Faculty

Prof. Joshua Bennett speaks with NPR host Michel Martin about his new book “The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time.” The book “weaves together folklore, history and memoir to sort through what it means to be a prodigy, especially a Black prodigy,” explains Martin. Bennett cites fatherhood and his mother’s ideals as his inspiration for the book: “In becoming a father who's raising my children in a very different context in suburban Massachusetts and not in the Bronx and in South Yonkers and having very different experiences than my parents did… I just started to think, what's the full breadth of what I've inherited around this idea of what it means to pursue an education? And that's really what inspired it.” 

Prof. Carlo Ratti speaks with Matt Fortin of NBC Boston about his work designing this year’s Olympic torch. “For us it’s very exciting to do this,” says Ratti, “because it’s a way you can actually push design beyond what you normally do.”

The torch for this year’s Winter Olympics was designed by Prof. Carlo Ratti, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. Dubbed “Essential,” the torch clocks in at just under 2.5 pounds, and "boasts a unique internal mechanism that can be seen through a vertical opening along its side. This means that audiences can peek inside and see the burner in action. From a design perspective, that reinforces Ratti’s desire to keep the emphasis on the flame itself and not the object.”

Prof. John Urschel – a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens – joined Edgar B. Herwick III, host of GBH’s newest show, The Curiosity Desk, to talk about his love of his family, linear algebra, and football. On how he eventually chose math over football, Urschel quips: “Well, I hate to break it to you, I like math better… let me tell you, when I started my PhD at MIT, I just fell in love with the place. I fell in love with this idea of being in this environment [where] everyone loves math, everyone wants to learn. I was just constantly excited every day showing up.”

Forbes reporter Craig Smith spotlights Prof. Regina Barzilay for her work using her personal health experience to develop transformative medical technology. In response to her breast cancer diagnosis, Barzilay “developed a deep learning model that analyzes mammography images to predict breast cancer risk up to five years in advance,” writes Smith. 

The Economist chronicles the life and work of Prof. Nuno Loureiro, from his childhood in Portugal where he dreamed of becoming a scientist to his work at MIT as a “fusion pioneer” leading the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “He walked into his classes beaming, ready to cover the blackboard with figures. He joked like a friend, but he worked his students vigorously, advising them that if they were not yet the best, they should strive to be. Failure was not to be feared, because it showed they were trying to tackle the really hard problems.”

Prof. Lonnie Petersen speaks with Benjamin Rachlin, executive editor of MIT Horizon, about the future of space medicine in an article for The Boston Globe. “The next generation of flight surgeons might work from orbit. They might accompany a crew on a long-term mission, like a medic with a platoon,” writes Rachlin. “There is no standard yet for medical care in space. Doctors are inventing it.” Petersen notes that: “Space is like New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

Prof. Nuno F.G. Loureiro is remembered as a “brilliant ‘physicist’s physicist,’” who “pushed for revolutionary breakthroughs in the complex, arcane field of plasma science,” in a tribute by Boston Globe reporter Brian MacQuarrie. “Inside and outside the lab, Mr. Loureiro also was known for a charismatic leadership style that combined warmth, humor, and personal engagement in the relentless pursuit of excellence,” MacQuarrie writes. “Nuno represents what MIT treasures in its people,” notes Prof. Joseph Paradiso, “at the top of his game in research, but with a wide-ranging curious mind ready to grapple with new ideas.”

Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Carl Higbie of Newsmax about the long-term profitability of new AI technologies, noting that AI's long-term success will ultimately be decided not by technological promise, but by whether AI tools can deliver sustainable profits. "Integrating AI actually is very difficult," Acemoglu explains. "You need to understand your organization, what your employees really add, and then bring AI to help them. Rote automation is not going to work." 

In a roundup of books aimed at helping people create healthier smartphone habits, New York Times reporter Hope Reese spotlights Prof. Sherry Turkle’s book, “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” Reese writes that, “Using anecdotes from parents, educators and students, Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and sociologist at MIT, shows how the deterioration of conversation leads to loneliness. Setting limits on tech use and protecting spaces for real conversation can stave this off. But face-to-face conversation, she argues, is paramount.”

The Advanced LIGO Documentary Project commemorates the life and legacy of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics and “LIGO’s heart and soul.” Said Weiss of the significance of detecting gravitational waves: "The discovery isn't the measurement of the gravitational waves…it's the black holes. That's absolutely spectacular... that this exists, and if you see a couple more, then you could say something about the universe. It's something new that we're going to be able to say about the universe. It's spectacular. To me, that's the big discovery."

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.” 

Writing for Physics Today, Prof. Yang Shao-Horn, Research Scientist Sokseiha Muy and their colleagues explain the limitations and concerns surrounding lithium-ion battery technology while highlighting the potential of solid-state batteries as an alternative. “Although solid electrolytes can significantly boost a battery’s energy density by minimizing the battery’s volume, the greatest gains come from replacing conventional graphite anodes with higher-capacity, low-electric-potential alternatives,” they write. 

Prof. Emeritus Tim Berners-Lee speaks with The Verge’s Decoder host Nilay Patel about his hopes and concerns for the future of the world wide web. “In the early days of the web, anybody used to be able to make a website,” explains Lee. “That feeling of sovereignty as an individual being enabled and being a peer with all of the other people on the web, that is what were still fighting for and what we need to rebuild.” 

Prof. Linda Griffith speaks with Science Friday host Flora Lichtman about her work studying endometriosis. “I did a lot of things in the regenerative medicine space. But I had an epiphany that there’s so many chronic and inflammatory disease that we don’t know how to treat so I started building models of human organs and tissues in the lab using what we called microfluidic chips,” Griffith explains. “When I got asked about endometriosis, it was actually a perfect application for this kind of approach because we really need to study the lesions very carefully in the lab in ways that is very hard to study in patients.”