News & Stories

A better way to make development projects work

In poorer countries, economic development projects tend to get built with the aid of partner countries and companies, and multilateral development organizations. One line of thought is that such projects work better when the outside partner is also from a lower-income country, what is often referred to as the “Global South.” Suppose the Brazilian cooperation […]

Migration Summit addresses education and workforce development in displacement

“Refugees can change the world with access to education,” says Alnarjes Harba, a refugee from Syria who recently shared her story at the 2022 Migration Summit — a first-of-its-kind, global convening to address the challenges that displaced communities face in accessing education and employment. At the age of 13, Harba was displaced to Lebanon, where […]

Empowering people to adapt on the frontlines of climate change

On April 11, MIT announced five multiyear flagship projects in the first-ever Climate Grand Challenges, a new initiative to tackle complex climate problems and deliver breakthrough solutions to the world as quickly as possible. This article is the fifth in a five-part series highlighting the most promising concepts to emerge from the competition and the […]

Engineers enlist AI to help scale up advanced solar cell manufacturing

Perovskites are a family of materials that are currently the leading contender to potentially replace today’s silicon-based solar photovoltaics. They hold the promise of panels that are far thinner and lighter, that could be made with ultra-high throughput at room temperature instead of at hundreds of degrees, and that are cheaper and easier to transport […]

J-PAL launches the Egypt Impact Lab to improve lives through evidence-informed policymaking

A new collaboration between the Middle East and North Africa regional office of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development aims to strengthen the effectiveness of Egypt’s poverty alleviation policies through rigorous evaluation and innovation. The new initiative, the Egypt Impact Lab, will connect academics with government […]

Ride-hailing without the traffic snarls?

In theory, competition among ride-hailing companies should be a good thing, providing more options for consumers. In practice, having too many ride-hailing vehicles adds to urban congestion. How can cities balance these factors? A new study co-authored by MIT researchers, in collaboration with the Institute for Informatics and Telematics of the National Research Council of […]

Finding her way to fusion

“I catch myself startling people in public.” Zoe Fisher’s animated hands carry part of the conversation as she describes how her naturally loud and expressive laughter turned heads in the streets of Yerevan. There during MIT’s Independent Activities period (IAP), she was helping teach nuclear science at the American University of Armenia, before returning to […]

Advocating for vaccine equity

When Digbijay Mahat arrived at MIT in 2017 to begin his postdoctoral studies, he had one very clear goal: to become an expert in cancer research and diagnostics so he could improve health care in Nepal, where he was born. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic laid bare additional discrepancies in resource equity around the […]

Transforming the travel experience for the Hong Kong airport

MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node welcomed 33 students to its flagship program, MIT Entrepreneurship and Maker Skills Integrator (MEMSI). Designed to develop entrepreneurial prowess through exposure to industry-driven challenges, MIT students joined forces with Hong Kong peers in this two-week hybrid bootcamp, developing unique proposals for the Airport Authority of Hong Kong. Many airports across […]

SMART researchers discover unique lysin capable of killing multidrug-resistant bacteria

Researchers from the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interdisciplinary Research Group at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, alongside collaborators at Nanyang Technological University, have identified a novel phage lysin — Abp013 — that could be used as an alternative antimicrobial agent against two of the most deadly bacteria: Acinetobacter baumannii […]