MIT community members elected to the National Academy of Inventors for 2023

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) recently announced the election of more than 160 individuals to their 2023 class of fellows. Among them are two members of the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Professor Daniel G. Anderson and Principal Research Scientist Ana Jaklenec. In addition, 11 MIT alumni were also recognized.

The highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors, election to the NAI recognizes individuals who have created or facilitated outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.  

“Daniel and Ana embody some of the Koch Institute’s core values of interdisciplinary innovation and drive to translate their discoveries into real impact for patients,” says Matthew Vander Heiden, director of the Koch Institute. “Their election to the academy is very well-deserved, and we are honored to count them both among the Koch Institute’s and MIT’s research community.”

Daniel Anderson is the Joseph R. Mares (1924) Professor of Chemical Engineering, and a core member of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. He is a leading researcher in the fields of nanotherapeutics and biomaterials. Anderson’s work has led to advances in a range of areas, including medical devices, cell therapy, drug delivery, gene therapy, and material science, and has resulted in the publication of more than 500 papers, patents, and patent applications. He has founded several companies, including Living Proof, Olivo Labs, Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP), Sigilon Therapeutics, Verseau Therapeutics, oRNA, and VasoRx. He is a member of National Academy of Medicine, the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, and is an affiliate of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard.

Ana Jaklenec, a principal research scientist and principal investigator at the Koch Institute, is a leader in the fields of bioengineering and materials science, focused on controlled delivery and stability of therapeutics for global health. She is an inventor of several drug delivery technologies that have the potential to enable equitable access to medical care globally. Her lab is developing new manufacturing techniques for the design of materials at the nano- and micro-scale for self-boosting vaccines, 3D printed on-demand microneedles, heat-stable polymer-based carriers for oral delivery of micronutrients and probiotics, and long-term drug delivery systems for cancer immunotherapy. She has published over 100 manuscripts, patents, and patent applications and has founded three companies: Particles for Humanity, VitaKey, and OmniPulse Biosciences.

The 11 MIT alumni who were elected to the NAI for 2023 include:

  • Michel Barsoum PhD ’85 (Materials Science and Engineering);
  • Eric Burger ’84 (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science);
  • Kevin Kelly SM ’88, PhD ’91 (Mechanical Engineering);
  • Ali Khademhosseini PhD ’05 (Biological Engineering);
  • Joshua Makower ’85 (Mechanical Engineering);
  • Marcela Maus ’97 (Biology);
  • Milos Popovic SM ’02, PhD ’08 (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science);
  • Milica Radisic PhD ’04 (Chemical Engineering);
  • David Reinkensmeyer ’88 (Electrical Engineering);
  • Boris Rubinsky PhD ’81 (Mechanical Engineering); and
  • Paul S. Weiss ’80, SM ’80 (Chemistry).

Since its inception in 2012, the NAI Fellows program has grown to include 1,898 exceptional researchers and innovators, who hold over 63,000 U.S. patents and 13,000 licensed technologies. NAI Fellows are known for the societal and economic impact of their inventions, contributing to major advancements in science and consumer technologies. Their innovations have generated over $3 trillion in revenue and generated 1 million jobs.    

“This year’s class of NAI Fellows showcases the caliber of researchers that are found within the innovation ecosystem. Each of these individuals are making significant contributions to both science and society through their work,” says Paul R. Sanberg, president of the NAI. “This new class, in conjunction with our existing fellows, are creating innovations that are driving crucial advancements across a variety of disciplines and are stimulating the global and national economy in immeasurable ways as they move these technologies from lab to marketplace.” 

Culturally informed design: Unearthing ingenuity where it always was

Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, an MIT PhD student in both media arts and sciences and art, culture, and technology (ACT), explores how technology and culture intersect in spaces often overlooked by mainstream society, stretching beyond the usual scope of design research.

A former lecturer and researcher at MIT D-Lab with experience in robotics, Reynolds-Cuéllar is an ACT Future Heritage Lab affiliate, a member of the Space Enabled Group within the MIT Media Lab, and a MAD Fellow who hails from rural Colombia, where resourcefulness isn’t a skill but a way of life. “I grew up seeing impressive ingenuity in solving a lot of problems, building contraptions, tools, and infrastructure … all sorts of things. Investigating this ingenuity has been the question driving my entire PhD,” he reflects.

Emphasizing the importance of cultural elements in how people collaborate, his work encourages a more localized, culturally informed perspective on technology design. “I am interested in investigating how technology takes place in geographies and spaces that are outside of mainstream society, mostly rural places,” he says.

At the heart of South America, Colombia is home to over 80 distinct groups of Indigenous tribes known to exist, each carrying unique customs, beliefs, and practices. This contributes to Colombia’s cultural mosaic and linguistic diversity, with more than 68 spoken languages. This meant plenty of opportunities for Reynolds-Cuéllar to engage with communities without trying to reshape or “fix” them, but rather to amplify their intrinsic strengths and amplify their voices.

“My colleagues and I developed a digital platform meticulously documenting collaborative processes when designing technology. This platform, called Retos, captures the invaluable social capital that blooms from these interactions,” Reynolds-Cuéllar explains. Born from a need to foster cross-pollination, the platform serves as a bridge between universities, companies, and rural Colombian organizations, enhancing their existing initiatives and facilitating processes such as funding applications. It received an award from MIT Solve and the 2022 MIT Prize for Open Data from MIT Libraries. 

Designing with culture in mind

Reynolds-Cuéllar’s approach isn’t formulaic. “Culture is pivotal in shaping collaboration dynamics,” he emphasizes. “Reading about collaboration can make it seem like something universal, but I don’t think it works that way. This means common research methods are not always effective. You must ‘tune in,’ and build upon existing methods in the local fabric.” This understanding fuels Reynolds-Cuéllar’s work, allowing him to sculpt each project to resonate with a community’s distinct cultural context. At the heart of his doctoral research, he integrates Indigenous knowledge and what he calls “ancestral technology into design practices — a form of world-making (design) that primarily supports cultural cohesion, rooted in bounded geography and with a history that lives through collective memory. “I’m prompting designers, who may lack direct access to Indigenous scholarship, to recalibrate their design approaches,” Reynolds-Cuéllar articulates.

This appeal to look into multiple perspectives and methodologies broadens the horizons of conventional design thinking. Beyond designing things for a specific function or solution, Reynolds-Cuéllar looks at practices that also help maintain the cultural fabric of a place. He gives the example of weaving looms, which are not only the result of ingenious design, but also allow Indigenous communities to build artifacts with great cultural meaning and economic benefit: “When I work on the loom … I feel differently. I have access to a different state of mind and can easily get into a flow. I am building things where I can tell the story of my life within my culture. I’m making something that is meaningful for people around me, and I’m not doing it alone, we’re doing it all together,” adds Reynolds-Cuéllar.

Among his ventures, Reynolds-Cuéllar’s work with coffee farmers stands out. His projects in collaboration with these communities are all about empowering coffee farmers to refine their processes and gain agency over their livelihood and economic undertakings.

“The coffee industry in Colombia is intricate, with various layers influencing farmers’ lives, from bioengineered seeds to chemical fertilizers, and centralized roasting operations. It’s political and even philosophical,” Reynolds-Cuéllar states. Coffee farmers could sell the raw beans for a low price to the powerful Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia), but there are other alternatives to foster agency and self-determination. “We collaborate with coffee growing collectives, helping them to achieve consistency in roasting procedures, improve equipment designs, and set up packaging infrastructure,” which means farmers can produce higher-value specialty coffee which they can choose to sell directly to consumers. Reynolds-Cuéllar’s work creates ripple effects, bolstering autonomy and local economies.

Too many questions

Throughout his research, Reynolds-Cuéllar describes a turning point in meeting an Indigenous cultural and social leader: “We were collaborating with a group of fishermen on Colombia’s Atlantic coast, within an Indigenous community. Our initial curriculum mirrored conventional design methods. Yet, the leader’s insight shifted my perspective profoundly. It was the first time my methods were being challenged.” The encounter prompted Reynolds-Cuéllar to scrutinize his methodology: “This leader told me: ‘You guys ask a lot of questions.’ I started explaining the benefit of questions, and methods in the usual design jargon. He replied: ‘I still think you ask too many questions. We ask the most important questions, and then we spend a lot of time reflecting on them,” remembers Reynolds-Cuéllar. This shift underscored the realization that there is no such thing as universal design, and that standardized methodologies don’t universally translate. They sometimes inadvertently strip away cultural nuances, where they could instead cultivate their dynamic expression.

For Reynolds-Cuéllar, his participation in MAD’s design fellowship has been instrumental. The fellowship not only provided essential funding but also offered a sense of community. “The fellowship facilitated meaningful conversations, especially talks like Dori Tunstall’s on ‘Decolonizing Design,’” Reynolds-Cuéllar reflects. The financial support also translated into practical aid, allowing him to advance his projects, including compensating field researchers in Colombia.

Beyond academic pursuits, Reynolds-Cuéllar envisions writing a book titled “The Atlas of Ancestral Technology of Colombia.” More than mere documentation, this large atlas format would be a compendium of the myriad stories Reynolds-Cuéllar has unearthed, with illustrating images crafted in Colombia — visual representations from each culture, descriptions, and local stories about these artifacts. “I want a book that could counter some of the predominant narratives on design,” asserts Reynolds-Cuéllar. Through his work, Reynolds-Cuéllar already started to craft a blueprint for approaching design with cultural significance and intention, laying the foundation for a more inclusive and purposeful approach to technology and innovation.

The creative future of generative AI

Few technologies have shown as much potential to shape our future as artificial intelligence. Specialists in fields ranging from medicine to microfinance to the military are evaluating AI tools, exploring how these might transform their work and worlds. For creative professionals, AI poses a unique set of challenges and opportunities — particularly generative AI, the use of algorithms to transform vast amounts of data into new content.

The future of generative AI and its impact on art and design was the subject of a sold-out panel discussion on Oct. 26 at the MIT Bartos Theater. It was part of the annual meeting for the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), a group of alumni and other supporters of the arts at MIT, and was co-presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology (CAST), a cross-school initiative for artist residencies and cross-disciplinary projects.

Introduced by Andrea Volpe, director of CAMIT, and moderated by Onur Yüce Gün SM ’06, PhD’16, the panel featured multimedia artist and social science researcher Ziv Epstein SM’19, PhD’23, MIT professor of architecture and director of the SMArchS and SMArchS AD programs Ana Miljački, and artist and roboticist Alex Reben MAS ’10.

The discussion centered around three themes: emergence, embodiment, and expectations:

Emergence  

Moderator Onur Yüce Gün: In much of your work, what emerges is usually a question — an ambiguity — and that ambiguity is inherent in the creative process in art and design. Does generative AI help you reach those ambiguities?

Ana Miljački: In the summer of 2022, the Memorial Cemetery in Mostar [in Bosnia and Herzegovina] was destroyed. It was a post-World War II Yugoslav memorial, and we wanted to figure out a way to uphold the values the memorial had stood for. We compiled video material from six different monuments and, with AI, created a nonlinear documentary, a triptych playing on three video screens, accompanied by a soundscape. With this project we fabricated a synthetic memory, a way to seed those memories and values into the minds of people who never lived those memories or values. This is the type of ambiguity that would be problematic in science, and one that is fascinating for artists and designers and architects. It is also a bit scary.

Ziv Epstein: There is some debate whether generative AI is a tool or an agent. But even if we call it a tool, we need to remember that tools are not neutral. Think about photography. When photography emerged, a lot of painters were worried that it meant the end of art. But it turned out that photography freed up painters to do other things. Generative AI is, of course, a different type of tool because it draws on a huge quantity of other people’s work. There is already artistic and creative agency embedded in these systems. There are already ambiguities in how these existing works will be represented, and which cycles and ambiguities we will perpetuate.

Alex Reben: I’m often asked whether these systems are actually creative, in the way that we are creative. In my own experience, I’ve often been surprised at the outputs I create using AI. I see that I can steer things in a direction that parallels what I might have done on my own but is different enough from what I might have done, is amplified or altered or changed. So there are ambiguities. But we need to remember that the term AI is also ambiguous. It’s actually many different things.

Embodiment

Moderator: Most of us use computers on a daily basis, but we experience the world through our senses, through our bodies. Art and design create tangible experiences. We hear them, see them, touch them. Have we attained the same sensory interaction with AI systems? 

Miljački: So long as we are working in images, we are working in two dimensions. But for me, at least in the project we did around the Mostar memorial, we were able to produce affect on a variety of levels, levels that together produce something that is greater than a two-dimensional image moving in time. Through images and a soundscape we created a spatial experience in time, a rich sensory experience that goes beyond the two dimensions of the screen.

Reben: I guess embodiment for me means being able to interface and interact with the world and modify it. In one of my projects, we used AI to generate a “Dali-like” image, and then turned it into a three-dimensional object, first with 3D printing, and then casting it in bronze at a foundry. There was even a patina artist to finish the surface. I cite this example to show just how many humans were involved in the creation of this artwork at the end of the day. There were human fingerprints at every step.

Epstein: The question is, how do we embed meaningful human control into these systems, so they could be more like, for example, a violin. A violin player has all sorts of causal inputs — physical gestures they can use to transform their artistic intention into outputs, into notes and sounds. Right now we’re far from that with generative AI. Our interaction is basically typing a bit of text and getting something back. We’re basically yelling at a black box.

Expectations

Moderator: These new technologies are spreading so rapidly, almost like an explosion. And there are enormous expectations around what they are going to do. Instead of stepping on the gas here, I’d like to test the brakes and ask what these technologies are not going to do. Are there promises they won’t be able to fulfill?

Miljački: I am hoping that we don’t go to “Westworld.” I understand we do need AI to solve complex computational problems. But I hope it won’t be used to replace thinking. Because as a tool AI is actually nostalgic. It can only work with what already exists and then produce probable outcomes. And that means it reproduces all the biases and gaps in the archive it has been fed. In architecture, for example, that archive is made up of works by white male European architects. We have to figure out how not to perpetuate that type of bias, but to question it.

Epstein: In a way, using AI now is like putting on a jetpack and a blindfold. You’re going really fast, but you don’t really know where you’re going. Now that this technology seems to be capable of doing human-like things, I think it’s an awesome opportunity for us to think about what it means to be human. My hope is that generative AI can be a kind of ontological wrecking ball, that it can shake things up in a very interesting way.

Reben: I know from history that it’s pretty hard to predict the future of technology. So trying to predict the negative — what might not happen — with this new technology is also close to impossible. If you look back at what we thought we would have now, at the predictions that were made, it’s quite different from what we actually have. I don’t think that anyone today can say for certain what AI won’t be able to do one day. Just like we can’t say what science will be able to do, or humans. The best we can do, for now, is attempt to drive these technologies towards the future in a way that will be beneficial.

Institute Professor Emeritus Robert Solow, pathbreaking economist, dies at age 99

MIT Institute Professor Emeritus Robert M. Solow, a groundbreaking economist whose work on technology and economic growth profoundly influenced the field, and whose ethos of engaged teaching and collegial collaboration deeply shaped MIT’s Department of Economics, died on Thursday. He was 99.

Solow’s research, especially a series of papers in the 1950s and 1960s, helped demonstrate at a fundamental level how modern economic growth occurs. As his work shows, technological advances, broadly defined, are responsible for the bulk of modern economic growth, more than simple population growth or capital expansion. This insight opened up a whole new series of research questions within academia, and influenced policymakers in many countries.

For these contributions, Solow was the recipient of the 1987 Nobel Prize in economics, with the citation mentioning his “exceptional contributions” as well as the “dramatic impact” of his work. In 2014, Solow was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., from President Barack Obama.

At MIT, Solow was also celebrated for his commitment to teaching in the classroom, and to engaging in ongoing scholarly discussions with colleagues and students, which he carried out with intellectual rigor, clear expression, and a continually affable, good-humored style. Hired by MIT in 1949, Solow was one of the core figures who helped turn the Department of Economics into a powerhouse program. After retirement, he was an Institute Professor Emeritus.

In all, Solow was affiliated with MIT for a remarkable 74 years.

“Bob Solow, who not only won a Nobel Prize but also saw four of his former students similarly honored, was a path-breaking researcher and extraordinary teacher,” says James Poterba, an economist and former head of MIT’s Department of Economics. “He laid the foundation for the modern study of economic growth and quantified the key role of technological progress in contributing to it. His legendary lectures, often delivered without notes, inspired generations of MIT students. A key architect of the post-war rise of the MIT Department of Economics, he was also a central contributor to its culture of comraderie and public-spiritedness that continues to this day.”

Home from the war, on to MIT

Robert Merton Solow was born on August 23, 1924, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was a fur merchant. A standout student from early on, Solow skipped two grades in school, and earned a scholarship to attend Harvard University at age 16, in 1940. Two years later, after the U.S. had entered World War Two, Solow enlisted in the U.S. Army. Having learned some German in college, Solow spent much of his wartime service in Italy in seemingly risky circumstances, working in a company intercepting German radio signals, in specially equipped trucks just behind the front.

When the Allies won the war, he re-entered Harvard in 1945. Late that summer, Solow married Barbara “Bobby” Lewis, a Radcliffe College student whose interest in economics helped spur his own entry into the field. In short order, Solow finished his undergraduate degree and completed Harvard’s PhD program in economics, producing a PhD thesis on new methods of studying income inequality.

When Solow joined the MIT Department of Economics in 1949, it was a small program largely oriented around teaching. However, one faculty member, Paul Samuelson, was in the process of overhauling large portions of economics with his emphasis on mathematical rigor and formal analysis.

Samuelson and Solow, along with many colleagues from these early days — including Charles Kindleberger, Harold Freeman ’31, Cary Brown, Robert Bishop, and George Shultz PhD ’49, the future U.S. secretary of state — helped the program grow and thrive, while it added luminaries such as Franco Modigliani. By 1960, the MIT department was considered to be at the top of the discipline.

It was also considered to be an informal, open, student-friendly place — “the happiest economics department,” as a visiting professor from Harvard termed it. Solow often attributed that to Samuelson’s own lack of airs, telling an MIT interviewer in 2011, on the occasion of MIT’s 150th anniversary, “if you have the best economist in the world in the department, and he’s not being stuffy about anything it must be hard for anybody else to be stuffy.” But Solow’s personable approach to academic life heavily influenced the emerging departmental culture as well.

A new theory of economic growth

Solow’s own research took flight in the 1950s, when he started publishing his landmark work on technological change and growth, which altered the way economists thought about the subject. His 1956 paper, “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, presented a famous model outlining how under certain conditions, even a growing population with growing capital investment will not sustain economic growth. Instead, it is technological progress, considered broadly, that creates such growth over time.

In a 1957 follow-up paper, “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function,” in The Review of Economics and Statistics, Solow added new historical economic data showing this process at work, based on the U.S. economy in the first half of the 20th century. Here, Solow concluded that “Total factor productivity” — the term he created, encompassing all technological, cultural, educational, and other factors beyond population increases and basic capital investment — accounted for a whopping 80 percent of growth.

Beyond that, in 1960 Solow extended his analysis in a third paper, “Investment and Technical Progress,” modeling a scenario in which capital investment becomes more technologically sophisticated over time. All three papers were mentioned in the citation for Solow’s Nobel Prize — technically the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel — and together provided a framework for decades of continued research in economics.

Understanding the drivers of economic growth, Solow said during the 2011 interview, was an issue that “was in the air. It was sort of one of the outstanding problems.”

Before doing his research, Solow added, “I had taken it for granted like everybody else, that the main thing that pushed an economy to grow was the increase in population and the accumulation of capital goods … And I found that if you looked at the data with all of the theory you could bring to bear, you could not make that story hold water. And the only way of accounting for what we’d seen in the U.S. between 1909 and 1950-something was if the main driving force for growth had been what I chose to call technical progress. Meaning what was in my mind was improving technology, but also included improving skills.”

Solow’s work was quickly recognized as a breakthrough in the field. In 1961, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the best economist under the age of 40. Much later, in 2000, Solow was awarded the National Medal of Science. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Solow had terms as president of the American Economic Association, and the Econometric Society. He also spent time working in the policy sphere. In the 1970s, Solow served as member and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And from 1961 to 1962, Solow served on the Council of Economic Advisors in the Kennedy administration, along with prominent economists such as Kenneth Arrow and James Tobin.

“We thought we had one of the best economics departments in the country, sitting there in the Old Executive Office Building,” Solow quipped to MIT News in 2019.

Devoted to teaching

For all of his research accomplishments and policy service, Solow also thrived in the classroom, and as a committed, encouraging advisor to students.

“You only have really good ideas once in a while,” Solow told MIT News. “I would rather teach a really bright student than write a mildly interesting paper.”

When it came to teaching undergraduates, Solow would annually tear up his old lecture notes, and force himself to re-examine how he was presenting material to them. He came to believe he did his best teaching by the third time he lectured on a particular subject.

As a graduate advisor, Solow would put in long hours providing detailed feedback to students about their research papers, often reading their work in the evenings, across the living room from Barbara Solow — who also received a PhD from Harvard, and taught at Brandeis and Boston University, as a scholar of Irish economic history, as well as the Carribean slave trade.

Over time, Solow served as principal advisor to over 70 doctoral students, many of whom became highly accomplished economists. Four doctoral students for whom Solow was the main advisor — George Akerlof PhD ’66, Peter Diamond PhD ’63, William Nordhaus PhD ’67, and Joseph Stiglitz PhD ’67 —eventually won the Nobel Prize themselves. (One student who wrote an undergraduate economics thesis for Solow, H. Robert Horvitz ’68, also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.)

“He was extremely generous with both his time and his ideas,” Akerlof told MIT News in 2019. As a graduate student, Akerlof found, “the faculty were there to greet students on the first day we arrived at MIT, and to give us advice. I mean, you would not expect the most distinguished professor at the best economics department to be there, waiting for you. That was extraordinary.”

Solow’s intellectual and professional commitment to his students, and his active mentorship, earned him life-long admiration from those who had studied with him.

“Paul Samuelson was royalty, but Bob was very much the prime minister running the country,” the economist Avinash Dixit PhD ’68 recalled, in remarks for a 90th-birthday gathering for Solow, in 2014.

As it happens, Samuelson and Solow worked for decades in the same common suite of offices, talking economics at length. Engaging with colleagues, Solow strongly felt, was one of the best ways to produce better scholarship.

“More than being pleasurable, I think it makes for good work,” Solow told MIT News. “Talking to your colleagues — or, in my case, standing at a blackboard with them and talking and scribbling — improves the product.”

For those fortunate enough to have been both students and colleagues of Solow, the remarkable economist’s passing evoked both sadness, and gratitude for all he contributed.

“I was fortunate to see many phases of the Bob Solow experience — to have him as an undergraduate teacher, where his class was widely viewed as the highlight of the economics curriculum, to see him as a dedicated thesis advisor, to have insightful research conversations, and to work with him as an external policy expert,” says Jonathan Gruber, current head of the MIT Department of Economics. “In every phase, Bob was amazing — always thoughtful, well-spoken, clear and kind. He is a role model for all economists.”

This article will be updated throughout the day.

Professor Emeritus Frederick Hennie, expert in computation and leader within MIT EECS, dies at 90

Frederick C. Hennie III, professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), died on Oct. 23. He was 90 years old.  

An affiliate of MIT EECS for his entire adult life, Hennie is known for influential early work in the theory of computation, as well as work on algorithms and discrete mathematics. As a longtime executive officer for the department, Hennie’s facility for programming languages and databases and his careful approach to highly complex systems made him a valued co-worker and advisor to multiple department heads.

Fred Hennie was born Feb. 9, 1933, in New Jersey, the only child of Anne R. Hennie and Frederick Hennie Jr., and attended Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey. From a very early age, his serious and reserved demeanor contrasted with his wider, more boisterous family. “My cousin Fred was always unique in our family,” remembers Louise Rutledge, who recalled his visits home on break from MIT when she was very young. “Fred would dutifully say hello, and I would tell him it was time for the ‘arm swing.’ Again he would dutifully extend his arm, and I would grab on and tell him he should swing me round. … Then it would be obvious that Fred needed ‘to study,’ and I would retreat downstairs. Fred was unfailingly polite, soft-spoken, and often monosyllabic. The only adult who was able to converse with him seemed to be my mother.”

Attending MIT for electrical engineering, Hennie was noted not only for his clear and lucid writing style (his PhD thesis on the topic of cellular automata drew attention from many), but also for his great talent for crafting examples and explanations which students could easily grasp. 

Hennie graduated from the Institute with his BS in 1955, going on to earn his MS in 1958 and his PhD in 1961. He immediately took a faculty position within the department; with a brief exception for a stint as a visiting faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, he would go on to spend the entirety of his adult life at MIT, becoming an associate professor in 1966, a full professor in 1968, and executive officer of the department in 1976. He would hold that position until 2001. 

While his importance to departmental functioning would grow, and his impact would be felt by many generations of students, his public profile remained low, as the intensely private Hennie found his niche refining procedures, honing curricula, and contributing to some of the thorniest research problems of his day.

“In 1976, I was teaching recitation sections of 6.042, which was led by Fred Hennie,” remembers Ron Rivest, now Institute Professor and professor post-tenure of computer science and engineering. “It was a great introduction to teaching EECS — he was always so careful and precise. Around that time, Adi Shamir, Len Adleman, and I came up with the fundamental structure of the RSA [Rivest-Shamir-Adleman] public-key cryptosystem. I think Fred’s meticulous approach to everything was key to our success.” 

In the recollections of all who worked alongside him, Hennie’s extraordinary attention to detail was remarkable. Nancy Lynch, the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering (Post-Tenure), first encountered Hennie as she was completing her graduate work at MIT in the early 1970s. “He gave me a copy of his book draft for an undergraduate algebra course (sets, number theory, groups, rings, fields, etc.). These notes were impeccable and thorough, and were a terrific reference for the field. In fact, I used them in 1974 as the main text for an algebra course I taught at the University of Southern California.” When Lynch later returned to MIT as a faculty member, she worked with Hennie in her role as EECS assistant department head.

Charles Leiserson, now the Edwin Sibley Webster Professor, was another arrival to the department who found himself impressed by Hennie’s observational gifts. “I had a student in one of my classes who was cheating, and Fred was his academic counselor, so we arranged a meeting. The student was quaking in his boots, but Fred started out by saying to the student, “Now, this is a difficult situation we have here; what do you think we should do?” And then Fred was quiet for what seemed like an eternity.” Faced with nothing but patient silence, “the student opened up. There was, of course, an enormous mess in the student’s personal life; the cheating was almost a cry for help. We were able to get him good counseling and so forth, but Fred’s silence was really brilliant.” Leiserson later learned that the technique Hennie so deftly applied had a name: powerless communication. “Usually when you think about communication, you think about power and making your point. But that’s not a good way to build relationships. Fred, in that short preamble, flipped the dynamic. He asked for advice, which conveyed respect and showed that he valued what the student had to say. Not only that, but he let the student break the silence. That was such a good lesson for me as a junior faculty member.”

Hennie’s inclination toward teaching and instruction led him to a long engagement as the department’s executive officer, a broad position that not only oversaw all educational activities, but also dealt with the myriad complex administrative systems required to handle the movement of thousands of students from matriculation through graduation annually. In this role, he was assigned an administrative assistant, Lisa Bella.

“I worked with Fred for more than half my life,” remembers Bella, now the administrative coordinator for education officers within the department. “I think many of us felt we never really stopped working for Fred, even when he stepped down as executive officer. Keeping accurate records, whether database records or paper historical records, was very important to Fred — what was retained in his Rolodex brain was just as impressive.” In her role, Bella saw a playful side of Hennie that few others witnessed: “Fred created imaginary characters and entered them into the department database for troubleshooting purposes,” she recalls. The practice sometimes backfired, as Bella would try to track down real information for the fictional Beatrice Bumble. Bella also noted Hennie’s daily habit of walking to and from work from Brookline. “Leaving early, he’d put on a fisherman’s hat or wool fedora, walk by my office and say ‘Cheerio,’” says Bella. “I’d always respond, ‘Rice Krispies.’” 

Others who worked closely with Hennie describe a deliberate, deep thinker whose advice was always carefully considered. Former EECS department head John Guttag, now the Dugald C. Jackson Professor in Electrical Engineering, remembers Hennie as a trustworthy advisor. “When I was offered the job of assistant department head by Joel Moses [then the dean of the School of Engineering], Joel advised me that I wouldn’t make any drastic mistakes so long as I consulted with Fred. He was right. During the time I spent as an assistant department head and then department head, Fred was a source of sound advice on a variety of topics, and I have to assume he served the same role long before I entered the picture. Fred was the departmental leadership’s institutional memory.” 

A long series of EECS department heads came to rely on that institutional memory. W. Eric Grimson, now chancellor for academic advancement, interim vice president for open learning, Bernard M. Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering, and professor of computer science and engineering, remembers his reliance on Hennie: “Fred was a source of sage advice during my tenure as head of EECS. Although a very private person, he was a keen observer of organizational dynamics, and provided quiet but very thoughtful advice on department organizational structure and on navigating the dynamics between different parts of the department. Additionally, Fred was decades ahead of his time in collecting and curating data and using it to inform departmental decisions. The database he built, maintained, and enhanced was an incredible source of useful information, and was available years before MIT centrally caught up.”

“His passion for the department and its operations was phenomenal,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, now dean of the MIT School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “As a department head, I worked very closely with him. Fred had tremendous attention to detail and he covered a range of critical departmental issues — from tracking appointments to all aspects of the EECS databases. He was always available to provide sage advice on the operations of the department. It was truly an honor interacting with him and I was greatly inspired by his passion.”

President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif remembers a dual-sided nature of his longtime coworker: “Fred was very pleasant to be with if you did not mind no conversation. He was there with you, but he never said much (at least not to me). However, one thing was always clear to me: His life was EECS. And EECS is what it is today — the largest department at MIT and the best program of its kind in the world — thanks, in great measure, to Fred Hennie, and his clarity of mind, devotion to his field and his students, and many gifts as a teacher.” 

That dedication led Hennie to work for the department long past when others might have retired. In later years, he made a purely nominal move to part-time employment, focusing on database management and working alongside Helen Schwartz and Myron Freeman; he continued to walk to work daily until Covid-19 closed the offices. Schwartz, who began her time in EECS working alongside Hennie as a database programmer and eventually became database administrator, recalls the vast and complex nature of the data they grappled with: “We started developing a fairly massive database to store as much information as possible relating to the entire academic development of the student, minus the grades. Courses that they took, teaching assignments, TA [teaching assistant] appointments, benchmarks, requirements … we had to enter all the courses that were available, match them with what the students had taken, and see if the person had been staying on track.” She remembers Hennie as undaunted by the challenge. “Fred was an extremely brilliant person in the sense that he would never be afraid of new things coming his way,” she recalls, noting that in the time she worked alongside him, the department database shifted from using Multics database to a large relational database dedicated entirely to the EECS functions, collecting student and faculty data.

As perhaps Hennie’s closest coworker, Schwartz caught rare glimpses of his outside interests beyond the walls of the department. “He was an avid photographer,” she remembers, “and created an extraordinary collection of photographs from all his trips to Scandinavia. He would go to places that he’d been before many times, taking pictures of things that he did before in a new light and creating a very different aura or impression of the same place.” And although he never discussed his own history or revealed even the most mundane personal details to his coworkers, his voracious reading habits showed that he was a close, even fascinated observer of the human condition. “Only after I retired, I would go visit him and he would give me bags and bags of books that he was trying to unload.”

Over the many years they worked together, Schwartz grew to greatly admire her co-worker. “He was an interesting person in the sense that he was extraordinarily old-fashioned in many senses. He didn’t like fast changes, because they are frequently not very well-considered. But socially and politically he was an extraordinarily respectful person. He might criticize someone for making the wrong choice. But he respected human nature.”

Cousin Louise Rutledge agrees, adding, “Now, after his passing, going through his files and paperwork, it is abundantly clear that what Fred valued was his work at MIT, the colleagues with whom he maintained contact, the wonderful library that he built with an amazing variety of subjects, his photography from decades of travels around Scandinavia and Europe, and last but not the least, his lifelong relationships with a handful of close friends.”

Those close friends, and the department to which Hennie devoted so much of his life, will miss him greatly. Donations in memory of Fred Hennie can be made to his three favorite charities: Habitat for Humanity, Mass Audubon, and The Nature Conservancy.

Angela Belcher delivers 2023 Dresselhaus Lecture on evolving organisms for new nanomaterials

“How do we get to making nanomaterials that haven’t been evolved before?” asked Angela Belcher at the 2023 Mildred S. Dresselhaus Lecture at MIT on Nov. 20. “We can use elements that biology has already given us.”

The combined in-person and virtual audience of over 300 was treated to a light-up, 3D model of M13 bacteriophage, a virus that only infects bacteria, complete with a pull-out strand of DNA. Belcher used the feather-boa-like model to show how her research group modifies the M13’s genes to add new DNA and peptide sequences to template inorganic materials.

“I love controlling materials at the nanoscale using biology,” said Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering, materials science professor, and of the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. “We all know if you control materials at the nanoscale and you can start to tune them, then you can have all kinds of different applications.” And the opportunities are indeed vast — from building batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells to carbon sequestration and storage, environmental remediation, catalysis, and medical diagnostics and imaging.

Belcher sprinkled her talk with models and props, lined up on a table at the front of the 10-250 lecture hall, to demonstrate a wide variety of concepts and projects made possible by the intersection of biology and nanotechnology.

Energy storage and environment

“How do you go from a DNA sequence to a functioning battery?” posed Belcher. Grabbing a model of a large carbon nanotube, she explained how her group engineered a phage to pick up carbon nanotubes that would wind all the way around the virus and then fill in with different cathode or anode materials to make nanowires for battery electrodes.

How about using the M13 bacteriophage to improve the environment? Belcher referred to a project by former student Geran Zhang PhD ’19 that proved the virus can be modified for this context, too. He used the phage to template high-surface-area, carbon-based materials that can grab small molecules and break them down, Belcher said, opening a realm of possibilities from cleaning up rivers to developing chemical warfare agents to combating smog.

Belcher’s lab worked with the U.S. Army to produce protective clothing and masks made of these carbon-based virus nanofibers. “We went from five liters in our lab to a thousand liters, then 10,000 liters in the army labs where we’re able to make kilograms of the material,” Belcher said, stressing the importance of being able to test and prototype at scale.

Imaging tools and therapeutics in cancer

In the area of biomedical imaging, Belcher explained, a lot less is known in near-infrared imaging — imaging in wavelengths above 1,000 nanometers — than other imaging techniques, yet with near-infrared scientists can see much deeper inside the body. Belcher’s lab built their own systems to image at these wavelengths. The third generation of this system provides real-time, sub-millimeter optical imaging for guided surgery.

Working with Sangeeta Bhatia, the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Engineering, Belcher used carbon nanotubes to build imaging tools that find tiny tumors during surgery that doctors otherwise would not be able to see. The tool is actually a virus engineered to carry with it a fluorescent, single-walled carbon nanotube as it seeks out the tumors.

Nearing the end of her talk, Belcher presented a goal: to develop an accessible detection and diagnostic technology for ovarian cancer in five to 10 years.

“We think that we can do it,” Belcher said. She described her students’ work developing a way to scan an entire fallopian tube, as opposed to just one small portion, to find pre-cancer lesions, and talked about the team of MIT faculty, doctors, and researchers working collectively toward this goal.

“Part of the secret of life and the meaning of life is helping other people enjoy the passage of time,” said Belcher in her closing remarks. “I think that we can all do that by working to solve some of the biggest issues on the planet, including helping to diagnose and treat ovarian cancer early so people have more time to spend with their family.”

Honoring Mildred S. Dresselhaus

Belcher was the fifth speaker to deliver the Dresselhaus Lecture, an annual event organized by MIT.nano to honor the late MIT physics and electrical engineering Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus. The lecture features a speaker from anywhere in the world whose leadership and impact echo Dresselhaus’s life, accomplishments, and values.

“Millie was and is a huge hero of mine,” said Belcher. “Giving a lecture in Millie’s name is just the greatest honor.”

Belcher dedicated the talk to Dresselhaus, whom she described with an array of accolades — a trailblazer, a genius, an amazing mentor, teacher, and inventor. “Just knowing her was such a privilege,” she said.

Belcher also dedicated her talk to her own grandmother and mother, both of whom passed away from cancer, as well as late MIT professors Susan Lindquist and Angelika Amon, who both died of ovarian cancer.

“I’ve been so fortunate to work with just the most talented and dedicated graduate students, undergraduate students, postdocs, and researchers,” concluded Belcher. “It has been a pure joy to be in partnership with all of you to solve these very daunting problems.”

MIT Generative AI Week fosters dialogue across disciplines

In late November, faculty, staff, and students from across MIT participated in MIT Generative AI Week. The programming included a flagship full-day symposium as well as four subject-specific symposia, all aimed at fostering a dialogue about the opportunities and potential applications of generative artificial intelligence technologies across a diverse range of disciplines.

“These events are one expression of our conviction that MIT has a special responsibility to help society come to grips with the tectonic forces of generative AI — to understand its potential, contain its risks, and harness its power for good,” said MIT President Sally Kornbluth, in an email announcing the week of programming earlier this fall.

Activities during MIT Generative AI Week, many of which are available to watch on YouTube, included:

MIT Generative AI: Shaping the Future Symposium

The week kicked off with a flagship symposium, MIT Generative AI: Shaping the Future. The full-day symposium featured welcoming remarks from Kornbluth as well as two keynote speakers. The morning keynote speaker, Professor Emeritus Rodney Brooks, iRobot co-founder, former director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Robust.AI founder and CTO, spoke about how robotics and generative AI intersect. The afternoon keynote speaker, renowned media artist and director Refik Anadol, discussed the interplay between generative AI and art, including approaches toward data sculpting and digital architecture in our physical world.

The symposium included panel and roundtable discussions on topics such as generative AI foundations; science fiction; generative AI applications; and generative AI, ethics, and society. The event concluded with a performance by saxophonist and composer Paul Winter. It was chaired by Daniela Rus, the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and director of CSAIL, and co-chaired by Cynthia Breazeal, MIT dean for digital learning and professor of media arts and sciences, and Sertac Karaman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.

“Another Body” Screening

The first day of MIT Generative AI Week concluded with a special screening of the documentary “Another Body.” The SxSW Special Jury Award-winning documentary follows a college student’s search for answers and justice after she discovers deepfake pornography of herself circulating online.

After the viewing, there was a panel discussion including the film’s editor, Rabab Haj Yahya; David Goldston, director of the MIT Washington Office; Catherine D’Ignazio, associate professor of urban science and planning and director of the Data + Feminism Lab; and MIT junior Ananda Santos Figueiredo.

Generative AI + Education Symposium

Drawing from the extended MIT community of faculty, research staff, students, and colleagues, the Generative AI + Education Symposium offered thought-provoking keynotes, panel conversations, and live demonstrations of how generative AI is transforming learning experience and teaching practice from K-12, post-secondary education, and workforce upskilling. The symposium included a fireside chat entitled, “Will Generative AI Transform Learning and Education?” as well as sessions on the learner experience, teaching practice, and big ideas from MIT.

This half-day symposium concluded with an innovation showcase where attendees were invited to engage directly with demos of the latest in MIT research and ingenuity. The event was co-chaired by Breazeal and Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean for open learning and professor of history.

Generative AI + Health Symposium

The Generative AI + Health Symposium highlighted AI research focused on the health of people and the health of the planet. Talks illustrated progress in molecular design and sensing applications to advance human health, as well as work to improve climate-change projections, increase efficiency in mobility, and design new materials. A panel discussion of six researchers from across MIT explored anticipated impacts of AI in these areas.

This half-day symposium was co-chaired by Raffaele Ferrari, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and director of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate; Polina Golland, the Sunlin and Priscilla Chou Professor in the Department of EECS and a principal investigator at CSAIL; Amy Keating, the Jay A. Stein Professor of Biology, professor of biological engineering, and head of the Department of Biology; and Elsa Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee (1940) Professor in Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, associate dean of engineering, and director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium.

Generative AI + Creativity Symposium

At the Generative AI + Creativity Symposium, faculty experts, researchers, and students across MIT explored questions that peer into the future and imagine a world where generative AI-enhanced systems and techniques improve the human condition. Topics explored included how combined human and AI systems might make more creative and better decisions than either one alone; how lifelong creativity, fostered by a new generation of tools, methods, and experiences, can help society; envisioning, exploring, and implementing a more joyful, artful, meaningful, and equitable future; how to make AI legible and trustworthy; and how to engage an unprecedented combination of diverse stakeholders to inspire and support creative thinking, expression, and computation empowering all people.

The half-day symposium was co-chaired by Dava Newman, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and director of the MIT Media Lab, and John Ochsendorf, the Class of 1942 Professor, professor of architecture and of civil and environmental engineering, and founding director of the MIT Morningside Academy for Design.

Generative AI + Impact on Commerce Symposium

The Generative AI + Impact on Commerce Symposium explored the impact of AI on the practice of management. The event featured a curated set of researchers at MIT; policymakers actively working on legislation to ensure that AI is deployed in a manner that is fair and healthy for the consumer; venture capitalists investing in cutting-edge AI technology; and private equity investors who are looking to use AI tools as a competitive advantage.

This half-day symposium was co-chaired by Vivek Farias, the Patrick J. McGovern (1959) Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

MIT group releases white papers on governance of AI

Providing a resource for U.S. policymakers, a committee of MIT leaders and scholars has released a set of policy briefs that outlines a framework for the governance of artificial intelligence. The approach includes extending current regulatory and liability approaches in pursuit of a practical way to oversee AI.

The aim of the papers is to help enhance U.S. leadership in the area of artificial intelligence broadly, while limiting harm that could result from the new technologies and encouraging exploration of how AI deployment could be beneficial to society.

The main policy paper, “A Framework for U.S. AI Governance: Creating a Safe and Thriving AI Sector,” suggests AI tools can often be regulated by existing U.S. government entities that already oversee the relevant domains. The recommendations also underscore the importance of identifying the purpose of AI tools, which would enable regulations to fit those applications.

“As a country we’re already regulating a lot of relatively high-risk things and providing governance there,” says Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, who helped steer the project, which stemmed from the work of an ad hoc MIT committee. “We’re not saying that’s sufficient, but let’s start with things where human activity is already being regulated, and which society, over time, has decided are high risk. Looking at AI that way is the practical approach.”

“The framework we put together gives a concrete way of thinking about these things,” says Asu Ozdaglar, the deputy dean of academics in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and head of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), who also helped oversee the effort.

The project includes multiple additional policy papers and comes amid heightened interest in AI over last year as well as considerable new industry investment in the field. The European Union is currently trying to finalize AI regulations using its own approach, one that assigns broad levels of risk to certain types of applications. In that process, general-purpose AI technologies such as language models have become a new sticking point. Any governance effort faces the challenges of regulating both general and specific AI tools, as well as an array of potential problems including misinformation, deepfakes, surveillance, and more.

“We felt it was important for MIT to get involved in this because we have expertise,” says David Goldston, director of the MIT Washington Office. “MIT is one of the leaders in AI research, one of the places where AI first got started. Since we are among those creating technology that is raising these important issues, we feel an obligation to help address them.”

Purpose, intent, and guardrails

The main policy brief outlines how current policy could be extended to cover AI, using existing regulatory agencies and legal liability frameworks where possible. The U.S. has strict licensing laws in the field of medicine, for example. It is already illegal to impersonate a doctor; if AI were to be used to prescribe medicine or make a diagnosis under the guise of being a doctor, it should be clear that would violate the law just as strictly human malfeasance would. As the policy brief notes, this is not just a theoretical approach; autonomous vehicles, which deploy AI systems, are subject to regulation in the same manner as other vehicles.

An important step in making these regulatory and liability regimes, the policy brief emphasizes, is having AI providers define the purpose and intent of AI applications in advance. Examining new technologies on this basis would then make clear which existing sets of regulations, and regulators, are germane to any given AI tool.

However, it is also the case that AI systems may exist at multiple levels, in what technologists call a “stack” of systems that together deliver a particular service. For example, a general-purpose language model may underlie a specific new tool. In general, the brief notes, the provider of a specific service might be primarily liable for problems with it. However, “when a component system of a stack does not perform as promised, it may be reasonable for the provider of that component to share responsibility,” as the first brief states. The builders of general-purpose tools should thus also be accountable should their technologies be implicated in specific problems.

“That makes governance more challenging to think about, but the foundation models should not be completely left out of consideration,” Ozdaglar says. “In a lot of cases, the models are from providers, and you develop an application on top, but they are part of the stack. What is the responsibility there? If systems are not on top of the stack, it doesn’t mean they should not be considered.”

Having AI providers clearly define the purpose and intent of AI tools, and requiring guardrails to prevent misuse, could also help determine the extent to which either companies or end users are accountable for specific problems. The policy brief states that a good regulatory regime should be able to identify what it calls a “fork in the toaster” situation — when an end user could reasonably be held responsible for knowing the problems that misuse of a tool could produce.

Responsive and flexible

While the policy framework involves existing agencies, it includes the addition of some new oversight capacity as well. For one thing, the policy brief calls for advances in auditing of new AI tools, which could move forward along a variety of paths, whether government-initiated, user-driven, or deriving from legal liability proceedings. There would need to be public standards for auditing, the paper notes, whether established by a nonprofit entity along the lines of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), or through a federal entity similar to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

And the paper does call for the consideration of creating a new, government-approved “self-regulatory organization” (SRO) agency along the functional lines of FINRA, the government-created Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Such an agency, focused on AI, could accumulate domain-specific knowledge that would allow it to be responsive and flexible when engaging with a rapidly changing AI industry.

“These things are very complex, the interactions of humans and machines, so you need responsiveness,” says Huttenlocher, who is also the Henry Ellis Warren Professor in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making in EECS. “We think that if government considers new agencies, it should really look at this SRO structure. They are not handing over the keys to the store, as it’s still something that’s government-chartered and overseen.”

As the policy papers make clear, there are several additional particular legal matters that will need addressing in the realm of AI. Copyright and other intellectual property issues related to AI generally are already the subject of litigation.

And then there are what Ozdaglar calls “human plus” legal issues, where AI has capacities that go beyond what humans are capable of doing. These include things like mass-surveillance tools, and the committee recognizes they may require special legal consideration.

“AI enables things humans cannot do, such as surveillance or fake news at scale, which may need special consideration beyond what is applicable for humans,” Ozdaglar says. “But our starting point still enables you to think about the risks, and then how that risk gets amplified because of the tools.”

The set of policy papers addresses a number of regulatory issues in detail. For instance, one paper, “Labeling AI-Generated Content: Promises, Perils, and Future Directions,” by Chloe Wittenberg, Ziv Epstein, Adam J. Berinsky, and David G. Rand, builds on prior research experiments about media and audience engagement to assess specific approaches for denoting AI-produced material. Another paper, “Large Language Models,” by Yoon Kim, Jacob Andreas, and Dylan Hadfield-Menell, examines general-purpose language-based AI innovations.

“Part of doing this properly”

As the policy briefs make clear, another element of effective government engagement on the subject involves encouraging more research about how to make AI beneficial to society in general.

For instance, the policy paper, “Can We Have a Pro-Worker AI? Choosing a path of machines in service of minds,” by Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, and Simon Johnson, explores the possibility that AI might augment and aid workers, rather than being deployed to replace them — a scenario that would provide better long-term economic growth distributed throughout society.

This range of analyses, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, is something the ad hoc committee wanted to bring to bear on the issue of AI regulation from the start — broadening the lens that can be brought to policymaking, rather than narrowing it to a few technical questions.

“We do think academic institutions have an important role to play both in terms of expertise about technology, and the interplay of technology and society,” says Huttenlocher. “It reflects what’s going to be important to governing this well, policymakers who think about social systems and technology together. That’s what the nation’s going to need.”

Indeed, Goldston notes, the committee is attempting to bridge a gap between those excited and those concerned about AI, by working to advocate that adequate regulation accompanies advances in the technology.

As Goldston puts it, the committee releasing these papers is “is not a group that is antitechnology or trying to stifle AI. But it is, nonetheless, a group that is saying AI needs governance and oversight. That’s part of doing this properly. These are people who know this technology, and they’re saying that AI needs oversight.”

Huttenlocher adds, “Working in service of the nation and the world is something MIT has taken seriously for many, many decades. This is a very important moment for that.”

In addition to Huttenlocher, Ozdaglar, and Goldston, the ad hoc committee members are: Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor and the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics in the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Jacob Andreas, associate professor in EECS; David Autor, the Ford Professor of Economics; Adam Berinsky, the Mitsui Professor of Political Science; Cynthia Breazeal, dean for Digital Learning and professor of media arts and sciences; Dylan Hadfield-Menell, the Tennenbaum Career Development Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making; Simon Johnson, the Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship in the MIT Sloan School of Management; Yoon Kim, the NBX Career Development Assistant Professor in EECS; Sendhil Mullainathan, the Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Manish Raghavan, assistant professor of information technology at MIT Sloan; David Rand, the Erwin H. Schell Professor at MIT Sloan and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences; Antonio Torralba, the Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Luis Videgaray, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan.

MIT Women’s League fosters connections and community around campus

As of this week, MIT’s 77 Massachusetts Avenue entrance is beautifully adorned with three giant, intricately decorated holiday wreaths. They’re the work of the MIT Women’s League, one the longest-running groups on campus, which has been organizing its annual wreath-making event for the community since the 1930s — offering a reminder that MIT is not just a place, but a community of people working together with a common purpose.

The League has changed a lot since its founding in 1913, but its general mission has remained the same: to connect women at MIT and to foster a sense of community across the Institute.

The Women’s League has long adapted to meet the evolving needs of MIT and women in the community. Today its mission is carried out through a wide array of activities, interest groups, and volunteer work.

Some of the group’s most popular initiatives include monthly book discussions, the MIT Women’s Chorale, and the Fiber Crafts Group. The Women’s League also hosts lecture series and networking events, facilitates clothing drives, and offers scholarships to students.

“We’ve never been afraid to try new things, but there are some things that we’ve been doing since the 1920s and 1930s,” Women’s League Chair Nancye Mims says.

Indeed, honoring the group’s long history of achievements is another key aspect of the Women’s League today. At its 110th anniversary celebration in October, the group displayed milestones in the League’s history side by side with key moments of MIT’s past, to educate community members about how the histories intersect.

“Even though MIT was not always welcoming to female students and faculty, women have always been very supportive of MIT’s mission and a part of the MIT story,” Mims says. “I’m very proud of the history of women at MIT and the way they’ve supported students, faculty, staff, and everything that happens at MIT. We take pride in what is accomplished here, and we need to continue to acknowledge the support that women have given to MIT.”

The Women’s League has roots in the earliest days of the Institute. Alice Maclaurin, the wife of former President Richard C. Maclaurin, officially founded the Women’s League in 1913. The group consisted of the wives of MIT professors back then, as there were very few female students or faculty. It was expanded to include the wives of students in 1922. The League now welcomes all women and female-identifying and nonbinary people in MIT’s community, and has a very active staff presence.

Over the ensuing decades, a number of activities were started by the Women’s League that are still active today. The Women’s Chorale was started in 1923. The group still rehearses weekly and hosts two concerts a year and recently recruited 20 new members. The wreaths first went up over 77 Massachusetts Avenue in the 1930s. The following decades saw the formation of other interest groups, including the book discussions and fiber crafts. In 1987, the Women’s League started the Stratton Lecture series, named for former MIT first lady Catherine “Kay” Stratton, which featured in-depth lectures by faculty members, initially about the process of aging and criticial issues in society. The Stratton Lectures stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic, but this spring they will restart with a lecture exploring how women will be affected by artificial intelligence.

The League started a used furniture exchange in 1958. The MIT FX, as it is now known, has a permanent home on West Campus, and proceeds from its sales help support the League’s scholarships, which have given out more than $1 million. The FX is open to all MIT ID holders and accepts donations of household goods and furniture. The Women’s League also supports a clothing drive to help students in partnership with MIT’s Student Support Services, and offers two annual fellowships in partnership with MIT’s Priscilla King Gray (PKG) Public Service Center

“We’re really interested in how we can enrich the lives of all people at MIT,” Women’s League manager Kirsty Bennett says. “If anyone is looking for new events or programming, tell us and we can try to set it up. We want to be place for everyone to come, and where people can try out their ideas and suggestions.”

Fostering a sense of community is an overarching theme of the group’s work.

“Sometimes when you work at MIT, you end up knowing loads about exactly where you are, but there are these siloes, so people don’t end up working together,” Bennett says. “We want to forge connections for people on campus.”

The pandemic forced many of the group’s activities to go virtual, but they’ve rebounded with events like the 110th anniversary celebration. The goal with that event and others is to raise awareness of the group and encourage people to join whichever activity sounds fun.

“Some people wonder if they should be here, or if the space is for them,” Bennett says. “Our answer is always yes. The space is for everyone. We’re a very welcoming community.”

New study shows how universities are critical to emerging fusion industry

A new study suggests that universities have an essential role to fulfill in the continued growth and success of any modern high-tech industry, and especially the nascent fusion industry; however, the importance of that role is not reflected in the number of fusion-oriented faculty and educational channels currently available. Academia’s responsiveness to the birth of other modern scientific fields, such as aeronautics and nuclear fission, provides a template for the steps universities can take to enable a robust fusion industry.

Authored by Dennis Whyte, the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering and director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT; Carlos Paz-Soldan, associate professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University; and Brian D. Wirth, the Governor’s Chair Professor of Computational Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, the paper was recently published in the journal Physics of Plasmas as part of a special collection titled “Private Fusion Research: Opportunities and Challenges in Plasma Science.”

With contributions from authors in academia, government, and private industry, the collection outlines a framework for public-private partnerships that will be essential for the success of the fusion industry.

Now being seen as a potential source of unlimited green energy, fusion is the same process that powers the sun — hydrogen atoms combine to form helium, releasing vast amounts of clean energy in the form of light and heat.

The excitement surrounding fusion’s arrival has resulted in the proliferation of dozens of for-profit companies positioning themselves at the forefront of the commercial fusion energy industry. In the near future, those companies will require a significant network of fusion-fluent workers to take on varied tasks requiring a range of skills.

While the authors acknowledge the role of private industry, especially as an increasingly dominant source of research funding, they also show that academia is and will continue to be critical to industry’s development, and it cannot be decoupled from private industry’s growth. Despite the evidence of this burgeoning interest, the size and scale of the field’s academic network at U.S.-based universities is sparse.

According to Whyte, “Diversifying the [fusion] field by adding more tracks for master’s students and undergraduates who can transition into industry more quickly is an important step.”

An analysis found that while there are 57 universities in the United States active in plasma and fusion research, the average number of tenured or tenure-track plasma/fusion faculty at each institution is only two. By comparison, a sampling of US News and World Report’s top 10 programs for nuclear fission and aeronautics/astronautics found an average of nearly 20 faculty devoted to fission and 32 to aero/astro.

“University programs in fusion and their sponsors need to up their game and hire additional faculty if they want to provide the necessary workforce to support a growing U.S. fusion industry,” adds Paz-Soldan.

The growth and proliferation of those fields and others, such as computing and biotechnology, were historically in lockstep with the creation of academic programs that helped drive the fields’ progress and widespread acceptance. Creating a similar path for fusion is essential to ensuring its sustainable growth, and as Wirth notes, “that this growth should be pursued in a way that is interdisciplinary across numerous engineering and science disciplines.”

At MIT, an example of that path is seen at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

The center has deep historical ties to government research programs, and the largest fusion company in the world, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), was spun out of the PSFC by Whyte’s former students and an MIT postdoc. Whyte also serves as the primary investigator in collaborative research with CFS on SPARC, a proof-of-concept fusion platform for advancing tokamak science that is scheduled for completion in 2025.

“Public and private roles in the fusion community are rapidly evolving in response to the growth of privately funded commercial product development,” says Michael Segal, head of open innovation at CFS. “The fusion industry will increasingly rely on its university partners to train students, work across diverse disciplines, and execute small and midsize programs at speed.”

According to the authors, another key reason academia will remain essential to the continued growth and development of fusion is because it is unconflicted. Whyte comments, “Our mandate is sharing information and education, which means we have no competitive conflict and innovation can flow freely.” Furthermore, fusion science is inherently multidisciplinary: “[It] requires physicists, computer scientists, engineers, chemists, etc. and it’s easy to tap into all those disciplines in an academic environment where they’re all naturally rubbing elbows and collaborating.”

Creating a new energy industry, however, will also require a workforce skilled in disciplines other than STEM, say the authors. As fusion companies continue to grow, they will need expertise in finance, safety, licensing, and market analysis. Any successful fusion enterprise will also have major geopolitical, societal, and economic impacts, all of which must be managed.

Ultimately, there are several steps the authors identify to help build the connections between academia and industry that will be important going forward: The first is for universities to acknowledge the rapidly changing fusion landscape and begin to adapt. “Universities need to embrace the growth of the private sector in fusion, recognize the opportunities it provides, and seek out mutually beneficial partnerships,” says Paz-Soldan.

The second step is to reconcile the mission of educational institutions — unconflicted open access — with condensed timelines and proprietary outputs that come with private partnerships. At the same time, the authors note that private fusion companies should embrace the transparency of academia by publishing and sharing the findings they can through peer-reviewed journals, which will be a necessary part of building the industry’s credibility.

The last step, the authors say, is for universities to become more flexible and creative in their technology licensing strategies to ensure ideas and innovations find their way from the lab into industry.

“As an industry, we’re in a unique position because everything is brand new,” Whyte says. “But we’re enough students of history that we can see what’s needed to succeed; quantifying the status of the private and academic landscape is an important strategic touchstone. By drawing attention to the current trajectory, hopefully we’ll be in a better position to work with our colleagues in the public and private sector and make better-informed choices about how to proceed.”

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