Graduate, postdoctoral

New York Times reporter Catherine Porter spotlights Roofscapes, an MIT startup founded by Olivier Faber MArch '23, Tim Cousin MArch '23 and Eytan Levi MArch/MSRED '21 that aims to transform the zinc-roofed buildings in Paris into accessible green spaces as part of an effort to decrease building temperatures while improving quality of life. “We have an opportunity with all these untouched surfaces to do something that is virtually impossible anywhere else in a city like Paris,” explains Levi. “There’s a new way you can live.”

After observing the collision between a supernova and a black hole, researchers at MIT and elsewhere are rethinking our understanding of the life and death of stars, reports Jeanine Santucci for USA Today. "One of the only reasons that we were able to make this discovery and understand how scientifically interesting it was was through the combination of researchers in machine learning and in astrophysics," says postdoctoral scholar Alex Gagliano. 

With the help of a newly designed machine learning algorithm, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have spotted a “never-before-seen type of supernova that involves a nearby black hole,” reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “We’re now entering an era where we can automatically catch these rare events as they happen, not just after the fact,” said postdoctoral scholar Alex Gagliano. “That means we can finally start connecting the dots between how a star lives and how it dies, and that’s incredibly exciting.”

Using an AI algorithm, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have been able to identify a previously unobserved explosion in the universe that they consider a “new flavor of supernova,” reports Kasha Patel for The Washington Post. “We think that statistically we’re overdue for a supernova in our own galaxy,” says postdoctoral scholar Alex Gagliano. “There are many people that are trying to establish early warning systems so that as soon as our telescopes pick up on something unusual, we can all aim our telescopes in that location.”

Graduate student Isabella Macias speaks with CBS News about her experience studying astronomy and planetary formation at the Vatican Observatory. “The Vatican has such a deep, rich history of working with astronomers,” says Macias. “It shows that science is not only for global superpowers around the world, but it's for students, it's for humanity.” Br. Guy Consolmagno '74, SM '75, director of the Vatican Observatory, shares how he feels astronomy can help unite people around the world. 

Popular Science reporter Mack DeGeurin spotlights Foodres.Ai Printer, an AI-assisted 3D printer developed by MIT researchers that is “capable of converting food scraps into coasters, cups, and other everyday kitchen items.” The researchers hope their invention “can repurpose waste before it reaches trash cans or compost bins, helping to foster ‘hyper-local circular economies.’”

Interesting Engineering reporter Saoirse Kerrigan spotlights a number of MIT research projects from the past decade. MIT has “long been a hub of innovation and ingenuity across multiple industries and disciplines,” writes Kerrigan. “Every year, the school’s best and brightest debut projects that push the boundaries of science and technology. From vehicles and furniture to exciting new breakthroughs in electricity generation, the school’s projects have tackled an impressive variety of subjects.” 

Researchers at MIT have found that “AI agents can make the workplace more productive when fine-tuned for different personality types, but human co-workers pay a price in lost socialization,” reports Kaustuv Basu for Bloomberg. The researchers concluded “found that humans using AI raised their productivity by 60%—partly because those workers sent 23% fewer social messages,” writes Basu. 

Hank Green – a YouTuber, science communicator, and author - addressed the 2025 graduating class during his commencement address at the OneMIT ceremony, encouraging students to “stay curious,” reports Emily Spatz for The Boston Globe. “Do. Not. Forget. How special and bizarre it is to get to live a human life,” said Green. “Something very special and strange is happening on this planet and it is you.”

Graduate students Anika Jane Beamer, Nanticha Ocharoenchai, Pratik Pawar and Paulina Rowińska write for GBH to highlight health care deserts in the Boston area. “There are no hospitals or emergency care facilities in Mattapan,” they write. “With the closure of Carney Hospital, the nearest emergency room is at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, over three miles away. Getting there can be difficult.” 

Postdoc Isabella Loaiza speaks with ABC News reporter Max Zahn about her study examining how jobs and tasks across the U.S. economy shifted between 2016-2024. Loaiza and her colleagues found that “rather than dispense with qualities like critical thinking and empathy, workplace technology heightened the need for workers who exhibit those attributes,” Zahn explains. “It is true we’re seeing AI having an impact on white-collar work instead of more blue-collar work,” says Loaiza. “We found that jobs that are very human-intensive are probably more robust.” 

Writing for The Boston Globe, graduate students Manuj Dhariwal SM '17 and Shruti Dhariwal SM '18 highlight new efforts to reframe the language used to describe the ways humans are interacting with AI technologies. “It is a subtle reframing, but one that we urgently need as AI systems become interwoven with our creative, social, and emotional worlds,” they write. “The point is not necessarily to choose one over the other — but to clearly distinguish one from the other.” 

Postdoc Rohan Naidu and his colleagues have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to examine galaxy MoM-z14, first spotted in 2023, reports Jonathan O’Callaghan for New Scientist. “Naidu and his colleagues confirmed MoM-z14 is the most distant galaxy yet,” writes Naidu. “The light we see now was emitted just 280 million years after the big bang, breaking the previous record by about 10 million years.” 

The Boston Globe remembers James Santoro ’23; Karenna Groff ’22, MEng ’23; her father, Michael Groff, MD an executive MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management; and three others who passed away in a plane accident earlier this week. “Both Karenna and James were tremendous contributors to their sport teams, the institution, and their local communities,” says G. Anthony Grant, MIT’s director of athletics and head of the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation, adding: “We offer our sincere condolences and grieve with the Groff and Santoro families as well as their loved ones.” E. Antonio Chiocca, a friend of the Groff family, remembers Dr.Groff as, “Just a really nice guy, great family man. Just an amazing individual.”

Researchers at MIT have concluded that AI does not develop “value systems” over time, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “For me, my biggest takeaway from doing all this research is to now have an understanding of models as not really being systems that have some sort of stable, coherent set of beliefs and preferences,” says graduate student Stephen Casper. “Instead, they are imitators deep down who do all sorts of confabulation and say all sorts of frivolous things.”