Author: Ms. R.

Four MIT faculty members have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The 2023 class of AAAS Fellows includes 502 scientists, engineers, and innovators across 24 scientific disciplines, who are being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.   Bevin Engelward initiated her scientific journey at Yale University under the mentorship of Thomas Steitz; following this, she pursued her doctoral studies at the Harvard School of Public Health under Leona Samson. In……

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Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor Erin Kara of the Department of Physics has been named as the recipient of the 2023-24 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award. Established in 1982, the award is a tribute to the late Institute Professor Emeritus Harold E. Edgerton for his support for younger faculty members. This award recognizes exceptional distinction in teaching, research, and service. Professor Kara is an observational astrophysicist who is a faculty member in the Department of Physics and……

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The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT has announced a new fellowship program that will provide students from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) with training, mentorship, and early-career support to report on science, health, and environmental issues. The fellowship’s inaugural cohort will consist of 10 highly accomplished journalism students representing Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, Morgan State University, and North Carolina A&T State University. The HBCU Science Journalism Fellowship will launch this June with a week-long science journalism summer……

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The King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI) is the flagship climate change program of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which innovates, tests, and scales solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation, together with policy partners worldwide. Claire Walsh is the associate director of policy at J-PAL Global at MIT. She is also the project director of K-CAI. Here, Walsh talks about the work of K-CAI since its launch in 2020, and describes the ways……

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Using a pair of sensors made from carbon nanotubes, researchers from MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) have discovered signals that reveal when plans are experiencing stresses such as heat, light, or attack from insects or bacteria. The sensors detect two signaling molecules that plants use to coordinate their response to stress: hydrogen peroxide and salicylic acid (a molecule similar to aspirin). The researchers found that plants produce these molecules at different timepoints for each……

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Across the country, hundreds of thousands of drivers deliver packages and parcels to customers and companies each day, with many click-to-door times averaging only a few days. Coordinating a supply chain feat of this magnitude in a predictable and timely way is a longstanding problem of operations research, where researchers have been working to optimize the last leg of delivery routes. This is because the last phase of the process is often the costliest due to inefficiencies like long……

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What better way to commemorate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day than to give  three of the world’s most accomplished scientists an opportunity to talk about their careers? On March 7, MindHandHeart invited professors Paula Hammond, Ann Graybiel, and Sangeeta Bhatia to share their career journeys, from the progress they have witnessed to the challenges they have faced as women in STEM. Their conversation was moderated by Mary Fuller, chair of the faculty and professor of literature.  Hammond,……

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When MIT professor and now Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) member Peter Shor first demonstrated the potential of quantum computers to solve problems faster than classical ones, he inspired scientists to imagine countless possibilities for the emerging technology. Thirty years later, though, the quantum edge remains a peak not yet reached. Unfortunately, the technology of quantum computing isn’t fully operational yet. One major challenge lies in translating quantum algorithms from abstract mathematical concepts into concrete code that……

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To save on fuel and reduce aircraft emissions, engineers are looking to build lighter, stronger airplanes out of advanced composites. These engineered materials are made from high-performance fibers that are embedded in polymer sheets. The sheets can be stacked and pressed into one multilayered material and made into extremely lightweight and durable structures. But composite materials have one main vulnerability: the space between layers, which is typically filled with polymer “glue” to bond the layers together. In the event……

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