News & Stories

At the crossroads of language, technology, and empathy

Rujul Gandhi’s love of reading blossomed into a love of language at age 6, when she discovered a book at a garage sale called “What’s Behind the Word?” With forays into history, etymology, and language genealogies, the book captivated Gandhi, who as an MIT senior remains fascinated with words and how we use them. Growing […]

Citizens emerge from the slums

Do the world’s nearly 1 billion urban poor, who subsist without legal housing, reliable water and sewer infrastructure, and predictable employment, lack political engagement as well? Ying Gao does not buy the claim by many social scientists that social and economic marginalization necessarily means political marginalization. “My results contradict the prevailing wisdom about slums and […]

Crossing disciplines, adding fresh eyes to nuclear engineering

Sometimes patterns repeat in nature. Spirals appear in sunflowers and hurricanes. Branches occur in veins and lightning. Limiao Zhang, a doctoral student in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, has found another similarity: between street traffic and boiling water, with implications for preventing nuclear meltdowns. Growing up in China, Zhang enjoyed watching her father […]

Apekshya Prasai receives 2021 Jeanne Guillemin Prize

Growing up in the periphery of the civil war in Nepal, Apekshya Prasai was exposed to a 10-year conflict that by some accounts left 19,000 people dead and 150,000 people internally displaced. The insurgency was led by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (CPN-M) with the aim of overthrowing the ruling monarchy and establishing a people’s […]

Jing Wang, professor of Chinese media and cultural studies, dies at 71

Jing Wang, the S.C. Fang Professor of Chinese Languages and Culture, and a longtime member of the MIT faculty in Global Studies and Languages and Comparative Media Studies/Writing, passed away on Sunday in Boston after a heart attack. For decades, Wang was a leading scholar of the intersection of media and activism in China. Following […]

How aspirations become actions

Minutes before finding out he’d been accepted to MIT, Mussie Demisse ’21 was shaking Governor Charlie Baker’s hand. Demisse was at an awards ceremony at the Massachusetts State House, being honored as one of the 2018 “29 Who Shine,” a select group of graduates from the Commonwealth’s higher education system who’d made an impact at […]

Academy in Ghana aims to develop world leaders

Carl Kwaku Dey MBA ’21 graduated this month with not only a degree from the MIT Executive MBA (EMBA) Program, but also with plans to open a school in Ghana serving children in kindergarten through eighth grade. He’ll do so with the support of nearly 40 of his EMBA classmates, who helped with fundraising, branding, […]

Shipping Background Delivers the Chance to Feed Millions

As a high school student at a boarding school in Ghana, Chris Nikoi SM ’91 would sit by the dining hall windows and watch as ships docked in the port of Takoradi. Saturdays meant outings at the Seamen’s Centre; movie night meant boarding a ship to see the latest flick. Many of his classmates went […]

From gas to solar, bringing meaningful change to Nigeria’s energy systems

Growing up, Awele Uwagwu’s view of energy was deeply influenced by the oil and gas industry. He was born and raised in Port Harcourt, a city on the southern coast of Nigeria, and his hometown shaped his initial interest in understanding the role of energy in our lives. “I basically grew up in a city […]

Taking an indirect path into a bright future

Matthew Johnston was a physics senior looking to postpone his entry into adulting. He had an intense four years at MIT; when he wasn’t in class, he was playing baseball and working various tech development gigs. Johnston had led the MIT Engineers baseball team to a conference championship, becoming the first player in his team’s […]