MIT Spectrum

Fall 2018

“Kendall Square is a vital source of opportunities, talent, and resources to help the people of MIT deliver their ideas to the world. Our future success depends on making sure that Kendall succeeds as a place—a place where people want to live, work, and play, and a place that makes our city stronger, too.” —MIT President L. Rafael Reif

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Adjacent to the new MIT Museum and graduate residence, as shown in this artist's rendering, open spaces for gathering will be programmed by MIT and open to all. Image: byencore

Welcome to Kendall Square

The flourishing innovation district takes its place as a destination and a gateway

The new graduate residence in Kendall Square will include ample gathering spaces. Image: NADAAA

Life on Main Street

A new residence for grad students will offer community and connections in a hard-to-beat location

A view over Kendall Square and the Charles River, toward Boston (2011). Photo: Les Vants

Founders Forward

What’s driving the new generation of biotech spinouts in Kendall Square?

Throughout their time at MIT, students are encouraged to team up and pursue innovative ideas. Jessica Shi ’17 (left) and Charlene Xia ’17 work during their senior year on a prototype for Tactile, a portable realtime text-to-Braille converter. With four fellow cofounders from the Class of 2017, they are now beta testing their device in Boston. Photo: Lillie Paquette/School of Engineering

Running Start

Students who hatch their companies at MIT are well-positioned for impact

Latest stories

Photo of MIT President L. Rafael Reif

President’s Letter: Innovation Squared

The Medium Is the Meditation

Behind the scenes of a student-created VR experience

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Popular stories

Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity

William Isaacs, a leader in the study of dialogue, says:

The Art of Dialogue

Dialogue expert William Isaacs says that problems between people often stem from an inability to conduct a successful dialogue.

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Discovery Science

An artist’s illustration of the possible surface appearances of some of the Earth-size planets of TRAPPIST-1, based on properties calculated as of February 2018. IMAGE: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, T. Pyle (IPAC)

Like This World of Ours

An MIT science writer traces the hunt for extrasolar planets

Julien de Wit. Photo: David Silverman

The Search Continues

TRAPPIST team member joins MIT faculty

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

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Health of the Planet

Wood was a panelist at 2017 (pictured) and 2018 MIT Media Lab events titled “Beyond the Cradle: Envisioning a New Space Age.” Photo: David Silverman

Down to Earth

How can technologies invented for space advance sustainable development goals?

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

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

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Human Health

Ronit Langer ’20, left, and Dorothy Szymkiewicz ’20 are part of NEET’s first Living Machines cohort. Photo: Ken Richardson

Following the Thread

Three years of project work yield NEET students an experimental model of the human gut—and preparation for their postgraduation goals

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

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

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The fabled F&T Restaurant—which attracted a diverse mix of Cambridge locals and MIT students and faculty—was a Kendall Square landmark from the 1920s to the 1980s, when it was demolished. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Kendall’s Key Ingredient

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

illustration of robot inside a pipe

Detecting Leaks from Inside the Pipe

A soft robot that senses the suction of escaping water

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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Teaching Learning and Living

Yu Liang (Gloria) Fang, at left, says NEET’s Autonomous Machines thread appeals to her because it involves hands-on projects. She is joined by Michael Everett, Albert Go, and Mitchell Guillaume. Photo: Lillie Paquette

A NEET New Approach to Engineering Education

Curriculum focuses on new machines that will address social needs of the future

Located at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street, the Metropolitan Warehouse opened in 1895 as a storage facility and was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1986. Photo: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT News

A Transformative Future for the Met Warehouse

Proposed renovation would house School of Architecture and Planning

Welding the digits of Pi at Maker Break in spring 2018. Photo: Ken Richardson

We Get Together and Sparks Fly

Students take a Maker Break

running the course wide angle image

Running the Course

Programming mini autonomous cars during IAP

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