Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS)

New York Times reporter Natasha Singer spotlights MIT’s new Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making major (AI+D), which is aimed at teaching students to “develop AI systems and study how technologies like robots interact with humans and the environment.” Asu Ozdaglar, head of EECS and the deputy dean of academics for the Schwarzman College of Computing, shares that: “Students who prefer to work with data to address problems find themselves more drawn to an AI major.” 

Wall Street Journal reporters Robbie Whelan and Amrith Ramkumar spotlight Lisa Su '90, SM '91, PhD '94, chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, and her impact leading the company into the center of the global AI race. “At the heart of Su’s strategy is her belief that there is ‘insatiable demand’ for computing power, and that as the market for AI grows, the companies offering the best and most reliable AI infrastructure will thrive,” they write. 

Wall Street Journal reporter Angel Au-Yeung spotlights Anysphere, an AI startup founded by Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22. “The company makes an AI tool that learns a developer’s coding style to help autocomplete, edit and review lines of code,” writes Au-Yeung. 

Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, an AI startup developing Cursor, an AI coding tool that “allows engineers to use AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI to write and edit entire chunks of code as well as identify and fix bugs,” reports Rashi Shrivastava for Forbes. 

Prof. Anand Natarajan speaks with CNN reporter Lisa Eadicicco about the promise of quantum computing. “The big hope is that a quantum computer can simulate any sort of chemical or biological experiment you would do in the lab,” says Natarajan. He adds that quantum computing could be very influential for cryptography and cybersecurity, as it could be used to break codes. “That’s also a major motivation, to make sure that our adversaries cannot do it and that we have this capability.” 

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. Laura Lewis speaks with Quanta Magazine reporter Yasemin Saplakoglu about her quest to better understand how the brain transitions to sleep. “Our brains can really rapidly transform us from being aware of our environments to being unconscious, or even experiencing things that aren’t there,” said Lewis. “This raises deeply fascinating questions about our human experience.”

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.”