Bob Metcalfe ’69, a CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus, has been honored as this year’s recipient of the Turing Award for the invention of the Ethernet, “a technology that half a century after its creation remains the foundation of the internet,” reports Stephen Nellis for Reuters. “The Ethernet got its start when Metcalfe, who later went on to co-found computing network equipment maker 3Com, was asked to hook up the office printer,” writes Nellis.
CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus Bob Metacalfe ‘69 has been awarded the 2022 Turing Award for his contributions to creating Ethernet, a method for enabling personal computers to communicate directly with one another over a wired connection, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Variants of the original Ethernet connect countless millions of computers around the world,” writes Bray.
Chronicle visits the new MIT Museum, highlighting a number of exhibits, including one exploring the research behind the hunt for gravitational waves and another that examines the impacts humans are having on the environment. “We try to be a window, going both ways, between MIT and the rest of the public,” explains Prof. John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. “We’re also trying to get people to have a glimpse of how a world-class research institution actually works.”
Lydia Villa Komaroff PhD ’75 speaks with NPR reporter Emily Kwong about her work in gene editing. Biotechnology and genetic engineering were “enormously impactful,” says Komaroff. “So impactful that molecular biology pretty much disappeared as a field, it has become a tool that is of use in every field of biology and medicine today.”
A new exhibit at the MIT Museum, “To Look and Learn: The Creative Photography Laboratory at MIT,” documents a “varied and vital visual era” at MIT," writes Mark Feeney for The Boston Globe. One legacy of MIT’s Creative Photography Laboratory is “the tradition of rewarding photography shows at the MIT Museum," Feeney notes. "'To Look and Learn' is the latest example.”
Fast Company reporter Nate Berg spotlights the grand opening of the redesigned MIT Museum. “Braiding the science and the art together, I think it places the science into the context that it is part of our culture and our lives, it’s not a white tower experience,” says Ann Neumann, director of exhibitions and galleries at the museum.
GBH Open Studio reporter Jared Bowen explores the new MIT Museum in Kendall Square. “The reimagined MIT Museum looks at all the advances in technology and their positive – and controversial – effects on society, from genetic engineering to the increasing role that artificial intelligence is playing in art and media,” says Bowen.
Gizmodo spotlights Jens Andersen’s book “The Lego Story,” which explores how MIT researchers worked on the development of LEGO’s buildable robotics kits. Former president and CEO of Lego, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen’s “faith in the concept of learning through play took a big leap forward in the late 1980s, when LEGO and the MIT Media Lab developed software for LEGO’s own models in the LEGO Technic line,” writes Andersen.
Duke Provost Sally Kornbluth has been named the next president of MIT, reports Paul Basken for Times Higher Education. “MIT’s announcement credited Professor Kornbluth with prioritizing investments in faculty, especially from under-represented groups, and strengthening interdisciplinary research and education,” writes Basken.
The hosts of Bloomberg Radio’s Baystate Business discussed the announcement that Sally Kornbluth has been named the 18th president of MIT. "[Kornbluth] said that she was excited for those 'global challenges,' and that is something that has been really the mantle of MIT: solving the world’s problems with technology,” reports Janet Wu. “It sounded like she wanted to be part of that.”
Forbes contributor Michael T. Nietzel spotlights how Sally Kornbluth, the provost of Duke University, has been selected as the 18th President-elect of MIT. “A highly accomplished researcher, Kornbluth is currently the Jo Rae Wright University Professor of Biology at Duke where she has been a member of the faculty since 1994, first in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at the Duke University School of Medicine and then as a member of the Department of Biology in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences,” writes Nietzel.
President-elect Sally Kornbluth discusses her hopes and aspirations for her tenure as MIT’s president with Katie Mogg of The Boston Globe. “I just want to continue the excellence of MIT,” she said. “I hope when I turn my head back down the road some years from now that this will have been viewed as a period of continued excellence, but also of the discovery, innovation, and invention of things that continue to really have a huge impact on the world stage.”
New York Times reporter Anemona Hartocollis writes that Sally Kornbluth, the 18th President-elect of MIT, will be the “second female president of the university, and will join a long list of women in its top leadership ranks. The provost, chancellor, dean of science and chair of the M.I.T. Corporation, the school’s governing body, are all women.”
Sally Kornbluth has been named the next president of MIT, reports the Associated Press. “Maybe above all, I was drawn here because this is a moment when humanity faces huge global problems, problems that urgently demand the world’s most skillful minds and hands,” said Kornbluth. “In short, I believe this is MIT’s moment. I could not imagine a greater privilege than helping the people of MIT seize its full potential.”
MIT Museum Director John Durant speaks with Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney about the significance of the new location of the MIT Museum and what makes the museum such a special place. Of the museum’s new home in the heart of Kendall Square, Durant says, “I think MIT is committing itself here to the importance of its museum as a kind of gateway institution, as a way of helping the wider community understand what MIT is about.”