Emily Calandrelli SM ’13 speaks with STAT reporter Pratibha Gopalakrishna about her work aimed at getting children interested in science, the importance of representation in the STEM fields, and her new Netflix show. “I don’t shy away from the science because I think kids are very clever and know way more than a lot of people give them credit for,” says Calandrelli.
Prof. Sara Seager speaks with Judi Ketteler of The Boston Globe about her new book, “The Smallest Light in the Universe.” Seager shares that the night sky still conjures up the same feelings of "awe and wonder,” that she felt as a child. “The only difference is, I wonder about the planets around those stars. I wonder if anyone’s on those looking back at us from their planet.”
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with Forbes contributor Nancy Wang about how to encourage more girls to pursue careers in STEM. “We need to educate all students – male and female – equally on the opportunities available in these fields, give them the chance to shine, and ensure that we’re creating inclusive environments for them to work in,” says Rus.
Writing for The Boston Globe, John Wolfson spotlights Prof. Lisa Piccirillo’s work solving the Conway knot problem. “When you perform a calculation, sometimes there’s really clever tricks you can use or some ways that you can be an actual human and not a computer in the performing of the calculation,” says Piccirillo of what drew her to math. “But when you make a logical argument — that’s entirely yours.”
Danielle Geathers, president of the Undergraduate Association (UA), writes for Time about how her childhood helped inspire her to desire to advocate for change. “My activism was nurtured by my mother’s emphasis on cultural education,” writes Geathers. “I had early exposure to Alex Haley’s Kunta Kinte, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois and Maya Angelou. I was planted in solid ground with roots that stretched back generations.”
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala has been named the new Dean of MIT’s School of Science, reports Zara Khan for Mashable. Khan notes that Mavalvala “is known for her pioneering work in gravitational wave detection,” and will be the first woman to serve as Dean of the School of Science.
Writing for The New York Times, Anthony Doerr reviews “The Smallest Lights in the Universe” and “The Sirens of Mars,” new books from Professor Sara Seager and alumna Sarah Stewart Johnson ’08, respectively. Doerr notes that “both writers exemplify the humanity of science: Seager and Johnson laugh, grieve, hope, fail, try, fail and try again.”
USA Today reporter Barbara VanDenburgh highlights Prof. Sara Seager’s new book in a roundup of “not to miss” upcoming releases. “After the unexpected death of her husband, an MIT astrophysicist looks to the stars for solace – and inside herself for answers – in this moving memoir,” writes VanDenburgh.
CNN reporter Kami Phillips spotlights Prof. Sara Seager’s new book, “The Smallest Lights in the Universe.” Phillips notes, “This moving memoir is a tear-jerking story of grief, love, loss and new beginnings that will leave you comforted, hopeful and optimistic all at the same time.”
Prof. Tanja Bosak speaks with Verge reporter Loren Grush about the significance of the Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance rover’s quest to bring back samples of Martian material to Earth. “This is really a unique — really a once-in-a-lifetime — opportunity to get samples from a known location on Mars,” says Bosak.
New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye spotlights Sarah Stewart Johnson ‘08 and her new book, which explores what inspired her passion for the Red Planet. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, noted that she was “blessed” to have Johnson in her lab. “She would look like she was bouncing around trying to zero in on something useful, and then she would do something absolutely brilliant,” said Zuber.
ELLE reporter Molly Langmuir spotlights the work of Prof. Neri Oxman, who is known for “producing radically interdisciplinary work.” Oxman has produced everything from “a silk pavilion—a suspended dome of silk fibers spun by a robotic arm, completed by 6,500 live silkworms—to a design concept for a wearable digestive system incorporating photosynthetic bacteria that convert solar energy into sugar.”
Writing for Astronomy, Korey Haynes features Saydean Zeldin’s work at the MIT Instrumentation Lab designing software that allowed the Apollo astronauts to control the spacecraft engines. Haynes notes that Zeldin has had “a major hand in the way technology works today.”
Writing for Astronomy, Korey Haynes spotlights Elaine Denniston, who was hired as a keypuncher at the MIT Instrumentation Lab, but went above and beyond, reviewing the Apollo code for errors. Denniston, who went on to become a lawyer, says that she “didn’t realize then that what I did was anything special. I typed, I found errors, I nagged people.”
Prof. Jeff Hoffman speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter Deborah Netburn about the importance of sending a woman to the moon. “When people ask when I knew I wanted to be an astronaut, I always say that like every other red-blooded boy, I was inspired by the men who flew on Apollo,” he said. “Unfortunately, the red-blooded girls didn’t have those role models.”