Faculty

MIT startup Fourth Power, founded by Prof. Asegun Henry, has developed a solar cell that generates its energy through built-in solar panels powered by hot graphite, writes Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The Fourth Power system can be heated up using renewable energy, like wind or solar power, at times when these resources are cranking out surplus power,” writes Bray. “[T]he Fourth Power technology could become a preferred method of providing extra power to electrical grids during periods of peak demand.” 

For Fortune, reporter Barry Werth highlights the groundbreaking research of the late Prof. David Baltimore, founding director of the Whitehead Institute at MIT, who “independently discovered an enzyme essential for the reproduction of retroviruses such as HIV, which spread by inserting their genes into the DNA of host cells and hijacking the cells’ chemical machinery to make copies of themselves.” “Few investigators were more qualified or better positioned to understand how to stop HIV from spreading,” writes Werth.  

Prof. Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of MIT’s Schwarzman College of Computing, joins Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” to discuss his views on the role of human responsibility in AI’s evolution. “With conventional software, when you program something, you give the machine precise instructions of what to do, so the humans developing it have a much more concrete understanding of what it can and can’t do,” says Huttenlocher. “With an AI system instead, it’s learned much more general skills and what you tell it to do is achieve some sort of a goal, but you don’t tell it the specific way it should achieve that goal. We can’t control it [AI] in the same ways that we control traditional software, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t control it and that we can’t control it, it’s just different.” 

In his latest book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” Prof. Emeritus Paul Osterman finds that 35% of the U.S. workforce is made up of disposable workers hired with the “implicit understanding that they won’t be around for long,” writes Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg. Employers “do not invest in the great bulk of their workforce” in the way that they used to, says Osterman.  

For The Next Big Idea Club, Prof. Paul Osterman outlines the pillars of his new book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment.” “The rise of disposable work is allowing companies to gain flexibility and cut costs while shedding responsibility for their workers,” writes Osterman. “We need guardrails to keep that flexibility from coming at the expense of workers and the public.” 

MassLive’s “Most Influential Innovators” list, which celebrates inventors from across the Commonwealth, spotlights numerous MIT community members including President Sally Kornbluth, Prof. Russ Tedrake; Noubar Afeyan PhD ‘87 (a member of the MIT Corporation), Visiting Scientist Brandon Sorbom PhD ‘17, Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw SM '17, PhD ‘20, Tye Brady SM '99, Maxim Lobovsky SM ‘11, and Andy Ory. “Kornbluth has been working hard to defend the university, which has long been a major economic engine not just for Massachusetts, but for the country,” writes reporter Scott Kirsner. 

Prof. Paul Osterman speaks to Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg about how his new book “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment” explores how a perceived lack of ambition among Gen Z reflects the decreased amount of job security and opportunity available to young workers. “No one has job security anymore, but these folks [disposable workers] are hired with that expectation and are not going to be around for long,” says Osterman.

Prof. Susan Solomon joins Cleo Abram’s “HUGE* If True,” to discuss her 1985 research uncovering how chlorofluorocarbons, were depleting the ozone layer, which led to the Montreal Protocol that banned the use of those chemicals. “It was an interesting feeling being under the ozone hole, knowing that half a world away an incredible change [the Montreal Protocol] had just occurred that really had a lot of potential to change things in the future—and indeed it did,” says Solomon.  

Forbes’ “50 Over 50” list spotlights four MIT faculty leading innovation in science and technology: Prof. Paula Hammond, dean of the MIT School of Engineering; Prof. Dina Katabi; Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science; and Aude Oliva, director of MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab. The 50 “science and technology standouts on this list are advancing how we use AI, fight osteoporosis and deploy clean energy.”  

Upworthy’s Tod Perry outlines five key takeaways from “How to Speak,” a popular lecture on the art of public speaking given annually for MIT students for 40 years by the late Prof. Patrick Winston, which is now available to watch on MIT OpenCourseware. “I always finish [ a speech] with a joke, and that way, people think they’ve had fun the whole time,” quipped Winston in his lecture. 

Cambridge Day’s Chloe Taft spotlights the 25th anniversary of The Fab Lab, digital fabrication network started at MIT, and its annual conference, FAB26, held this week throughout Cambridge. “We’re going to show things like rapid prototyping, making vehicles [at FAB26],” says Prof. Neil Gershenfeld. “[T]here’s examples of using the tools in the lab to make aquaponic and hydroponic systems for food, to make antennas and radios for data networks, to make shelter. You really can make almost anything today.” 

The life and work of the late Nobel laureate Prof. Susumu Tonegawa, founding director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, is spotlighted by The New York Times’ Dylan Loeb McClain. “Few scientists have reshaped our understanding of biology as profoundly,” says Prof. Myriam Heiman, director of the Picower Institute. “His intellectual fearlessness, extraordinary creativity and relentless pursuit of fundamental questions opened entirely new frontiers in both immunology and neuroscience.” 

Prof. Jinhua Zhao takes a car ride through Boston with GBH “Curiosity Desk” host Edgar B. Herwick II to discuss the concerns and benefits of self-driving technology entering the city. “We pay a lot of attention to how good AV [Autonomous Vehicle] safety needs to be, but it’s important for us to understand how bad we have been—the current system is [bad],” says Zhao. “When human drivers are aggressive, they actually indeed pose a challenge on AV—which is that AV needs to learn how to be assertive. If you’re too conservative, you’ll just be stuck there going nowhere.”

Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter Maria Di Mento spotlights how the creation of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing allowed MIT to develop new “interdisciplinary programs to prepare students for an AI-saturated world and help them understand the social and ethical implications of digital technologies.” Prof. Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing, explains that: “MIT realized that effective education in the age of AI has to look different than it has in the past. Traditional siloing of expertise won’t work when AI is expected to touch nearly every part of people’s lives and is changing the way people in disciplines outside of computing are advancing their work.”

Prof. Simon Johnson discusses the impact of AI on jobs in an interview with Financial Times (FT) reporters Delphine Strauss and Sam Fleming for the FT’s “Economists Exchange” series. “We are trying very hard at MIT to find ways to incorporate AI into the curriculum but to push harder on the entrepreneurship angle, the creation of new products and services, the development of critical thinking,” says Johnson.