Undergraduate Vlada Petrusenko speaks with Peter Eliopoulos of WCVB-TV about her worries for her parents and friends during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "It’s not just war of Russia against Ukraine, it’s war of Russia against the whole other world," said Petrusenko.
MIT students from Ukraine spoke with Drew Karedes of Boston 25 about their reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I would hope for other countries to get involved,” said second year student Vlada Petrusenko. “This is actually terrifying to see how things are moving forward.”
Undergraduate Artem Laptiev joined Morning Edition to discuss the Russian invasion of his home country of Ukraine and his fears over the fate of his country. Ukraine is a “beautiful place of culture, of such rich culture and such a strong technological power,” said Laptiev. “All of my best experiences of my life were connected to Ukraine. It’s really hard to convey this with words.”
Undergraduate Aniket Dehadrai represented MIT in the Jeopardy! National College Championship tournament, reports Breanna Kovatch for The Boston Globe. Dehadrai was among “36 students from 36 colleges who competed in the special two-week tournament,” writes Kovatch.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81, director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), will address the Class of 2022 at MIT’s Commencement exercises, reports the AP. Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and first African to lead the WTO, noted that: “From the warm and caring welcome of the International Students Office on my first day of graduate school in 1976, to my tough but equally caring doctoral dissertation committee that propelled me to graduation in 1981, my memories of my time at MIT are spectacularly positive.”
President L. Rafael Reif, who bolstered MIT’s stature "as a hub of tech innovation,” is stepping down at the end of 2022, reports the AP. "His achievements include the creation of a new business incubator in 2016 to help scholars turn big ideas into companies,” writes the AP. “In 2018, he announced a $1 billion investment in artificial intelligence and computing, centered around a new College of Computing that aims to apply AI technology across all academic disciplines.”
Bloomberg News spotlights how President L. Rafael Reif, who “oversaw a revitalization of MIT’s campus and its continued integration with Kendall Square” has announced he will step down at the end of 2022. “Reif’s emphases as provost and president included the shift to more online learning, and innovation in ‘tough tech,’ including the creation of 'The Engine,' an incubator supporting companies to solve the world’s greatest challenges, from fusion energy to new medical devices.”
President L. Rafael Reif, who was "instrumental in leading [MIT] to convert its science into innovation, especially in the areas of life sciences, energy, materials, and machine learning and artificial intelligence,” has announced he will step down at the end of 2022, reports Laura Krantz for The Boston Globe. “What I felt was special about Rafael as president was his humanity,” says Prof. Caroline Jones. “He understood when there were problems that couldn’t be solved by technology.”
Postdoctoral associate Matt McDonald will run in the 2022 Boston Marathon this upcoming April, reports Michael Silverman for The Boston Globe. “It’s thrilling that I’ll get to race the best marathon in the world on the street that I run every day,” says McDonald.
Graduate student Olumakinde “Makinde” Ogunnaike and Josh Sariñana PhD ’11 join Boston Public Radio to discuss The Poetry of Science, an initiative that brought together artists and scientists of color to help translate complex scientific research through art and poetry. “Science is often a very difficult thing to penetrate,” says Sariñana. “I thought poetry would be a great way to translate the really abstract concepts into more of an emotional complexity of who the scientists actually are.”
Writing for Popular Science, Sarah Scoles spotlights DAILy (Developing AI Literacy) initiative, a project by MIT researchers and students aimed at teaching middle schoolers “the technical, creative, and ethical implications of AI, taking them from building PB&Js to totally redesigning YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.”
Graduate student Rida Qadri writes for Wired about the National Database and Registration Authority, a kinship-based digital ID system used in Pakistan. “Pakistan’s experience with creating databases that encode kinship reveals important lessons about the complexities of building digital ID systems,” writes Qadri “Database design is not just computational. At every step, social, political, and technical decisions coalesce."
Boston Herald reporter Rick Sobey spotlights how Army Maj. David Frost, a graduate student in the Sloan School of Management, is running in this year’s Boston Marathon to help raise funds for Boston Children’s Hospital, where he had emergency surgery for a cavernous angioma when he was eight-years-old. “It was a life-changing moment for me,” says Frost. “I’ll forever be thankful for the work they do, the care they provide, and their ability to show empathy for kids.”
A new study by graduate student Chi Heem Wong examines panic selling during periods of stock market volatility dips, reports Kate Dore for CNBC. “Panic selling is predictable,” explains Wong. “It’s pretty consistent over time that people with certain attributes tend to panic sell more often than others.”
Graduate student Nicole L’Huillier speaks with WBUR’s Jenn Stanley about her multimedia artwork, which “oscillates at the intersection of science, technology and art” and “often explores sound as a means for understanding and navigating different spaces.” L’Huillier says of the inspiration for her artwork: “It's time to rearticulate many things and my work is a lot about that. It’s about encountering other paradigms, it's about being able to be flexible, to vibrate, to oscillate just as sound.”