MIT alumnus Ilan Goldfajn has been nominated to serve as the next president of Brazil’s central bank, Luciana Magalhaes and Rogerio Jelmayer report for The Wall Street Journal. They note that Goldfajn “has worked as a consultant for international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations.”
NPR reporter Judith Kogan examines how MIT staff members “go the extra mile” to correctly pronounce the names of the graduates announced during MIT’s commencement. “The best thing of all is when you've worked with a student,” says Sarah Gallop, one of MIT’s readers. “You get it right, and the student looks at us and smiles.”
Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P, speaks with Vanessa Quirk of Metropolis about MIT’s widespread presence at the 2016 Venice Biennale, the Institute’s approach to architectural challenges and its interdisciplinary ethos. “MIT thrives on what it calls complex societal problems,” says Sarkis. “And what better complex societal problems are there today than cities and architecture and the environment.”
The PBS NewsHour highlights how one organization used tracking technology developed by Prof. Carlo Ratti to learn what happens to recycled electronic waste. “Tracking is really the first step in order to design a better system,” Ratti said. “One of the surprising things we discovered is how far waste travels.”
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Jeffrey Young speaks with MIT student Battushig Myanganbayar about how students taking MOOCs need greater opportunities to apply their education. President L. Rafael Reif explains that in addition to creating an entrepreneurship MOOC, MIT aims to “help the people who are learning with us learn how to think differently."
MIT has been named one of the most reputable universities in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, reports Karsten Strauss for Forbes.
CIO’s Sarah K. White talks to Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education, about how cultural differences in the workplace can impact communication. Pant explains that there has been an “explosion in the ability to communicate with people across borders with such great ease."
Prof. David Autor speaks with NPR’s Chris Arnold about trade deals, the presidential election, and how trade with China has impacted American workers. Instead of criticizing trade deals, Arnold notes that Autor would like the national conversation to “focus on what can be done to help workers who've been displaced by trade.”
Christian Science Monitor reporter Jack Detsch writes about the “Cambridge 2 Cambridge” hackathon, which brought together students from MIT and Cambridge University to hack websites and discover built-in vulnerabilities. “It’s not a law of nature that machines are insecure,” says CSAIL’s Howard Shrobe. This hackathon “is the first step of piquing curiosity to fix it.”
Reuters reporter Svea Herbst-Bayliss writes that in her remarks at MIT, Madame Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, spoke about steps that could be taken to tackle climate change. "If subsidies were removed and carbon prices set properly now and taxed that would go a long way in addressing the climate change issues the world is facing,” says Lagarde.
The Economist reports on a new study co-authored by Prof. David Autor that examines how increased trade between China and the U.S. has impacted American workers. The researchers found that “sudden exposure to foreign competition can depress wages and employment for at least a decade.”
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about “Cambridge 2 Cambridge,” an international cybersecurity challenge that will take place this spring between researchers from MIT CSAIL and the University of Cambridge. Prof. Howard Shrobe explained that the contest will take the form of a virtual “capture the flag” contest.
Prof. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, writes for U.S. News and World Report about how MOOCs can improve lives around the world. Agarwal writes that MOOCS have, “demonstrated potential benefit as a catalyst for change within universities and all over the world. MOOC platforms have helped entire countries build their labor forces and create conduits for dramatic social change.”
MIT researchers are collaborating with the Self-Employed Women's Association to identify how women in India use technology, reports The Times of India. "There are lots of innovations in the name of the poor, but nobody knows what works," explains Prof. Bishwapriya Sanyal.
In an article for The Huffington Post about the Paris climate agreement, senior lecturer Jason Jay argues that the agreement “represents a possibility - that the world can come together and solve one of the most complex problems we face as a civilization.”