• The Sunday Times, 27 October 2024, Invest, pB5

• Lianhe Zaobao, 26 October 2024, Singapore, p6
• Berita Minggu, 27 October 2024, p2
• Tamil Murasu, 27 October 2024, p2
• The Sunday Times, 27 October 2024, Singapore, pA16

A collaborative team of researchers analyzed the information-seeking styles of more than 480,000 people from 50 countries and found that gender and education inequality track different types of knowledge exploration. Their findings suggest potential cultural drivers of curiosity and learning.

Since its founding in 2008, the short-term homestay platform Airbnb has expanded to 100,000 cities in more than 220 countries, and, according to data from the company, 1.5 billion guests had stayed in Airbnb-listed properties through 2023.

Nick Falcone from Information Systems Computing discusses resources the Penn community can use to secure data and privacy.

The MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) is a project lead for one of two finalist missions recently selected for NASA's new Probe Explorers program. Working with collaborators at the University of Maryland and Goddard Space Flight Research Center, the team will produce a one-year concept study to launch the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) in 2032.

Erin Kara, associate professor of physics and astrophysicist at MIT, is the deputy principal investigator for AXIS. The MIT team includes MKI scientists Eric Miller, Mark Bautz, Catherine Grant, Michael McDonald, and Kevin Burdge. Says Kara, "I am honored to be working with this amazing team in ushering in a new era for X-ray astronomy."

The AXIS mission is designed to revolutionize the view scientists have of high-energy events and environments in the universe using new technologies capable of seeing even deeper into space and further back in time.

"If selected to move forward," explains Kara, "AXIS will answer some of the biggest mysteries in modern astrophysics, from the formation of supermassive black holes to the progenitors of the most energetic and explosive events in the universe to the effects of stars on exoplanets. Simply put, it's the next-generation observatory we need to transform our understanding of the universe."

Critical to AXIS's success is the CCD focal plane — an array of imaging devices that record the properties of the light coming into the telescope. If selected, MKI scientists will work with colleagues at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Stanford University to develop this high-speed camera, which sits at the heart of the telescope, connected to the X-ray Mirror Assembly and telescope tube. The work to create the array builds on previous imaging technology developed by MKI and Lincoln Laboratory, including instruments flying on the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Suzaku X-ray Observatory, and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Camera lead Eric Miller notes that "the advanced detectors that we will use provide the same excellent sensitivity as previous instruments, but operating up to 100 times faster to keep up with all of the X-rays focused by the mirror." As such, the development of the CCD focal plane will have significant impact in both scientific and technological realms. 

"Engineering the array over the next year," adds Kara, "will lay the groundwork not just for AXIS, but for future missions as well."

The MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing has announced the launch of a new program to support postdocs conducting research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and particular disciplines. 

The Tayebati Postdoctoral Fellowship Program will focus on AI for addressing the most challenging problems in select scientific research areas, and on AI for music composition and performance. The program will welcome an inaugural cohort of up to six postdocs for a one-year term, with the possibility of renewal for a second term. 

Supported by a $20 million gift from Parviz Tayebati, an entrepreneur and executive with a broad technical background and experience with startup companies, the program will empower top postdocs by providing an environment that facilitates their academic and professional development and enables them to pursue ambitious discoveries. “I am proud to support a fellowship program that champions interdisciplinary research and fosters collaboration across departments. My hope is that this gift will inspire a new generation of scholars whose research advances knowledge and nurtures innovation that transcends traditional boundaries,” says Tayebati.

"Artificial intelligence holds tremendous potential to accelerate breakthroughs in science and ignite human creativity," says Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing and Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “This new postdoc program is a remarkable opportunity to cultivate exceptional bilingual talent combining AI and another discipline. The program will offer fellows the chance to engage in research at the forefront of both AI and another field, collaborating with leading experts across disciplines. We are deeply thankful to Parviz for his foresight in supporting the development of researchers in this increasingly important area.”

Candidates accepted into the program will work on projects that encompass one of six disciplinary areas: biology/bioengineering, brain and cognitive sciences, chemistry/chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, music, and physics. Each fellow will have a faculty mentor in the disciplinary area as well as in AI.

The Tayebati Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is a key component of a larger focus of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing aimed at fostering innovative research in computing. As part of this focus, the college has three postdoctoral programs, each of which provides training and mentorship to fellows, broadens their research horizons, and helps them develop expertise in computing, including its intersection with other disciplines.

Other programs include MEnTorEd Opportunities in Research (METEOR), which was established by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 2020. Recently expanded to span MIT through the college, the goal of METEOR is to support exceptional scholars in computer science and AI and to broaden participation in the field.

In addition, the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, offers researchers exploring how computing is reshaping society the opportunity to participate as a SERC postdoc. SERC postdocs engage in a number of activities throughout the year, including leading interdisciplinary teams of MIT undergraduate and graduate students, known as SERC Scholars, to work on research projects investigating such topics as generative AI and democracy, combating deepfakes, examining data ownership, and the societal impact of gamification, among others.

Last month, the MIT Office of Graduate Education celebrated National Student Parent Month with features on four MIT graduate student parents. These students’ professional backgrounds, experiences, and years at MIT highlight aspects of diversity in our student parent population.

Diana Grass is one of MIT’s most involved graduate student parents. Grass is a third-year PhD student in medical engineering and medical physics in the joint Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, and the mother of two children. As co-founder and co-president of MIT’s Graduate First Generation and Low-Income student group (GFLI@MIT), Grass is a strong advocate for first-generation grad students and student parents.

Fifth-year civil and environmental engineering PhD student Fabio Castro is a new father. Prior to MIT, he was an engineer and logistics manager at an energy firm in Brazil, and volunteered with Doctors without Borders in South Sudan. He and his wife, Amanda, welcomed their daughter, Sofia, last fall.

First-year MIT Sloan MBA student Elizabeth Doherty shared her experience as a career changer and mother of two young children. Doherty began her career as a lower elementary school teacher, working in both public and private schools. After switching gears to work as a senior digital learning specialist at Bain & Co., she recognized the importance of company culture, which led her to pursue a master’s degree in business administration.

Matthew Webb is working on his second MIT degree as a second-year PhD student in the Center for Transportation and Logistics. He shared the ways in which his grad student experience is different now as a father of three, than when he was a master’s student in the Operations Research program without children.

All four student parents came from different professional backgrounds and departments, but one theme was consistent in all their stories: the support of the MIT families community. From pitching in to help new parents to coordinating play dates and sharing information, MIT’s student parents are there for one another.

For Doherty, family-friendliness was a top priority when she selected an MBA program. MIT stood out to her because of the family housing, the on-campus childcare, and the opportunities to meet other student families. Doherty felt affirmed in her decision to attend MIT when she enrolled and the MIT Sloan School of Management reached out with a welcoming note and a gift. “It highlighted how thoughtful MIT has been about creating a strong infrastructure for student parents,” she says.

Grass points to the importance her family placed on moving into an on-campus residence, as her family lacked community in their previous off-campus home. This move to MIT’s campus added convenience to the family’s daily routine, and helped them meet other student families.

Before returning to MIT for his PhD, Webb was unaware of the support offered to graduate student families. He was pleasantly surprised to discover the Office of Graduate Education’s resources and programming for families through an email his first semester. His wife Rachel and their three children also take advantage of the activities hosted by MIT Spouses and Partners Connect while Webb goes to class. Some favorites have included ice cream and bubble tea outings, “crafternoons,” and going on a tour of Fenway Park.

Castro remembers how his family housing neighbors showed up for him and his family when they needed it most. In anticipation of their first child’s birth, Castro and his wife, Amanda, arranged for Amanda’s parents to come to Cambridge to help them in the early weeks as first-time parents. When these plans unexpectedly fell through, their community in Westgate stepped up. For weeks, other MIT families came by to teach them how to care for their newborn, and dropped off meals at their door.

He was touched by these gestures — the support was a huge benefit of choosing to live on campus, and something that would not have happened had he lived in an off-campus apartment. “It’s something I’ll never forget,” Castro says. 

By Assoc Prof Eduardo Araral, from the Institute of Policy Studies at NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

• Lianhe Zaobao, 28 October 2024, Opinion, p17

• CNA Online, 28 October 2024
• 8world Online, 28 October 2024

• The Straits Times, 28 October 2024, Singapore, pA13 & pA14

By Mr Isaac Lim, Adjunct Lecturer, from the Dept of Management & Organisation at NUS Business School

• The Straits Times, 28 October 2024, Opinion, pB4

Singapore is prepared to facilitate Asia’s transition to a low-carbon future. But Singapore cannot do this alone, it will work with like-minded partners. This was a point underscored by Mr Ravi Menon (Arts and Social Sciences ‘87), Singapore’s first Ambassador for Climate Action and member of NUS Board of Trustees, at the inaugural NUS Environmental Management Leadership Lecture (EMLL), on 14 September 2024.

Highlighting the urgency of preparing for a climate-impaired world, Mr Menon noted that climate-related disasters in 2022 affected over 52 million people and led to US$36 billion worth of damages.

At the same time, decarbonisation efforts are also on the rise in many countries.  

“Global momentum on climate action is picking up because people are beginning to see what is happening,” he added, emphasising that the world will continue to face the dual realities of being climate-impaired while striving for low carbon emissions.

Mr Menon addressed over 150 NUS students, alumni, staff and industry partners at the lecture titled “Preparing for a Low-Carbon and Climate-Impaired World” which kickstarted the Highlight edition of this year’s NUS Sustainability CONNECT. He is also Chairman of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) Asia-Pacific Advisory Board and a member of the GFANZ Principals Group.

Organised by the NUS School of Continuing and Lifelong Education under the Master of Science (Environmental Management) programme, the annual EMLL series aims to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion about key issues and new developments in environmental management. Themed “Transformative Leadership in Climate Action: Navigating Challenges, Harnessing Innovation”, the series explores the role of transformative leadership as the driving force behind successful environmental management efforts, providing insights on how visionary and innovative leaders overcome obstacles and leverage new technologies to create a sustainable future.

Singapore’s triple transition to thrive in a low-carbon world

Singapore aims to achieve its long-term net-zero emissions aspiration by 2050, with intermediate targets across sectors as outlined in the Singapore Green Plan 2030. Referring to the changes as “complex and not easy, but necessary”, Mr Menon highlighted that the first change is a carbon transition which involves reducing our primary emissions to net-zero across sectors including industry, transport, and households.

Next is the energy transition which entails progressively decarbonising Singapore’s electricity grid while ensuring that it remains resilient. This requires striking a balance across energy security, affordability and sustainability. While Singapore’s unique geographical constraints make it difficult to harness certain forms of renewable energy, the nation can tap on the “four switches” to progressively decarbonise the grid – namely natural gas, solar, electricity imports from regional power grids, and low-carbon alternatives.

Mr Menon also noted that nuclear energy is another energy source the government has been looking at. However, he cautioned that there must first be public acceptance and adequate safety measures.

Lastly, an economic transition will also be necessary. He urged participants to “grow the green and green the brown”, referring to how Singapore must grasp green growth opportunities, transform carbon-intensive sectors, and turn being low-carbon into a competitive advantage.

To prepare for a climate-impaired world, Singapore must not only strive to reduce our emissions but also adapt to the direct impacts of climate change and its potential knock-on effects. Singapore has started implementing various measures to strengthen coastal protection, flood resilience, heat resilience, and food security. The government is also conducting in-depth studies to plan ahead and develop solutions in these areas.

“It will take a whole-of-nation effort,” he said. Significant scientific and technological advances will be necessary – which is where universities and academics can contribute – but individuals and communities must do their part too, he added.

Leading the way in transiting to a low-carbon future

Climate action must go beyond our borders, noted Mr Menon, with a nod to the ASEAN Power Grid initiative that is currently underway.

Having a system of cross-border power connections will allow renewable energy from typically remote generation sites to reach population centres across the region. This will spur decarbonisation in the region and enable the free trade of clean energy.

The city state can also drive green efforts in the region through blended finance, where governments invest in climate projects to reduce risk and make it easier for private entities to invest. Under the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnerships initiative, Singapore aims to raise US$5 billion with international partners to finance the effort to decarbonise the region.

The lecture was capped by an engaging Question-and-Answer segment that was facilitated by Professor Benjamin Cashore, Li Ka Shing Professor in Public Management and Director at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability.

During the segment, Mr Menon fielded questions about green finance and the need for a just transition in Asia, where countries should not have to forgo development for the sake of decarbonisation.

Noting that climate change is a “classic problem of collective failure”, he emphasised the need for collaboration to resolve the issue.

“There isn’t going to be one global leader that will solve the climate problem. We should look at where we can seize leadership at various levels,” he said. One way to exercise leadership in science and technology is by pivoting resources and capabilities towards developing climate solutions. In finance, financial institutions can exercise leadership through working with clients and customers to channel finances to activities that reduce emissions.

While strong government support is needed, it is only possible if it is supported by the rest of society. Community efforts and collective individual actions can signal demand for greener products and support for decarbonisation. “No one acting alone can solve the problem…we need collective action,” he concluded.

As the metal artist in residence and technical instructor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), Rhea Vedro operates in a synthesis of realms that broadens and enriches the student experience at MIT.

“Across MIT,” she says, “people in the arts, humanities, and sciences come together, and as soon as there’s opportunity to talk, sparks fly with all of the cross-pollination that is possible. It’s a rich place to be, and an exciting opportunity to work with our students in that way.”

In 2022, when Vedro read the job description for her current position at MIT, she says it resonated deeply with her interests and experiences. An outgrowth of MIT’s strong tradition of “mens et manus” (“mind and hand”), the position fused seamlessly with her own background.

“It was like I had written it myself. I couldn’t believe the position existed,” Vedro says.

Vedro’s relationship with metals had begun early. Even as a child growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, she collected minerals and bits of metal — and was in heaven when her godmother in New York City would take her to the Garment District, where she delightedly dug through wholesale bins of jewelry elements.

“I believe that people are called to different mediums,” she says. “Artists are often called to work with wood or clay or paper. And while I love all of those, metal has always been my home.”

After earning a master of fine arts in metals at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Vedro combined her art practice over the years with community work, as well as with an academic pursuit into metalsmithing history. “Through material culture, anthropology, and archeology, you can trace civilizations by how they related to this material.”

Vedro teaches classes 3.093 (Metalsmithing: Objects and Power), 3.095 (Introduction to Metalsmithing), and 4:A02 (DesignPlus: Exploring Design), where students learn techniques like soldering, casting, and etching, and explore metalsmithing through a cultural lens.

“In my class, we look at objects like the tool, the badge, the ring, the crown, the amulet, armor in relationship to the body and power,” Vedro says.

Vedro also supports the lab sections of class 3.094 (Materials in Human Experience), an experiential investigation into early techniques for developing cementitious materials and smelting iron, with an eye toward the future of these technologies.

Explaining her own artistic journey, which has taken her all over the world, Vedro says the “through-line” of her practice involves the idea of transformation, via the physical process of her hands-on work as a metalsmith, a fascination with materiality, and her community work to “transform lives through the art of making something.”

Such transformation is demonstrated in her ongoing commission by the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, entitled Amulet, which invited the public to community workshops, and to Vedro’s “Workbench” positioned by the waterfront in East Boston, to use metal tools of the trade. Each participant made their own mark on sheets of metal, asked to act with an intention or wish for safe passage of a loved one or for one’s own journey. Vedro will fashion the sheets, bearing the “wishmarks” of so many community members into several 16-to-17-foot birds, positioning them to stand guard at Boston City Hall Plaza.

At MIT, students come to the DMSE’s Merton C. Flemings Materials Processing Laboratory to work on creative projects in fine metals and steel, and also to craft parts for highly technical research in a wide range of fields, from mechanical engineering to aeronautics and astronautics.

“Students will come proposing to make a custom battery housing, a coil for a project going into outer space, a foundry experiment, or to etch and polish one crystal of aluminum,” Vedro says. “These are very specific requests that are not artistic in their origin and rely upon the hands-on metalsmithing of my team, including Mike Tarkanian [DMSE senior lecturer], James Hunter, [DMSE lecturer], Shaymus Hudson [DSME technical instructor], and Christopher Di Perna, [DSME technical instructor]."

Whatever the students’ inspiration, Vedro says she is struck by how motivated they are to do their best work — even despite the setbacks and time required that are part of developing a new skill.

“Everyone here is intensely driven,” she says, adding that many students, perhaps because of their familiarity with the scientific process, “are really good at taking quote-unquote failures as part of their learning process.”

Throughout their exploration in the lab, otherwise known as the Forge/Foundry, many students discover the power of working with their hands.

“There is a zone you get into, where you are becoming one with what you’re doing and lose track of time, and you are only paying attention to how material is behaving under your hand,” Vedro says.

Sometimes the zone produces not only a fine piece of metalwork, but an inspiration about something unrelated, such as a new approach to a research project.

“It frees up the mind, just like when you’re sleeping and you process things you studied the night before,” Vedro says. “You can be working with your hands on something, and many other ideas come together.”

Asked whether 15 years ago she would have thought she’d be working at MIT, Vedro says, “Oh, no. My professional life has been such an incredible braid of different experiences. It’s a reminder to stay true to your unique journey, because you can be like me — in a place I would never have anticipated, where I feel energized every day to come in and see what will cross my path.”

A number of individuals with MIT ties have received honors from the American Physical Society (APS) for 2024 and 2025.

Awardees include Professor Frances Ross; Professor Vladan Vuletić, graduate student Jiliang Hu ’19, PhD ’24; as well as 10 alumni. New APS Fellows include Professor Joseph Checkelsky, Senior Researcher John Chiaverini, Associate Professor Areg Danagoulian, Professor Ruben Juanes, and seven alumni.

Frances M. Ross, the TDK Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, received the 2025 Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science  “for groundbreaking advances in in situ electron microscopy in vacuum and liquid environments.”

Ross uses transmission electron microscopy to watch crystals as they grow and react under different conditions, including both liquid and gaseous environments. The microscopy techniques developed over Ross’ research career help in exploring growth mechanisms during epitaxy, catalysis, and electrochemical deposition, with applications in microelectronics and energy storage. Ross’ research group continues to develop new microscopy instrumentation to enable deeper exploration of these processes.

Vladan Vuletić, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics, received the 2025 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science “for pioneering work on spin squeezing for optical atomic clocks, quantum nonlinear optics, and laser cooling to quantum degeneracy.” Vuletić’s research includes ultracold atoms, laser cooling, large-scale quantum entanglement, quantum optics, precision tests of physics beyond the Standard Model, and quantum simulation and computing with trapped neutral atoms.

His Experimental Atomic Physics Group is also affiliated with the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms and the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). In 2020, his group showed that the precision of current atomic clocks could be improved by entangling the atoms — a quantum phenomenon by which particles are coerced to behave in a collective, highly correlated state.

Jiliang Hu received the 2024 Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics “for groundbreaking biophysical contributions to microbial ecology that bridge experiment and theory, showing how only a few coarse-grained features of ecological networks can predict emergent phases of diversity, dynamics, and invasibility in microbial communities.”

Hu is working in PhD advisor Professor Jeff Gore’s lab. He is interested in exploring the high-dimensional dynamics and emergent phenomena of complex microbial communities. In his first project, he demonstrated that multi-species communities can be described by a phase diagram as a function of the strength of interspecies interactions and the diversity of the species pool. He is now studying alternative stable states and the role of migration in the dynamics and biodiversity of metacommunities.

Alumni receiving awards:

Riccardo Betti PhD ’92 is the 2024 recipient of the John Dawson Award in Plasma Physics “for pioneering the development of statistical modeling to predict, design, and analyze implosion experiments on the 30kJ OMEGA laser, achieving hot spot energy gains above unity and record Lawson triple products for direct-drive laser fusion.”

Javier Mauricio Duarte ’10 received the 2024 Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics “for accelerating trigger technologies in experimental particle physics with novel real-time approaches by embedding artificial intelligence and machine learning in programmable gate arrays, and for critical advances in Higgs physics studies at the Large Hadron Collider in all-hadronic final states.”

Richard Furnstahl ’18 is the 2025 recipient of the Feshbach Prize Theoretical Nuclear Physics “for foundational contributions to calculations of nuclei, including applying the Similarity Renormalization Group to the nuclear force, grounding nuclear density functional theory in those forces, and using Bayesian methods to quantify the uncertainties in effective field theory predictions of nuclear observables.”

Harold Yoonsung Hwang ’93, SM ’93 is the 2024 recipient of the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials “for pioneering work in oxide interfaces, dilute superconductivity in heterostructures, freestanding oxide membranes, and superconducting nickelates using pulsed laser deposition, as well as for significant early contributions to the physics of bulk transition metal oxides.”

James P. Knauer ’72 received the 2024 John Dawson Award in Plasma Physics “for pioneering the development of statistical modeling to predict, design, and analyze implosion experiments on the 30kJ OMEGA laser, achieving hot spot energy gains above unity and record Lawson triple products for direct-drive laser fusion.”

Sekazi Mtingwa ’71 is the 2025 recipient of the John Wheatley Award “for exceptional contributions to capacity building in Africa, the Middle East, and other developing regions, including leadership in training researchers in beamline techniques at synchrotron light sources and establishing the groundwork for future facilities in the Global South.

Michael Riordan ’68, PhD ’73 received the 2025 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, which “recognizes outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics.”

Charles E. Sing PhD ’12 received the 2024 John H. Dillon Medal “for pioneering advances in polyelectrolyte phase behavior and polymer dynamics using theory and computational modeling.”

David W. Taylor ’01 received the 2025 Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction “for continuous physical measurement laboratory improvements, leveraging industrial and academic partnerships that enable innovative and diversified independent student projects, and giving rise to practical skillsets yielding outstanding student outcomes.”

Wennie Wang ’13 is the 2025 recipient of the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award “for outstanding contributions to the field of materials science, including pioneering research on defective transition metal oxides for energy sustainability, a commitment to broadening participation of underrepresented groups in computational materials science, and leadership and advocacy in the scientific community.”

APS Fellows

Joseph Checkelsky, the Mitsui Career Development Associate Professor of Physics, received the 2024 Division of Condensed Matter Physics Fellowship  “for pioneering contributions to the synthesis and study of quantum materials, including kagome and pyrochlore metals and natural superlattice compounds.”

Affiliated with the MIT Materials Research Laboratory and the MIT Center for Quantum Engineering, Checkelsky is working at the intersection of materials synthesis and quantum physics to discover new materials and physical phenomena to expand the boundaries of understanding of quantum mechanical condensed matter systems, as well as open doorways to new technologies by realizing emergent electronic and magnetic functionalities. Research in Checkelsky’s lab focuses on the study of exotic electronic states of matter through the synthesis, measurement, and control of solid-state materials. His research includes studying correlated behavior in topologically nontrivial materials, the role of geometrical phases in electronic systems, and novel types of geometric frustration.

John Chiaverini, a senior staff member in the Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems group and an MIT principal investigator in RLE, was elected a 2024 Fellow of the American Physical Society in the Division of Quantum Information “for pioneering contributions to experimental quantum information science, including early demonstrations of quantum algorithms, the development of the surface-electrode ion trap, and groundbreaking work in integrated photonics for trapped-ion quantum computation.”  

Chiaverini is pursuing research in quantum computing and precision measurement using individual atoms. Currently, Chiaverini leads a team developing novel technologies for control of trapped-ion qubits, including trap-integrated optics and electronics; this research has the potential to allow scaling of trapped-ion systems to the larger numbers of ions needed for practical applications while maintaining high levels of control over their quantum states. He and the team are also exploring new techniques for the rapid generation of quantum entanglement between ions, as well as investigating novel encodings of quantum information that have the potential to yield higher-fidelity operations than currently available while also providing capabilities to correct the remaining errors.

Areg Danagoulian, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, received the 2024 Forum on Physics and Society Fellowship “for seminal technological contributions in the field of arms control and cargo security, which significantly benefit international security.”  

His current research interests focus on nuclear physics applications in societal problems, such as nuclear nonproliferation, technologies for arms control treaty verification, nuclear safeguards, and cargo security. Danagoulian also serves as the faculty co-director for MIT’s MISTI Eurasia program.

Ruben Juanes, professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences (CEE/EAPS) received the 2024 Division of Fluid Dynamics Fellowship “for fundamental advances — using experiments, innovative imaging, and theory — in understanding the role of wettability for controlling the dynamics of fluid displacement in porous media and geophysical flows, and exploiting this understanding to optimize.”

An expert in the physics of multiphase flow in porous media, Juanes uses a mix of theory, computational, and real-life experiments to establish a fundamental understanding of how different fluids such as oil, water, and gas move through rocks, soil, or underwater reservoirs to solve energy and environmental-driven geophysical problems. His major contributions have been in developing improved safety and effectiveness of carbon sequestration, advanced understanding of fluid interactions in porous media for energy and environmental applications, imaging and computational techniques for real-time monitoring of subsurface fluid flows, and insights into how underground fluid movement contributes to landslides, floods, and earthquakes.

Alumni receiving fellowships:

Constantia Alexandrou PhD ’85 is the 2024 recipient of the Division of Nuclear Physics Fellowship “for the pioneering contributions in calculating nucleon structure observables using lattice QCD.”

Daniel Casey PhD ’12 received the 2024 Division of Plasma Physics Fellowship “for outstanding contributions to the understanding of the stagnation conditions required to achieve ignition.”

Maria K. Chan PhD ’09 is the 2024 recipient of the Topical Group on Energy Research and Applications Fellowship “for contributions to methodological innovations, developments, and demonstrations toward the integration of computational modeling and experimental characterization to improve the understanding and design of renewable energy materials.”

David Humphreys ’82, PhD ’91 received the 2024 Division of Plasma Physics Fellowship “for sustained leadership in developing the field of model-based dynamic control of magnetically confined plasmas, and for providing important and timely contributions to the understanding of tokamak stability, disruptions, and halo current physics.

Eric Torrence PhD ’97 received the 2024 Division of Particles and Fields Fellowship “for significant contributions with the ATLAS and FASER Collaborations, particularly in the searches for new physics, measurement of the LHC luminosity, and for leadership in the operations of both experiments.”

Tiffany S. Santos ’02, PhD ’07 is the 2024 recipient of the Topical Group on Magnetism and Its Applications Fellowship “for innovative contributions in synthesis and characterization of novel ultrathin magnetic films and interfaces, and tailoring their properties for optimal performance, especially in magnetic data storage and spin-transport devices.”

Lei Zhou ’14, PhD ’19 received the 2024 Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics Fellowship “for outstanding and sustained contributions to the fields of metamaterials, especially for proposing metasurfaces as a bridge to link propagating waves and surface waves.”

Patients with late-stage cancer often have to endure multiple rounds of different types of treatment, which can cause unwanted side effects and may not always help.

In hopes of expanding the treatment options for those patients, MIT researchers have designed tiny particles that can be implanted at a tumor site, where they deliver two types of therapy: heat and chemotherapy.

This approach could avoid the side effects that often occur when chemotherapy is given intravenously, and the synergistic effect of the two therapies may extend the patient’s lifespan longer than giving one treatment at a time. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this therapy completely eliminated tumors in most of the animals and significantly prolonged their survival.

“One of the examples where this particular technology could be useful is trying to control the growth of really fast-growing tumors,” says Ana Jaklenec, a principal investigator at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. “The goal would be to gain some control over these tumors for patients that don't really have a lot of options, and this could either prolong their life or at least allow them to have a better quality of life during this period.”

Jaklenec is one of the senior authors of the new study, along with Angela Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and a member of the Koch Institute, and Robert Langer, an MIT Institute Professor and member of the Koch Institute. Maria Kanelli, a former MIT postdoc, is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal ACS Nano.

Dual therapy

Patients with advanced tumors usually undergo a combination of treatments, including chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Phototherapy is a newer treatment that involves implanting or injecting particles that are heated with an external laser, raising their temperature enough to kill nearby tumor cells without damaging other tissue.

Current approaches to phototherapy in clinical trials make use of gold nanoparticles, which emit heat when exposed to near-infrared light.

The MIT team wanted to come up with a way to deliver phototherapy and chemotherapy together, which they thought could make the treatment process easier on the patient and might also have synergistic effects. They decided to use an inorganic material called molybdenum sulfide as the phototherapeutic agent. This material converts laser light to heat very efficiently, which means that low-powered lasers can be used.

To create a microparticle that could deliver both of these treatments, the researchers combined molybdenum disulfide nanosheets with either doxorubicin, a hydrophilic drug, or violacein, a hydrophobic drug. To make the particles, molybdenum disulfide and the chemotherapeutic are mixed with a polymer called polycaprolactone and then dried into a film that can be pressed into microparticles of different shapes and sizes.

For this study, the researchers created cubic particles with a width of 200 micrometers. Once injected into a tumor site, the particles remain there throughout the treatment. During each treatment cycle, an external near-infrared laser is used to heat up the particles. This laser can penetrate to a depth of a few millimeters to centimeters, with a local effect on the tissue.

“The advantage of this platform is that it can act on demand in a pulsatile manner,” Kanelli says. “You administer it once through an intratumoral injection, and then using an external laser source you can activate the platform, release the drug, and at the same time achieve thermal ablation of the tumor cells.”

To optimize the treatment protocol, the researchers used machine-learning algorithms to figure out the laser power, irradiation time, and concentration of the phototherapeutic agent that would lead to the best outcomes.

That led them to design a laser treatment cycle that lasts for about three minutes. During that time, the particles are heated to about 50 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to kill tumor cells. Also at this temperature, the polymer matrix within the particles begins to melt, releasing some of the chemotherapy drug contained within the matrix.

“This machine-learning-optimized laser system really allows us to deploy low-dose, localized chemotherapy by leveraging the deep tissue penetration of near-infrared light for pulsatile, on-demand photothermal therapy. This synergistic effect results in low systemic toxicity compared to conventional chemotherapy regimens,” says Neelkanth Bardhan, a Break Through Cancer research scientist in the Belcher Lab, and second author of the paper.

Eliminating tumors

The researchers tested the microparticle treatment in mice that were injected with an aggressive type of cancer cells from triple-negative breast tumors. Once tumors formed, the researchers implanted about 25 microparticles per tumor, and then performed the laser treatment three times, with three days in between each treatment.

“This is a powerful demonstration of the usefulness of near-infrared-responsive material systems,” says Belcher, who, along with Bardhan, has previously worked on near-infrared imaging systems for diagnostic and treatment applications in ovarian cancer. “Controlling the drug release at timed intervals with light, after just one dose of particle injection, is a game changer for less painful treatment options and can lead to better patient compliance.”

In mice that received this treatment, the tumors were completely eradicated, and the mice lived much longer than those that were given either chemotherapy or phototherapy alone, or no treatment. Mice that underwent all three treatment cycles also fared much better than those that received just one laser treatment.

The polymer used to make the particles is biocompatible and has already been FDA-approved for medical devices. The researchers now hope to test the particles in larger animal models, with the goal of eventually evaluating them in clinical trials. They expect that this treatment could be useful for any type of solid tumor, including metastatic tumors.

The research was funded by the Bodossaki Foundation, the Onassis Foundation, a Mazumdar-Shaw International Oncology Fellowship, a National Cancer Institute Fellowship, and the Koch Institute Support (core) Grant from the National Cancer Institute.

What is it like to give birth on Mars? Can bioengineer TikTok stars win at the video game “Super Smash Brothers” while also answering questions about science? How do sheep, mouse, and human brains compare? These questions and others were asked last month when more than 50,000 visitors from across Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Greater Boston participated in the MIT Museum’s annual Cambridge Science Festival, a week-long celebration dedicated to creativity, ingenuity, and innovation. Running Monday, Sept. 23 through Sunday, Sept. 29, the 2024 edition was the largest in its history, with a dizzyingly diverse program spanning more than 300 events presented in more than 75 different venues, all free and open to the public.

Presented in partnership with the City of Cambridge and more than 250 collaborators across Greater Boston, this year’s festival comprised a wide range of interactive programs for adults, children, and families, including workshops, demos, keynote lectures, walking tours, professional networking opportunities, and expert panels. Aimed at scientists and non-scientists alike, the festival also collaborated with several local schools to offer visits from an astronaut for middle- and high-school students.

With support from dozens of local organizations, the festival was the first iteration to happen under the new leadership of Michael John Gorman, who was appointed director of the MIT Museum in January and began his position in July.

“A science festival like this has an incredible ability to unite a diverse array of people and ideas, while also showcasing Cambridge as an internationally recognized leader in science, technology, engineering, and math,” says Gorman. “I'm thrilled to have joined an institution that values producing events that foster such a strong sense of community, and was so excited to see the enthusiastic response from the tens of thousands of people who showed up and made the festival such a success.”

The 2024 Cambridge Science Festival was broad in scope, with events ranging from hands-on 3D-printing demos to concerts from the MIT Laptop Ensemble to participatory activities at the MIT Museum’s Maker Hub. This year’s programming also highlighted three carefully curated theme tracks that each encompassed more than 25 associated events:

1. “For the Win: Games, Puzzles, and the Science of Play” (Thursday) consisted of multiple evening events clustered around Kendall Square.
2. “Frontiers: A New Era of Space Exploration” (Friday and Saturday) featured programs throughout Boston and was co-curated by The Space Consortium, organizers of Massachusetts Space Week.
3. “Electric Skin: Wearable Tech and the Future of Fashion” (Saturday) offered both day and evening events at the intersection of science, fabric, and fashion, taking place at The Foundry and co-curated by Boston Fashion Week and Advanced Functional Fabrics of America.

One of the discussions tied to the games-themed “For the Win” track involved artist Jeremy Couillard speaking with MIT Lecturer Mikael Jakobsson about the larger importance of games as a construct for encouraging interpersonal interaction and creating meaningful social spaces. Starting this past summer, the List Visual Arts Center has been the home of Couillard’s first-ever institutional solo exhibition, which centers around “Escape from Lavender Island,” a dystopian third-person, open-world exploration game he released in 2023 on the Steam video-game platform.

For the “Frontiers” space theme, one of the headlining events, “Is Anyone Out There?”, tackled the latest cutting-edge research and theories related to the potential existence of extraterrestrial life. The panel of local astronomers and astrophysicists included Sara Seager, the Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Science, professor of physics, and professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT; Kim Arcand, an expert in astronomic visualization at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; and Michael Hecht, a research scientist and associate director of research management at MIT’s Haystack Observatory. The researchers spoke about the tools they and their peers use to try to search for extraterrestrial life, and what discovering life beyond our planet might mean for humanity.

For the “Electric Skin” fashion track, events spanned a range of topics revolving around the role that technology will play in the future of the field, including sold-out workshops where participants learned how to laser-cut and engineer “structural garments.” A panel looking at generative technologies explored how designers are using AI to spur innovation in their companies. Onur Yüce Gün, director of computational design at New Balance, also spoke on a panel with Ziyuan “Zoey” Zhu from IDEO, MIT Media Lab research scientist and architect Behnaz Farahi, and Fiorenzo Omenetto, principal investigator and director of The Tufts Silk Lab and the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts University and a professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department and in the Department of Physics at Tufts.

Beyond the three themed tracks, the festival comprised an eclectic mix of interactive events and panels. Cambridge Public Library hosted a “Science Story Slam” with high-school students from 10 different states competing for $5,000 in prize money. Entrants shared 5-minute-long stories about their adventures in STEM, with topics ranging from probability to “astro-agriculture.” Judges included several MIT faculty and staff, as well as New York Times national correspondent Kate Zernike.

Elsewhere, the MIT Museum’s Gorman moderated a discussion on AI and democracy that included Audrey Tang, the former minister of digital affairs of Taiwan. The panelists explored how AI tools could combat the polarization of political discourse and increase participation in democratic processes, particularly for marginalized voices. Also in the MIT Museum, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research organized a “Decoding the Brain” event with demos involving real animal brains, while the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard ran a “Discovery After Dark” event to commemorate the institute’s 20th anniversary. Sunday’s Science Carnival featured more than 100 demos, events, and activities, including the ever-popular “Robot Petting Zoo.”

When it first launched in 2007, the Cambridge Science Festival was by many accounts the first large-scale event of its kind across the entire United States. Similar festivals have since popped up all over the country, including the World Science Festival in New York City, the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, the North Carolina Science Festival in Chapel Hill, and the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering.  

More information about the festival is available online, including opportunities to participate in next year’s events. 

The next generation of biomedical innovators and entrepreneurs from around the globe converged at the University of Melbourne today to explore how they can help the industry enhance the research commercialisation ecosystem.

In the classic cartoon “The Jetsons,” Rosie the robotic maid seamlessly switches from vacuuming the house to cooking dinner to taking out the trash. But in real life, training a general-purpose robot remains a major challenge.

Typically, engineers collect data that are specific to a certain robot and task, which they use to train the robot in a controlled environment. However, gathering these data is costly and time-consuming, and the robot will likely struggle to adapt to environments or tasks it hasn’t seen before.

To train better general-purpose robots, MIT researchers developed a versatile technique that combines a huge amount of heterogeneous data from many of sources into one system that can teach any robot a wide range of tasks.

Their method involves aligning data from varied domains, like simulations and real robots, and multiple modalities, including vision sensors and robotic arm position encoders, into a shared “language” that a generative AI model can process.

By combining such an enormous amount of data, this approach can be used to train a robot to perform a variety of tasks without the need to start training it from scratch each time.

This method could be faster and less expensive than traditional techniques because it requires far fewer task-specific data. In addition, it outperformed training from scratch by more than 20 percent in simulation and real-world experiments.

“In robotics, people often claim that we don’t have enough training data. But in my view, another big problem is that the data come from so many different domains, modalities, and robot hardware. Our work shows how you’d be able to train a robot with all of them put together,” says Lirui Wang, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on this technique.

Wang’s co-authors include fellow EECS graduate student Jialiang Zhao; Xinlei Chen, a research scientist at Meta; and senior author Kaiming He, an associate professor in EECS and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The research will be presented at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems.

Inspired by LLMs

A robotic “policy” takes in sensor observations, like camera images or proprioceptive measurements that track the speed and position a robotic arm, and then tells a robot how and where to move.

Policies are typically trained using imitation learning, meaning a human demonstrates actions or teleoperates a robot to generate data, which are fed into an AI model that learns the policy. Because this method uses a small amount of task-specific data, robots often fail when their environment or task changes.

To develop a better approach, Wang and his collaborators drew inspiration from large language models like GPT-4.

These models are pretrained using an enormous amount of diverse language data and then fine-tuned by feeding them a small amount of task-specific data. Pretraining on so much data helps the models adapt to perform well on a variety of tasks.

“In the language domain, the data are all just sentences. In robotics, given all the heterogeneity in the data, if you want to pretrain in a similar manner, we need a different architecture,” he says.

Robotic data take many forms, from camera images to language instructions to depth maps. At the same time, each robot is mechanically unique, with a different number and orientation of arms, grippers, and sensors. Plus, the environments where data are collected vary widely.

The MIT researchers developed a new architecture called Heterogeneous Pretrained Transformers (HPT) that unifies data from these varied modalities and domains.

They put a machine-learning model known as a transformer into the middle of their architecture, which processes vision and proprioception inputs. A transformer is the same type of model that forms the backbone of large language models.

The researchers align data from vision and proprioception into the same type of input, called a token, which the transformer can process. Each input is represented with the same fixed number of tokens.

Then the transformer maps all inputs into one shared space, growing into a huge, pretrained model as it processes and learns from more data. The larger the transformer becomes, the better it will perform.

A user only needs to feed HPT a small amount of data on their robot’s design, setup, and the task they want it to perform. Then HPT transfers the knowledge the transformer grained during pretraining to learn the new task.

Enabling dexterous motions

One of the biggest challenges of developing HPT was building the massive dataset to pretrain the transformer, which included 52 datasets with more than 200,000 robot trajectories in four categories, including human demo videos and simulation.

The researchers also needed to develop an efficient way to turn raw proprioception signals from an array of sensors into data the transformer could handle.

“Proprioception is key to enable a lot of dexterous motions. Because the number of tokens is in our architecture always the same, we place the same importance on proprioception and vision,” Wang explains.

When they tested HPT, it improved robot performance by more than 20 percent on simulation and real-world tasks, compared with training from scratch each time. Even when the task was very different from the pretraining data, HPT still improved performance.

“This paper provides a novel approach to training a single policy across multiple robot embodiments. This enables training across diverse datasets, enabling robot learning methods to significantly scale up the size of datasets that they can train on. It also allows the model to quickly adapt to new robot embodiments, which is important as new robot designs are continuously being produced,” says David Held, associate professor at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, who was not involved with this work.

In the future, the researchers want to study how data diversity could boost the performance of HPT. They also want to enhance HPT so it can process unlabeled data like GPT-4 and other large language models.

“Our dream is to have a universal robot brain that you could download and use for your robot without any training at all. While we are just in the early stages, we are going to keep pushing hard and hope scaling leads to a breakthrough in robotic policies, like it did with large language models,” he says.

This work was funded, in part, by the Amazon Greater Boston Tech Initiative and the Toyota Research Institute.

When you think about hands-free devices, you might picture Alexa and other voice-activated in-home assistants, Bluetooth earpieces, or asking Siri to make a phone call in your car. You might not imagine using your mouth to communicate with other devices like a computer or a phone remotely. 

Thinking outside the box, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Aarhus University researchers have now engineered “MouthIO,” a dental brace that can be fabricated with sensors and feedback components to capture in-mouth interactions and data. This interactive wearable could eventually assist dentists and other doctors with collecting health data and help motor-impaired individuals interact with a phone, computer, or fitness tracker using their mouths.

Resembling an electronic retainer, MouthIO is a see-through brace that fits the specifications of your upper or lower set of teeth from a scan. The researchers created a plugin for the modeling software Blender to help users tailor the device to fit a dental scan, where you can then 3D print your design in dental resin. This computer-aided design tool allows users to digitally customize a panel (called PCB housing) on the side to integrate electronic components like batteries, sensors (including detectors for temperature and acceleration, as well as tongue-touch sensors), and actuators (like vibration motors and LEDs for feedback). You can also place small electronics outside of the PCB housing on individual teeth.

The active mouth

“The mouth is a really interesting place for an interactive wearable and can open up many opportunities, but has remained largely unexplored due to its complexity,” says senior author Michael Wessely, a former CSAIL postdoc and senior author on a paper about MouthIO who is now an assistant professor at Aarhus University. “This compact, humid environment has elaborate geometries, making it hard to build a wearable interface to place inside. With MouthIO, though, we’ve developed a new kind of device that’s comfortable, safe, and almost invisible to others. Dentists and other doctors are eager about MouthIO for its potential to provide new health insights, tracking things like teeth grinding and potentially bacteria in your saliva.”

The excitement for MouthIO’s potential in health monitoring stems from initial experiments. The team found that their device could track bruxism (the habit of grinding teeth) by embedding an accelerometer within the brace to track jaw movements. When attached to the lower set of teeth, MouthIO detected when users grind and bite, with the data charted to show how often users did each.

Wessely and his colleagues’ customizable brace could one day help users with motor impairments, too. The team connected small touchpads to MouthIO, helping detect when a user’s tongue taps their teeth. These interactions could be sent via Bluetooth to scroll across a webpage, for example, allowing the tongue to act as a “third hand” to open up a new avenue for hands-free interaction.

"MouthIO is a great example how miniature electronics now allow us to integrate sensing into a broad range of everyday interactions,” says study co-author Stefanie Mueller, the TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor in the MIT departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering and leader of the HCI Engineering Group at CSAIL. “I'm especially excited about the potential to help improve accessibility and track potential health issues among users."

Molding and making MouthIO

To get a 3D model of your teeth, you can first create a physical impression and fill it with plaster. You can then scan your mold with a mobile app like Polycam and upload that to Blender. Using the researchers’ plugin within this program, you can clean up your dental scan to outline a precise brace design. Finally, you 3D print your digital creation in clear dental resin, where the electronic components can then be soldered on. Users can create a standard brace that covers their teeth, or opt for an “open-bite” design within their Blender plugin. The latter fits more like open-finger gloves, exposing the tips of your teeth, which helps users avoid lisping and talk naturally.

This “do it yourself” method costs roughly $15 to produce and takes two hours to be 3D-printed. MouthIO can also be fabricated with a more expensive, professional-level teeth scanner similar to what dentists and orthodontists use, which is faster and less labor-intensive.

Compared to its closed counterpart, which fully covers your teeth, the researchers view the open-bite design as a more comfortable option. The team preferred to use it for beverage monitoring experiments, where they fabricated a brace capable of alerting users when a drink was too hot. This iteration of MouthIO had a temperature sensor and a monitor embedded within the PCB housing that vibrated when a drink exceeded 65 degrees Celsius (or 149 degrees Fahrenheit). This could help individuals with mouth numbness better understand what they’re consuming.

In a user study, participants also preferred the open-bite version of MouthIO. “We found that our device could be suitable for everyday use in the future,” says study lead author and Aarhus University PhD student Yijing Jiang. “Since the tongue can touch the front teeth in our open-bite design, users don’t have a lisp. This made users feel more comfortable wearing the device during extended periods with breaks, similar to how people use retainers.”

The team’s initial findings indicate that MouthIO is a cost-effective, accessible, and customizable interface, and the team is working on a more long-term study to evaluate its viability further. They’re looking to improve its design, including experimenting with more flexible materials, and placing it in other parts of the mouth, like the cheek and the palate. Among these ideas, the researchers have already prototyped two new designs for MouthIO: a single-sided brace for even higher comfort when wearing MouthIO while also being fully invisible to others, and another fully capable of wireless charging and communication.

Jiang, Mueller, and Wessely’s co-authors include PhD student Julia Kleinau, master’s student Till Max Eckroth, and associate professor Eve Hoggan, all of Aarhus University. Their work was supported by a Novo Nordisk Foundation grant and was presented at ACM’s Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

When you think about hands-free devices, you might picture Alexa and other voice-activated in-home assistants, Bluetooth earpieces, or asking Siri to make a phone call in your car. You might not imagine using your mouth to communicate with other devices like a computer or a phone remotely. 

Thinking outside the box, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Aarhus University researchers have now engineered “MouthIO,” a dental brace that can be fabricated with sensors and feedback components to capture in-mouth interactions and data. This interactive wearable could eventually assist dentists and other doctors with collecting health data and help motor-impaired individuals interact with a phone, computer, or fitness tracker using their mouths.

Resembling an electronic retainer, MouthIO is a see-through brace that fits the specifications of your upper or lower set of teeth from a scan. The researchers created a plugin for the modeling software Blender to help users tailor the device to fit a dental scan, where you can then 3D print your design in dental resin. This computer-aided design tool allows users to digitally customize a panel (called PCB housing) on the side to integrate electronic components like batteries, sensors (including detectors for temperature and acceleration, as well as tongue-touch sensors), and actuators (like vibration motors and LEDs for feedback). You can also place small electronics outside of the PCB housing on individual teeth.

The active mouth

“The mouth is a really interesting place for an interactive wearable and can open up many opportunities, but has remained largely unexplored due to its complexity,” says senior author Michael Wessely, a former CSAIL postdoc and senior author on a paper about MouthIO who is now an assistant professor at Aarhus University. “This compact, humid environment has elaborate geometries, making it hard to build a wearable interface to place inside. With MouthIO, though, we’ve developed a new kind of device that’s comfortable, safe, and almost invisible to others. Dentists and other doctors are eager about MouthIO for its potential to provide new health insights, tracking things like teeth grinding and potentially bacteria in your saliva.”

The excitement for MouthIO’s potential in health monitoring stems from initial experiments. The team found that their device could track bruxism (the habit of grinding teeth) by embedding an accelerometer within the brace to track jaw movements. When attached to the lower set of teeth, MouthIO detected when users grind and bite, with the data charted to show how often users did each.

Wessely and his colleagues’ customizable brace could one day help users with motor impairments, too. The team connected small touchpads to MouthIO, helping detect when a user’s tongue taps their teeth. These interactions could be sent via Bluetooth to scroll across a webpage, for example, allowing the tongue to act as a “third hand” to open up a new avenue for hands-free interaction.

"MouthIO is a great example how miniature electronics now allow us to integrate sensing into a broad range of everyday interactions,” says study co-author Stefanie Mueller, the TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor in the MIT departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering and leader of the HCI Engineering Group at CSAIL. “I'm especially excited about the potential to help improve accessibility and track potential health issues among users."

Molding and making MouthIO

To get a 3D model of your teeth, you can first create a physical impression and fill it with plaster. You can then scan your mold with a mobile app like Polycam and upload that to Blender. Using the researchers’ plugin within this program, you can clean up your dental scan to outline a precise brace design. Finally, you 3D print your digital creation in clear dental resin, where the electronic components can then be soldered on. Users can create a standard brace that covers their teeth, or opt for an “open-bite” design within their Blender plugin. The latter fits more like open-finger gloves, exposing the tips of your teeth, which helps users avoid lisping and talk naturally.

This “do it yourself” method costs roughly $15 to produce and takes two hours to be 3D-printed. MouthIO can also be fabricated with a more expensive, professional-level teeth scanner similar to what dentists and orthodontists use, which is faster and less labor-intensive.

Compared to its closed counterpart, which fully covers your teeth, the researchers view the open-bite design as a more comfortable option. The team preferred to use it for beverage monitoring experiments, where they fabricated a brace capable of alerting users when a drink was too hot. This iteration of MouthIO had a temperature sensor and a monitor embedded within the PCB housing that vibrated when a drink exceeded 65 degrees Celsius (or 149 degrees Fahrenheit). This could help individuals with mouth numbness better understand what they’re consuming.

In a user study, participants also preferred the open-bite version of MouthIO. “We found that our device could be suitable for everyday use in the future,” says study lead author and Aarhus University PhD student Yijing Jiang. “Since the tongue can touch the front teeth in our open-bite design, users don’t have a lisp. This made users feel more comfortable wearing the device during extended periods with breaks, similar to how people use retainers.”

The team’s initial findings indicate that MouthIO is a cost-effective, accessible, and customizable interface, and the team is working on a more long-term study to evaluate its viability further. They’re looking to improve its design, including experimenting with more flexible materials, and placing it in other parts of the mouth, like the cheek and the palate. Among these ideas, the researchers have already prototyped two new designs for MouthIO: a single-sided brace for even higher comfort when wearing MouthIO while also being fully invisible to others, and another fully capable of wireless charging and communication.

Jiang, Mueller, and Wessely’s co-authors include PhD student Julia Kleinau, master’s student Till Max Eckroth, and associate professor Eve Hoggan, all of Aarhus University. Their work was supported by a Novo Nordisk Foundation grant and was presented at ACM’s Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

“As you step into the world, may you step out to lead with purpose, with integrity, with compassion, not just for your career but for the greater good.”

This was the clarion call sounded by Ms Denise Phua, Member of Parliament for Jalan Besar GRC and Mayor for Central Singapore District, to a 100-strong audience at a recent talk where she shared insights on career transitions and effective leadership.

Titled “Lessons from a Leadership Journey into the Private, Public and People Sector”, the session at the Shaw Foundation Alumni House kicked off the new FASS Distinguished Speaker Series that was launched by the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) in celebration of the Faculty’s 95th anniversary. The series aims to inspire FASS students to excellence by showcasing alumni and their achievements.

The inaugural session, moderated by Professor Lionel Wee, Dean of FASS, was also attended by FASS staff and faculty.

Developing a leadership toolkit and other leadership goals

Ms Phua, who worked in the corporate, people (or social) and public sectors noted some differences in work culture and performance measurements in each of these sectors.

Performance in the private sector is typically measured in financial terms and is quantified with metrics such as market share, revenue growth, and shareholder values. The social sector values qualitative outcomes, with the focus shifting to doing good, creating societal impact, and accountability to beneficiaries, while the public sector operates within the frame of public service, governance, and accountability to the broader society.

Whichever sector one is in, it is essential to build a leadership toolkit comprising the four skills — personal mastery, interpersonal leadership, supervisory leadership and organisational leadership — in order to chart a meaningful and successful career path.

Ms Phua also emphasised the importance of having diverse experiences to remain relevant, and venturing outside one’s comfort zone in a dynamic environment to keep this toolkit updated. Citing Pope Francis, who told Singaporean youths in a recent dialogue that a young person who stays in his own comfort becomes “fat”, she urged young people to continually add skills to their toolkit and to go out there to take risks.

In her experience, having a purpose is also key as it helps to keep one’s eye on the bigger picture and the important goals to work towards. She explained, “Having a clear purpose guides our decisions and keeps us focused on what truly matters. For me personally, my faith helps to anchor me.”

Be fearless in the unknown

Another topic Ms Phua delved into was fear, something she learnt to overcome whenever she was thrust into unfamiliar situations and environments – whether it was having to work overseas with people of different backgrounds and cultures in China and the US, or having to establish new work processes or systems from scratch.

Sharing about her stint as a waitress in Palo Alto, driving alone in her twenties in the wilderness between small American towns for work, and working with people of vastly different cultures, accents and habits from her own, Ms Phua revealed that these intimidating early experiences eventually helped her overcome her fear of trying new things.

Raising a son with autism further bolstered her courage to pioneer new initiatives and projects, particularly in the area of advocacy and support for those with special needs. Stemming from a desire to create a more inclusive society where everyone can thrive, Ms Phua has made trailblazing contributions to the special needs advocacy space, which include the co-founding of Pathlight School – Singapore’s first school that offers mainstream education for autistic children, The Purple Parade – a national platform that celebrates the abilities of persons with special needs, and The Purple Symphony, Singapore’s largest inclusive orchestra set up by her and her team at the Central Singapore District Community Development Council (CDC).

She shared, “[Having the technical skills and soft skills] were really important for me in the private, people and public sector, but what was more significant was scaling the challenges I faced and overcoming the fears I had.”

As a leader, Ms Phua stressed that it is also essential to find a “tribe” and surround oneself with like-minded people who share the same values, passions or vision, and who are able to challenge one another, as the success of any project is never dependent on a single individual. This is how she managed to ideate and execute the many initiatives across the three sectors she has been involved in.

Beyond building careers to serving society

Ms Phua’s candid and personal sharing was followed by questions from students about how to choose career pathways, to make meaningful change in the community and tackle evolving social challenges in society.

Responding to a question on how she found her calling in the special needs advocacy space, Ms Phua shared that she did not identify it through any conventional career or personality quizzes. For her, she felt called to the special needs space in a rather dramatic fashion, after “God gave [her] a child who didn’t speak nor socialise at three, like other typical children.”

Referencing some of the other community initiatives and assistance schemes launched during her time as Mayor of the Central Singapore District, such as the ‘Weekly Nurture’ problem-solving and communications classes and the ‘Ready for School’ financial assistance scheme for children from low-income families, another student asked what Ms Phua considered key ingredients for success in these community projects.

Her response was simple – find the gaps, think of ways to make a difference, and then start tapping on one’s network of resources to implement solutions.

“When looking at physical wellness for seniors for example, I will ask what physical wellness means to them. Together with my team, we then brainstorm, come up with programmes, such as our CDC’s ‘Silver Homes’ and then look for resources to fund them,” she added.

When asked more broadly how Singapore can address societal issues such as an ageing population and growing income disparity, Ms Phua observed that Singapore has become more complex in many ways since 2006 when she first entered politics, making tackling such issues more challenging. However, she encouraged students to look beyond their “pet passions” and serve in areas in society that have the most need, and to stay mission-focused to continue effecting real change.

She cited the ‘power of one’. “If each of us is determined to bless other people with what we have…whether it’s our talent, our gift, our networks, then organisations, nations and societies will all be for the better,” said Ms Phua.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) will be taking a significant leap forward in synthetic biology, leveraging its deep expertise and cutting-edge innovations to usher a new paradigm for green manufacturing, driven by this rapidly evolving field. Over the next six years, the University plans to dedicate substantial resources and efforts – estimated to value around S$120 million - to firmly establish synthetic biology as a foundational pillar of NUS’ innovation ecosystem, driving transformative benefits for Singapore across multiple sectors.

Traditionally, manufacturing is heavily dependent on petrochemicals, a major contributor to the climate crisis. However, synthetic biology (SynBio), enabling the design and engineering of biological ‘factories’ to create more efficient, sustainable processes and products, is emerging as a game-changer in driving the chemical industry towards a greener future. This groundbreaking approach has the potential to significantly reduce environmental impact, paving the way for greater sustainability across diverse sectors, including food, textiles, flavours, and fuels. This shift promises widespread positive effects, reshaping industries and advancing the global effort to combat climate change.

“NUS is charging ahead, pioneering efforts to strengthen and expand the University’s synthetic biology ecosystem, positioning Singapore at the forefront of tackling global challenges such as food security, energy resilience, and sustainable development. We are deeply committed to surpassing previous accomplishments and achieving new heights of excellence in synthetic biology,” said Professor Liu Bin, NUS Deputy President (Research and Technology).

She added, “A vibrant synthetic biology ecosystem in NUS and Singapore will foster new industry partnerships, cultivate a highly skilled workforce and inspire a wave of innovative startups. Together, these developments are poised to boost Singapore’s economic growth.”

A key driver of innovation in the University’s SynBio ecosystem is the NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI), which was established as early as 2014 when the field was still in its early stages.

Associate Professor Matthew Chang, Director of SynCTI, said, “Now is the time for synthetic biology to achieve a lasting, transformative impact. Over the past decade, NUS has developed robust capabilities and strategic networks, positioning both NUS and Singapore to seize emerging opportunities in this rapidly advancing field. We are eager to collaborate closely with our academic, research, and industry partners to foster ongoing growth, innovation, and the application of synthetic biology, both locally in Singapore and globally.”

Embarking on new SynBio initiatives

NUS has launched several bold endeavours to realise the vision of a SynBio-driven future:

1.     NUS is spearheading the establishment of Singapore’s new national SynBio initiative to advance Singapore’s biomanufacturing sector. This initiative will foster a whole-of-nation effort to galvanise the potential of SynBio in advancing green manufacturing practices. Please refer to Annexe 1 for more information on this initiative.

2.     To further augment its research efforts, NUS will collaborate extensively with global leaders in SynBio, with the aim of creating a powerful multiplier effect. Some exciting research collaborations include:

a) Partnering with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to develop reliable and cost-effective methods for producing safe, nutritious, and delicious foods through SynBio-based precision fermentation;

b) Working with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) to develop efficient cyanobacterial (blue-green algae) cell factories and other microorganisms to convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly into biomaterials and biofuels; and

c) Teaming up with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to demonstrate the feasibility of converting green hydrogen and concentrated CO₂ into sustainable biofuels.

These joint projects, supported by the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) under the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), aim to build strategic capabilities in SynBio. Please refer to Annexe 2 for more information on these collaborative programmes.

A decade in the making for the SynBio revolution in Singapore

The creation of NUS’ dynamic SynBio ecosystem started a decade ago with foresight and vision.

SynCTI, which was established in 2014, has played a key role in creating new knowledge and develop foundational technologies in synthetic biology and grooming the next generation of highly skilled researchers equipped with fundamental science and translational research capabilities. SynCTI will commemorate its 10th anniversary with a celebratory event in November 2024.

The formation of SynCTI catalysed the setting up of the Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology (SINERGY) to consolidate Singapore’s capabilities in synthetic biology and harness synergies across industry sectors to create a vibrant and globally connected bio-based economy in Singapore. SINERGY is supported by the National Research Foundation and is currently hosted under Consortium Management Office, A*STAR. Today, SINERGY has nine academic partners and 27 industry partners, working hand in hand to unlock Singapore’s bio-potential.

Another key component of NUS’ SynBio ecosystem is the WIL@NUS Corporate Laboratory, a research partnership between NUS and Wilmar International Limited to demonstrate the translation of academic SynBio research through collaboration with the industry.

Set up in June 2018 and hosted at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the WIL@NUS Corporate Laboratory leverages the expertise of Wilmar and NUS to develop sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective bio-based methods for the production of industrial chemicals. This successful academic-industry partnership has led to the development of enzymes and microbes for the biomanufacturing of oleochemicals.

With a strong foundation in place, NUS is strategically positioned to lead in the field of synthetic biology.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) will be taking a significant leap forward in synthetic biology, leveraging its deep expertise and cutting-edge innovations to usher a new paradigm for green manufacturing, driven by this rapidly evolving field. Over the next six years, the University plans to dedicate substantial resources and efforts – estimated to value around S$120 million - to firmly establish synthetic biology as a foundational pillar of NUS’ innovation ecosystem, driving transformative benefits for Singapore across multiple sectors.

Traditionally, manufacturing is heavily dependent on petrochemicals, a major contributor to the climate crisis. However, synthetic biology (SynBio), enabling the design and engineering of biological ‘factories’ to create more efficient, sustainable processes and products, is emerging as a game-changer in driving the chemical industry towards a greener future. This groundbreaking approach has the potential to significantly reduce environmental impact, paving the way for greater sustainability across diverse sectors, including food, textiles, flavours, and fuels. This shift promises widespread positive effects, reshaping industries and advancing the global effort to combat climate change.

“NUS is charging ahead, pioneering efforts to strengthen and expand the University’s synthetic biology ecosystem, positioning Singapore at the forefront of tackling global challenges such as food security, energy resilience, and sustainable development. We are deeply committed to surpassing previous accomplishments and achieving new heights of excellence in synthetic biology,” said Professor Liu Bin, NUS Deputy President (Research and Technology).

She added, “A vibrant synthetic biology ecosystem in NUS and Singapore will foster new industry partnerships, cultivate a highly skilled workforce and inspire a wave of innovative startups. Together, these developments are poised to boost Singapore’s economic growth.”

A key driver of innovation in the University’s SynBio ecosystem is the NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI), which was established as early as 2014 when the field was still in its early stages.

Associate Professor Matthew Chang, Director of SynCTI, said, “Now is the time for synthetic biology to achieve a lasting, transformative impact. Over the past decade, NUS has developed robust capabilities and strategic networks, positioning both NUS and Singapore to seize emerging opportunities in this rapidly advancing field. We are eager to collaborate closely with our academic, research, and industry partners to foster ongoing growth, innovation, and the application of synthetic biology, both locally in Singapore and globally.”

Embarking on new SynBio initiatives

NUS has launched several bold endeavours to realise the vision of a SynBio-driven future:

1.     NUS is spearheading the establishment of Singapore’s new national SynBio initiative to advance Singapore’s biomanufacturing sector. This initiative will foster a whole-of-nation effort to galvanise the potential of SynBio in advancing green manufacturing practices. Please refer to Annexe 1 for more information on this initiative.

2.     To further augment its research efforts, NUS will collaborate extensively with global leaders in SynBio, with the aim of creating a powerful multiplier effect. Some exciting research collaborations include:

a) Partnering with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to develop reliable and cost-effective methods for producing safe, nutritious, and delicious foods through SynBio-based precision fermentation;

b) Working with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) to develop efficient cyanobacterial (blue-green algae) cell factories and other microorganisms to convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly into biomaterials and biofuels; and

c) Teaming up with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to demonstrate the feasibility of converting green hydrogen and concentrated CO₂ into sustainable biofuels.

These joint projects, supported by the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) under the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), aim to build strategic capabilities in SynBio. Please refer to Annexe 2 for more information on these collaborative programmes.

A decade in the making for the SynBio revolution in Singapore

The creation of NUS’ dynamic SynBio ecosystem started a decade ago with foresight and vision.

SynCTI, which was established in 2014, has played a key role in creating new knowledge and develop foundational technologies in synthetic biology and grooming the next generation of highly skilled researchers equipped with fundamental science and translational research capabilities. SynCTI will commemorate its 10th anniversary with a celebratory event in November 2024.

The formation of SynCTI catalysed the setting up of the Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology (SINERGY) to consolidate Singapore’s capabilities in synthetic biology and harness synergies across industry sectors to create a vibrant and globally connected bio-based economy in Singapore. SINERGY is supported by the National Research Foundation and is currently hosted under Consortium Management Office, A*STAR. Today, SINERGY has nine academic partners and 27 industry partners, working hand in hand to unlock Singapore’s bio-potential.

Another key component of NUS’ SynBio ecosystem is the WIL@NUS Corporate Laboratory, a research partnership between NUS and Wilmar International Limited to demonstrate the translation of academic SynBio research through collaboration with the industry.

Set up in June 2018 and hosted at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the WIL@NUS Corporate Laboratory leverages the expertise of Wilmar and NUS to develop sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective bio-based methods for the production of industrial chemicals. This successful academic-industry partnership has led to the development of enzymes and microbes for the biomanufacturing of oleochemicals.

With a strong foundation in place, NUS is strategically positioned to lead in the field of synthetic biology.

At a roundtable sponsored by the SNF Paideia Program, political journalists from diverse outlets discussed the states of the presidential campaigns.

The honor recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Kislak Center curator Alicia Meyer is researching a pair of gloves in the Penn Libraries collection rumored to have been William Shakespeare’s, enlisting the help of Tessa Gadomski in the Libraries conservation laboratory to see if the gloves could be from the 1600s.

Researchers from the Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP) interdisciplinary research group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, alongside collaborators from the National University of Singapore Tissue Engineering Programme, have developed a novel method to enhance the ability of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) to generate cartilage tissue by adding ascorbic acid during MSC expansion. The research also discovered that micro-magnetic resonance relaxometry (µMRR), a novel process analytical tool developed by SMART CAMP, can be used as a rapid, label-free process-monitoring tool for the quality expansion of MSCs.

Articular cartilage, a connective tissue that protects the bone ends in joints, can degenerate due to injury, age, or arthritis, leading to significant joint pain and disability. Especially in countries — such as Singapore — that have an active, aging population, articular cartilage degeneration is a growing ailment that affects an increasing number of people. Autologous chondrocyte implantation is currently the only Food and Drug Administration-approved cell-based therapy for articular cartilage injuries, but it is costly, time-intensive, and requires multiple treatments. MSCs are an attractive and promising alternative as they have shown good safety profiles for transplantation. However, clinical use of MSCs is limited due to inconsistent treatment outcomes arising from factors such as donor-to-donor variability, variation among cells during cell expansion, and non-standardized MSC manufacturing protocols.

The heterogeneity of MSCs can lead to variations in their biological behavior and treatment outcomes. While large-scale MSC expansions are required to obtain a therapeutically relevant number of cells for implantation, this process can introduce cell heterogeneity. Therefore, improved processes are essential to reduce cell heterogeneity while increasing donor cell numbers with improved chondrogenic potential — the ability of MSCs to differentiate into cartilage cells to repair cartilage tissue — to pave the way for more effective and consistent MSC-based therapies.

In a paper titled “Metabolic modulation to improve MSC expansion and therapeutic potential for articular cartilage repair,” published in the scientific journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy, CAMP researchers detailed their development of a priming strategy to enhance the expansion of quality MSCs by modifying the way cells utilize energy. The research findings have shown a positive correlation between chondrogenic potential and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), a process that harnesses the reduction of oxygen to create adenosine triphosphate — a source of energy that drives and supports many processes in living cells. This suggests that manipulating MSC metabolism is a promising strategy for enhancing chondrogenic potential.

Using novel PATs developed by CAMP, the researchers explored the potential of metabolic modulation in both short- and long-term harvesting and reseeding of cells. To enhance their chondrogenic potential, they varied the nutrient composition, including glucose, pyruvate, glutamine, and ascorbic acid (AA). As AA is reported to support OXPHOS and its positive impact on chondrogenic potential during differentiation — a process in which immature cells become mature cells with specific functions — the researchers further investigated its effects during MSC expansion.

The addition of AA to cell cultures for one passage during MSC expansion and prior to initiation of differentiation was found to improve chondrogenic differentiation, which is a critical quality attribute (CQA) for better articular cartilage repair. Longer-term AA treatment led to a more than 300-fold increase in the yield of MSCs with enhanced chondrogenic potential, and reduced cell heterogeneity and cell senescence — a process by which a cell ages and permanently stops dividing but does not die — when compared to untreated cells. AA-treated MSCs with improved chondrogenic potential showed a robust shift in metabolic profile to OXPHOS. This metabolic change correlated with μMRR measurements, which helps identify novel CQAs that could be implemented in MSC manufacturing for articular cartilage repair.

The research also demonstrates the potential of the process analytical tool developed by CAMP, micromagnetic resonance relaxometry (μMRR) — a miniature benchtop device that employs magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging on a microscopic scale — as a process-monitoring tool for the expansion of MSCs with AA supplementation. Originally used as a label-free malaria diagnosis method due to the presence of paramagnetic hemozoin particles, μMRR was used in the research to detect senescence in MSCs. This rapid, label-free method requires only a small number of cells for evaluation, which allows for MSC therapy manufacturing in closed systems — a system for protecting pharmaceutical products by reducing contamination risks from the external environment — while enabling intermittent monitoring of a limited lot size per production.

“Donor-to-donor variation, intrapopulation heterogeneity, and cellular senescence have impeded the success of MSCs as a standard of care therapy for articular cartilage repair. Our research showed that AA supplementation during MSC expansion can overcome these bottlenecks and enhance MSC chondrogenic potential,” says Ching Ann Tee, senior postdoc at SMART CAMP and first author of the paper. “By controlling metabolic conditions such as AA supplementation, coupled with CAMP’s process analytical tools such as µMRR, the yield and quality of cell therapy products could be significantly increased. This breakthrough could help make MSC therapy a more effective and viable treatment option and provide standards for improving the manufacturing pipeline.”

“This approach of utilizing metabolic modulation to improve MSC chondrogenic potential could be adapted into similar concepts for other therapeutic indications, such as osteogenic potential for bone repair or other types of stem cells. Implementing our findings in MSC manufacturing settings could be a significant step forward for patients with osteoarthritis and other joint diseases, as we can efficiently produce large quantities of high-quality MSCs with consistent functionality and enable the treatment of more patients,” adds Professor Laurie A. Boyer, principal investigator at SMART CAMP, professor of biology and biological engineering at MIT, and corresponding author of the paper.

The research is conducted by SMART and supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise program.

Hospice care aims to provide a health care alternative for people nearing the end of life by sparing them unwanted medical procedures and focusing on the patient’s comfort. A new study co-authored by MIT scholars shows hospice also has a clear fiscal benefit: It generates substantial savings for the U.S. Medicare system.

The study examines the growth of for-profit hospice providers, who receive reimbursements from Medicare, and evaluates the cost of caring for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). The research finds that for patients using for-profit hospice providers, there is about a $29,000 savings to Medicare over the first five years after someone is diagnosed with ADRD.

“Hospice is saving Medicare a lot of money,” says Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health care economist and co-author of a paper detailing the study’s findings. “Those are big numbers.”

In recent decades, hospice care has grown substantially. That growth has been accompanied by concerns that for-profit hospice organizations, in particular, might be overly aggressive in pursuing patients. There have also been instances of fraud by organizations in the field. And yet, the study shows that the overall dynamics of hospice are the intended ones: People are indeed receiving palliative-type care, based around comfort rather than elaborate medical procedures, at less cost.

“What we found is that hospice basically operates as advertised,” adds Gruber, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT. “It does not extend lives on aggregate, and it does save money.”

The paper, “Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End of Life Care,” appears in the American Economic Review. The co-authors are Gruber, who is also head of MIT’s Department of Economics; David Howard, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University; Jetson Leder-Luis PhD ’20, an assistant professor at Boston University; and Theodore Caputi, a doctoral student in MIT’s Department of Economics.

Charting what more hospice access means

Hospice care in the U.S. dates to at least the 1970s. Patients opt out of their existing medical network and receive nursing care where they live, either at home or in care facilities. That care is oriented around reducing suffering and pain, rather than attempting to eliminate underlying causes. Generally, hospice patients are expected to have six months or less to live. Most Medicare funding goes to private contractors supplying medical care, and in the 1980s the federal government started using Medicare to reimburse the medical expenses from hospice as well.

While the number of nonprofit hospice providers in the U.S. has remained fairly consistent, the number of for-profit hospice organizations grew fivefold between 2000 and 2019. Medicare payments for hospice care are now about $20 billion annually, up from $2.5 billion in 1999. People diagnosed with ADRD now make up 38 percent of hospice patients.

Still, Gruber considers the topic of hospice care relatively under-covered by analysts. To conduct the study, the team examined over 10 million patients from 1999 through 2019. The researchers used the growth of for-profit hospice providers to compare the effects of being enrolled in non-profit hospice care, for-profit hospice care, or staying in the larger medical system.

That means the scholars were not only evaluating hospice patients; by evaluating the larger population in a given area where and when for-profit hospice firms opened their doors, they could see what difference greater access to hospice care made. For instance, having a new for-profit hospice open locally is associated with a roughly 2 percentage point increase in for-profit hospice admissions in following years.

“We’re able to use this methodology to [analyze] if these patients would otherwise have not gone to hospice or would have gone to a nonprofit hospice,” Gruber says.

The method also allows the scholars to estimate the substantial cost savings. And it shows that enrolling in hospice increased the five-year post-diagnosis mortality rate of ADRD patients by 8.6 percentage points, from a baseline of 66.6 percent. Entering into hospice care — which is a reversible decision — means foregoing life-extending surgeries, for instance, if people believe such procedures are no longer desirable for them.

Rethinking the cap

By providing care without more expensive medical procedures, it is understandable that hospice reduces overall medical costs. Still, given that Medicare reimburses hospice organizations, one ongoing policy concern is that hospice providers might aggressively recruit a larger percentage of patients who end up living longer than six additional months. In this way hospice providers might unduly boost their revenues and put more pressure on the Medicare budget.

To counteract this, Medicare rules include a roughly $29,205 cap on per-patient reimbursements, as of 2019. Most patients die relatively soon after entering hospice care; some will outlive the six-month expectation significantly. But hospice organizations cannot exceed that average.

However, the study also suggests the cap is a suboptimal approach. In 2018, 15.5 percent of hospice patients were being discharged from hospice care while still alive, due to the cap limiting hospice capacity. As the paper notes, “patients in hospices facing cap pressure are more likely to be discharged from hospice alive and experience higher mortality rates.”

As Gruber notes, the spending cap is partly a fraud-fighting tool. And yet the cap clearly has other, unintended consquences on patients and their medical choices, crowding some out of the hospice system.

“The cap may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Gruber says. “The government has more focused tools to fight fraud. Using the cap for that is a blunt instrument.”

As long as people are informed about hospice and the medical trajectory it puts them on, then, hospice care appears to be providing a valued service at less expense than other approaches to end-of-life care.

“The holy grail in health care is things that improve quality and save money,” Gruber says. “And with hospice, there are surveys saying people like it. And it certainly saves money, and there’s no evidence it’s doing harm [to patients]. We talk about how we struggle to deal with health care costs in this country, so this seems like what we want.”

The research was supported in part by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. 

A team led by researchers at MIT has discovered that a distant interstellar cloud contains an abundance of pyrene, a type of large, carbon-containing molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH).

The discovery of pyrene in this far-off cloud, which is similar to the collection of dust and gas that eventually became our own solar system, suggests that pyrene may have been the source of much of the carbon in our solar system. That hypothesis is also supported by a recent finding that samples returned from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu contain large quantities of pyrene.

“One of the big questions in star and planet formation is: How much of the chemical inventory from that early molecular cloud is inherited and forms the base components of the solar system? What we’re looking at is the start and the end, and they’re showing the same thing. That’s pretty strong evidence that this material from the early molecular cloud finds its way into the ice, dust, and rocky bodies that make up our solar system,” says Brett McGuire, an assistant professor of chemistry at MIT.

Due to its symmetry, pyrene itself is invisible to the radio astronomy techniques that have been used to detect about 95 percent of molecules in space. Instead, the researchers detected an isomer of cyanopyrene, a version of pyrene that has reacted with cyanide to break its symmetry. The molecule was detected in a distant cloud known as TMC-1, using the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope (GBT), a radio telescope at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.

McGuire and Ilsa Cooke, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of British Colombia, are the senior authors of a paper describing the findings, which appears today in Science. Gabi Wenzel, an MIT postdoc in McGuire’s group, is the lead author of the study.

Carbon in space

PAHs, which contain rings of carbon atoms fused together, are believed to store 10 to 25 percent of the carbon that exists in space. More than 40 years ago, scientists using infrared telescopes began detecting features that are thought to belong to vibrational modes of PAHs in space, but this technique couldn’t reveal exactly which types of PAHs were out there.

“Since the PAH hypothesis was developed in the 1980s, many people have accepted that PAHs are in space, and they have been found in meteorites, comets, and asteroid samples, but we can’t really use infrared spectroscopy to unambiguously identify individual PAHs in space,” Wenzel says.

In 2018, a team led by McGuire reported the discovery of benzonitrile — a six-carbon ring attached to a nitrile (carbon-nitrogen) group — in TMC-1. To make this discovery, they used the GBT, which can detect molecules in space by their rotational spectra — distinctive patterns of light that molecules give off as they tumble through space. In 2021, his team detected the first individual PAHs in space: two isomers of cyanonaphthalene, which consists of two rings fused together, with a nitrile group attached to one ring.

On Earth, PAHs commonly occur as byproducts of burning fossil fuels, and they’re also found in char marks on grilled food. Their discovery in TMC-1, which is only about 10 kelvins, suggested that it may also be possible for them to form at very low temperatures.

The fact that PAHs have also been found in meteorites, asteroids, and comets has led many scientists to hypothesize that PAHs are the source of much of the carbon that formed our own solar system. In 2023, researchers in Japan found large quantities of pyrene in samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu during the Hayabusa2 mission, along with smaller PAHs including naphthalene.

That discovery motivated McGuire and his colleagues to look for pyrene in TMC-1. Pyrene, which contains four rings, is larger than any of the other PAHs that have been detected in space. In fact, it’s the third-largest molecule identified in space, and the largest ever detected using radio astronomy.

Before looking for these molecules in space, the researchers first had to synthesize cyanopyrene in the laboratory. The cyano or nitrile group is necessary for the molecule to emit a signal that a radio telescope can detect. The synthesis was performed by MIT postdoc Shuo Zhang in the group of Alison Wendlandt, an MIT associate professor of chemistry.

Then, the researchers analyzed the signals that the molecules emit in the laboratory, which are exactly the same as the signals that they emit in space.

Using the GBT, the researchers found these signatures throughout TMC-1. They also found that cyanopyrene accounts for about 0.1 percent of all the carbon found in the cloud, which sounds small but is significant when one considers the thousands of different types of carbon-containing molecules that exist in space, McGuire says.

“While 0.1 percent doesn’t sound like a large number, most carbon is trapped in carbon monoxide (CO), the second-most abundant molecule in the universe besides molecular hydrogen. If we set CO aside, one in every few hundred or so remaining carbon atoms is in pyrene. Imagine the thousands of different molecules that are out there, nearly all of them with many different carbon atoms in them, and one in a few hundred is in pyrene,” he says. “That is an absolutely massive abundance. An almost unbelievable sink of carbon. It’s an interstellar island of stability.”

Ewine van Dishoeck, a professor of molecular astrophysics at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, called the discovery “unexpected and exciting.”

“It builds on their earlier discoveries of smaller aromatic molecules, but to make the jump now to the pyrene family is huge. Not only does it demonstrate that a significant fraction of carbon is locked up in these molecules, but it also points to different formation routes of aromatics than have been considered so far,” says van Dishoeck, who was not involved in the research.

An abundance of pyrene

Interstellar clouds like TMC-1 may eventually give rise to stars, as clumps of dust and gas coalesce into larger bodies and begin to heat up. Planets, asteroids, and comets arise from some of the gas and dust that surround young stars. Scientists can’t look back in time at the interstellar cloud that gave rise to our own solar system, but the discovery of pyrene in TMC-1, along with the presence of large amounts of pyrene in the asteroid Ryugu, suggests that pyrene may have been the source of much of the carbon in our own solar system.

“We now have, I would venture to say, the strongest evidence ever of this direct molecular inheritance from the cold cloud all the way through to the actual rocks in the solar system,” McGuire says.

The researchers now plan to look for even larger PAH molecules in TMC-1. They also hope to investigate the question of whether the pyrene found in TMC-1 was formed within the cold cloud or whether it arrived from elsewhere in the universe, possibly from the high-energy combustion processes that surround dying stars.

The research was funded in part by a Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Schmidt Futures, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, and the NASA Planetary Science Division Internal Scientist Funding Program.

For many decades, fusion has been touted as the ultimate source of abundant, clean electricity. Now, as the world faces the need to reduce carbon emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change, making commercial fusion power a reality takes on new importance. In a power system dominated by low-carbon variable renewable energy sources (VREs) such as solar and wind, “firm” electricity sources are needed to kick in whenever demand exceeds supply — for example, when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing and energy storage systems aren’t up to the task. What is the potential role and value of fusion power plants (FPPs) in such a future electric power system — a system that is not only free of carbon emissions but also capable of meeting the dramatically increased global electricity demand expected in the coming decades?

Working together for a year-and-a-half, investigators in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have been collaborating to answer that question. They found that — depending on its future cost and performance — fusion has the potential to be critically important to decarbonization. Under some conditions, the availability of FPPs could reduce the global cost of decarbonizing by trillions of dollars. More than 25 experts together examined the factors that will impact the deployment of FPPs, including costs, climate policy, operating characteristics, and other factors. They present their findings in a new report funded through MITEI and entitled “The Role of Fusion Energy in a Decarbonized Electricity System.”

“Right now, there is great interest in fusion energy in many quarters — from the private sector to government to the general public,” says the study’s principal investigator (PI) Robert C. Armstrong, MITEI’s former director and the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, Emeritus. “In undertaking this study, our goal was to provide a balanced, fact-based, analysis-driven guide to help us all understand the prospects for fusion going forward.” Accordingly, the study takes a multidisciplinary approach that combines economic modeling, electric grid modeling, techno-economic analysis, and more to examine important factors that are likely to shape the future deployment and utilization of fusion energy. The investigators from MITEI provided the energy systems modeling capability, while the PSFC participants provided the fusion expertise.

Fusion technologies may be a decade away from commercial deployment, so the detailed technology and costs of future commercial FPPs are not known at this point. As a result, the MIT research team focused on determining what cost levels fusion plants must reach by 2050 to achieve strong market penetration and make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of global electricity supply in the latter half of the century.

The value of having FPPs available on an electric grid will depend on what other options are available, so to perform their analyses, the researchers needed estimates of the future cost and performance of those options, including conventional fossil fuel generators, nuclear fission power plants, VRE generators, and energy storage technologies, as well as electricity demand for specific regions of the world. To find the most reliable data, they searched the published literature as well as results of previous MITEI and PSFC analyses.

Overall, the analyses showed that — while the technology demands of harnessing fusion energy are formidable — so are the potential economic and environmental payoffs of adding this firm, low-carbon technology to the world’s portfolio of energy options.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is the “societal value” of having commercial FPPs available. “Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C requires that the world invest in wind, solar, storage, grid infrastructure, and everything else needed to decarbonize the electric power system,” explains Randall Field, executive director of the fusion study and MITEI’s director of research. “The cost of that task can be far lower when FPPs are available as a source of clean, firm electricity.” And the benefit varies depending on the cost of the FPPs. For example, assuming that the cost of building a FPP is $8,000 per kilowatt (kW) in 2050 and falls to $4,300/kW in 2100, the global cost of decarbonizing electric power drops by $3.6 trillion. If the cost of a FPP is $5,600/kW in 2050 and falls to $3,000/kW in 2100, the savings from having the fusion plants available would be $8.7 trillion. (Those calculations are based on differences in global gross domestic product and assume a discount rate of 6 percent. The undiscounted value is about 20 times larger.)

The goal of other analyses was to determine the scale of deployment worldwide at selected FPP costs. Again, the results are striking. For a deep decarbonization scenario, the total global share of electricity generation from fusion in 2100 ranges from less than 10 percent if the cost of fusion is high to more than 50 percent if the cost of fusion is low.

Other analyses showed that the scale and timing of fusion deployment vary in different parts of the world. Early deployment of fusion can be expected in wealthy nations such as European countries and the United States that have the most aggressive decarbonization policies. But certain other locations — for example, India and the continent of Africa — will have great growth in fusion deployment in the second half of the century due to a large increase in demand for electricity during that time. “In the U.S. and Europe, the amount of demand growth will be low, so it’ll be a matter of switching away from dirty fuels to fusion,” explains Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and a senior research scientist at MITEI. “But in India and Africa, for example, the tremendous growth in overall electricity demand will be met with significant amounts of fusion along with other low-carbon generation resources in the later part of the century.”

A set of analyses focusing on nine subregions of the United States showed that the availability and cost of other low-carbon technologies, as well as how tightly carbon emissions are constrained, have a major impact on how FPPs would be deployed and used. In a decarbonized world, FPPs will have the highest penetration in locations with poor diversity, capacity, and quality of renewable resources, and limits on carbon emissions will have a big impact. For example, the Atlantic and Southeast subregions have low renewable resources. In those subregions, wind can produce only a small fraction of the electricity needed, even with maximum onshore wind buildout. Thus, fusion is needed in those subregions, even when carbon constraints are relatively lenient, and any available FPPs would be running much of the time. In contrast, the Central subregion of the United States has excellent renewable resources, especially wind. Thus, fusion competes in the Central subregion only when limits on carbon emissions are very strict, and FPPs will typically be operated only when the renewables can’t meet demand.

An analysis of the power system that serves the New England states provided remarkably detailed results. Using a modeling tool developed at MITEI, the fusion team explored the impact of using different assumptions about not just cost and emissions limits but even such details as potential land-use constraints affecting the use of specific VREs. This approach enabled them to calculate the FPP cost at which fusion units begin to be installed. They were also able to investigate how that “threshold” cost changed with changes in the cap on carbon emissions. The method can even show at what price FPPs begin to replace other specific generating sources. In one set of runs, they determined the cost at which FPPs would begin to displace floating platform offshore wind and rooftop solar.

“This study is an important contribution to fusion commercialization because it provides economic targets for the use of fusion in the electricity markets,” notes Dennis G. Whyte, co-PI of the fusion study, former director of the PSFC, and the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “It better quantifies the technical design challenges for fusion developers with respect to pricing, availability, and flexibility to meet changing demand in the future.”

The researchers stress that while fission power plants are included in the analyses, they did not perform a “head-to-head” comparison between fission and fusion, because there are too many unknowns. Fusion and nuclear fission are both firm, low-carbon electricity-generating technologies; but unlike fission, fusion doesn’t use fissile materials as fuels, and it doesn’t generate long-lived nuclear fuel waste that must be managed. As a result, the regulatory requirements for FPPs will be very different from the regulations for today’s fission power plants — but precisely how they will differ is unclear. Likewise, the future public perception and social acceptance of each of these technologies cannot be projected, but could have a major influence on what generation technologies are used to meet future demand.

The results of the study convey several messages about the future of fusion. For example, it’s clear that regulation can be a potentially large cost driver. This should motivate fusion companies to minimize their regulatory and environmental footprint with respect to fuels and activated materials. It should also encourage governments to adopt appropriate and effective regulatory policies to maximize their ability to use fusion energy in achieving their decarbonization goals. And for companies developing fusion technologies, the study’s message is clearly stated in the report: “If the cost and performance targets identified in this report can be achieved, our analysis shows that fusion energy can play a major role in meeting future electricity needs and achieving global net-zero carbon goals.”

Researchers from the Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP) interdisciplinary research group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, alongside collaborators from the National University of Singapore Tissue Engineering Programme, have developed a novel method to enhance the ability of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) to generate cartilage tissue by adding ascorbic acid during MSC expansion. The research also discovered that micro-magnetic resonance relaxometry (µMRR), a novel process analytical tool developed by SMART CAMP, can be used as a rapid, label-free process-monitoring tool for the quality expansion of MSCs.

Articular cartilage, a connective tissue that protects the bone ends in joints, can degenerate due to injury, age, or arthritis, leading to significant joint pain and disability. Especially in countries — such as Singapore — that have an active, aging population, articular cartilage degeneration is a growing ailment that affects an increasing number of people. Autologous chondrocyte implantation is currently the only Food and Drug Administration-approved cell-based therapy for articular cartilage injuries, but it is costly, time-intensive, and requires multiple treatments. MSCs are an attractive and promising alternative as they have shown good safety profiles for transplantation. However, clinical use of MSCs is limited due to inconsistent treatment outcomes arising from factors such as donor-to-donor variability, variation among cells during cell expansion, and non-standardized MSC manufacturing protocols.

The heterogeneity of MSCs can lead to variations in their biological behavior and treatment outcomes. While large-scale MSC expansions are required to obtain a therapeutically relevant number of cells for implantation, this process can introduce cell heterogeneity. Therefore, improved processes are essential to reduce cell heterogeneity while increasing donor cell numbers with improved chondrogenic potential — the ability of MSCs to differentiate into cartilage cells to repair cartilage tissue — to pave the way for more effective and consistent MSC-based therapies.

In a paper titled “Metabolic modulation to improve MSC expansion and therapeutic potential for articular cartilage repair,” published in the scientific journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy, CAMP researchers detailed their development of a priming strategy to enhance the expansion of quality MSCs by modifying the way cells utilize energy. The research findings have shown a positive correlation between chondrogenic potential and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), a process that harnesses the reduction of oxygen to create adenosine triphosphate — a source of energy that drives and supports many processes in living cells. This suggests that manipulating MSC metabolism is a promising strategy for enhancing chondrogenic potential.

Using novel PATs developed by CAMP, the researchers explored the potential of metabolic modulation in both short- and long-term harvesting and reseeding of cells. To enhance their chondrogenic potential, they varied the nutrient composition, including glucose, pyruvate, glutamine, and ascorbic acid (AA). As AA is reported to support OXPHOS and its positive impact on chondrogenic potential during differentiation — a process in which immature cells become mature cells with specific functions — the researchers further investigated its effects during MSC expansion.

The addition of AA to cell cultures for one passage during MSC expansion and prior to initiation of differentiation was found to improve chondrogenic differentiation, which is a critical quality attribute (CQA) for better articular cartilage repair. Longer-term AA treatment led to a more than 300-fold increase in the yield of MSCs with enhanced chondrogenic potential, and reduced cell heterogeneity and cell senescence — a process by which a cell ages and permanently stops dividing but does not die — when compared to untreated cells. AA-treated MSCs with improved chondrogenic potential showed a robust shift in metabolic profile to OXPHOS. This metabolic change correlated with μMRR measurements, which helps identify novel CQAs that could be implemented in MSC manufacturing for articular cartilage repair.

The research also demonstrates the potential of the process analytical tool developed by CAMP, micromagnetic resonance relaxometry (μMRR) — a miniature benchtop device that employs magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging on a microscopic scale — as a process-monitoring tool for the expansion of MSCs with AA supplementation. Originally used as a label-free malaria diagnosis method due to the presence of paramagnetic hemozoin particles, μMRR was used in the research to detect senescence in MSCs. This rapid, label-free method requires only a small number of cells for evaluation, which allows for MSC therapy manufacturing in closed systems — a system for protecting pharmaceutical products by reducing contamination risks from the external environment — while enabling intermittent monitoring of a limited lot size per production.

“Donor-to-donor variation, intrapopulation heterogeneity, and cellular senescence have impeded the success of MSCs as a standard of care therapy for articular cartilage repair. Our research showed that AA supplementation during MSC expansion can overcome these bottlenecks and enhance MSC chondrogenic potential,” says Ching Ann Tee, senior postdoc at SMART CAMP and first author of the paper. “By controlling metabolic conditions such as AA supplementation, coupled with CAMP’s process analytical tools such as µMRR, the yield and quality of cell therapy products could be significantly increased. This breakthrough could help make MSC therapy a more effective and viable treatment option and provide standards for improving the manufacturing pipeline.”

“This approach of utilizing metabolic modulation to improve MSC chondrogenic potential could be adapted into similar concepts for other therapeutic indications, such as osteogenic potential for bone repair or other types of stem cells. Implementing our findings in MSC manufacturing settings could be a significant step forward for patients with osteoarthritis and other joint diseases, as we can efficiently produce large quantities of high-quality MSCs with consistent functionality and enable the treatment of more patients,” adds Professor Laurie A. Boyer, principal investigator at SMART CAMP, professor of biology and biological engineering at MIT, and corresponding author of the paper.

The research is conducted by SMART and supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise program.

For many decades, fusion has been touted as the ultimate source of abundant, clean electricity. Now, as the world faces the need to reduce carbon emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change, making commercial fusion power a reality takes on new importance. In a power system dominated by low-carbon variable renewable energy sources (VREs) such as solar and wind, “firm” electricity sources are needed to kick in whenever demand exceeds supply — for example, when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing and energy storage systems aren’t up to the task. What is the potential role and value of fusion power plants (FPPs) in such a future electric power system — a system that is not only free of carbon emissions but also capable of meeting the dramatically increased global electricity demand expected in the coming decades?

Working together for a year-and-a-half, investigators in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have been collaborating to answer that question. They found that — depending on its future cost and performance — fusion has the potential to be critically important to decarbonization. Under some conditions, the availability of FPPs could reduce the global cost of decarbonizing by trillions of dollars. More than 25 experts together examined the factors that will impact the deployment of FPPs, including costs, climate policy, operating characteristics, and other factors. They present their findings in a new report funded through MITEI and entitled “The Role of Fusion Energy in a Decarbonized Electricity System.”

“Right now, there is great interest in fusion energy in many quarters — from the private sector to government to the general public,” says the study’s principal investigator (PI) Robert C. Armstrong, MITEI’s former director and the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, Emeritus. “In undertaking this study, our goal was to provide a balanced, fact-based, analysis-driven guide to help us all understand the prospects for fusion going forward.” Accordingly, the study takes a multidisciplinary approach that combines economic modeling, electric grid modeling, techno-economic analysis, and more to examine important factors that are likely to shape the future deployment and utilization of fusion energy. The investigators from MITEI provided the energy systems modeling capability, while the PSFC participants provided the fusion expertise.

Fusion technologies may be a decade away from commercial deployment, so the detailed technology and costs of future commercial FPPs are not known at this point. As a result, the MIT research team focused on determining what cost levels fusion plants must reach by 2050 to achieve strong market penetration and make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of global electricity supply in the latter half of the century.

The value of having FPPs available on an electric grid will depend on what other options are available, so to perform their analyses, the researchers needed estimates of the future cost and performance of those options, including conventional fossil fuel generators, nuclear fission power plants, VRE generators, and energy storage technologies, as well as electricity demand for specific regions of the world. To find the most reliable data, they searched the published literature as well as results of previous MITEI and PSFC analyses.

Overall, the analyses showed that — while the technology demands of harnessing fusion energy are formidable — so are the potential economic and environmental payoffs of adding this firm, low-carbon technology to the world’s portfolio of energy options.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is the “societal value” of having commercial FPPs available. “Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C requires that the world invest in wind, solar, storage, grid infrastructure, and everything else needed to decarbonize the electric power system,” explains Randall Field, executive director of the fusion study and MITEI’s director of research. “The cost of that task can be far lower when FPPs are available as a source of clean, firm electricity.” And the benefit varies depending on the cost of the FPPs. For example, assuming that the cost of building a FPP is $8,000 per kilowatt (kW) in 2050 and falls to $4,300/kW in 2100, the global cost of decarbonizing electric power drops by $3.6 trillion. If the cost of a FPP is $5,600/kW in 2050 and falls to $3,000/kW in 2100, the savings from having the fusion plants available would be $8.7 trillion. (Those calculations are based on differences in global gross domestic product and assume a discount rate of 6 percent. The undiscounted value is about 20 times larger.)

The goal of other analyses was to determine the scale of deployment worldwide at selected FPP costs. Again, the results are striking. For a deep decarbonization scenario, the total global share of electricity generation from fusion in 2100 ranges from less than 10 percent if the cost of fusion is high to more than 50 percent if the cost of fusion is low.

Other analyses showed that the scale and timing of fusion deployment vary in different parts of the world. Early deployment of fusion can be expected in wealthy nations such as European countries and the United States that have the most aggressive decarbonization policies. But certain other locations — for example, India and the continent of Africa — will have great growth in fusion deployment in the second half of the century due to a large increase in demand for electricity during that time. “In the U.S. and Europe, the amount of demand growth will be low, so it’ll be a matter of switching away from dirty fuels to fusion,” explains Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and a senior research scientist at MITEI. “But in India and Africa, for example, the tremendous growth in overall electricity demand will be met with significant amounts of fusion along with other low-carbon generation resources in the later part of the century.”

A set of analyses focusing on nine subregions of the United States showed that the availability and cost of other low-carbon technologies, as well as how tightly carbon emissions are constrained, have a major impact on how FPPs would be deployed and used. In a decarbonized world, FPPs will have the highest penetration in locations with poor diversity, capacity, and quality of renewable resources, and limits on carbon emissions will have a big impact. For example, the Atlantic and Southeast subregions have low renewable resources. In those subregions, wind can produce only a small fraction of the electricity needed, even with maximum onshore wind buildout. Thus, fusion is needed in those subregions, even when carbon constraints are relatively lenient, and any available FPPs would be running much of the time. In contrast, the Central subregion of the United States has excellent renewable resources, especially wind. Thus, fusion competes in the Central subregion only when limits on carbon emissions are very strict, and FPPs will typically be operated only when the renewables can’t meet demand.

An analysis of the power system that serves the New England states provided remarkably detailed results. Using a modeling tool developed at MITEI, the fusion team explored the impact of using different assumptions about not just cost and emissions limits but even such details as potential land-use constraints affecting the use of specific VREs. This approach enabled them to calculate the FPP cost at which fusion units begin to be installed. They were also able to investigate how that “threshold” cost changed with changes in the cap on carbon emissions. The method can even show at what price FPPs begin to replace other specific generating sources. In one set of runs, they determined the cost at which FPPs would begin to displace floating platform offshore wind and rooftop solar.

“This study is an important contribution to fusion commercialization because it provides economic targets for the use of fusion in the electricity markets,” notes Dennis G. Whyte, co-PI of the fusion study, former director of the PSFC, and the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “It better quantifies the technical design challenges for fusion developers with respect to pricing, availability, and flexibility to meet changing demand in the future.”

The researchers stress that while fission power plants are included in the analyses, they did not perform a “head-to-head” comparison between fission and fusion, because there are too many unknowns. Fusion and nuclear fission are both firm, low-carbon electricity-generating technologies; but unlike fission, fusion doesn’t use fissile materials as fuels, and it doesn’t generate long-lived nuclear fuel waste that must be managed. As a result, the regulatory requirements for FPPs will be very different from the regulations for today’s fission power plants — but precisely how they will differ is unclear. Likewise, the future public perception and social acceptance of each of these technologies cannot be projected, but could have a major influence on what generation technologies are used to meet future demand.

The results of the study convey several messages about the future of fusion. For example, it’s clear that regulation can be a potentially large cost driver. This should motivate fusion companies to minimize their regulatory and environmental footprint with respect to fuels and activated materials. It should also encourage governments to adopt appropriate and effective regulatory policies to maximize their ability to use fusion energy in achieving their decarbonization goals. And for companies developing fusion technologies, the study’s message is clearly stated in the report: “If the cost and performance targets identified in this report can be achieved, our analysis shows that fusion energy can play a major role in meeting future electricity needs and achieving global net-zero carbon goals.”

Applied Materials South East Asia Pte. Ltd. and the National University of Singapore (NUS) are furthering their collaboration to bring advanced semiconductor research capabilities and talent development opportunities to Singapore. Supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 (RIE2025) plan, the Applied Materials-NUS Advanced Materials Corporate Lab – established in 2018 and located on the NUS Kent Ridge campus – will be expanded with state-of-the-art semiconductor process equipment in a larger, more advanced cleanroom. In addition, Applied Materials and NUS are collaborating on programmes designed to strengthen Singapore’s talent pipeline.

Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of NRF, was the Guest-of-Honour at a ceremony held today at NUS marking the new phase of the Corporate Lab. Guests from the industry, local research ecosystem and government agencies attended the event.

“When NUS and Applied Materials first established the Corporate Lab six years ago, we laid the foundation for a collaboration that has since yielded remarkable success,” said NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye. “Several of the innovations developed here have progressed from the research stage to the scale-up phase, paving the way for real-world applications that can benefit society. We are very excited to embark on a new chapter in our collaboration with Applied Materials to further advance semiconductor science and technology and inspire the next generation of innovators who will push the envelope and break new ground in this significant field.”

“The Advanced Materials Corporate Lab at NUS is a prime example of how industry-academia collaboration can accelerate the discovery and transition of innovations into commercial applications,” said Dr Satheesh Kuppurao, Group Vice President of Business Development and Growth, Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials, Inc. “Our joint work has resulted in numerous patents related to chemistry, semiconductor process and hardware design solutions, along with several sponsored scholarships. Applied Materials is excited to build on our success with NUS and bring enhanced semiconductor research and talent development opportunities to Singapore.”

Hosted at the College of Design and Engineering and the Faculty of Science at NUS, the Applied Materials-NUS Advanced Materials Corporate Lab offers world-class, multi-disciplinary R&D capabilities that span applied chemistry, materials science and microelectronics process engineering. The goal of the Corporate Lab is to accelerate discovery of new materials that can be quickly transferred into commercial applications for manufacturing future generations of semiconductors.

The second phase of the Corporate Lab will elevate the well-established microelectronics research capabilities at NUS to new heights by fostering innovation, accelerating the development of cutting-edge technologies and expanding interdisciplinary collaboration. It will include a new cleanroom in NUS with state-of-the-art materials synthesis and characterisation capabilities. Utilising these enhanced capabilities, Applied Materials and NUS will focus on developing industry-scale solutions to complex semiconductor manufacturing challenges, with an emphasis on integrated processes and interface engineering.

Along with the new phase of the Corporate Lab, the Applied Materials Professorship has been established at NUS to attract experts in semiconductors, materials science and other technology fields. In addition, the enhanced capabilities at the Corporate Lab will introduce new educational and talent development opportunities for undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals in the areas of microelectronics, advanced materials and process engineering. This will ensure the University’s sustained academic leadership within these critical fields and contribute to Singapore’s overall economic growth and development.

For Applied Materials, the latest phase of its collaboration with NUS is part of the company’s “Singapore 2030” plan to strengthen its manufacturing capacity, R&D capabilities, technology ecosystem partnerships and workforce development in Singapore.

Educator and food historian Mr Khir Johari, whose work, The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2021) profoundly reshapes our understanding of the gastronomy and cultural history of Singapore Malays, has been awarded the 2024 NUS Singapore History Prize. Mr Khir Johari will receive a cash award of S$50,000.

Created in 2014 in support of the national SG50 programme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Singapore’s independence, the NUS Singapore History Prize is awarded to an outstanding publication that has made a lasting impact on our understanding of the history of Singapore, and that is accessible to a wide audience of specialist and non-specialist readers.

A five-member Jury Panel chaired by Mr Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the NUS Asia Research Institute, selected the winning work from a short list of six works, itself culled from a total of 26 submitted works authored by local and international scholars. The other Jury Panel members are: Emeritus Professor John N. Miksic of the NUS Department of Southeast Asian Studies; Professor Tan Tai Yong, President of the Singapore University of Social Sciences; Professor Peter A. Coclanis, Director, Global Research Institute, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and economist Dr Lam San Ling.

The five books that were shortlisted alongside the winning publication are:

• Wesley Leon Aroozoo, The Punkhawala and the Prostitute (Singapore: Epigram Books, 2021).
• Timothy P. Barnard, ed., Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City (Singapore: NUS Press, 2024).
• Kevin Blackburn, The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory (Singapore: NUS Press, 2022).
• Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee, and Juria Toramae, Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage of 20th Century Singapore (Singapore: Pagesetters Services, 2021).
• Lynn Wong Yuqing and Lee Kok Leong, Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival (Singapore: Renforest Publishing, 2022).

Of the five books, the Jury Panel also highlighted two that deserve special commendation and recognition. They are, ranked in order of priority, Reviving Qixi: Singapore’s Forgotten Seven Sisters Festival by Lynn Wong Yuqing and Lee Kok Leong; and Theatres of Memory: Industrial Heritage of 20th Century Singapore by Loh Kah Seng, Alex Tan Tiong Hee, Koh Keng We, Tan Teng Phee, and Juria Toramae. The Jury Panel found the two books compelling and riveting: one offers new insights into a forgotten festival celebrated by the Chinese community in Singapore while the other delves into the understudied labour and industrial history of Singapore.

Mr Mahbubani, Chair of the NUS Singapore History Prize Jury Panel, said: “Southeast Asia is a magical place. At a time when many regions are suffering conflict, tension and stagnation, Southeast Asia remains an oasis of peace and prosperity, despite its incredible diversity. Why? The deeper and longer history of the region may explain this. Khir Johari’s book is a deserving winner of the Singapore History Prize because it sheds new light on our history. Few Singaporeans know that over a hundred years ago, Singapore had already emerged as ‘the New York of the Nusantara.’ This book will open their eyes to Singapore’s long and rich involvement with its surrounding region. And it is a truly beautifully produced book that will enchant its readers.”

The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago

The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago is an unwritten story of a people. Between the vast Indian and Pacific oceans lies the Malay Archipelago, known widely as the Nusantara, which has nourished the lives of indigenous Malays throughout the centuries and nurtured the diverse peoples that have set foot on their shores. Today, the Malays make up less than a fifth of the population in Singapore, a city with ancient ties to the Malay world.

This book explores their food, not just as a means of sustenance but as a cultural activity. Inheriting the Nusantara's rich flavours, Singapore Malays have a grand culinary heritage reflecting their worldviews, social values and historical interactions with other cultures. Through close examination of their daily objects, customs, art and literature, these pages reveal how the food Malays enjoy is deeply embedded in different aspects of their identity.

Following the broad sweep of Malay cuisine's evolution – from the 7th-century kingdom of Srivijaya to the 21st-century emporium of cosmopolitan Singapore – this book traces the continuity and dynamism of a shared cultural consciousness. Sumptuously served with stunning photographs, delicious recipes and diligent research, this is essential reading for anyone – gourmets and amateurs alike – hungry for a deeper understanding of the relationship between people and their food.

Please refer to the Annex for the citation on the winning work by Khir Johari, along with the two books receiving special commendations.

About Khir Johari

Khir Johari is the author of the award-winning book, The Food of the Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels Through the Archipelago. which has received widespread acclaim, including Singapore’s Book of the Year 2022, Gourmand World Food Culture Award’s Best of the Best Book 2023, and its prestigious Best of the Last 25 Years. Following this success, Khir founded “Dialogues by Khir Johari,” a platform dedicated to exploring Nusantara’s gastronomy through events and online discussions. Its inaugural event was a symposium titled Serumpun: Tasting Tradition, Telling Tales.

Aside from his literary achievements, Khir is an avid art collector and independent researcher specialising in the history and heritage of maritime Southeast Asia. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Santa Clara University and a Masters in Education from Stanford University. He serves as a board member of the Asian Civilisations Museum Singapore.

Born and raised in Kampong Gelam, Khir was immersed in the diverse Nusantara culinary traditions from a young age, learning from both his family and the larger vibrant communities of this historic district.

Khir Johari remarked: “I am touched and humbled by this recognition. It is an honour to receive this NUS Singapore History Prize among such a distinguished list of writers. My hope is that we continue the important work of preserving and celebrating our rich culinary heritage. Our shared cultural roots are an essential starting point for understanding how food connects us across generations and borders.”

“When I set out on this book project 14 years ago, my aim was to document our nation’s first cuisine. What started as a chronicle of food culture evolved into a celebration of our custodians of gastronomic knowledge and wisdom. This book is a tribute to the fishermen, farmers, hawkers, smiths who produced our kitchen accoutrements, as well as cookbook writers, cookery teachers, homemakers and more.”

“My wish for this book is that it answers the question of why we eat what we eat as a people. I also hope it serves as a reminder that Singapore has always been an important node in a larger interconnected network. Indeed, Singapore can be aptly regarded as the New York of the Nusantara for its role and contributions in shipping, trade, publishing and performing arts of the region.”

The NUS Singapore History Prize

Mooted by Mr Mahbubani, the NUS Singapore History Prize aims to stimulate an engagement with Singapore’s history broadly understood (this might include pre-1819) and works dealing with Singapore’s place in the world. Another purpose is to make the complexities and nuances of Singapore’s history more accessible to non-academic audiences and to cast a wide net for consideration of works that deal with history. At the same time, the Prize hopes to generate a greater understanding among Singaporean citizens of their own unique history.

The Prize is an open global competition and is administered by the Department of History at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. The 2024 Prize was open to works in English (written or translated) published between 1 June 2021 and 31 May 2024. Non-fiction and fiction works were eligible for the Prize. Other creative works that have clear historical themes could also be submitted. Book-length works that were either authored or co-authored, and addressed any time period, theme, or field of Singaporean history, or include a substantial aspect of Singaporean history as part of a wider story were eligible.

The Prize is awarded every three years, and the author of the winning publication will receive a cash award of S$50,000. The inaugural Prize was awarded in 2018 to Professor John Miksic, whose work Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300–1800 provides detailed archaeological evidence that Singapore’s story began more than 700 years ago. In 2021, the Prize was awarded to Hidayah Amin for her book Leluhur: Singapore’s Kampong Gelam which presents the history of Kampong Gelam in the context of changes to Singapore’s economic, political, and social history over the last 200 years.

Enquires about the next round of the NUS Singapore History Prize, which will open for nominations in due course, and be awarded in 2027, should be addressed to hisprize@nus.edu.sg.

• Tamil Murasu, 23 October 2024, Front Page

By Prof Lawrence Loh, Director, and Ms Sabrina Soon, Research Associate; both from the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at NUS Business School

• The Business Times, 23 October 2024, p18

• The Straits Times, 21 October 2024, Singapore, pA17

• 8world Online, 21 October 2024
• Lianhe Zaobao, 23 October 2024, Singapore, p7
• The Sunday Times, 27 October 2024, Singapore, pA14

Trailblazing women from the University of Melbourne, including Professor Jane Gunn AO, Associate Professor Ada Cheung and medical student Aayushi Khillan, have been inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in recognition of their outstanding contributions to health and research.

In a first for both universities, MIT undergraduates are engaged in research projects at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG), while MIT scholars are collaborating with UVG undergraduates on in-depth field studies in Guatemala.

These pilot projects are part of a larger enterprise, called ASPIRE (Achieving Sustainable Partnerships for Innovation, Research, and Entrepreneurship). Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, this five-year, $15-million initiative brings together MIT, UVG, and the Guatemalan Exporters Association to promote sustainable solutions to local development challenges.

“This research is yielding insights into our understanding of how to design with and for marginalized people, specifically Indigenous people,” says Elizabeth Hoffecker, co-principal investigator of ASPIRE at MIT and director of the MIT Local Innovation Group.

The students’ work is bearing fruit in the form of publications and new products — directly advancing ASPIRE’s goals to create an innovation ecosystem in Guatemala that can be replicated elsewhere in Central and Latin America.

For the students, the project offers rewards both tangible and inspirational.

“My experience allowed me to find my interest in local innovation and entrepreneurship,” says Ximena Sarmiento García, a fifth-year undergraduate at UVG majoring in anthropology. Supervised by Hoffecker, Sarmiento García says, “I learned how to inform myself, investigate, and find solutions — to become a researcher.”

Sandra Youssef, a rising junior in mechanical engineering at MIT, collaborated with UVG researchers and Indigenous farmers to design a mobile cart to improve the harvest yield of snow peas. “It was perfect for me,” she says. “My goal was to use creative, new technologies and science to make a dent in difficult problems.”

Remote and effective

Kendra Leith, co-principal investigator of ASPIRE, and associate director for research at MIT D-Lab, shaped the MIT-based undergraduate research opportunities (UROPs) in concert with UVG colleagues. “Although MIT students aren’t currently permitted to travel to Guatemala, I wanted them to have an opportunity to apply their experience and knowledge to address real-world challenges,” says Leith. “The Covid pandemic prepared them and their counterparts at UVG for effective remote collaboration — the UROPs completed remarkably productive research projects over Zoom and met our goals for them.”

MIT students participated in some of UVG’s most ambitious ASPIRE research. For instance, Sydney Baller, a rising sophomore in mechanical engineering, joined a team of Indigenous farmers and UVG mechanical engineers investigating the manufacturing process and potential markets for essential oils extracted from thyme, rosemary, and chamomile plants.

“Indigenous people have thousands of years working with plant extracts and ancient remedies,” says Baller. “There is promising history there that would be important to follow up with more modern research.”

Sandra Youssef used computer-aided design and manufacturing to realize a design created in a hackathon by snow pea farmers. “Our cart had to hold 495 pounds of snow peas without collapsing or overturning, navigate narrow paths on hills, and be simple and inexpensive to assemble,” she says. The snow pea producers have tested two of Youssef’s designs, built by a team at UVG led by Rony Herrarte, a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering.

From waste to filter

Two MIT undergraduates joined one of UVG’s long-standing projects: addressing pollution in Guatemala’s water. The research seeks to use chitosan molecules, extracted from shrimp shells, for bioremediation of heavy metals and other water contaminants. These shells are available in abundance, left as waste by the country’s shrimp industry.

Sophomores Ariana Hodlewsky, majoring in chemical engineering, and Paolo Mangiafico, majoring in brain and cognitive sciences, signed on to work with principal investigator and chemistry department instructor Allan Vásquez (UVG) on filtration systems utilizing chitosan.

“The team wants to find a cost-effective product rural communities, most at risk from polluted water, can use in homes or in town water systems,” says Mangiafico. “So we have been investigating different technologies for water filtration, and analyzing the Guatemalan and U.S. markets to understand the regulations and opportunities that might affect introduction of a chitosan-based product.”

“Our research into how different communities use water and into potential consumers and pitfalls sets the scene for prototypes UVG wants to produce,” says Hodlewsky.

Lourdes Figueroa, UVG ASPIRE project manager for technology transfer, found their assistance invaluable.

“Paolo and Ariana brought the MIT culture and mindset to the project,” she says. “They wanted to understand not only how the technology works, but the best ways of getting the technology out of the lab to make it useful.”

This was an “Aha!” moment, says Figueroa. “The MIT students made a major contribution to both the engineering and marketing sides by emphasizing that you have to think about how to guarantee the market acceptance of the technology while it is still under development.”

Innovation ecosystems

UVG’s three campuses have served as incubators for problem-solving innovation and entrepreneurship, in many cases driven by students from Indigenous communities and families. In 2022, Elizabeth Hoffecker, with eight UVG anthropology majors, set out to identify the most vibrant examples of these collaborative initiatives, which ASPIRE seeks to promote and replicate.

Hoffecker’s “innovation ecosystem diagnostic” revealed a cluster of activity centered on UVG’s Altiplano campus in the central highlands, which serves Mayan communities. Hoffecker and two of the anthropology students focused on four examples for a series of case studies, which they are currently preparing for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

“The caliber of their work was so good that it became clear to me that we could collaborate on a paper,” says Hoffecker. “It was my first time publishing with undergraduates.”

The researchers’ cases included novel production of traditional thread, and creation of a 3D phytoplankton kit that is being used to educate community members about water pollution in Lake Atitlán, a tourist destination that drives the local economy but is increasingly being affected by toxic algae blooms. Hoffecker singles out a project by Indigenous undergraduates who developed play-based teaching tools for introducing basic mathematical concepts.

“These connect to local Mayan ways of understanding and offer a novel, hands-on way to strengthen the math teaching skills of local primary school teachers in Indigenous communities,” says Hoffecker. “They created something that addresses a very immediate need in the community — lack of training.

Both of Hoffecker’s undergraduate collaborators are writing theses inspired by these case studies.

“My time with Elizabeth allowed me to learn how to conduct research from scratch, ask for help, find solutions, and trust myself,” says Sarmiento García. She finds the ASPIRE approach profoundly appealing. “It is not only ethical, but also deeply committed to applying results to the real lives of the people involved.”

“This experience has been incredibly positive, validating my own ability to generate knowledge through research, rather than relying only on established authors to back up my arguments,” says Camila del Cid, a fifth-year anthropology student. “This was empowering, especially as a Latin American researcher, because it emphasized that my perspective and contributions are important.”

Hoffecker says this pilot run with UVG undergrads produced “high-quality research that can inform evidence-based decision-making on development issues of top regional priority” — a key goal for ASPIRE. Hoffecker plans to “develop a pathway that other UVG students can follow to conduct similar research.”

MIT undergraduate research will continue. “Our students’ activities have been very valuable in Guatemala, so much so that the snow pea, chitosan, and essential oils teams would like to continue working with our students this year,” says Leith.  She anticipates a new round of MIT UROPs for next summer.

Youssef, for one, is eager to get to work on refining the snow pea cart. “I like the idea of working outside my comfort zone, thinking about things that seem unsolvable and coming up with a solution to fix some aspect of the problem,” she says.

As society grapples with the impacts of a worsening climate—from the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events to rising sea levels and deadly heat waves—the need for actionable solutions has never been greater, Penn researchers say.

In a first for both universities, MIT undergraduates are engaged in research projects at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG), while MIT scholars are collaborating with UVG undergraduates on in-depth field studies in Guatemala.

These pilot projects are part of a larger enterprise, called ASPIRE (Achieving Sustainable Partnerships for Innovation, Research, and Entrepreneurship). Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, this five-year, $15-million initiative brings together MIT, UVG, and the Guatemalan Exporters Association to promote sustainable solutions to local development challenges.

“This research is yielding insights into our understanding of how to design with and for marginalized people, specifically Indigenous people,” says Elizabeth Hoffecker, co-principal investigator of ASPIRE at MIT and director of the MIT Local Innovation Group.

The students’ work is bearing fruit in the form of publications and new products — directly advancing ASPIRE’s goals to create an innovation ecosystem in Guatemala that can be replicated elsewhere in Central and Latin America.

For the students, the project offers rewards both tangible and inspirational.

“My experience allowed me to find my interest in local innovation and entrepreneurship,” says Ximena Sarmiento García, a fifth-year undergraduate at UVG majoring in anthropology. Supervised by Hoffecker, Sarmiento García says, “I learned how to inform myself, investigate, and find solutions — to become a researcher.”

Sandra Youssef, a rising junior in mechanical engineering at MIT, collaborated with UVG researchers and Indigenous farmers to design a mobile cart to improve the harvest yield of snow peas. “It was perfect for me,” she says. “My goal was to use creative, new technologies and science to make a dent in difficult problems.”

Remote and effective

Kendra Leith, co-principal investigator of ASPIRE, and associate director for research at MIT D-Lab, shaped the MIT-based undergraduate research opportunities (UROPs) in concert with UVG colleagues. “Although MIT students aren’t currently permitted to travel to Guatemala, I wanted them to have an opportunity to apply their experience and knowledge to address real-world challenges,” says Leith. “The Covid pandemic prepared them and their counterparts at UVG for effective remote collaboration — the UROPs completed remarkably productive research projects over Zoom and met our goals for them.”

MIT students participated in some of UVG’s most ambitious ASPIRE research. For instance, Sydney Baller, a rising sophomore in mechanical engineering, joined a team of Indigenous farmers and UVG mechanical engineers investigating the manufacturing process and potential markets for essential oils extracted from thyme, rosemary, and chamomile plants.

“Indigenous people have thousands of years working with plant extracts and ancient remedies,” says Baller. “There is promising history there that would be important to follow up with more modern research.”

Sandra Youssef used computer-aided design and manufacturing to realize a design created in a hackathon by snow pea farmers. “Our cart had to hold 495 pounds of snow peas without collapsing or overturning, navigate narrow paths on hills, and be simple and inexpensive to assemble,” she says. The snow pea producers have tested two of Youssef’s designs, built by a team at UVG led by Rony Herrarte, a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering.

From waste to filter

Two MIT undergraduates joined one of UVG’s long-standing projects: addressing pollution in Guatemala’s water. The research seeks to use chitosan molecules, extracted from shrimp shells, for bioremediation of heavy metals and other water contaminants. These shells are available in abundance, left as waste by the country’s shrimp industry.

Sophomores Ariana Hodlewsky, majoring in chemical engineering, and Paolo Mangiafico, majoring in brain and cognitive sciences, signed on to work with principal investigator and chemistry department instructor Allan Vásquez (UVG) on filtration systems utilizing chitosan.

“The team wants to find a cost-effective product rural communities, most at risk from polluted water, can use in homes or in town water systems,” says Mangiafico. “So we have been investigating different technologies for water filtration, and analyzing the Guatemalan and U.S. markets to understand the regulations and opportunities that might affect introduction of a chitosan-based product.”

“Our research into how different communities use water and into potential consumers and pitfalls sets the scene for prototypes UVG wants to produce,” says Hodlewsky.

Lourdes Figueroa, UVG ASPIRE project manager for technology transfer, found their assistance invaluable.

“Paolo and Ariana brought the MIT culture and mindset to the project,” she says. “They wanted to understand not only how the technology works, but the best ways of getting the technology out of the lab to make it useful.”

This was an “Aha!” moment, says Figueroa. “The MIT students made a major contribution to both the engineering and marketing sides by emphasizing that you have to think about how to guarantee the market acceptance of the technology while it is still under development.”

Innovation ecosystems

UVG’s three campuses have served as incubators for problem-solving innovation and entrepreneurship, in many cases driven by students from Indigenous communities and families. In 2022, Elizabeth Hoffecker, with eight UVG anthropology majors, set out to identify the most vibrant examples of these collaborative initiatives, which ASPIRE seeks to promote and replicate.

Hoffecker’s “innovation ecosystem diagnostic” revealed a cluster of activity centered on UVG’s Altiplano campus in the central highlands, which serves Mayan communities. Hoffecker and two of the anthropology students focused on four examples for a series of case studies, which they are currently preparing for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

“The caliber of their work was so good that it became clear to me that we could collaborate on a paper,” says Hoffecker. “It was my first time publishing with undergraduates.”

The researchers’ cases included novel production of traditional thread, and creation of a 3D phytoplankton kit that is being used to educate community members about water pollution in Lake Atitlán, a tourist destination that drives the local economy but is increasingly being affected by toxic algae blooms. Hoffecker singles out a project by Indigenous undergraduates who developed play-based teaching tools for introducing basic mathematical concepts.

“These connect to local Mayan ways of understanding and offer a novel, hands-on way to strengthen the math teaching skills of local primary school teachers in Indigenous communities,” says Hoffecker. “They created something that addresses a very immediate need in the community — lack of training.

Both of Hoffecker’s undergraduate collaborators are writing theses inspired by these case studies.

“My time with Elizabeth allowed me to learn how to conduct research from scratch, ask for help, find solutions, and trust myself,” says Sarmiento García. She finds the ASPIRE approach profoundly appealing. “It is not only ethical, but also deeply committed to applying results to the real lives of the people involved.”

“This experience has been incredibly positive, validating my own ability to generate knowledge through research, rather than relying only on established authors to back up my arguments,” says Camila del Cid, a fifth-year anthropology student. “This was empowering, especially as a Latin American researcher, because it emphasized that my perspective and contributions are important.”

Hoffecker says this pilot run with UVG undergrads produced “high-quality research that can inform evidence-based decision-making on development issues of top regional priority” — a key goal for ASPIRE. Hoffecker plans to “develop a pathway that other UVG students can follow to conduct similar research.”

MIT undergraduate research will continue. “Our students’ activities have been very valuable in Guatemala, so much so that the snow pea, chitosan, and essential oils teams would like to continue working with our students this year,” says Leith.  She anticipates a new round of MIT UROPs for next summer.

Youssef, for one, is eager to get to work on refining the snow pea cart. “I like the idea of working outside my comfort zone, thinking about things that seem unsolvable and coming up with a solution to fix some aspect of the problem,” she says.

Many black holes detected to date appear to be part of a pair. These binary systems comprise a black hole and a secondary object — such as a star, a much denser neutron star, or another black hole — that spiral around each other, drawn together by the black hole’s gravity to form a tight orbital pair.

Now a surprising discovery is expanding the picture of black holes, the objects they can host, and the way they form.

In a study appearing today in Nature, physicists at MIT and Caltech report that they have observed a “black hole triple” for the first time. The new system holds a central black hole in the act of consuming a small star that’s spiraling in very close to the black hole, every 6.5 days — a configuration similar to most binary systems. But surprisingly, a second star appears to also be circling the black hole, though at a much greater distance. The physicists estimate this far-off companion is orbiting the black hole every 70,000 years.

That the black hole seems to have a gravitational hold on an object so far away is raising questions about the origins of the black hole itself. Black holes are thought to form from the violent explosion of a dying star — a process known as a supernova, by which a star releases a huge amount of energy and light in a final burst before collapsing into an invisible black hole.

The team’s discovery, however, suggests that if the newly-observed black hole resulted from a typical supernova, the energy it would have released before it collapsed would have kicked away any loosely bound objects in its outskirts. The second, outer star, then, shouldn’t still be hanging around.

Instead, the team suspects the black hole formed through a more gentle process of “direct collapse,” in which a star simply caves in on itself, forming a black hole without a last dramatic flash. Such a gentle origin would hardly disturb any loosely bound, faraway objects.

Because the new triple system includes a very far-off star, this suggests the system’s black hole was born through a gentler, direct collapse. And while astronomers have observed more violent supernovae for centuries, the team says the new triple system could be the first evidence of a black hole that formed from this more gentle process.

“We think most black holes form from violent explosions of stars, but this discovery helps call that into question,” says study author Kevin Burdge, a Pappalardo Fellow in the MIT Department of Physics. “This system is super exciting for black hole evolution, and it also raises questions of whether there are more triples out there.”

The study’s co-authors at MIT are Erin Kara, Claude Canizares, Deepto Chakrabarty, Anna Frebel, Sarah Millholland, Saul Rappaport, Rob Simcoe, and Andrew Vanderburg, along with Kareem El-Badry at Caltech.

Tandem motion

The discovery of the black hole triple came about almost by chance. The physicists found it while looking through Aladin Lite, a repository of astronomical observations, aggregated from telescopes in space and all around the world. Astronomers can use the online tool to search for images of the same part of the sky, taken by different telescopes that are tuned to various wavelengths of energy and light.

The team had been looking within the Milky Way galaxy for signs of new black holes. Out of curiosity, Burdge reviewed an image of V404 Cygni — a black hole about 8,000 light years from Earth that was one of the very first objects ever to be confirmed as a black hole, in 1992. Since then, V404 Cygni has become one of the most well-studied black holes, and has been documented in over 1,300 scientific papers. However, none of those studies reported what Burdge and his colleagues observed. 

As he looked at optical images of V404 Cygni, Burdge saw what appeared to be two blobs of light, surprisingly close to each other. The first blob was what others determined to be the black hole and an inner, closely orbiting star. The star is so close that it is shedding some of its material onto the black hole, and giving off the light that Burdge could see. The second blob of light, however, was something that scientists did not investigate closely, until now. That second light, Burdge determined, was most likely coming from a very far-off star.

“The fact that we can see two separate stars over this much distance actually means that the stars have to be really very far apart,” says Burdge, who calculated that the outer star is 3,500 astronomical units (AU) away from the black hole (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and sun). In other words, the outer star is 3,500 times father away from the black hole as the Earth is from the sun. This is also equal to 100 times the distance between Pluto and the sun.

The question that then came to mind was whether the outer star was linked to the black hole and its inner star. To answer this, the researchers looked to Gaia, a satellite that has precisely tracked the motions of all the stars in the galaxy since 2014. The team analyzed the motions of the inner and outer stars over the last 10 years of Gaia data and found that the stars moved exactly in tandem, compared to other neighboring stars. They calculated that the odds of this kind of tandem motion are about one in 10 million.

“It’s almost certainly not a coincidence or accident,” Burdge says. “We’re seeing two stars that are following each other because they’re attached by this weak string of gravity. So this has to be a triple system.”

Pulling strings

How, then, could the system have formed? If the black hole arose from a typical supernova, the violent explosion would have kicked away the outer star long ago.

“Imagine you’re pulling a kite, and instead of a strong string, you’re pulling with a spider web,” Burdge says. “If you tugged too hard, the web would break and you’d lose the kite. Gravity is like this barely bound string that’s really weak, and if you do anything dramatic to the inner binary, you’re going to lose the outer star.”

To really test this idea, however, Burdge carried out simulations to see how such a triple system could have evolved and retained the outer star.

At the start of each simulation, he introduced three stars (the third being the black hole, before it became a black hole). He then ran tens of thousands of simulations, each one with a slightly different scenario for how the third star could have become a black hole, and subsequently affected the motions of the other two stars. For instance, he simulated a supernova, varying the amount and direction of energy that it gave off. He also simulated scenarios of direct collapse, in which the third star simply caved in on itself to form a black hole, without giving off any energy.

“The vast majority of simulations show that the easiest way to make this triple work is through direct collapse,” Burdge says.

In addition to giving clues to the black hole’s origins, the outer star has also revealed the system’s age. The physicists observed that the outer star happens to be in the process of becoming a red giant — a phase that occurs at the end of a star’s life. Based on this stellar transition, the team determined that the outer star is about 4 billion years old. Given that neighboring stars are born around the same time, the team concludes that the black hole triple is also 4 billion years old.

“We’ve never been able to do this before for an old black hole,” Burdge says. “Now we know V404 Cygni is part of a triple, it could have formed from direct collapse, and it formed about 4 billion years ago, thanks to this discovery.”

This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation.

Within the human brain, movement is influenced by a brain region called the striatum, which sends instructions to motor neurons in the brain. Those instructions are conveyed by two pathways, one that initiates movement (“go”) and one that suppresses it (“no-go”).

In a new study, MIT researchers have discovered an additional two pathways that arise in the striatum and appear to modulate the effects of the go and no-go pathways. These newly discovered pathways connect to dopamine-producing neurons in the brain — one stimulates dopamine release and the other inhibits it.

By controlling the amount of dopamine in the brain via clusters of neurons known as striosomes, these pathways appear to modify the instructions given by the go and no-go pathways. They may be especially involved in influencing decisions that have a strong emotional component, the researchers say.

“Among all the regions of the striatum, the striosomes alone turned out to be able to project to the dopamine-containing neurons, which we think has something to do with motivation, mood, and controlling movement,” says Ann Graybiel, an MIT Institute Professor, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the new study.

Iakovos Lazaridis, a research scientist at the McGovern Institute, is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal Current Biology.

New pathways

Graybiel has spent much of her career studying the striatum, a structure located deep within the brain that is involved in learning and decision-making, as well as control of movement.

Within the striatum, neurons are arranged in a labyrinth-like structure that includes striosomes, which Graybiel discovered in the 1970s. The classical go and no-go pathways arise from neurons that surround the striosomes, which are known collectively as the matrix. The matrix cells that give rise to these pathways receive input from sensory processing regions such as the visual cortex and auditory cortex. Then, they send go or no-go commands to neurons in the motor cortex.

However, the function of the striosomes, which are not part of those pathways, remained unknown. For many years, researchers in Graybiel’s lab have been trying to solve that mystery.

Their previous work revealed that striosomes receive much of their input from parts of the brain that process emotion. Within striosomes, there are two major types of neurons, classified as D1 and D2. In a 2015 study, Graybiel found that one of these cell types, D1, sends input to the substantia nigra, which is the brain’s major dopamine-producing center.

It took much longer to trace the output of the other set, D2 neurons. In the new Current Biology study, the researchers discovered that those neurons also eventually project to the substantia nigra, but first they connect to a set of neurons in the globus palladus, which inhibits dopamine output. This pathway, an indirect connection to the substantia nigra, reduces the brain’s dopamine output and inhibits movement.

The researchers also confirmed their earlier finding that the pathway arising from D1 striosomes connects directly to the substantia nigra, stimulating dopamine release and initiating movement.

“In the striosomes, we’ve found what is probably a mimic of the classical go/no-go pathways,” Graybiel says. “They’re like classic motor go/no-go pathways, but they don’t go to the motor output neurons of the basal ganglia. Instead, they go to the dopamine cells, which are so important to movement and motivation.”

Emotional decisions

The findings suggest that the classical model of how the striatum controls movement needs to be modified to include the role of these newly identified pathways. The researchers now hope to test their hypothesis that input related to motivation and emotion, which enters the striosomes from the cortex and the limbic system, influences dopamine levels in a way that can encourage or discourage action.

That dopamine release may be especially relevant for actions that induce anxiety or stress. In their 2015 study, Graybiel’s lab found that striosomes play a key role in making decisions that provoke high levels of anxiety; in particular, those that are high risk but may also have a big payoff.

“Ann Graybiel and colleagues have earlier found that the striosome is concerned with inhibiting dopamine neurons. Now they show unexpectedly that another type of striosomal neuron exerts the opposite effect and can signal reward. The striosomes can thus both up- or down-regulate dopamine activity, a very important discovery. Clearly, the regulation of dopamine activity is critical in our everyday life with regard to both movements and mood, to which the striosomes contribute,” says Sten Grillner, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who was not involved in the research.

Another possibility the researchers plan to explore is whether striosomes and matrix cells are arranged in modules that affect motor control of specific parts of the body.

“The next step is trying to isolate some of these modules, and by simultaneously working with cells that belong to the same module, whether they are in the matrix or striosomes, try to pinpoint how the striosomes modulate the underlying function of each of these modules,” Lazaridis says.

They also hope to explore how the striosomal circuits, which project to the same region of the brain that is ravaged by Parkinson’s disease, may influence that disorder.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Saks-Kavanaugh Foundation, the William N. and Bernice E. Bumpus Foundation, Jim and Joan Schattinger, the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, Robert Buxton, the Simons Foundation, the CHDI Foundation, and an Ellen Schapiro and Gerald Axelbaum Investigator BBRF Young Investigator Grant.

Within the human brain, movement is coordinated by a brain region called the striatum, which sends instructions to motor neurons in the brain. Those instructions are conveyed by two pathways, one that initiates movement (“go”) and one that suppresses it (“no-go”).

In a new study, MIT researchers have discovered an additional two pathways that arise in the striatum and appear to modulate the effects of the go and no-go pathways. These newly discovered pathways connect to dopamine-producing neurons in the brain — one stimulates dopamine release and the other inhibits it.

By controlling the amount of dopamine in the brain via clusters of neurons known as striosomes, these pathways appear to modify the instructions given by the go and no-go pathways. They may be especially involved in influencing decisions that have a strong emotional component, the researchers say.

“Among all the regions of the striatum, the striosomes alone turned out to be able to project to the dopamine-containing neurons, which we think has something to do with motivation, mood, and controlling movement,” says Ann Graybiel, an MIT Institute Professor, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the new study.

Iakovos Lazaridis, a research scientist at the McGovern Institute, is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal Current Biology.

New pathways

Graybiel has spent much of her career studying the striatum, a structure located deep within the brain that is involved in learning and decision-making, as well as control of movement.

Within the striatum, neurons are arranged in a labyrinth-like structure that includes striosomes, which Graybiel discovered in the 1970s. The classical go and no-go pathways arise from neurons that surround the striosomes, which are known collectively as the matrix. The matrix cells that give rise to these pathways receive input from sensory processing regions such as the visual cortex and auditory cortex. Then, they send go or no-go commands to neurons in the motor cortex.

However, the function of the striosomes, which are not part of those pathways, remained unknown. For many years, researchers in Graybiel’s lab have been trying to solve that mystery.

Their previous work revealed that striosomes receive much of their input from parts of the brain that process emotion. Within striosomes, there are two major types of neurons, classified as D1 and D2. In a 2015 study, Graybiel found that one of these cell types, D1, sends input to the substantia nigra, which is the brain’s major dopamine-producing center.

It took much longer to trace the output of the other set, D2 neurons. In the new Current Biology study, the researchers discovered that those neurons also eventually project to the substantia nigra, but first they connect to a set of neurons in the globus palladus, which inhibits dopamine output. This pathway, an indirect connection to the substantia nigra, reduces the brain’s dopamine output and inhibits movement.

The researchers also confirmed their earlier finding that the pathway arising from D1 striosomes connects directly to the substantia nigra, stimulating dopamine release and initiating movement.

“In the striosomes, we’ve found what is probably a mimic of the classical go/no-go pathways,” Graybiel says. “They’re like classic motor go/no-go pathways, but they don’t go to the motor output neurons of the basal ganglia. Instead, they go to the dopamine cells, which are so important to movement and motivation.”

Emotional decisions

The findings suggest that the classical model of how the striatum controls movement needs to be modified to include the role of these newly identified pathways. The researchers now hope to test their hypothesis that input related to motivation and emotion, which enters the striosomes from the cortex and the limbic system, influences dopamine levels in a way that can encourage or discourage action.

That dopamine release may be especially relevant for actions that induce anxiety or stress. In their 2015 study, Graybiel’s lab found that striosomes play a key role in making decisions that provoke high levels of anxiety; in particular, those that are high risk but may also have a big payoff.

“Ann Graybiel and colleagues have earlier found that the striosome is concerned with inhibiting dopamine neurons. Now they show unexpectedly that another type of striosomal neuron exerts the opposite effect and can signal reward. The striosomes can thus both up- or down-regulate dopamine activity, a very important discovery. Clearly, the regulation of dopamine activity is critical in our everyday life with regard to both movements and mood, to which the striosomes contribute,” says Sten Grillner, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who was not involved in the research.

Another possibility the researchers plan to explore is whether striosomes and matrix cells are arranged in modules that affect motor control of specific parts of the body.

“The next step is trying to isolate some of these modules, and by simultaneously working with cells that belong to the same module, whether they are in the matrix or striosomes, try to pinpoint how the striosomes modulate the underlying function of each of these modules,” Lazaridis says.

They also hope to explore how the striosomal circuits, which project to the same region of the brain that is ravaged by Parkinson’s disease, may influence that disorder.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Saks-Kavanaugh Foundation, the William N. and Bernice E. Bumpus Foundation, Jim and Joan Schattinger, the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, Robert Buxton, the Simons Foundation, the CHDI Foundation, and an Ellen Schapiro and Gerald Axelbaum Investigator BBRF Young Investigator Grant.

Images of coastal houses being carried off into the sea due to eroding coastlines and powerful storm surges are becoming more commonplace as climate change brings a rising sea level coupled with more powerful storms. In the U.S. alone, coastal storms caused $165 billion in losses in 2022.

Now, a study from MIT shows that protecting and enhancing salt marshes in front of protective seawalls can significantly help protect some coastlines, at a cost that makes this approach reasonable to implement.

The new findings are being reported in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, in a paper by MIT graduate student Ernie I. H. Lee and professor of civil and environmental engineering Heidi Nepf. This study, Nepf says, shows that restoring coastal marshes “is not just something that would be nice to do, but it’s actually economically justifiable.” The researchers found that, among other things, the wave-attenuating effects of salt marsh mean that the seawall behind it can be built significantly lower, reducing construction cost while still providing as much protection from storms.

“One of the other exciting things that the study really brings to light,” Nepf says, “is that you don’t need a huge marsh to get a good effect. It could be a relatively short marsh, just tens of meters wide, that can give you benefit.” That makes her hopeful, Nepf says, that this information might be applied in places where planners may have thought saving a smaller marsh was not worth the expense. “We show that it can make enough of a difference to be financially viable,” she says.

While other studies have previously shown the benefits of natural marshes in attenuating damaging storms, Lee says that such studies “mainly focus on landscapes that have a wide marsh on the order of hundreds of meters. But we want to show that it also applies in urban settings where not as much marsh land is available, especially since in these places existing gray infrastructure (seawalls) tends to already be in place.”

The study was based on computer modeling of waves propagating over different shore profiles, using the morphology of various salt marsh plants — the height and stiffness of the plants, and their spatial density — rather than an empirical drag coefficient. “It’s a physically based model of plant-wave interaction, which allowed us to look at the influence of plant species and changes in morphology across seasons,” without having to go out and calibrate the vegetation drag coefficient with field measurements for each different condition, Nepf says.

The researchers based their benefit-cost analysis on a simple metric: To protect a certain length of shoreline, how much could the height of a given seawall be reduced if it were accompanied by a given amount of marsh? Other ways of assessing the value, such as including the value of real estate that might be damaged by a given amount of flooding, “vary a lot depending on how you value the assets if a flood happens,” Lee says. “We use a more concrete value to quantify the benefits of salt marshes, which is the equivalent height of seawall you would need to deliver the same protection value.”

They used models of a variety of plants, reflecting differences in height and the stiffness across different seasons. They found a twofold variation in the various plants’ effectiveness in attenuating waves, but all provided a useful benefit.

To demonstrate the details in a real-world example and help to validate the simulations, Nepf and Lee studied local salt marshes in Salem, Massachusetts, where projects are already underway to try to restore marshes that had been degraded. Including the specific example provided a template for others, Nepf says. In Salem, their model showed that a healthy salt marsh could offset the need for an additional seawall height of 1.7 meters (about 5.5 feet), based on satisfying a rate of wave overtopping that was set for the safety of pedestrians.

However, the real-world data needed to model a marsh, including maps of salt marsh species, plant height, and shoots per bed area, are “very labor-intensive” to put together, Nepf says. Lee is now developing a method to use drone imaging and machine learning to facilitate this mapmaking. Nepf says this will enable researchers or planners to evaluate a given area of marshland and say, “How much is this marsh worth in terms of its ability to reduce flooding?”

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently released guidance for assessing the value of ecosystem services in planning of federal projects, Nepf explains.  “But in many scenarios, it lacks specific methods for quantifying value, and this study is meeting that need,” she says.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also has a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) toolkit, Lee notes. “They have guidelines on how to quantify each of the environmental services, and one of the novelties of this paper is quantifying the cost and the protection value of marshes. This is one of the applications that policymakers can consider on how to quantify the environmental service values of marshes,” he says.

The software that environmental engineers can apply to specific sites has been made available online for free on GitHub. “It’s a one-dimensional model accessible by a standard consulting firm,” Nepf says.

“This paper presents a practical tool for translating the wave attenuation capabilities of marshes into economic values, which could assist decision-makers in the adaptation of marshes for nature-based coastal defense,” says Xiaoxia Zhang, an assistant professor at Shenzhen University in China who was not involved in this work. “The results indicate that salt marshes are not only environmentally beneficial but also cost-effective.”

The study “is a very important and crucial step to quantifying the protective value of marshes,” adds Bas Borsje, an associate professor of nature-based flood protection at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who was not associated with this work. “The most important step missing at the moment is how to translate our findings to the decision makers. This is the first time I’m aware of that decision-makers are quantitatively informed on the protection value of salt marshes.”

Lee received support for this work from the Schoettler Scholarship Fund, administered by the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

• zbSunday, 20 October 2024, zbW, p2

Marine monitoring is the bedrock of ensuring the health of our oceans and marine life, as it enables the collection of data to understand the biogeochemical processes that drive coastal and ocean systems. There is growing recognition of the importance of marine environment monitoring at the regional scale in safeguarding our shared waters. Data collected could help guide the development of legislation and strategies aimed at protecting our oceans and marine ecosystems.

Advancing marine science research and education

To advance collaboration in marine science research, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the NUS Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September 2024, which outlines a framework for collaboration and sharing of knowledge in marine and climate science research and education between the two institutions. As part of the MoU, PML will collaborate with NUS TMSI, as well as the St John's Island National Marine Laboratory (SJINML) hosted by TMSI, for various marine science research projects.

To kickstart this partnership, SJINML and the Marine Environment Sensing Network (MESN), with support from the British High Commission Singapore and the Conservation Artists Collective, organised the “Marine Monitoring for Action: Safeguarding our Shared Seas through Marine Environment Sensing and Data” workshop which was held in Singapore from 7 to 11 October 2024. The partnership was formally announced at the workshop.

This partnership builds on the long-standing collaboration between Singapore and the UK dating back to the 1950s, which Mr Nikesh Mehta, the British High Commissioner for Singapore, reflected during his welcome address at the workshop. Mr Mehta explained that continuing this historical collaboration is significant in emphasising the importance of global collaboration in marine science research and education.

“As part of the UK and Singapore’s strategic partnership, we are committed to strengthening even further our science and technology partnership, to go further than we did by developing capabilities to address global issues and challenges,” he added.

The workshop drew more than 65 participants from the region and beyond, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and the UK, all working towards a common goal of fostering collaboration and innovation in marine monitoring to protect our oceans and marine ecosystems for the benefit of future generations.

Professor Yaacob Ibrahim, Chairman of the SJINML Governing Board, in his opening remarks, also highlighted the importance of establishing global partnerships. “Marine issues cannot therefore be managed by one country to safeguard our shared seas. Close collaboration, sharing of knowledge, expertise and data are essential,” he said.

The Marine Monitoring for Action workshop is endorsed by the UNESCO International Oceanographic Commission as a UN Ocean Decade workshop. 

A science-based approach for future oil spill response

Mr Desmond Lee, Minister for National Development and Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration, delivered the opening remarks on the second day of the workshop. He emphasised the need for data in shaping policy to protect marine environments. “To ensure the sustainability of our marine biodiversity and its ecosystem, it is crucial that we adopt a science-based approach to monitor and protect our regional waters. Only with science and data can we make a strong case for conservation,” he said.

Mr Lee also announced a 15-month national monitoring plan, as a response to a recent oil spill incident in Singapore that took place in June 2024, to collect baseline data and monitor the impact and recovery of marine habitats after the oil spill. The research team will comprise experts from NParks, NUS TMSI, SJINML and the National Institute of Education.

Dr Tan Koh Siang, Principal Research Fellow at NUS TMSI, who is part of the research team said, “We are interested to see what effects this oil spill has on [organism] communities that are not visually obvious.” He added that the team hopes that their research can provide science-based support in finding ways to respond to future oil spills.

Assisting in the marine monitoring efforts is the MESN buoy, a system that enables real-time monitoring of seawater quality to strengthen climate change and ecological research. The MESN buoy houses a resident suite of sensors and modules for round-the-clock marine monitoring, and aims to collect data of over 30 parameters through near real-time sensing and monthly cruises.

Dr Jani Tanzil, Senior Research Fellow at NUS TMSI and Facility Director of SJINML, added that there are plans to deploy two more MESN buoys, one in the Johor Strait off Pulau Ubin and another in the south Singapore Strait, off Raffles Lighthouse (Pulau Satumu). This will help to expand marine monitoring capabilities and capture the quality of water flushing into Singapore.

The science essential for the ocean we envision

With a schedule packed with talks from marine scientists and hands-on opportunities, the workshop outlined how effective marine monitoring at various levels can help shape marine management and policies, as well as drive the implementation of national, regional, and international legislations and initiatives to protect the marine environment.

Professor Matthew Frost, Head of International Office at PML, highlighted during his presentation that global policies and actions to protect the ocean and marine life “would only work with data and scientific information feeding into it.”

The workshop also provided a platform for participants from across the region to take part in practical sessions to develop skills and acquire the tools needed to obtain rigorous and scientifically credible marine data. During the workshop, the participants actively engaged in discussions about current practices and challenges in marine monitoring, and explored opportunities for collaborative impact-led research for Southeast Asian regional seas.

“The Marine Monitoring for Action workshop was a great opportunity for regional and international stakeholders to harmonise and understand the good practices of marine monitoring in Southeast Asia,” said Dr Wee Hin Boo, Senior Lecturer from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, who attended the workshop.

Participants were also given a tour of the SJINML facility on St John’s Island, which is located approximately 6.5km to the south of the main island of Singapore. During the visit, the MESN team, which include researchers from both NUS and NTU, introduced the different techniques used in marine environment sensing.

“My biggest takeaway from the workshop is learning about the theory of change and the process of developing actionable solutions starting from the impact that we want to make,” said Ms Denise Yu, Research Assistant at NUS TMSI.

The Marine Monitoring for Action workshop helped to foster an environment of mutual learning and exchange of ideas between countries, fuelling future possibilities of regional collaborative research efforts to help protect our shared oceans.

“Armed with the data and knowledge from marine monitoring, we can better position ourselves to be more resilient to the challenges ahead, especially with the uncertainty of climate change and other environmental disturbances from increasing coastal urbanisation,” said Dr Tanzil.

• CNA Online, 22 October 2024

By Prof Tan Huay Cheem, Senior Consultant from the National University Heart Centre, Singapore and Dept of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at NUS

• Lianhe Zaobao, 22 October 2024, Fukan, p4

NUS deepened its historic and longstanding relationship with Universiti Malaya (UM) this month, organising a series of events to celebrate the universities’ academic and social connections.

On 15 October, the inaugural UM-NUS Joint Workshop on Biomedical Engineering 2024 was held on the NUS Kent Ridge campus, bringing together researchers, educators, and scholars to discuss advancements in biomedical engineering and technology. Organised by the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology (iHealthTech) and supported by the NUS Office of Alumni Relations, the event included keynote addresses and talks from 10 UM and NUS researchers, as well as a tour of iHealthTech. Pertinent topics were discussed, including, among others, the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on healthcare and the opportunities that artificial intelligence and the metaverse bring to the field.

“We were excited we could hold this joint event, bringing together leading minds from our two sister universities,” said NUS Professor Lim Chwee Teck, NUS Society Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of iHealthTech. “Workshops like these serve as an important platform for exchanging ideas and exploring potential areas of collaboration.”

Professor Dr Yvonne Lim, Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International) at UM, echoed the sentiment. “This partnership highlights our commitment to advancing innovation that will drive transformative solutions in healthcare technology,” she said. “Together, we aim to inspire new ideas and pave the way for innovation that will benefit both Malaysia and Singapore."

Speaking at the UM-NUS Gala Dinner at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore later that evening, NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye detailed the legacy of cooperation and camaraderie between the two universities. Recent partnerships include the 2023 UM-NUS Joint Symposium on Infectious Diseases and Translational Program, as well as the 2024 expansion of the NUS Overseas Colleges programme to Kuala Lumpur, with UM serving as NUS’ partner university. These examples “demonstrate the shared success of UM and NUS,” said Professor Tan. “By continuing to create and encourage opportunities for collaboration and exchange, UM and NUS are both enriched.”

The Gala Dinner was hosted by NUS Chancellor, His Excellency President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and attended by UM Chancellor, His Royal Highness Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, the Sultan of the state of Perak and Deputy Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. “Events like this are what makes the bond of our historical friendship and ties ever more meaningful, and ever more robust, rooted in unyielding trust and camaraderie,” noted Vice-Chancellor of UM, Professor Dato' Seri Ir. Dr Noor Azuan bin Abu Osman.

Close to 200 NUS and UM alumni and staff joined the formal dinner, which included two stirring performances from the NUS Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music’s alumni string quartet.

A friendly face-off on the fairway

Running parallel to the Joint Workshop and Gala Dinner was the 53rd UM-NUS Inter-University Tunku Chancellor Golf Tournament, which NUS hosted on 15 and 16 October.  Over 100 golfers from UM and NUS participated in the tournament, which was first held in 1968 in Kuala Lumpur.

Over the two days, faculty, staff, and alumni took the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and forge new connections while engaging in friendly competition. Intermittent rain did not dampen the spirits or sportsmanship of the golfers, who enjoyed the social game at Orchid Country Club, and the competitive game at Seletar Country Club. Led by Golf Captain Mr Bernard Toh, the NUS team emerged victorious for the first time since 2019, marking the close to another celebration of the productive partnership between the two universities.

By NUS Office of Alumni Relations

• 8world Online, 21 October 2024

From the annual fall flu clinic to free biometric screenings, Penn provides access to preventive care for students, staff, and faculty.

Researchers push the limits of sound wave control, unlocking the potential for faster, clearer wireless communication and quantum information processing technologies.

By Prof Sing Tien Foo, Provost’s Chair Professor at the Dept of Real Estate at NUS Business School

• Lianhe Zaobao, 21 October 2024, Opinion, p15