Graduate, postdoctoral

In a recent case study, Steven Gonzalez Monserrate PhD ’22 makes the case that the environmental cost of computer science, specifically computer cloud storage and data centers, are huge and will only continue to rise, reports Naomi Oreskes for Scientific American. “The cloud, he [Monserrate] contends, is a ‘carbonivore’: a single data center can use the same amount of electricity as 50,000 homes,” writes Oreskes. “The entire cloud has a greater carbon footprint than the entire airline industry.”

Researchers from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are working on making commercial nuclear fusion a reality, reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “CFS will build [the tokamak] SPARC and develop a commercial fusion product, while MIT PSFC will focus on its core mission of cutting-edge research and education,” says Prof. Dennis G. Whyte, director of the PSFC. 

MIT celebrated the Classes of 2020 and 2021 during a special ceremony on May 28 that featured an address by Kealoha Wong ’99, Hawaii’s first poet laureate, reports Laura Crimaldi for The Boston Globe. “We may make some esoteric discovery or some small contribution to our industries, but most likely, our most significant impact will be in our communities and in our families,” Kealoha said. “Our impact will be felt in the way that we treat others and the way that we treat ourselves.”

Graduate student Anna Waldman-Brown writes for Wired about the future of automation technology and how it can impact labor dynamics in the future. “While some scholars believe that our fates are predetermined by the technologies themselves, emerging evidence indicates that we may have considerable influence over how such machines are employed within our factories and offices – if we can only figure out how to wield this power,” writes Waldman-Brown.

Prof. Anna Stansbury speaks with Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace about a new working paper she co-authored examining the lack of socioeconomic diversity in the field of economics. “Economists are really influencing policy and the public debate on all sorts of important subjects,” says Stansbury. “If we have a discipline [where] two-thirds of the U.S.-born economics profession is made up of people whose parents have graduate degrees, you know, that’s a very selected group that is maybe missing really important perspectives.”

Prof. Jackson G. Lu co-authored a research article which suggests “East Asian students are also struggling in classrooms where assertiveness is expected but not necessarily encouraged within their cultures,” reports Katherine Mangan for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Postdoctoral associate Josh Borrow spoke with students from Watertown High School about his research and what inspired him to pursue a career in astrophysics. “One of the things that comes with this job is this odd sense of scale,” said Borrow. “I think astronomers really understand scale better than many people do. And I think the most inspiring thing about that is just how small we are relative to the rest of the universe.”

Steven Gonzalez Monserrate PhD ’22 writes for Scientific American about the ecological and environmental implications of our digital lives. “As [the cloud] continues to expand, its environmental impact increases, even as the engineers, technicians, and executives behind its infrastructures strive to balance profitability with sustainability,” writes Gonzalez Monserrate.

Olympian Alexis Sablone ’16 will be the new head coach for the United States women’s skateboarding team in the upcoming Olympic Games, reports Michelle Bruton for Forbes. Sablone “has one of the most decorated careers of any female street skater, with seven X games medals and a 2015 World Skateboarding Championship,” writes Bruton.

Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini writes for The Atlantic about the dangers posed by government agencies adopting the use of facial recognition technology. “No biometric technologies should be adopted by the government to police access to services or benefits,” writes Buolamwini, “certainly not without cautious consideration of the dangers they pose, due diligence in outside testing, and the consent of those exposed to potential abuse, data exploitation, and other harms that affect us all.”

Forbes has named Raya Ani ’94, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP PhD ’81, ’78, and former postdoc Shulamit Levenberg to their 50 Over 50 list, which highlights women from Europe, the Middle East and Asia who are leading the way, reports Maggie McGrath for Forbes. “Women around the world are proving that 50 and beyond is the new golden age,” writes McGrath.

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.

In a letter to the Financial Times, graduate student Daniel Aronoff makes the case that the demise of local banks in the U.S. should be examined and regulatory changes should be made to enable them to operate more profitably. “A system that can make small loans to small entrepreneurs not only helps the borrowers, but also promotes a more efficient allocation of resources in the economy," Aronoff writes. 

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.”

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."