News & Stories

Bringing “cultural diplomacy” to the classics

People often put national boundaries around the written word. If you read French poetry or Victorian novels, it is tempting to understand those texts strictly in relation to the history and culture of France or Britain. Yet it often helps to take a wider view about literary production. Consider that for many centuries, Chinese provided […]

Frequent encounters build familiarity

Do better spatial networks make for better neighbors? There is evidence that they do, according to Paige Bollen, a sixth-year political science graduate student at MIT. The networks Bollen works with are not virtual but physical, part of the built environment in which we are all embedded. Her research on urban spaces suggests that the […]

Leveraging science and technology against the world’s top problems

Looking back on nearly a half-century at MIT, Richard K. Lester, associate provost and Japan Steel Industry Professor, sees a “somewhat eccentric professional trajectory.” But while his path has been irregular, there has been a clearly defined through line, Lester says: the emergence of new science and new technologies, the potential of these developments to shake […]

Finding the questions that guide MIT fusion research

“One of the things I learned was, doing good science isn’t so much about finding the answers as figuring out what the important questions are.” As Martin Greenwald retires from the responsibilities of senior scientist and deputy director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), he reflects on his almost 50 years of […]

Lawrence Udeigwe uses elegant math to understand complex systems of the brain

It’s a tale familiar to many first-generation students: Neither of Lawrence Udeigwe’s parents had more than a sixth-grade education, and yet they were willing to sacrifice everything to educate their children. “My dad,” Udeigwe says, “would tell us, ‘I’m ready to sell everything for you guys to go to school.’” Udeigwe recounts that in Nigeria […]

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 […]

Q&A: Latifah Hamzah ’12 on creating sustainable solutions in Malaysia and beyond

Latifah Hamzah ’12 graduated from MIT with a BS in mechanical engineering and minors in energy studies and music. During their time at MIT, Latifah participated in various student organizations, including the MIT Symphony Orchestra, Alpha Phi Omega, and the MIT Design/Build/Fly team. They also participated in the MIT Energy Initiative’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program […]

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 […]

Leveraging schools for political influence

“When I began graduate school, the issue of states losing control over their central functions piqued my interest,” says Blair Read, a sixth-year doctoral candidate in political science. To tackle such a broad agenda, she zeroed in on the case of private schooling. “It has exploded worldwide, especially in lower- and middle-income countries, and I’m […]

Tuning in to invisible waves on the JET tokamak

Research scientist Alex Tinguely is readjusting to Cambridge and Boston. As a postdoc with the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), the MIT graduate spent the last two years in Oxford, England, a city he recalls can be traversed entirely “in the time it takes to walk from MIT to Harvard.” With its ancient stone […]