MIT Spectrum

spectrum spring 2018 cover image

Spring 2018

The first step in repairing something is to understand how it works. At MIT, the next step is imagining how it could work even better than before. Plus: a special section on human and machine intelligence.

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Omar Abudayyeh, left, and Feng Zhang. Photo: Sarah Bastille

To the Letter

In the Zhang lab, a leap forward in CRISPR-based genome editing offers precision RNA fixes with major therapeutic implications

West Philadelphia middle school students, 1999. Students working with WPLP have learned to read their landscape as a product of natural forces and social, economic, and political processes. Photo: Anne Whiston Spirn

Greening the Block

Anne Whiston Spirn has made the West Philadelphia Landscape Project a model of urban restoration and community empowerment

Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló ’01, left, visited campus in December to discuss the challenges facing his island with MITEI and the Tata Center’s Robert Stoner. Photo: Justin Knight

Redefining Resilience

MIT experts mobilize to help hurricane-struck islands not only repair, but rebuild for a safer future

Leila Pirhaji PhD ’16 spoke at the MIT Intelligence Quest launch about her startup, ReviveMed, which uses AI technology developed at MIT to leverage data from metabolomics (the study of small molecules) to expedite drug discovery. Pirhaji created the company with support from MIT programs including delta v, iTeams, StartMIT, StartIAP, the $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, and the Sandbox Innovation Fund. Photo: Gretchen Ertl.

Implications, Discoveries, Applications

A sampling of MIT research underway in the realm of human and machine intelligence

Latest stories

President’s Letter: On a Quest for Knowledge

running the course wide angle image

Running the Course

Programming mini autonomous cars during IAP

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Popular stories

Salvador designed and built from scratch a set of wooden tracks that play music when a toy train slides over them. Photo: Ken Richardson

How to Make Almost Anything Better

A grad student debugs, with a little help from her friends

MIT Lobby 7. Photo: Jake Belcher

Alumni Take Action for Students

The impact of collective support

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Discovery Science

In the 1960s, MIT professor Marvin Minsky and his group created this arm as part of their early machine vision research, which stimulated Minsky’s famous “Society of the Mind” theory of AI. Photo: MIT Museum collections

A Vision for Human and Machine Intelligence

Advancing the science and engineering of intelligence for the benefit of society

On view through December 31, 2018, at the MIT Museum, The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal juxtaposes drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience with a collection of contemporary brain imagery, such as this one from a 3-D interactive visualization by researchers from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the MIT Media Lab’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group.

Why the Focus on Human Intelligence?

MIT’s head of brain and cognitive sciences explains the neuroscience/AI connection

Maria T. Zuber is MIT’s vice president for research and the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, as well as the chair of the National Science Board. Photo: Dominick Reuter

Building the STEM-Capable Workforce of the Future

Why it’s time for policies that expand the nation’s vision for science and engineering education

Image: Laguna Design

Plumbing the Depths of Neural Nets

On a quest to demystify deep learning, Tomaso Poggio glimpses tantalizing implications for human intelligence

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Health of the Planet

Heidi Nepf, left, and Judy Qingjun Yang SM ’15. Photo: Sarah Bastille

Shore Lines

The Nepf lab is helping to restore wetlands by modeling how and why they are so beneficial

Cem Tasan. Photo: Lillie Paquette

New Life for Metals

Cem Tasan aims to invent repairable, reusable alloys

illustration of robot inside a pipe

Detecting Leaks from Inside the Pipe

A soft robot that senses the suction of escaping water

Many MIT faculty members, such as Jessika Trancik (pictured presenting her research on energy technologies in Davos, Switzerland), look to the MIT International Policy Lab for assistance in translating their findings into the language of policy.

The Final Yard

The International Policy Lab helps faculty ideas take those last critical steps into the corridors of power

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Human Health

Illustration of human spine courtesy of MIT Bioelectronics Group, led by Polina Anikeeva.

To Your Health

From head to toe, MIT remedies for what ails us

DeGraff works with a Haitian student.

Tool Box

MIT-made online resources address Haitian education, banking reform, and global development

An Emphasis on Health

Retsef Levi and colleagues are helping to create a medical system focused on improving patient outcomes

Kytopen, formed by Cullen Buie, and Paulo Garcia, is one of the first startups to receive seed funding from The Engine.

Breaking the Bottleneck in Genetic Engineering

A startup backed by The Engine harnesses microfluidics to reprogram cells with unprecedented speed

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The leaders of MIT’s new Task Force on the Work of the Future, from left: David Mindell, Elisabeth Reynolds, and David Autor. Photo: Melanie Gonick.

Automation and the Future of Work

An Institute-wide task force examines how innovation is reshaping the job market

The MIT Intelligence Quest

New Institute-wide initiative will advance human and machine intelligence research

Hemant ’97, MEng ’99 and Jessica Taneja. Photo: Christophe Testi

Education Meets Innovation

Hemant ’97, MNG ’99 and Jessica Taneja

Caroline Huang SM ’85, PhD ’91 and Mike Phillips

Rooted in Personal History, a Gift for Today’s Students

Caroline Huang SM ’85, PhD ’91 and Mike Phillips

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Teaching Learning and Living

At a workshop several weeks into the subject, teams presented the data they had gathered thus far. Photo: M. Scott Brauer

A Fresh Look at the First Year

A design subject engages students as both stakeholders and problem solvers

Ian Waitz, at computer, with students and mentors from the Designing the First Year at MIT class. Photo: M. Scott Brauer

Vice Chancellor Ian Waitz on First-Year Design, the MIT Way

“We have 50 brilliant young minds working 12 hours a week on how to improve the first year”

A group of USA Lab students spent two weeks in Maine learning about the state’s agricultural sector, with visits to sites including the Blue Ox Malthouse (pictured) in Lisbon Falls. Photo: Bearwalk Cinema

Minding the Gap

The first US-focused MIT Sloan action learning course grapples with the divides in American society

MIT Libraries staff learn the mechanics of the hand-set Beaver Press during open printing hours. Photo: Eric Keezer

We Build on History

A student-built letterpress in Barker Library

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