Prof. Emeritus Rodney Brooks and Prof. Michael Stonebraker are featured in Boston Magazine’s list of the 30 most influential people in the local technology scene. Brooks was honored for his work in the field of robotics, and Stonebraker for his work developing new ways for data to be stored and analyzed.
Prof. Stuart Madnick writes for CNBC about how corporations can protect themselves from the growing threat of cyber crime. “It is up to senior business leaders to take the lead in protecting their organizations,” writes Madnick. “That can only be accomplished by working together with government, industry, and academia.”
Senior lecturer Robert Pozen writes for The Financial Times about the new money market (mm) reforms. Pozen argues that “in 2017, the SEC should re-consider its new rules on institutional MM funds in light of the actual rise in borrowing costs for banks, companies and local governments.”
A letter co-authored by Prof. Kerry Emanuel warns against withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, writes Chelsea Harvey for The Washington Post. “The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would really set back all of our efforts to deal with climate problems,” says Emanuel.
Mercury News reporter Lisa Krieger writes that a letter co-authored by Prof. Kerry Emanuel warns U.S. politicians about the dangers of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. “We all reacted with some shock to statements from the Republican platform that would have reversed decades of progress,” said Emanuel. “We felt we had to say something.”
Writing for Nature, Gary Stager spotlights the work of Prof. Seymour Papert, who dedicated his career to using technology to help children learn. Stager writes that Papert “built a bridge between progressive educational traditions and the Internet age to maintain the viability of schooling, and to ensure the democratization of powerful ideas.”
A study by Prof. David Autor finds a shift in voting patterns in areas of the country impacted by trade with China, report Binyamin Appelbaum, Patricia Cohen and Jack Healy for The New York Times. “This undercurrent of economically driven dissatisfaction,” Autor explains, “works to the benefit of candidates who are noncentrist, and particularly right-wing candidates.”
Prof. Ramesh Raskar has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for his “trailblazing work which includes the co-invention of an ultra-fast imaging camera that can see around corners, low-cost eye-care solutions and a camera that enables users to read the first few pages of a book without opening the cover,” writes Krishna Pokharel for The Wall Street Journal.
During Bloomberg’s Benchmark podcast, Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson expresses optimism about the impact of technology on the U.S. economy. Brynjolfsson says that while he is “concerned because it's not automatic that those technologies are going to benefit everybody or benefit people more broadly,” he would like "to see the U.S. and other countries work toward shared prosperity.”
CSAIL Director Daniela Rus speaks with Peter High of Forbes about the lab’s research, history and mission. Rus notes that CSAIL researchers are focused on "inventing the future of computing. We want to use computer science to tackle major challenges in fields like healthcare and education.”
Prof. Earl Miller speaks with Phyllis Korkki of The New York Times about why aging makes learning new skills more difficult. “Your mind’s bandwidth is smaller. You learn at a slower rate because less information is getting in,” explains Prof. Miller. To make learning easier, Miller says it's “important to keep yourself cognitively engaged.”
Prof. Robert Langer talks to Jessica Harris from NPR about his research on tissue engineering and drug delivery, the commercialization of his discoveries, and the many companies he has started. Langer says he started his lab based off his desire to improve people’s lives by conducting research “at the interface of chemical engineering and medicine.”
Prof. Rosalind Williams reviews James Gleick’s new book about the history of time travel for The Washington Post. Prof. Williams writes that Gleick “gathers an engaging cast of characters who wrote these stories or otherwise explored the possibilities of time travel.”
Jericka Duncan of CBS Evening News speaks with Prof. Antoinette Schoar about her research investigating how credit card companies target consumers based, in part, on their level of education. “Customers who are more educated and financially more sophisticated receive very different credit terms,” she explains.
In an article for Quartz, Prof. Sara Seager speculates about what it might be like to visit the recently discovered Earth-like planet dubbed Proxima Centauri. Seager writes that “the most fascinating aspect to me is that on the planet, the alien sun would be in the same place in the sky at all times.”