CSAIL researchers are developing a drone that could be used to assist humans in search and rescue operations, reports Mashable. “If you are trying to detect someone in an avalanche and you can maybe just send a drone, and if they can find them out and then fly towards them and send a help signal. It would be probably be something that would be beneficial to people as an immediate application.”
Graduate student Karenna Groff ‘22 has been named NCAA Woman of the Year, an honor presented to a graduating female student-athlete who has distinguished herself in athletics, academics, leadership and community service, reports Matt Doherty for The Boston Globe. “I think the award is the first recognition I’ve gotten that looks into who I am and who I want to be,” says Groff. “I think it will help me frame the direction towards what I want the next chapter in my life to look like.”
Graduate student Karenna Groff ’22 speaks with CBS Boston reporter Mike UVA about her academic and athletic accomplishments. “Groff become just the sixth Division III student-athlete ever to be recognized as the NCAA Woman of the Year,” says Uva. “An honor that celebrates excellence both on and off the field for all divisions.”
MIT researchers have found that in the U.S., “fires started by people account for a majority of premature deaths related to inhalation of tiny smoke particles,” writes Cara Murez for U.S. News & World Report. “Fires not only threaten human lives, infrastructure and ecosystems, but they are also a major cause for concern in terms of air quality,” says Therese Carter PhD ’22.
GBH reporter Esteban Bustillos spotlights graduate student Karenna Groff '22, the NCAA Woman of the Year, and her efforts to make a difference both on and off the field, from her work as an EMT at MIT to her efforts to reduce maternal mortality in southern India. “Using sports as a platform to drive forward equity in all these different walks of life has always been something that I want to be a part of,” explains Groff.
Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum speaks with Wired reporter Will Knight about AI image generators and the limitations of AI tools. “It's amazing what they can do,” says Tenenbaum, “but their ability to imagine what the world might be like from simple descriptions is often very limited and counterintuitive.”
Graduate student Matthew Groh discusses Detect Fakes, a research project he co-created aimed at teaching people how to detect deepfakes, with Wall Street Journal reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara. Groh recommends people pay attention to the context of an image or video, noting that people can “pay attention to incentives and what someone is saying and why someone might be saying this.”
Forbes has named Commonwealth Fusion Systems one of the biggest tech innovations and breakthroughs of 2022, reports Bernard Marr. “Commonwealth Fusion Systems is now working with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center on plans to build a factory that can mass-produce components for the first commercial fusion reactors,” writes Marr.
A team of MIT researchers has discovered a new kind of liquid fractal, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The scientists “were studying how one liquid breaks up into droplets when it is mixed into another and unexpectedly” made the discovery, Padavic-Callaghan explains.
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, postdoc Rohan Naidu and his colleagues discovered a candidate galaxy in the early universe that is one of two candidate galaxies older than any others known before, reports Jonathan O'Callaghan for Scientific American.
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah emphasizes the importance of representation in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which featured Riri Williams (Ironheart) as a Black female engineer at MIT. Attiah notes that she is “grateful that ‘Black Panther 2’ exists to show us what #BlackGirlGenius looks like.”
Graduate student Kevin Frans co-founded OpenAI, a for-profit research lab that aims to provide free public access to artificial intelligence systems, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Our mission is to put AI is the hands of everyone,” says Frans.
Boston.com reporter Clara McCourt spotlights how three MIT students - Jack Cook ‘22, Matthew Kearney and Jupneet K. Singh - have been selected as Rhodes Scholars. “The selected students — 32 in total — will go to Oxford University in England next October to pursue wide-ranging graduate degrees," writes McCourt, "with two or three years of study free of charge.”
Matthew Kearney, John “Jack” B. Cook ’22, and Jupneet K. Singh have been named 2023 U.S. Rhodes Scholars, reports NBC Boston 10.
Matthew Kearney , John "Jack” B. Cook ’22, and Jupneet K. Singh are amongst the 2023 Rhodes Scholars, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. This year’s Rhodes Scholars "will go to Oxford University in England next October to pursue graduate degrees across the breadth of the social sciences, humanities, and biological and physical sciences,” says Elliot Gerson, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust. “They inspire us already with their accomplishments, but even more by their values-based leadership and selfless ambitions to improve their communities and the world.”