News

Presidential Graduate Fellows Reception honors 2023 cohort

October 17, 2023

On Tuesday, October 10, Vice Chancellor Ian Waitz and the Office of Graduate Education co-hosted the annual Presidential Graduate Fellows Reception. MIT established this prestigious program to recruit the most outstanding students worldwide to pursue graduate studies at the Institute. The 24th cohort of fellows were honored with speeches and certificates. Students enjoyed the celebration […]

Ariel Furst and Fan Wang receive 2023 National Institutes of Health awards

October 16, 2023

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded grants to MIT’s Ariel Furst and Fan Wang, through its High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research program awarded 85 new research grants to support exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative behavioral and biomedical research projects.  Ariel Furst was selected as the recipient of the NIH […]

Designing a revolution

October 16, 2023

It is widely recognized that the period in the early 1970s in which Salvador Allende was president of Chile was a moment of political innovation, when people thought they could bring about socialist transformation peacefully and within existing democratic institutions. “People thought that this would be a political third way,” says Eden Medina, an associate […]

Printing a new approach to fusion power plant materials

October 14, 2023

When Alexander O’Brien sent in his application for graduate school at MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, he had a germ of a research idea already brewing. So when he received a phone call from Professor Mingda Li, he shared it: The student from Arkansas wanted to explore the design of materials that could […]

From MIT to Burning Man: The Living Knitwork Pavilion

October 13, 2023

Set against the vast and surreal backdrop of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, Burning Man is an annual gathering that transforms the flat, barren expanse into a vibrant playground for artistic and creative expression. Here, “Burners” come to both witness and contribute to the ephemeral Black Rock City, which participants build anew each year. […]

How to Get Unstuck introduces to 50+ graduate students to support structures

October 12, 2023

Last month Beth Marois, Assistant Dean for Graduate Support and Advising, presented at an event at Warehouse put on by Claudia and Dave Darmofal and the rest of the residence hall leadership team. Entitled “How to Get Unstuck,” the event included dinner, a giveaway, and an introduction to various support structures on campus including GradSupport […]

Nathaniel Hendren wants to understand the conditions of opportunity

October 12, 2023

The U.S. is a land of opportunity, but it’s a complicated thing. People in the workforce today are much less likely to earn more than their parents did, compared to people born around 1940. Some parts of the country generate much more economic mobility than others. And even with other matters being equal, there are […]

Organizing “spaghetti” software so it can be easily modified

October 12, 2023

As a software engineer, Dan Sturtevant SM ’08, PhD ’13 had jobs where making a small change to a codebase was easy — and jobs where a similarly small change would cause other, seemingly random parts of the codebase to break down or malfunction. Making these changes could remind Sturtevant what he liked about being […]

With Psyche, a journey to an ancient asteroid is set to begin

October 11, 2023

If all goes well, on Thursday morning a NASA mission with extensive connections to MIT will be headed to a metal world. Psyche, a van-sized spacecraft with winglike solar panels, is scheduled to blast off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket tomorrow at 10:16 a.m. Eastern Time. Psyche’s destination is a potato-shaped asteroid by the […]

Twelve with MIT ties elected to the National Academy of Medicine for 2023

October 10, 2023

The National Academy of Medicine announced the election of 100 new members to join their esteemed ranks in 2023, among them five MIT faculty members and seven additional affiliates. MIT professors Daniel Anderson, Regina Barzilay, Guoping Feng, Darrell Irvine, and Morgen Shen were among the new members. Justin Hanes PhD ’96, Said Ibrahim MBA ’16, […]