Prof. John Fernandez speaks with New York Times reporter Somini Sengupta about how to reduce the climate footprints of homes and office buildings, recommending creating airtight structures, switching to cleaner heating sources, using more environmentally-friendly building materials, and retrofitting existing homes and offices. “It’s going to be a lot easier to reduce carbon emissions in the built environment than almost everything else,” explains Fernandez.
Forbes contributor Joe McKendrick spotlights Prof. Yossi Sheffi’s new book, “The Magic Conveyor Belt: Supply Chains, AI, and the Future of Work.” McKendrick writes that Sheffi emphasizes the need to "better understand the supply chains on which our businesses and society depend, and our conception of supply chains needs to be broadened — from product and parts delivery networks to the very essence of organizations themselves.”
Prof. Danielle Wood speaks with NPR Shortwave co-host Aaron Scott about the future of space sustainability. “I hope that humans pause and note that the actions we're taking now and in the next 10 years really are going to be decisive in the relationship between humans and our planet, and humans and other locations, like the Moon,” says Wood.
Adjunct Professor Emeritus Mel King, a political activist whose 1983 mayoral campaign helped ease racial tensions in Boston, has died at 94, reports Richard Sandomir for The New York Times. King’s work included “teaching in the urban studies and planning department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1970 to 1996,” writes Sandomir. “There, he started a Community Fellows Program for leaders nationwide.”
Prof. Ronitt Rubinfeld has been named a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellow, reports Mark Feeney for The Boston Globe. “A ‘Guggenheim’ is one of the most sought-after honors in academe and culture,” explains Feeney. “It helps underwrite a proposed art or scholarly project.”
Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with WBUR reporter Geoff Brumfiel about her research studying the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. “When you take state-of-the-art machine learning methods and systems and then evaluate them on different patient groups, they do not perform equally,” says Ghassemi.
Prof. Emeritus Nelson Kiang, a scientist and educator who pioneered research into how humans hear, has died at 93, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “Kiang’s research ultimately helped form some of the foundation for other research into hearing, including the design and refinement of hearing aids and cochlear implants,” writes Marquard.
“The Sun Queen,” a new documentary on PBS, will highlight the life of the late former MIT Prof. Mária Telkes and her work in developing solar energy. Telkes is known for her “work on the 1948 Dover Sun House, a solar-heated model home created by an all-female team,” reports Erin Blakemore for The Washington Post.
Research scientist Erez Yoeli speaks with Knowable Magazine reporter Bob Holmes about the impact financial incentives have on encouraging cooperation. “Financial rewards kind of muddy the water about people’s motivations,” says Yoeli. “That undermines any reputational benefit from doing the deed.”
Thousands of scientists and tech leaders have signed an open letter published by the Future of Life Institute, co-founded by Prof. Max Tegmark, “calling for a six-month ‘pause’ in further development of AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its more advanced version, GPT-4,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “We’re trying to pause development…to ensure we can get the upside from AI without unnecessary downside,” says Tegmark.
Prof. Carlo Ratti speaks with CNN reporter Sarah Engel about smart cities and the future of AI infrastructure. Ratti says the key to avoiding pitfalls is to keep citizens engaged: “They should be the ones to decide what kind of city they want to live in tomorrow.”
Prof. Edward Flemming speaks with Boston.com reporter Ross Cristantiello about the origins of the Boston accent. Flemming says the “'softening' and eventual dropping of “R” sounds appears to have spread from the south of England through ports up and down the eastern coast of America, influencing the accents found in cities like Charleston and New York City.”
Prof. Simon Johnson writes for The Los Angeles Times about the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates despite the recent instability in the banking sector. “Increasing the deposit insurance cap and focusing on small-business transaction accounts could stabilize midsize banks, reduce more deposit transfers out of those institutions, and shore up confidence in the banking system,” writes Johnson.
Prof. Emeritus Marcia Bartusiak speaks with GBH co-hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel about her four decades of experience as a science communicator covering the fields of astronomy and physics. “That’s the role of a science writer, is to take those, what seemed to be difficult ideas and, through metaphors and analogies, show how it affects your everyday life, or explain them with examples that they would be familiar with from their everyday life,” says Bartusiak.
Prof. Aleksander Mądry’s testimony before a House subcommittee was highlighted by Politico fellow Mohar Chatterjee in a recent newsletter exploring how large tech companies are dominating how generative AI technologies are developed and utilized. During his testimony, Mądry emphasized that “very few players will be able to compete, given the highly specialized skills and enormous capital investments the building of such systems requires.”