MCP student and Sunrise Movement co-founder Dyanna Jaye seeks to embed climate action into all levels of government. Her goal: a transition that “decarbonizes our economy while also building good jobs and protecting the fundamental things that we need in our life.”
Researchers are working to produce a component of aviation fuel from lignin, a plant material often discarded as waste. If the new product passes a final test for jet-fuel certification, the result could be aviation fuel made entirely from sustainable sources.
Woody Hoburg ’08 has been aboard the International Space Station since March. He managed to spot MIT and Cambridge from low Earth orbit, noting, “Can confirm, the Dome is visible from LEO.”
Nicole McGaa, leader of MIT’s team at the 2023 First Nations Launch National Rocket Competition, told Nature that the effort “will help Indigenous students to bridge their identity with their engineering aspirations and career goals.”
CBA researchers used kirigami, the Japanese art of paper cutting and folding, to develop ultrastrong, lightweight materials that have tunable mechanical properties, like stiffness and flexibility. “This material is like steel cork,” says Neil Gershenfeld.
Solar energy installation costs have dropped significantly, but tackling system deployment processes is critical for further progress, researchers report. “We haven’t been thinking about soft technology design as systematically as we have for hardware,” says Magdalena Klemun.
IMES postdoc Sirma Orguc SM ’16, PhD ’21 uses computational neuroscience to probe the brain for clues on its function. She’s inspired by the MIT community’s “great energy for science [and] great motivation to contribute to important problems that our society faces.”