are really kind of paramount for fostering success in the modern workplace,” says Nisser.

Prof. Gilbert Strang received a standing ovation after delivering his last lecture after over 60 years of teaching at MIT, reports Saleen Martin for USA Today. “Teaching has been a wonderful life,” wrote Strang in the comments section of his last lecture on YouTube. “I am so grateful to everyone who likes linear algebra and sees its importance. So many universities (and even high schools) now appreciate how beautiful it is and how valuable it is. That movement will continue because it is right.”

Boston.com reporter Eli Curwin spotlights how after 63 years of teaching and over 10 million views of his online lectures, MIT Prof. Gilbert Strang received a standing ovation after delivering his last lecture. Prof. Michel X. Goemans, head of the Department of Mathematics, notes that Strang “has had a tremendous impact on the teaching of mathematics to tens of thousands of students at MIT through his lectures, to countless of students at other academic institutions through his textbooks, and to millions of people all over the globe.”

MIT’s Sloan School of Management and University of Navarra’s IESE Business School are launching a Global CEO Program designed for senior executives, reports Syndey Lake for Fortune. “Students, through the seven-month program, will focus on topics including systems thinking, innovation mindset, communication, change management, emerging technologies, negotiation and influence, self-leadership, and building a legacy,” writes Lake.

Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan has launched a cyberattack prevention course for business leaders, reports Sydney Lake for Fortune. “Board members must be knowledgeable participants in cyber leadership,” says Keri Pearlson, executive director of Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan. “Board members need a set of frameworks, a language, some examples, and actionable insights so they have an independent way to interpret and understand what their organization is doing to be cybersecure.”

The MIT Educational Justice Initiative has developed a 12-week program called Brave Behind Bars that teaches inmates “basic coding languages such as JavaScript and HTML in hopes of opening the door for detainees to one day pursue high-paying jobs,” reports Washington Post reporter Emily Davies. “The level of 21st century technology skills they just learned, I can’t do those things,” said Amy Lopez, deputy director of college and career readiness for the D.C. Department of Corrections. “They are transferrable, employable skills.”

Fast Company reporter Daria Burke spotlights a course by senior lecturer Tara Swart that explores how to create sustainable change in the brain. “New experiences promote neuroplasticity,” says Swart. “Exposing yourself to different kinds of people, new languages, new kinds of food will promote plasticity in your brain because your brain is having to adapt to change.”

GBH reporter Megan Smith spotlights how the Educational Justice Institute at MIT, which offers learning programs to incarcerated individuals, was able to expand its reach through a new virtual platform that allows for real-time interaction, and provides an opportunity to bring together students from different facilities and local universities. “I really enjoy the humanity in the course because over a period of time you realize — it’s not about ‘inside’ students or ‘outside’ students, really,” said Mackenzie Kelley, a student in the program. “It’s just, we’re all human and we all make mistakes.”

Students in Prof. Azra Akšamija’s class created Covid-19 masks that reflected their experiences and shared powerful messages with the world, reports 7 News. “Students learn how to articulate problems they see in the world and issues that we are facing,” says Akšamija. “And to communicate that and translate that through their designs.”

Reporting for NPR, Zeninjor Enwemeka spotlights MIT’s Ethics of Technology course, in which students explore how ethics is essential to their work as engineers and computer scientists. “I'm an ethicist, and I'm especially interested in these questions around ethics of things we make," explains postdoc and course instructor Abby Everett Jaques.

Research scientist Philipp Schmidt speaks with Inside Higher Ed reporter Lindsay McKenzie about the Digital Credentials Collaboration, which is creating a worldwide standard and shared infrastructure for digital academic credentials. “Universities are interested in providing their graduates with credentials that are useful and digital, but also secure,” Schmidt explains.