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Research from the ground up
When Sonya Atalay conducted her doctoral research, she studied pottery in Çatalhöyük, a remarkable ancient site in Turkey. It’s one of the world’s earliest known urban settlements, flourishing by at least 7000 B.C.E. Yet even as Atalay was conducting field research and writing her doctoral thesis, she was scrutinizing standard archaeological practices, believing the discipline to […]
Place-based pathways to a viable future
Aiming to transition away from fossil fuels and avert the worst consequences of climate change, world leaders aspire to achieve net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. But actions to meet such targets and minimize adverse impacts on lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure are not one-size-fits-all; they […]
Ten from MIT accept 2026 Fulbright awards
Ten MIT affiliates — including undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni — have accepted Fulbright grants to conduct research in countries across the world. Five other students declined their awards to pursue other opportunities, and another student is still deciding. In total, 16 of MIT’s 30 Fulbright applicants won awards this year. Funded by the U.S. […]
Learning to teach, learning to discover
Nik Sandu points to a graph on the whiteboard in a seventh-grade science class. “According to the graph, what is the energy of the ball?” she asks, gently waving a hand to settle the room’s twitchy energy. “Voices are off.” A student raises his hand, noticing an askew Y-axis. “This one doesn’t go through zero. A […]
Some democracies are struggling to ensure safe drinking water
About 2 billion people — just under a quarter of the world’s population — lack regular access to clean drinking water. And roughly 800,000 people annually die from illnesses associated with unsanitary water. Drinking water access is a fundamental problem for human and economic development. The U.N., for instance, highlighted the issue in its Sustainable […]
MIT Asia Real Estate Initiative expands its footprint in booming Asian cities
Urbanization in the Asia-Pacific region of the world is occurring at an alarmingly rapid pace, with more than 2.2 billion people now living in cities in the region, and an additional 1.2 billion projected to migrate to cities by 2050, according to a February 2026 report from the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and […]
A bet that has paid off 500 million times over
In 2001, at the dawn of the digital age, MIT made a bold decision: to open its curriculum to the world. Through MIT OpenCourseWare — now part of MIT Open Learning — the Institute began sharing materials from nearly all of its courses online for free. A quarter of a century later, that decision has […]
MIT practicum connects students with Ukrainian city leaders on economic development
MIT graduate students are working with leaders from the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia to explore strategies for economic development, infrastructure, and innovation during wartime conditions. As part of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) spring course 11.S941 (Innovating in Ukraine), DUSP hosted a delegation of five Ukrainian leaders from Vinnytsia, a city […]
From technical solution to systems change: Tackling the problem of plastic waste
When Akorfa Dagadu arrived at MIT, she had a solution in mind: a mobile app to improve recycling and environmental engagement in her home country of Ghana. The project, called Ishara, aimed to make it easier for people to participate in local recycling systems while creating economic opportunities. “I grew up in what people often […]