Mark Anderson profiles Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, recipient of the 2015 IEEE Medal of Honor, for IEEE Spectrum, chronicling her journey from a childhood passion for music to her pioneering research on carbon. Anderson writes that Dresselhaus has “blazed a path for researchers eager to exploit the magic of carbon computing.”
The MIT Visual Arts List has released details about Professor Emerita Joan Jonas’ upcoming video presentation at the Venice Biennale, writes Meredith Goldstein for The Boston Globe. Jonas “will present a new video performance, ‘They Come to Us Without a Word II,’ three times from July 20 to 22, with live musical accompaniment.”
A team of MIT researchers won the grand prize in a competition that challenged participants to develop sustainable desalination technologies, reports Jeff Daniels reports for NBC News. The MIT researchers designed a solar-powered "electrodialysis reversal system that desalinates water using electricity.”
In an article for Popular Science, Mary Beth Griggs reports that a team of MIT researchers won the Desal Prize, a competition judging the effectiveness of new desalination systems. The MIT team developed a system that uses solar panels to power “a system that removes salt from the water through electrodialysis.”
Lauren Beavin of Boston Magazine speaks with A.M. Turing Award recipient Michael Stonebraker about why Boston is such a great place for computer scientists. The Boston tech scene "is way above critical mass, and the quality of life here is very, very high,” Stonebraker explains.
MIT’s List Visual Arts Center is displaying a collection of Prof. Emerita Joan Jonas’ video art, writes Sebastian Smee for The Boston Globe. “The selection adds up to a fascinating overview of Jonas’s achievement, which is as rich and complex as it is disarming and improvised,” Smee writes.
Lisa Cohen writes for The New York Times Style Magazine about the work of MIT Professor Emerita Joan Jonas, who has been selected to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. “If the idiosyncratic qualities of Jonas’s work have made it inscrutable to some, its power is undeniable,” writes Cohen.
The ACM has awarded the A.M. Turing Award, widely regarded as the “Nobel Prize in Computing,” to CSAIL researcher and adjunct professor Michael Stonebraker, reports Barb Darrow for Fortune. Stonebraker is “famous for arguing that database is not a one-size-fits-all category."
Michael Stonebraker, a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and an adjunct professor at MIT, has won the A.M. Turning Award for his work with database management systems, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. “This is every computer scientist’s lifetime dream, and it came true for me,” said Stonebraker.
For his work developing pricing models, Prof. Stephen Ross has been awarded the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, Reuters reports. The Center for Financial Studies, which awards the prize, said that, "Ross’s models have changed and advanced economic practice profoundly.”
Prof. Stephen Ross has won the 2015 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, reports Jack Newsham for The Boston Globe. Jan Pieter Krahnen, director of the Center for Financial Studies, which presents the prize, explains that Ross’ work “has shaped today's thinking in financial innovation, practice, and policy.”
Boston Magazine reporter Olivia Rassow writes about how Robert Robinson Taylor, MIT’s first black alumnus, is being inducted into the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage Stamp series. The stamp honoring Taylor “depicts a black-and-white photograph of Taylor taken when he was 22 years old and a student at MIT.”
The U.S. Postal Service has issued a stamp in honor of Robert Robinson Taylor, MIT’s first black alumnus, writes Krissah Thompson of The Washington Post. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama and Taylor’s great-granddaughter, said that whenever she faces a daunting task she thinks of Taylor, “the son of a slave, who traveled all the way from Wilmington, North Carolina, to attend MIT.”
Prof. Robert Langer speaks with Chris Baraniuk of New Scientist about winning the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and his career in biotechnology. “It’s going to be the entrepreneurs, the new professors, the young people who are willing to think outside the box and not necessarily go down a conventional path,” says Langer of the future of medicine.
Professor Robert Langer has won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his pioneering work with medical technologies, reports David Shukman for BBC News. Shukman notes that “as many as two billion people have in some way been touched by technologies devised and developed by him and his teams.”