Aiming to build fairness, safety, and accountability into artificial intelligence, LIDS graduate student Sarah Cen is exploring algorithm design. “Engineering systems are not divorced from the social systems on which they intervene,” she says./p>

An independent study project this spring gave eight MBA students an opportunity to learn about some of the most consequential events in U.S. civil rights history. The project aimed to make them at once more informed citizens and better leaders.

Sitan Chen PhD ’21 rarely goes a day without practicing on the piano — which the computer scientist started learning from his mother at age 6. “It’s a great outlet for stress, and to share a side of me that only music can express,” Chen says.

No one likes sitting at a red light, or wasting fuel and producing emissions while idling. What if motorists could pace themselves to arrive when the light is green? A LIDS team’s new machine-learning approach could keep traffic flowing smoothly.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Desiree Plata’s research group developed a new compound using zeolite and copper that has the “potential to greatly reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere and slow warming temperatures on the planet.”

The winner of this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, Nona Desalination, says it has developed a device capable of producing enough drinking water for 10 people at half the cost and with a tenth the power of other desalination devices.