Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS)

Prof. Laura Lewis speaks with New Scientist reporter Grace Wade about the importance of sleep research. Lewis notes that understanding the dynamics of how the brain transitions into sleep could help lead to new treatments for insomnia. “With sleep onset, it has been really difficult for us to find that moment,” says Lewis, where brain mechanisms drive the transition to sleep. “If we knew when that was, then we could start to say, what is the brain region or circuit that is making somebody fall asleep?” 

Prof. Tess Smidt and incoming Prof. Lindsey Raymond have been named Schmidt Sciences 2025 AI2050 Early Career Fellows, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. The AI2050 project is “aimed at advancing the capacity of artificial intelligence to tackle an evolving list of 10 ‘hard problems,’ involving major scientific questions, technical issues, and risks associated with revolutionary technology,” explains Nietzel. 

A new study from researchers at MIT shows that lack of focus after a poor night’s sleep often corresponds with a surge of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which usually flows while we’re asleep. “We like to think we’re in control—that willpower, caffeine, and determination can overcome a missed night of sleep,” writes Bill Murphy Jr. for Inc. “However, this research suggests otherwise. When your brain needs to clean itself, it’s going to find a way to do it, whether you’re ready for it or not.”

Forbes reporter Gemma Allen spotlights Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and her work revolutionizing the field of robotics by bringing “empathy into engineering and proving that responsibility is as radical and as commercially attractive as unguarded innovation.” Rus says of her vision for the future of robotics and AI: “With robots, we can amplify strength and precision. With AI, we can amplify cognition, creativity, empathy, and foresight. These tools should help us become better versions of ourselves."

Researchers at MIT examined how lack of sleep can impact a person’s attention, and “found that during these moments of brain fog, a wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is released out of the brain - a process which normally occurs whilst we are sound asleep, and helps to wash away waste products built up during the day,” reports Shaheena Uddin for The Independent. 

Prof. Laura Lewis and her colleagues have discovered that momentary lapses in attention that often follow a bad night’s sleep are caused by the brain attempting to flush fluid out of its system, a process that normally occurs during sleep, reports Carissa Wong for New Scientist. “If you don’t have these waves [of fluid flowing] at night because you’re kept awake all night, then your brain starts to kind of sneak them in during the daytime, but they come with this cost of attention,” says Lewis. 

Researchers at MIT have found that momentary lapses in attention, often described as zoning out, coincide with waves of fluid flowing out of the brain, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. “The moment somebody’s attention fails is the moment this wave of fluid starts to pulse,” says Prof. Laura Lewis. “It’s not just that your neurons aren’t paying attention to the world, there’s this big change in fluid in the brain at the same time.”

Prof. Srini Devadas speaks with Fortune reporter Beatrice Nolan about data and privacy concerns surrounding AI assistants. “The challenge is that if you want the AI assistant to be useful, you need to give it access to your data and your privileges, and if attackers can trick the AI assistant, it is as if you were tricked,” says Devadas. 

Prof. Steve Leeb and graduate student Daniel Monagle speak with Tech Briefs reporter Edward Brown about their work “designing an energy management interface between an energy harvesting source and a sensor load that will give the best possible results.” Monagle notes that in the future they hope to make the system “smaller so that it can fit in tight places like inside a motor terminal box. But beyond that we want to take advantage of AI tools to design techniques for minimizing the energy used by the system.” 

In an effort to better understand how protein language models (PLMs) think and better judge their reliability, MIT researchers applied a tool called sparse autoencoders, which can be used to make large language models more interpretable. The findings “may help scientists better understand how PLMs come to certain conclusions and increase researchers’ trust in them," writes Andrea Luis for The Scientist. 

Researchers at MIT have developed magnetic transistors, “which could enable faster and more energy-efficient semiconductors,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “Researchers have been trying to use magnets this way for years, but the materials used so far haven’t been optimal for computing functions,” explains Knapp. “That changed after experimenting with chromium sulfur bromide, which replaces the silicon in a conventional microchip and enables the transistors to be switched on and off with an electric current.” 

Financial Times reporter Melissa Heikkilä spotlights how MIT researchers have uncovered evidence that increased use of AI tools by medical professionals risks “leading to worse health outcomes for women and ethnic minorities.” One study found that numerous AI models “recommended a much lower level of care for female patients,” writes Heikkilä. “A separate study by the MIT team showed that OpenAI’s GPT-4 and other models also displayed answers that had less compassion towards Black and Asian people seeking support for mental health problems.” 

Forbes reporter Geri Stengel spotlights Black Opal Ventures, a women-led venture capital investment firm, founded by Tara Bishop '97 and Eileen Tanghal '97. “Whenever you see venture capital and tech, there are very few women,” says Tanghal. “It’s been my passion to bring more women into the venture capital ecosystem.”

Dishita Turakhia SM '17, SMArchS '17, PhD '24 speaks with Huffpost reporter Brittany Wong to explore how people are using AI technologies. “Early adopters may help expand the creative boundaries of these technologies, but those who enter later, sometimes with more caution, often bring a critical lens that leads to more sustainable applications,” says Turakhia. 

Edwin Chen '08 speaks with Forbes reporter Pheobe Liu about his journey to founding Surge AI, a startup that “helps tech companies get the high-quality data they need to improve their AI models.”