Prof. Kripa Varanasi speaks with BBC News reporter Chris Baraniuk about his work developing a “range of coatings that make surfaces slippery and therefore resistant to the formation of biofilms.” Baraniuk notes that: “Tests of one such coating in an experiment carried out on board the International Space Station found that it worked as intended.”
TSP Smart Spaces, a home automation company founded by Michael Oh '95 has been named to Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston Home 2025 list, reports Jaci Conry, Cheryl Fention, Marni Elyse Katz, Angela Athena Mats, and Stefanie Schwalb for Boston Magazine. TSP Smart Spaces uses “the ideal technology solutions while simultaneously making the user experience simple, comprehensive, and value-driven ensures even the most tech-hesitant homeowner feels automatically savvy,” they write.
Neural Magic, an AI optimization startup co-founded by Prof. Nir Shavit and former Research Scientist Alex Matveev, aims to “process AI workloads on processors and GPUs at speeds equivalent to specialized AI chips,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “By running models on off-the-shelf processors, which usually have more available memory, the company’s software can realize these performance gains,” explains Wiggers.
Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, an AI startup working on developing Cursor, an AI-powered coding assistant, reports Marina Temkin for TechCrunch.
Samara Oster MBA '22 has founded Meli, a company that has crafted a gluten-free beer made with organic quinoa, reports Ann Trieger Kurland for The Boston Globe. “With 4.4 percent alcohol, typical of light beers, it’s produced merely with water, high-quality organic quinoa, hops, and yeast,” explains Kurland.
Lithios, a startup cofounded by Mohammad Alkhadra PhD '22 and Prof. Martin Bazant, is developing “a clean and relatively cheap way to access vast amounts of lithium,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Lithios has developed a lithium-absorbing material that can be made into electrodes using the same technologies created to make electrodes for lithium-ion batteries,” explains Bray.
Writing for the Financial Times, Prof. Fiona Murray highlights the importance of developing a new approach to capital gains tax increases. “By focusing on the underlying behaviors we want to incentivize, we can structure taxes more effectively,” explains Murray. “When we provide tax breaks to companies for spending on R&D, we do it to spur behavior we know is good for the overall health of the economy.”
Writing for Forbes, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota SB '08, MS '16, MBA '16, shares five lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. “Starting a business is not just about having a brilliant idea; it's about finding purpose, solving real problems and building the right team,” explains Hayes-Mota.
Seonghoon Woo PhD '15, Jongwon Choi PhD '17, Young Suk Jo SM '13, PhD '16, and Hyunho Kim SM '14, PhD '18 have co-founded Amogy – a startup company that is using ammonia produced by renewable energy as a carbon-free way to fuel a tugboat, report Jennifer McDermott and Michael Hill for The Associated Press. “Without solving the problem, it’s not going to be possible to make the planet sustainable,” says Woo. “I don’t think this is the problem of the next generation. This is a really big problem for our generation.”
Forbes reporter Amy Feldman spotlights the work of Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, who has used his materials science research to “build an array of companies in areas like batteries, green cement and critical minerals that could really help mitigate the climate crisis.” Feldman notes that “as the climate crisis has become increasingly urgent, Yet-Ming Chiang’s ability to spin out companies from his research offers hope.”
The Boston Globe’s Angelina Parrillo interviews Jasmina Aganovic ’09 about her beauty company Arcaea, which reconstructs data from extinct flowers to produce fragrances. “I viewed fragrance as this remarkable emotional storytelling category and people don’t view science as being associated with creativity, emotion, or storytelling,” Aganovic says. “I think that that’s very far from the truth.”
Prof. Asegun Henry has been named a 2024 Grist honoree for his work developing a “sun in a box,” a new cost-effective system for storing renewable energy, reports Grist. Based on his research, Prof. Henry has founded Fourth Power, a startup working to build a prototype system that will hopefully “allow us to decarbonize electricity,” says Henry.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Thomas Kochan explores how workers, unions, CEOs and politicians can all draw lessons from the Market Basket protests in 2014. "The key lesson for workers and unions is to draw on customers and citizens as allies and sources of power," writes Kochan. "If workers’ demands make sense, customers and community members will support them."
TechCrunch reporter Kyle Wiggers spotlights Codeium, a generative AI coding company founded by MIT alums Varun Mohan SM '17 and Douglas Chen '17. Codeium’s platform is run by generative AI models trained on public code, providing suggestions in the context of an app’s entire codebase. “Many of the AI-driven solutions provide generic code snippets that require significant manual work to integrate and secure within existing codebases,” Mohan explains. “That’s where our AI coding assistance comes in.”
MIT alumni Mike Ng and Nikhil Buduma founded Ambiance, which has developed an “AI-powered platform geared towards improving documentation processes in medicine,” reports Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle. “In a world filled with AI solutions in search of a problem, Ambience is focusing on a pain point that just about any doctor will attest to (after all, who likes filling out paperwork?),” writes Garfinkle.