“When we talk about our experiences as graduate students at MIT, my colleagues and I tend to use words like ‘challenging,’ ‘rewarding,’ ‘inspiring,’ or ‘stressful’,” says Courtney Lesoon, the 2017-2018 Graduate Community Fellow for the Committed to Caring Program and a PhD student in the History, Theory and Criticism Section …
Read More »IDEAS Global Challenge rewards inventions with social impact
Ten student teams with inventions to improve people’s lives worldwide — from portable ventilators for resource-strapped hospitals, to wheelchair cushions that prevent sores, to multipurpose sleeping bags for refugees — on Saturday split awards totaling $92,500 at the annual MIT IDEAS Global Challenge showcase and awards ceremony. Grand prize winner …
Read More »Using data science to improve public policy
100 researchers and students from MIT and six other universities gathered on campus this April for the first weekend-long MIT Policy Hackathon. This interdisciplinary event teamed data science, engineering, and policy students to explore solutions to real societal challenges submitted by sponsor organizations. The hackathon, subtitled “Data to Decisions,” was …
Read More »Playwrights Lab gives young writers a professional experience
On a recent Friday evening, six people gathered around a table in a mostly-empty studio in MIT’s new theater arts building on the western edge of campus. In a few hours time, the group — local actors Marge Buckley and Sarah Bedard, the Brooklyn-based director Adam Greenfield, and MIT undergrads …
Read More »Geophysics field trip helps secure safe drinking water for local citizens
Every other January, when Cambridge is freezing and spring classes have not yet begun, a delegation of MIT students heads off to a beautiful island in the Caribbean. But this is no vacation, and the biennial trip led by Professor Dale Morgan of the Deptartment of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) …
Read More »Vinod Vaikuntanathan wins Edgerton Faculty Award
Vinod Vaikuntanathan, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has been recognized for excellence with the 2017-2018 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award. The honor lauds Vaikuntanathan, who also a principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), for “his innovative and broadly-applicable …
Read More »Study: Health benefits will offset cost of China’s climate policy
A new MIT study reports that, if China follows through with its international pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, every one of its provinces will experience benefits to air quality and human health, with associated monetary savings that could offset the total cost of implementing the climate policy. The study, …
Read More »Parag Pathak wins John Bates Clark Medal
MIT Professor Parag Pathak, a market-design expert who has extensively studied education while developing new policy mechanisms used across the U.S., has been awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for 2018, granted annually to the best economist under the age of 40. The prestigious award, granted by the American Economic …
Read More »Center for Environmental Health Sciences selects 2018 poster winners
The Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS) at MIT held its annual poster session on April 10 in the lobby of Building 13. The session highlighted the work of the environmental health research communities of MIT and some of its peer institutions. Over 50 posters were presented from the science …
Read More »Rock music helps students and educators explore engineering
As far as chance encounters go, the meeting between AnnMarie Thomas ’01 and Damian Kulash, the lead singer for the rock band OK Go, could not have gone better. Thomas and Kulash first met at a coffee shop after a TED conference and later on a flight from Los Angeles …
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