STEM education

Prof. Eric Klopfer, co-director of the RAISE initiative (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment in Education), speaks with GBH reporter Diane Adame about the importance of providing students guidance on navigating artificial intelligence systems. “I think it's really important for kids to be aware that these things exist now, because whether it's in school or out of school, they are part of systems where AI is present,” says Klopfer. “Many humans are biased. And so the [AI] systems express those same biases that they've seen online and the data that they've collected from humans.”

New York Times reporter Siobhan Roberts spotlights Yulia’s Dream, a free math enrichment and research program for exceptional high school students in Ukraine organized through the MIT Department of Mathematics. “Mathematics is often misunderstood as a solitary endeavor,” says Lecturer Slava Gerovitch. “One cannot be a successful mathematician without being integrated into these international networks for the exchange of knowledge.”

Graduate students Martin Nisser and Marisa Gaetz co-founded Brave Behind Bars, a program designed to provide incarcerated individuals with coding and digital literacy skills to better prepare them for life after prison, reports Morgan Radford for MSNBC. Computers and coding skills “are really kind of paramount for fostering success in the modern workplace,” says Nisser.

Celtics forward Jaylen Brown spoke with Dana Jacobson of CBS Mornings about his mission to help improve equality in the City of Boston, highlighting the Bridge Program at the Media Lab, which is aimed providing opportunities in science and technology for underrepresented communities. “I think education is one of the most powerful devices that we have and is one of the ways our social mobility is being controlled at a very early age,” says Brown. “Being able to have my students… get to learn directly from MIT professors, MIT scientists, NASA astronauts, you get to directly benefit from those stories and life lessons. My goal is to build the next leaders, the next generation of leaders for the world.”

Celtics forward Jaylen Brown signed his supermax contract extension in front of high school students participating in the Bridge Program at the Media Lab, an effort focused on providing opportunities in science and technology for underrepresented communities, writes Adam Himmelsbach for The Boston Globe. Brown noted he found out the deal was finalized during a robotics session with the students. “I was learning,” he said. “I was a part of the curriculum. We were doing some teaching, doing some active engaging, some workshops. So I was able to put my phone down and just get right into class with the Bridge students.”

MathTalk–a team that aims to make math fun through stories, art and games – held its first annual Family Day on the MIT campus, reports WBZ. “Among the attractions at Family Day, MathTalk had art installations, number lines, Venn diagrams to show off to the kids and adults,” notes WBZ.

New York Times reporter Natasha Singer spotlights the Day of AI, an MIT RAISE program aimed at teaching K-12 students about AI. “Because AI is such a powerful new technology, in order for it to work well in society, it really needs some rules,” said MIT President Sally Kornbluth. Prof. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT’s dean of digital learning, added: “We want students to be informed, responsible users and informed, responsible designers of these technologies.”

On Friday, June 2, MIT celebrated the Class of 2023 with its undergraduate commencement ceremony, during which Chancellor Melissa Nobles addressed the graduates and students walked across the stage on Killian Court to receive their diplomas on a summer-like day. The Boston Herald featured a series of photographs from the event.

Boston.com reporter Susannah Sudborough spotlights Mark Rober’s Commencement address to the MIT Class of 2023, during which Rober provided “three bits of life advice in a humor-filled commencement speech.” Rober relayed to graduates that “if you want to cross the river of life, you’re gonna get wet. You’re gonna have to backtrack. And that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Frame those failures and slips like a video game, and not only will you learn more and do it faster, but it will make all the successful jumps along the way that much sweeter.”

During his Commencement address at MIT, Mark Rober urged graduates to embrace their accomplishments and boldly face any challenges they encounter," writes Ashley Soebroto for The Boston Globe. Rober emphasized that “the degree you’re getting today means so much to you precisely because of all the struggle and setbacks that you’ve had to endure.” Elisa Becker-Foss, who graduated with a master’s in finance, noted that it was “very cool to be here, and after all the hard work to finally find one day to come together and celebrate.”

Graduate student Crystal Owens speaks with NPR correspondent Miles Parks about her study which sought to find out the perfect ratio for breaking apart an Oreo cookie. “What we actually found was that all of the results were basically the same,” says Owens. “You can’t do it wrong because there’s no way to do it right.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Aylin Woodward writes about how graduate student Crystal Owens and undergraduate Max Fan set out to solve a cookie conundrum: whether there was a way to twist apart an Oreo and have the filling stick to both wafers. Woodward writes that for Owens, the research “was a fun, easy way to make her regular physics and engineering work more accessible to the general public.”

Fortune reporter Sydney Lake spotlights MIT’s free online “Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python” course. “The course also covers topics including data structures and simple algorithms,” writes Lake. 

MIT is part of the Transfer Scholars Network (TSN), an initiative aimed at opening a pipeline between community colleges and four-year colleges for transfer students, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. “As a part of TSN, we hope to send a message to community college students everywhere that you belong and you can succeed at a school like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” says Jeremy Weprich, senior assistant director of admissions.  

Forbes reporter Marija Butkovic spotlights Alicia Chong Rodriguez MS ’18, Founder and CEO of Bloomer Tech, for her work in building a cardiovascular disease and stroke database that can generate non-invasive digital biomarkers. “We envision a world where the future of AI in healthcare performs the best it can in women,” says Chong Rodriguez. “We also have created a digital biomarker pipeline where our digital biomarkers can explain, influence, and even improve health outcomes for women.”