Faculty

Forbes contributor Jason Brett writes that Prof. Ron Rivest testified before Congress on the feasibility of Blockchain voting technology.

Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Harvey Lodish emphasizes the importance of foreign workers and immigrants to the U.S. economy. “Without students and workers from outside the U.S., it’s difficult to see how the current successes of U.S. scientific research and innovation could continue,” writes Lodish.

Boston Magazine reporter Alyssa Vaughn spotlights Prof. Azra Aksamija’s design proposal for a piece of public art in Cambridge that would honor the passage of the 19^th Amendment. Aksamija’s project “takes the form of a three dimensional palimpsest,” writes Vaughn, “that is visible through an arrangement of concrete elements. These elements are inscribed with names and quotes from notable activists.”

Dean Hashim Sarkis speaks with Washington Post reporter Philip Kennicott about his new book, “The World as an Architectural Project” and the role of architecture in a post-pandemic world. “As architects, we are condemned to optimism,” says Sarkis. “Our field is necessarily about proposing and imaging new things, what the world could be through making a part of it better.”

Professor Emeritus Tunney Lee, an architect and urban planner who served as the chief of planning and design for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, has died at age 88, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “At MIT, Mr. Lee was a mentor to scores of architects, teaching them to look beyond the creativity that went into designing buildings."

NPR’s Scott Simon remembers former MIT Professor Michael Hawley. Simon notes that Hawley’s “Things That Think and Toys of Tomorrow projects prophesied so much of the ways in which our world would become digitally connected.”

Writing for the New York Times, Prof. Yasheng Huang argues that Chinese policies favoring the state sector over the private sector have played a bigger role in the country’s economic slowdown than the current trade war. “That the Chinese economy is slowing down isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least not in itself,” says Huang. “But a slowdown is a problem if it’s the result of poor policy.”

A new book co-authored by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines how countries become “prosperous, stable, well-governed, law-abiding, democratic and free societies.” “Their simple answer is: it is hard,” writes Martin Wolf for the Financial Times. “Their deep answer is: ‘Liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society.’”

ELLE reporter Molly Langmuir spotlights the work of Prof. Neri Oxman, who is known for “producing radically interdisciplinary work.” Oxman has produced everything from “a silk pavilion—a suspended dome of silk fibers spun by a robotic arm, completed by 6,500 live silkworms—to a design concept for a wearable digestive system incorporating photosynthetic bacteria that convert solar energy into sugar.”

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.”

Boston Globe reporter Martin Finucane reports that Prof. Emeritus Daniel Freedman has been named a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his discovery of supergravity. “The discovery of supergravity was the beginning of including quantum variables in describing the dynamics of spacetime,” explains Edward Witten, chairman of the selection committee.

In a column for Wired, Media Lab Director Joi Ito argues that we must find a better way to measure the impact of charitable giving. After working with philanthropists and investors for years, Ito admits that, “all of us have struggled to measure the effectiveness of grants and investments that seek to benefit the community, the environment, and so forth.”

Prof. Dava Newman speaks with WBUR’s Sharon Brody about the impact of the Apollo program on her own career and on humanity at large. Newman, who notes that the success of the Apollo 11 mission, “taught her to dream,” notes that, “if you're going to do the big, audacious engineering, technological, scientific breakthroughs? Well, you have to take risks.”

Writing for Forbes, Prof. David Mindell examines how the operation and implementation of the Apollo 11 flight software provides crucial lessons for driverless vehicles. “Testing, software controls, and risk analyses have the problem of embedding our imagination of what’s likely to happen,” writes Mindell.

Washington Post reporter Martin Weil spotlights the work of Prof. Fernando Corbató, who “drastically expanded the usefulness of the computer and put its benefits at the reach of all.” Weil notes that Corbató, who died on July 12, “fostered the digital revolution by developing shared computer operating systems and also put his stamp on daily life by introducing the computer password.”