News & Stories

Understanding the world, from the Cold War to the age of AI

At a moment when global alliances are shifting, technological change is accelerating, and the boundaries between science and geopolitics are dissolving, understanding the world demands new ways of thinking. For 75 years, the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS) has helped meet that challenge — bringing together engineers, social scientists, and policy practitioners to confront the […]

“Technology is the equalizer”

Mohammad Imran Khan Mewati teaches grades 6-12 at a school in rural India. His students are largely from economically disadvantaged families, and the school itself has limited resources. But the biggest problem, he says, is absenteeism.  “If a student is not coming into your class, how are you going to teach?” says Mewati, a teacher […]

MIT and Institute of Science Tokyo launch new collaboration

Study predicts large disparities in access to food, water, and energy in 2050

How will global access to food, water, and energy evolve in coming decades? A new study co-authored by MIT researchers suggests the answers could be very different depending on region, resource, and income. Based on extensive modeling of many different resource scenarios, the study finds that in some regions, lower-income people could be spending roughly […]

Researchers tune into Arctic under-ice sounds and test through-ice communication

Beneath the Arctic Ocean is an orchestra featuring natural and human composers, from cracking sea ice and whistling beluga whales to humming shipping-vessel engines. Researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory heard some of this cacophony when analyzing data from commercial off-the-shelf sensors that they integrated and deployed in 2024 during the U.S. Navy’s Operation Ice Camp […]

3 Questions: The essential role of international engagement

Vice Provost for International Activities Duane Boning oversees MIT’s international policies and engagements. Here he discusses why international engagement remains vital to MIT’s mission of advancing knowledge, educating students, and innovating to serve the nation and the world. Q: Why does MIT consider international engagement important to its institutional mission? A: International engagement is an integral part of […]

Creating innovations that scale across borders

Creating innovations that can succeed in both emerging markets and in developed, higher-income markets requires a targeted, thoughtful design process. In a new book, Amos Winter, the Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a pioneer in engineering design, and coauthor Vijay Govindarajan, a leading voice in strategy and innovation, present a framework for […]

Q&A: Rethinking how innovation happens

Innovation is a concept that has become mythologized in the modern era: what it is, how to manage it, how to teach it, and how to get it to work for us. Despite these explorations, it remains fundamentally misunderstood, writes Eugene Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings SMA Professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and […]

Scientists unveil more than 600 new tissue models of human cancer

To develop new targeted treatments for cancer, scientists need tissue models that accurately represent the genetic and molecular traits of the cancer they’re studying. An international team led by researchers at MIT’s Koch Institute, the Broad Institute, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and numerous other partnering institutions has developed nearly 700 new […]

Then and now: How MIT Lincoln Laboratory has served as a driving force in national security innovation

On July 26, 1951, the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy signed a charter establishing Project Lincoln, an R&D program managed by MIT to develop the nation’s first continent-wide air defense system, SAGE. The charter called for a research center to be opened within the towns of Bedford, Lincoln, and Lexington, Massachusetts, to support Project Lincoln, which […]