In the halls of MIT, a distinctive thread of compassion weaves through the fabric of education. As students adjust to a postpandemic normal, many professors have played a pivotal role by helping them navigate the realities of hybrid learning and a rapidly changing postgraduation landscape.  The Committed to Caring (C2C) program at MIT is a student-driven initiative that celebrates faculty members who have served as exceptional mentors to graduate students. Twenty-three MIT professors have been selected as recipients of the C2C award for 2023-25, marking the most extensive cohort of honore ..read more

If you’re a resident of Hull, Lynn, Salem, or other Massachusetts towns currently exposed to noise from aircraft approaching Boston Logan Airport, you may notice the skies getting a little quieter this year. Over the last decade, improvements to aircraft navigation technology have allowed departing and arriving aircraft to follow highly precise routes in the sky. These new routes, known as Area Navigation (RNAV) flight procedures, were implemented at Boston Logan Airport between 2012 and 2013 and have allowed aircraft to navigate more efficiently and predictably in the airspace around Boston ..read more

Lauren Aguilar knew she wanted to study energy systems at MIT, but before Course 1-12 (Climate System Science and Engineering) became a new undergraduate major, she didn't see an obvious path to study the systems aspects of energy, policy, and climate associated with the energy transition. Aguilar was drawn to the new major that was jointly launched by the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) in 2023. She could take engineering systems classes and gain knowledge in climate. “Having climate knowledge enriches my understand ..read more

The King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI) is the flagship climate change program of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which innovates, tests, and scales solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation, together with policy partners worldwide. Claire Walsh is the associate director of policy at J-PAL Global at MIT. She is also the project director of K-CAI. Here, Walsh talks about the work of K-CAI since its launch in 2020, and describes the ways its projects are making a difference. This is part of an ongoing series exploring how the MIT School of Humanities ..read more

On Vassar Street, in the heart of MIT’s campus, the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing recently opened the doors to its new headquarters in Building 45. The building’s central location and welcoming design will help form a new cluster of connectivity at MIT and enable the space to have a multifaceted role.  “The college has a broad mandate for computing across MIT,” says Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “The building is designed to be the computing crossroad ..read more

From students crafting essays and engineers writing code to call center operators responding to customers, generative artificial intelligence tools have prompted a wave of experimentation over the past year. At MIT, these experiments have raised questions — some new, some ages old — about how these tools can change the way we live and work.  Can these tools make us better at our jobs, or might they make certain skills obsolete? How can we use these tools for good and minimize potential harm? The generative AI wave has elicited excitement, anxiety, and plenty of speculation about what's to ..read more

To achieve the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change — limiting the increase in global average surface temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — will require its 196 signatories to dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Those greenhouse gases differ widely in their global warming potential (GWP), or ability to absorb radiative energy and thereby warm the Earth’s surface. For example, measured over a 100-year period, the GWP of methane is about 28 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2), and the GWP of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is 24,300 ..read more

Four outstanding undergraduate teachers and mentors have been named MacVicar Faculty Fellows: professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Karl Berggren, professor of political science Andrea Campbell, associate professor of music Emily Richmond Pollock, and professor of EECS Vinod Vaikuntanathan. For more than 30 years, the MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program has recognized exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate education at MIT. The program is named in honor of Margaret MacVicar, MIT’s first dean for undergraduate education and founder of the Undergraduate Res ..read more

The term “fog of war” expresses the chaos and uncertainty of the battlefield. Often, it is only in hindsight that people can grasp what was unfolding around them. Now, additional clarity about the Iraq War has arrived in the form of a new book by MIT political scientist Roger Petersen, which dives into the war’s battlefield operations, political dynamics, and long-term impact. The U.S. launched the Iraq War in 2003 and formally wrapped it up in 2011, but Petersen analyzes the situation in Iraq through the current day and considers what the future holds for the country. After a decade of resear ..read more

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