Prof. Angelika Amon is a recipient of this year’s Breakthrough Prize “for her work on aneuploidy, irregularities in the number of chromosomes,” which could lead to a new understanding of cancer, writes Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Prof. Chenyang Xu, Prof. Matt Evans and research scientist Lisa Barsotti received New Horizons Prizes in physics, while Prof. Daniel Harlow received one in math.
MIT alumnus William Nordaus has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work studying the interaction between climate change and the economy, reports Dave Keyton and Jim Heintz for the AP. Nordhaus shared the award with Paul Romer, who also conducted graduate work at MIT.
Postdoctoral associates Tyler Clites, Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez and Amye Kirtane were named to STAT’s 2018 Wunderkinds list, which spotlights researchers that are “blazing new trails as they attempt to answer some of the biggest questions in science and medicine.”
Prof. Amy Finkelstein speaks with Lisa Mullins of WBUR’s All Things Considered about winning a MacArthur grant for her work examining health economics. Finkelstein explains that the goal of her work is to “reduce the amount of rhetoric in health care policy discussion and increase the amount of evidence.”
Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson writes that Profs. Amy Finkelstein and Lisa Parks have been selected as recipients of the MacArthur “genius grant.” Finkelstein notes that the award will allow her to take more risks with her research, while Parks plans to use the award to “strengthen MIT’s Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab and deepen the university’s ties to Africa, where she does research,” Levenson explains.
Profs. Amy Finkelstein and Lisa Parks have been named MacArthur Fellows, reports Joe Barrett for The Wall Street Journal. Barett explains that Finkelstein “conducts studies in the economics of health care; among her findings is that Medicaid expansion increases self-reported health and financial security, but also increases use of the emergency room and has no significant impact on many measures of physical health.”
Prof. Ibrahim Cissé has been named one of Science News’ 2018 SN 10 Scientists to Watch for his work investigating how genes are turned on, explains Science News reporter Tina Hesman Saey. Cissé is “everything you could want in a young scientist,” says Prof. Anthony Hyman of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.
Boston Globe reporter Jonathan Saltzman spotlights postdoctoral associates Matheus Victor, Jarrett Smith and Quinton Smith. They have been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as Hanna Gray Fellows, a program that aims to encourage emerging young scientists who are underrepresented in life sciences.
Institute Prof. Thomas Magnanti will receive Singapore’s Gold Public Administration Medal for his “visionary leadership” at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), reports Jolene Ang for The Straits Times. Magnanti was cited for his work organizing the university in clusters, which “better supported the interdisciplinary nature of SUTD's programmes and strengthened SUTD's research capabilities.”
Katharine Schwab of Co.Design highlights graduate student Joy Buolamwini and Visiting Scholar J. Nathan Matias as “design heroes” for their commitment to keep technology fair. Schwab writes that Buolamwini has forced companies “to develop better, more equitable technology” while Matias helped “reduced the prevalence of fake news.”
The Boston Globe reports that Prof. Emerita Joan Jonas has been awarded the 2018 Kyoto Prize. The prize honors “important figures in the fields of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy.”
Professors Edward Boyden and Feng Zhang have been named to the 2018 class of Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, reports Jonathan Saltzman for The Boston Globe. “We selected these scientists because they know how to ask hard and interesting questions with skill and intellectual courage,” says David Clapham, vice president and chief scientific officer of the institute.
Bloomberg’s Noah Smith profiles Prof. Parag Pathak, who was recently awarded the John Bates Clark medal for his work using economic theory to improve the allocation of students to New York City public schools. “Pathak isn’t just a theorist,” writes Smith, “in keeping with economics’ age of data, he also does a lot of empirical work.”
Prof. Parag Pathak, winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, speaks to The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Hackman about his research on school choice. “What I sometimes find frustrating in conversations about student achievement is they often get sidetracked from the issue of school quality,” Pathak says. “Our job as researchers is exploring the nuances and subtleties.”
Prof. Martin Marks hosted a conversation with Audra McDonald, the 2018 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient, where she spoke about her personal experience as a Tony Award-winning actress and shared advice with the gathered students, writes Sophie Cannon for The Boston Globe. “Realize you have value and you have worth and what you maybe don’t have is experience but that is what you are here to get,” McDonald said.