News & Stories

Superconductor technology for smaller, sooner fusion

Scientists have long sought to harness fusion as an inexhaustible and carbon-free energy source. Within the past few years, groundbreaking high-temperature superconductor technology (HTS) sparked a new vision for achieving practical fusion energy. This approach, known as the high-field pathway to fusion, aims to generate fusion in compact devices on a shorter timescale and lower […]

3 Questions: Anat Biletzki on the Human Rights and Technology Fellowship Program

MIT Center for International Studies (CIS) research affiliate Anat Biletzki is the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Philosophy at Quinnipiac University. From 2001 to 2006, she served as chair of B’Tselem ― the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and in 2015 was honored as a nominee of the 1,000 Women for the Nobel […]

3 Questions: Ram Sasisekharan on hastening vaccines and treatments

Covid-19 has brought much of the world to a halt this year. However, it is just one of the many infectious diseases without a vaccine that affect millions of people around the world. The development of therapeutics for these infectious diseases has mostly been overlooked by pharmaceutical companies in favor of higher-margin therapies for the […]

MIT deepens connections to the Middle East

Since MIT’s first major collaboration in the Middle East in the 1970s, the Institute has deepened its connection and commitment to the region, expanding to create the MIT-Arab World Program through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). This year, partnering with the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (AHSF) in Jordan, the program is launching […]

J-PAL North America launches MIT Roybal Center for Translational Research to Improve Health Care for the Aging

With support from the National Institute on Aging, J-PAL North America, a research center in the MIT Department of Economics, recently launched the MIT Roybal Center for Translational Research to Improve Health Care for the Aging. The center will support randomized evaluations of low-cost, high-impact behavioral interventions to improve health-care delivery and health outcomes for […]

J-PAL North America launches research initiative to focus on Covid-19 recovery

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in incalculable losses for millions of Americans, particularly among low-income communities and communities of color. As decision-makers work to address this unparalleled public health crisis, urgent questions remain on how the Covid-19 pandemic will impact the social and economic well-being of people in the United States once the immediate crisis […]

3 Questions: Historian Emma Teng on face masks as 公德心

As The Washington Post has reported, “at the heart of the dismal U.S. coronavirus response” is a “fraught relationship with masks.” With its Meaning of Masks series, which explores the myriad historic, creative, and cultural meanings of masks, the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) aims to offer Americans more ways to […]

The promise of using WhatsApp for low-tech distance learning

WhatsApp is one of the most widely-used communication apps in South Africa. Though it’s often portrayed in the news as a way to spread disinformation, it shows surprising potential as a tool for online learning during the era of social distancing. Grassroot, a civic technology organization based in South Africa, has developed a first-of-its-kind training […]

MIT-Wits Program continues to thrive

Now in its seventh year, the MIT-Wits Program is one of MIT’s most active in Africa. Whether through MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI)-organized student opportunities and faculty seed funds, visiting professors, or its array of edX courses, the relationship is as strong as ever. Known fondly known as Wits (and pronounced “Vits”), the […]

How to grow a cosmic magnetic field

When Muni Zhou looks into a clear night sky, she might be focusing less on the stars and more on what cannot be seen with the eye. The MIT graduate student, now in her fourth year at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), is fascinated by vast magnetic field structures that exist not only […]