News & Stories

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 […]

Searching for truth in data from authoritarian regimes

Like most scientists, Minh Trinh has long been preoccupied with trying to understand his surroundings. For Trinh, this curiosity has been directed at the most impactful, yet elusive, force in his early life — the one-party Vietnamese government. Under the Communist Party of Vietnam, many of the decisions that impacted Trinh’s life were made behind […]

Mastering online learning to level up

A number of pervasive myths surround online learning: that it’s isolating, that the quality of instruction is innately lower than in an in-person classroom, or that it’s only for those who can’t succeed in traditional educational settings. Abigael Bamgboye, an accomplished and highly self-motivated university graduate who just completed the MITx MicroMasters Data and Economic […]

A graduate student who goes to extremes

When he entered the Museo Galieo, Theo Mouratidis was not expecting to make a life-changing decision. Having recently graduated from a high school outside Melbourne, Australia, and looking forward to undergraduate studies at nearby Monash University, he had joined his family for a holiday in Florence, Italy. Stepping inside a museum devoted to the genius […]

Tackling air pollution in India and the developing world

“I grew up with asthma as a kid, so bad air quality holds a visceral significance for me,” says Sidhant (Sid) Pai ’14, who spent much of his childhood in Pune, India. Located about 90 miles southwest of Mumbai, the city’s population has mushroomed over the past few decades, creating significant waste management concerns and […]

Innovations in water accessibility

Growing up in coastal Connecticut, Flora Klise’s childhood was shaped by water. She spent summers taking sailing lessons and working at a local marina. But it wasn’t until she stood next to a well in rural Tanzania that she realized she wanted to pursue a career in water innovation. The summer before her junior year, […]

Ways of seeing the world

Anjali Nambrath is about to graduate from MIT with a double major in physics and mathematics, but her big project this winter didn’t center on neutrinos, the subject of her undergraduate thesis. Instead, she worked on translating “Hurlevents,” a Quebecois play by Fanny Britt, from French into English. “I just fell in love with the […]

Up for a challenge in the lab and on the mat

At 5:30 a.m., his alarm would start blaring. Reluctant to get up, Jose Aceves-Salvador would hear his parents outside his door, bustling to get ready for work. “Ponte las pilas!” they would shout, using a Spanish idiom expressing encouragement to work hard. The expression would stick with Aceves-Salvador throughout high school as he dreamed of […]

Expanding MIT’s global reach in the professional world

MIT Professional Education, housed under the School of Engineering, is the arm of MIT that provides access to MIT knowledge and expertise to thousands of professionals around the world via education programs designed for them. Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education, says he didn’t consciously set out to bring more diversity to the […]