Nestled against the lush backdrop of Kent Ridge Forest, Ridge View Residential College (RVRC) is the University’s first and only residential college located outside NUS University Town. Founded on the integrated themes of sustainability and workplace readiness, the College started as a one-year living-learning programme in 2014, expanding into a two-year programme in 2017 and evolving further in 2021 to align with the enhanced NUS General Education Curriculum.

This year, RVRC celebrates its 10th anniversary, a milestone that has seen learning at the residential college transcend the boundaries of the classroom, and its students playing an active role in contributing towards sustainability efforts in NUS and the community.

In line with its sustainability theme, many of the courses offered at RVRC incorporate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, allowing students to explore sustainability initiatives that help shape a future that is more sustainable and equitable for all. This is done through a multifaceted learning approach that focuses on experiential outdoor learning and collaboration with industry partners. In line with its workplace readiness theme, students are also encouraged to participate in meaningful college activities beyond coursework that diversify their interests and skillsets to help develop them into better versions of their current selves.

“Place, Programme, and People are the elements that make for memorable university experiences, and these are the elements that make for a memorable RV10,” said RVRC College Master Associate Professor Sim Tick Ngee, outlining the focus of the year-long celebration in his congratulatory message.

As part of RV10, the College’s initiative to encapsulate the anniversary celebrations, a series of commemorative events were held to strengthen the college culture and collective sense of community among its students, alumni, and staff. Here are three of the events that showcased the different but integrated aspects of life at RVRC – namely academic, student and residential life.

RVRC Symposium: Living and learning for a shared future – the RVRC way

For the first time this year, students led the planning and organising of the annual RVRC Symposium held on 24 February 2024. Some 145 participants comprising students, educators and community partners attended the Symposium which showcased the best of student and alumni achievements through panel discussions, oral presentations, and poster sessions.

Guest-of-Honour Associate Professor Adrian Loo from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences shared about the importance of education and community stewardship for youth, drawing on his extensive experience in his previous role as National Parks Board’s Group Director for Wildlife Management and Senior Director for Community Projects. Participants also gleaned insights from RVRC alumnus, Founder and CEO of Hatch Mr Victor Zhu (Science '20), who shared about his journey in building his start-up with a social mission of providing digital skills and employability programmes whilst still a student at RVRC.

The day’s programme was segmented into three key themes, namely Edu-venture, Adventure, and Venturing Beyond. Edu-venture showcased RVRC’s approach towards fostering a learning ecosystem that has addressed societal and environmental challenges, as well as student projects on real-world issues. Adventure highlighted the importance of various co-curricular and student life activities, which has helped hone students’ soft skills and provided them an avenue to give back to society. Lastly, Venturing Beyond challenged students to build meaningful initiatives that go beyond the walls of the College and beyond their time at NUS, encouraging them to champion lasting environmental and societal changes through innovative means. 

Co-Chair of the Symposium’s organising committee and RVRC Senior Jason Qiu, a Year 4 undergraduate from the School of Computing, said, “It was the insightful questions posed during the presentations along with the meaningful tea break discussions that brought home the value of the engagement for the RVRC community which truly represented the vibrant learning spirit that the College embodies.”

Gala Dinner: Celebrating a decade of shared memories, experiences and achievements

The RVRC 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner on 30 August 2024 saw past and present members of the College celebrate the journey that has shaped RVRC into the unique, dynamic community it is today.

The evening began with a commemorative speech by College Master Assoc Prof Sim, who reflected on the College's decade of achievements. RVRC Rector Dr Noeleen Heyzer and RVRC’s first Director of Studies Associate Professor Lee Kooi Cheng shared about the College's indelible impact over the years while founding RVRC College Master Professor Adekunle Adeyeye recounted the strong foundation upon which the college was built, in a special video message.

Guests were also treated to a night of engaging performances, including song items by RVRC’s Jukebox and the winners of the RV10 songwriting competition, as well as an electrifying dance performance by the NUS Dance Ensemble.

A highlight at the gala dinner was the commemorative video created by RVRC students which showcased RVRC’s key milestones since its inception, evoking a deep sense of nostalgia amongst alumni, faculty and staff, both past and present, who had an enjoyable time reconnecting and reminiscing about the pivotal moments that defined their time at the College.

RVRC alumnus Zhang Xiangyu Oliver (Business ‘24), said, “It was great to reconnect with the people who made my four-year journey in RVRC memorable, and celebrate together the countless milestones of the college since inception. I’m confident that RVRC will continue to inspire the next generation in the upcoming decade and beyond!”

RVRC Day: Building bridges, strengthening bonds

Apart from sustainability, the RVRC community is also passionate about giving back to society, a cornerstone of NUS' ethos. The theme of RVRC Day – Building Bridges, Strengthening Bonds – underscored the importance of community building, not just amongst the RVRC community of students and staff, but just as importantly, with the wider community and the less privileged.

In the early morning hours of 26 October 2024, the RVRC community gathered at the Harbourfront area for Walk for Rice, a long-running signature event at RVRC to support vulnerable families. In partnership with a charity organisation, for every 300 meters walked, food donations were made to support vulnerable families, turning each step into a meaningful act of kindness. With the support of 52 RVRC students and staff, a total of 520 kilometres were clocked, making possible a donation of 1,733 packets of rice and oatmeal.

Following the charity walk, the event continued with a second segment focused on community engagement. Titled OutRidge, this initiative aimed to raise awareness for persons with disabilities (PWDs), foster inclusivity and inspire participants to take active steps toward building a more inclusive society. In addition to having the opportunity to interact with PWDs on their lived experiences and challenges, the event held at the College also featured a fireside chat with two invited speakers – Year 4 NUS student Kimberly Quek, a Deaflympic athlete who won numerous medals at international bowling competitions, and Joan Hung, a visually impaired para athlete with Team Singapore.

Additionally, participants had the opportunity to engage in interactive games at several informative booths designed by RVRC students to raise awareness about the daily challenges faced by PWDs. They also lent their support through their patronage of the food stalls set up by social enterprises that advocate for the PWD community.

RVRC Senior and Year 3 Computing undergraduate Soh Zheng Yang, Marcus, reflected, “I found the fireside chat to be eye-opening, especially when the two speakers shared about how they strive to overcome the challenges they face in pursuing their dreams. The interactive booths made me realise how adaptable PWDs have to be, to overcome the limitations of living in a society that does not primarily cater to their special needs or circumstances. I was happy to see the RVRC community come together to empower PWDs through active participation and enhanced awareness.”

As the celebrations come to a close, College Master Assoc Prof Sim, said, “The conclusion of the year-long activities held in conjunction with RV10 has brought a renewed understanding of what has shaped the College into what it is today. With this reflection comes a strong sense of optimism for the future—one where the College continues to evolve, striving towards becoming a better place that offers a more robust RVRC programme with a more united and inclusive RVRC community.”

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell has announced the appointment of Professor Muthupandian Ashokkumar as Director of the Melbourne Global Centre in Delhi.

The Irish philosopher George Berkely, best known for his theory of immaterialism, once famously mused, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

What about AI-generated trees? They probably wouldn’t make a sound, but they will be critical nonetheless for applications such as adaptation of urban flora to climate change. To that end, the novel “Tree-D Fusion” system developed by researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Google, and Purdue University merges AI and tree-growth models with Google's Auto Arborist data to create accurate 3D models of existing urban trees. The project has produced the first-ever large-scale database of 600,000 environmentally aware, simulation-ready tree models across North America.

“We’re bridging decades of forestry science with modern AI capabilities,” says Sara Beery, MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) assistant professor, MIT CSAIL principal investigator, and a co-author on a new paper about Tree-D Fusion. “This allows us to not just identify trees in cities, but to predict how they’ll grow and impact their surroundings over time. We’re not ignoring the past 30 years of work in understanding how to build these 3D synthetic models; instead, we’re using AI to make this existing knowledge more useful across a broader set of individual trees in cities around North America, and eventually the globe.”

Tree-D Fusion builds on previous urban forest monitoring efforts that used Google Street View data, but branches it forward by generating complete 3D models from single images. While earlier attempts at tree modeling were limited to specific neighborhoods, or struggled with accuracy at scale, Tree-D Fusion can create detailed models that include typically hidden features, such as the back side of trees that aren’t visible in street-view photos.

The technology’s practical applications extend far beyond mere observation. City planners could use Tree-D Fusion to one day peer into the future, anticipating where growing branches might tangle with power lines, or identifying neighborhoods where strategic tree placement could maximize cooling effects and air quality improvements. These predictive capabilities, the team says, could change urban forest management from reactive maintenance to proactive planning.

A tree grows in Brooklyn (and many other places)

The researchers took a hybrid approach to their method, using deep learning to create a 3D envelope of each tree’s shape, then using traditional procedural models to simulate realistic branch and leaf patterns based on the tree’s genus. This combo helped the model predict how trees would grow under different environmental conditions and climate scenarios, such as different possible local temperatures and varying access to groundwater.

Now, as cities worldwide grapple with rising temperatures, this research offers a new window into the future of urban forests. In a collaboration with MIT’s Senseable City Lab, the Purdue University and Google team is embarking on a global study that re-imagines trees as living climate shields. Their digital modeling system captures the intricate dance of shade patterns throughout the seasons, revealing how strategic urban forestry could hopefully change sweltering city blocks into more naturally cooled neighborhoods.

“Every time a street mapping vehicle passes through a city now, we’re not just taking snapshots — we’re watching these urban forests evolve in real-time,” says Beery. “This continuous monitoring creates a living digital forest that mirrors its physical counterpart, offering cities a powerful lens to observe how environmental stresses shape tree health and growth patterns across their urban landscape.”

AI-based tree modeling has emerged as an ally in the quest for environmental justice: By mapping urban tree canopy in unprecedented detail, a sister project from the Google AI for Nature team has helped uncover disparities in green space access across different socioeconomic areas. “We’re not just studying urban forests — we’re trying to cultivate more equity,” says Beery. The team is now working closely with ecologists and tree health experts to refine these models, ensuring that as cities expand their green canopies, the benefits branch out to all residents equally.

It’s a breeze

While Tree-D fusion marks some major “growth” in the field, trees can be uniquely challenging for computer vision systems. Unlike the rigid structures of buildings or vehicles that current 3D modeling techniques handle well, trees are nature’s shape-shifters — swaying in the wind, interweaving branches with neighbors, and constantly changing their form as they grow. The Tree-D fusion models are “simulation-ready” in that they can estimate the shape of the trees in the future, depending on the environmental conditions.

“What makes this work exciting is how it pushes us to rethink fundamental assumptions in computer vision,” says Beery. “While 3D scene understanding techniques like photogrammetry or NeRF [neural radiance fields] excel at capturing static objects, trees demand new approaches that can account for their dynamic nature, where even a gentle breeze can dramatically alter their structure from moment to moment.”

The team’s approach of creating rough structural envelopes that approximate each tree’s form has proven remarkably effective, but certain issues remain unsolved. Perhaps the most vexing is the “entangled tree problem;” when neighboring trees grow into each other, their intertwined branches create a puzzle that no current AI system can fully unravel.

The scientists see their dataset as a springboard for future innovations in computer vision, and they’re already exploring applications beyond street view imagery, looking to extend their approach to platforms like iNaturalist and wildlife camera traps.

“This marks just the beginning for Tree-D Fusion,” says Jae Joong Lee, a Purdue University PhD student who developed, implemented and deployed the Tree-D-Fusion algorithm. “Together with my collaborators, I envision expanding the platform’s capabilities to a planetary scale. Our goal is to use AI-driven insights in service of natural ecosystems — supporting biodiversity, promoting global sustainability, and ultimately, benefiting the health of our entire planet.”

Beery and Lee’s co-authors are Jonathan Huang, Scaled Foundations head of AI (formerly of Google); and four others from Purdue University: PhD students Jae Joong Lee and Bosheng Li, Professor and Dean's Chair of Remote Sensing Songlin Fei, Assistant Professor Raymond Yeh, and Professor and Associate Head of Computer Science Bedrich Benes. Their work is based on efforts supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service and is directly supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The researchers presented their findings at the European Conference on Computer Vision this month. 

The Irish philosopher George Berkely, best known for his theory of immaterialism, once famously mused, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

What about AI-generated trees? They probably wouldn’t make a sound, but they will be critical nonetheless for applications such as adaptation of urban flora to climate change. To that end, the novel “Tree-D Fusion” system developed by researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Google, and Purdue University merges AI and tree-growth models with Google's Auto Arborist data to create accurate 3D models of existing urban trees. The project has produced the first-ever large-scale database of 600,000 environmentally aware, simulation-ready tree models across North America.

“We’re bridging decades of forestry science with modern AI capabilities,” says Sara Beery, MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) assistant professor, MIT CSAIL principal investigator, and a co-author on a new paper about Tree-D Fusion. “This allows us to not just identify trees in cities, but to predict how they’ll grow and impact their surroundings over time. We’re not ignoring the past 30 years of work in understanding how to build these 3D synthetic models; instead, we’re using AI to make this existing knowledge more useful across a broader set of individual trees in cities around North America, and eventually the globe.”

Tree-D Fusion builds on previous urban forest monitoring efforts that used Google Street View data, but branches it forward by generating complete 3D models from single images. While earlier attempts at tree modeling were limited to specific neighborhoods, or struggled with accuracy at scale, Tree-D Fusion can create detailed models that include typically hidden features, such as the back side of trees that aren’t visible in street-view photos.

The technology’s practical applications extend far beyond mere observation. City planners could use Tree-D Fusion to one day peer into the future, anticipating where growing branches might tangle with power lines, or identifying neighborhoods where strategic tree placement could maximize cooling effects and air quality improvements. These predictive capabilities, the team says, could change urban forest management from reactive maintenance to proactive planning.

A tree grows in Brooklyn (and many other places)

The researchers took a hybrid approach to their method, using deep learning to create a 3D envelope of each tree’s shape, then using traditional procedural models to simulate realistic branch and leaf patterns based on the tree’s genus. This combo helped the model predict how trees would grow under different environmental conditions and climate scenarios, such as different possible local temperatures and varying access to groundwater.

Now, as cities worldwide grapple with rising temperatures, this research offers a new window into the future of urban forests. In a collaboration with MIT’s Senseable City Lab, the Purdue University and Google team is embarking on a global study that re-imagines trees as living climate shields. Their digital modeling system captures the intricate dance of shade patterns throughout the seasons, revealing how strategic urban forestry could hopefully change sweltering city blocks into more naturally cooled neighborhoods.

“Every time a street mapping vehicle passes through a city now, we’re not just taking snapshots — we’re watching these urban forests evolve in real-time,” says Beery. “This continuous monitoring creates a living digital forest that mirrors its physical counterpart, offering cities a powerful lens to observe how environmental stresses shape tree health and growth patterns across their urban landscape.”

AI-based tree modeling has emerged as an ally in the quest for environmental justice: By mapping urban tree canopy in unprecedented detail, a sister project from the Google AI for Nature team has helped uncover disparities in green space access across different socioeconomic areas. “We’re not just studying urban forests — we’re trying to cultivate more equity,” says Beery. The team is now working closely with ecologists and tree health experts to refine these models, ensuring that as cities expand their green canopies, the benefits branch out to all residents equally.

It’s a breeze

While Tree-D fusion marks some major “growth” in the field, trees can be uniquely challenging for computer vision systems. Unlike the rigid structures of buildings or vehicles that current 3D modeling techniques handle well, trees are nature’s shape-shifters — swaying in the wind, interweaving branches with neighbors, and constantly changing their form as they grow. The Tree-D fusion models are “simulation-ready” in that they can estimate the shape of the trees in the future, depending on the environmental conditions.

“What makes this work exciting is how it pushes us to rethink fundamental assumptions in computer vision,” says Beery. “While 3D scene understanding techniques like photogrammetry or NeRF [neural radiance fields] excel at capturing static objects, trees demand new approaches that can account for their dynamic nature, where even a gentle breeze can dramatically alter their structure from moment to moment.”

The team’s approach of creating rough structural envelopes that approximate each tree’s form has proven remarkably effective, but certain issues remain unsolved. Perhaps the most vexing is the “entangled tree problem;” when neighboring trees grow into each other, their intertwined branches create a puzzle that no current AI system can fully unravel.

The scientists see their dataset as a springboard for future innovations in computer vision, and they’re already exploring applications beyond street view imagery, looking to extend their approach to platforms like iNaturalist and wildlife camera traps.

“This marks just the beginning for Tree-D Fusion,” says Jae Joong Lee, a Purdue University PhD student who developed, implemented and deployed the Tree-D-Fusion algorithm. “Together with my collaborators, I envision expanding the platform’s capabilities to a planetary scale. Our goal is to use AI-driven insights in service of natural ecosystems — supporting biodiversity, promoting global sustainability, and ultimately, benefiting the health of our entire planet.”

Beery and Lee’s co-authors are Jonathan Huang, Scaled Foundations head of AI (formerly of Google); and four others from Purdue University: PhD students Jae Joong Lee and Bosheng Li, Professor and Dean's Chair of Remote Sensing Songlin Fei, Assistant Professor Raymond Yeh, and Professor and Associate Head of Computer Science Bedrich Benes. Their work is based on efforts supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service and is directly supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The researchers presented their findings at the European Conference on Computer Vision this month. 

Penn’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 4.0 outlines sustainability goals for fiscal year 2025-29 and lays out Penn’s path toward carbon neutrality by 2042.

The plan outlines a sweeping strategy to become the nation’s most eco-friendly health care organization.

Will Chan, a Thouron Scholar and Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics, is also an advocate for building Asian communities.

As young children, how do we build our vocabulary? Even by age 1, many infants seem to think that if they hear a new word, it means something different from the words they already know. But why they think so has remained subject to inquiry among scholars for the last 40 years.

A new study carried out at the MIT Language Acquisition Lab offers a novel insight into the matter: Sentences contain subtle hints in their grammar that tell young children about the meaning of new words. The finding, based on experiments with 2-year-olds, suggests that even very young kids are capable of absorbing grammatical cues from language and leveraging that information to acquire new words.

“Even at a surprisingly young age, kids have sophisticated knowledge of the grammar of sentences and can use that to learn the meanings of new words,” says Athulya Aravind, an associate professor of linguistics at MIT.

The new insight stands in contrast to a prior explanation for how children build vocabulary: that they rely on the concept of “mutual exclusivity,” meaning they treat each new word as corresponding to a new object or category. Instead, the new research shows how extensively children respond directly to grammatical information when interpreting words.

“For us it’s very exciting because it’s a very simple idea that explains so much about how children understand language,” says Gabor Brody, a postdoc at Brown University, who is the first author of the paper.

The paper is titled, “Why Do Children Think Words Are Mutually Exclusive?” It is published in advance online form in Psychological Science. The authors are Brody; Roman Feiman, the Thomas J. and Alice M. Tisch Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences and Linguistics at Brown; and Aravind, the Alfred Henry and Jean Morrison Hayes Career Development Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Focusing on focus

Many scholars have thought that young children, when learning new words, have an innate bias toward mutual exclusivity, which could explain how children learn some of their new words. However, the concept of mutual exclusivity has never been airtight: Words like “bat” refer to multiple kinds of objects, while any object can be described using countlessly many words. For instance a rabbit can be called not only a “rabbit” or a “bunny,” but also an “animal,” or a “beauty,” and in some contexts even a “delicacy.” Despite this lack of perfect one-to-one mapping between words and objects, mutual exclusivity has still been posited as a strong tendency in children’s word learning.

What Aravind, Brody, and Fieman propose is that children have no such tendency, and instead rely on so-called “focus” signals to decide what a new word means. Linguists use the term “focus” to refer to the way we emphasize or stress certain words to signal some kind of contrast. Depending on what is focused, the same sentence can have different implications. “Carlos gave Lewis a Ferrari” implies contrast with other possible cars — he could have given Lewis a Mercedes. But “Carlos gave Lewis a Ferrari” implies contrast with other people — he could have given Alexandra a Ferrari.

The researchers’ experiments manipulated focus in three experiments with a total of 106 children. The participants watched videos of a cartoon fox who asked them to point to different objects.

The first experiment established how focus influences kids’ choice between two objects when they hear a label, like “toy,” that could, in principle, correspond to either of the two. After giving a name to one of the two objects (“Look, I am pointing to the blicket”), the fox told the child, “Now you point to the toy!” Children were divided into two groups. One group heard “toy” without emphasis, while the other heard it with emphasis.

In the first version, “blicket” and “toy” plausibly refer to the same object. But in the second version, the added focus, through intonation, implies that “toy” contrasts with the previously discussed “blicket.” Without focus, only 24 percent of the respondents thought the words were mutually exclusive, whereas with the focus created by emphasizing “toy,” 89 percent of participants thought “blicket” and “toy” referred to different objects.

The second and third experiments showed that focus is not just key when it comes to words like “toy,” but it also affects the interpretation of new words children have never encountered before, like “wug” or “dax.” If a new word was said without focus, children thought the word meant the previously named object 71 percent of the time. But when hearing the new word spoken with focus, they thought it must refer to a new object 87 percent of the time.

“Even though they know nothing about this new word, when it was focused, that still told them something: Focus communicated to children the presence of a contrasting alternative, and they correspondingly understood the noun to refer to an object that had not previously been labeled,” Aravind explains.

She adds: “The particular claim we’re making is that there is no inherent bias in children toward mutual exclusivity. The only reason we make the corresponding inference is because focus tells you that the word means something different from another word. When focus goes away, children don’t draw those exclusivity inferences any more.”

The researchers believe the full set of experiments sheds new light on the issue.

“Earlier explanations of mutual exclusivity introduced a whole new problem,” Feiman says. “If kids assume words are mutually exclusive, how do they learn words that are not? After all, you can call the same animal either a rabbit or a bunny, and kids have to learn both of those at some point. Our finding explains why this isn't actually a problem. Kids won’t think the new word is mutually exclusive with the old word by default, unless adults tell them that it is — all adults have to do if the new word is not mutually exclusive is just say it without focusing it, and they’ll naturally do that if they're thinking about it as compatible.”

Learning language from language

The experiment, the researchers note, is the result of interdisciplinary research bridging psychology and linguistics — in this case, mobilizing the linguistics concept of focus to address an issue of interest in both fields.

“We are hopeful this will be a paper that shows that small, simple theories have a place in psychology,” Brody says. “It is a very small theory, not a huge model of the mind, but it completely flips the switch on some phenomena we thought we understood.”

If the new hypothesis is correct, the researchers may have developed a more robust explanation about how children correctly apply new words.

“An influential idea in language development is that children can use their existing knowledge of language to learn more language,” Aravind says. “We’re in a sense building on that idea, and saying that even in the simplest cases, aspects of language that children already know, in this case an understanding of focus, help them grasp the meanings of unknown words.”

The scholars acknowledge that more studies could further advance our knowledge about the issue. Future research, they note in the paper, could reexamine prior studies about mutual exclusivity, record and study naturalistic interactions between parents and children to see how focus is used, and examine the issue in other languages, especially those marking focus in alternate ways, such as word order.

The research was supported, in part, by a Jacobs Foundation Fellowship awarded to Feiman.

• Lianhe Zaobao, 19 November 2024, Focus, p4

By Liu Jingting, Ulrike Sengstschmid, Bowen Yan, and Thi Hang Banh, researchers from the Asia Competitiveness Institute at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS

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By Assoc Prof Brian D. Earp, Dir of the Oxford-NUS Centre for Neuroethics and Society (OCNS) and the EARP Lab; Prof Julian Savulescu, Chen Su Lan Centennial Professor, both from the Dept of Biomedical Ethics (CBmE) at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; and Dr Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Visiting Research Fellow

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University of Melbourne and La Trobe University have begun a project to compile a four-volume collection of key documents that tell the story of Australian history from an Aboriginal perspective, which will be sent to remote community schools across Australia and will eventually be in every school and public library.

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A visionary gift from Pamela Galli AO will sustain and advance research into neurodevelopmental disorders, skin cancer prevention and treatments, as well as enabling new areas of investigation and research collaboration.

Each year on World Philosophy Day on 21 November, people around the globe are invited to reflect on the role philosophy plays in shaping our understanding of the world.

Philosophy, meaning ‘love of wisdom’, is interpreted differently by different people, and this diversity of interpretation is one of its most enduring strengths. For some, it’s an intellectual pursuit, a way of seeking deep truths about existence, morality, and knowledge. For others, it’s simply a practical guide to living more meaningfully.

“Philosophy is an attempt to make sense of life, the universe, and everything, through human reason,” says Associate Professor Loy Hui Chieh from the Department of Philosophy at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

For final-year Philosophy major Christopher Chin, the understanding of philosophy challenges our norms and forces us to grow, while final-year History and Philosophy double major Sofia Marliini Heikkonen believes it offers the privilege of interrogating life.

Dr Daryl Ooi, a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy agrees, saying that, “Philosophy is one of the activities humans practice when we’re trying to figure out how to relate and orientate ourselves to this exciting, complex and confusing world we live in.”

Fundamentally, however, philosophy is a way of thinking that cuts to the heart of what it means to be human.

‘Confucius says…’

The foundational ideas established by many great thinkers and philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have shaped our understanding of the world. These renowned philosophers pioneered the use of reason and logic to explore the workings of the universe while delving into the complexities of human morality.

Although Confucius lived around 500 BC, some 2,500 years ago, today he remains synonymous with wisdom and insights into life. The expression ‘Confucius says...’ is often cited when imparting general wisdom, exemplifying how philosophy transcends time and generations.

In the context of retaliation, for example – whether in war or conflict – one might consider Confucius’ wise words before determining a course of action: ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’

“A common misunderstanding about philosophy is that it’s purely abstract and impractical, dealing only with questions that have no real-world impact. In reality, many of the questions discussed in philosophy have significant real-world implications,” said the Department’s Assistant Professor Song Moonyoung.

A compass for the modern world

Some may question the relevance of philosophical thinking today given the proliferation of science and technology that comes with the promise to simplify our lives and even make decisions on our behalf. Philosophers, however, agree that as the world changes rapidly through technology and social upheaval, the role of philosophy will only grow in importance.

Dr Ooi believes that as long as humans continue to ask big and narrow questions about the world today and attempt to make sense of their beliefs, values, emotions and ideas, philosophy will continue to endure.

Likewise, Asst Prof Song believes philosophy is even more relevant in a time when science and technology are at the forefront. “Philosophy encourages us to consider the ethical implications of technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering, and guides us in making thoughtful, responsible choices about their development and use,” she says.

Assoc Prof Loy views philosophy as one part of a much larger repertoire now available to modern humanity. Its strength stems not from disregarding developments in other fields and domains, but from working in tandem with them. “Take artificial intelligence or AI for example. I have been drawn to research projects that look into how AI will affect education because it involves contributions from social science, data science, computer science and many others,” he says.  

Related to that is the complex task of developing a practical governing framework for the development of AI and, even more critically, the ethics of its application. Dr Ooi, himself a former student of Assoc Prof Loy, says that the intricacy of such tasks is precisely the reason we recognise the value of interdisciplinary education.

He explains, “We need specialists from different disciplines to work together – and philosophers certainly have much to contribute towards the development or shaping of any kind of moral framework that would support the development and application of AI. Get a philosopher in the room to ask questions about ethics and morality, or even what it means to be human. This will trigger some incredibly meaningful and important conversations, and sometimes, you may even get something like an answer!”

Assoc Prof Loy, who is also Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) for NUS College, adds that he sees philosophers as some of the most interested and equipped people to discuss complex issues, not necessarily by supplying any ready-made “moral framework”, but simply by being people who are keen on thinking very carefully and working with experts from other technical disciplines.

Expanding on this perspective, Asst Prof Song, who specialises in the philosophy of art, notes that the increasing integration of AI into our lives invites us to reflect on what truly defines humanity. The answer may not lie in what we can do better than AI. Instead, what makes us special may indeed be our limitations, such as the fact that humans have physical bodies that inevitably age and perish.

She adds, “These limitations give human achievements – such as artwork – a completely different meaning, even if, on the surface, they may look similar to AI-created products.”

In recent years, mental health has become another area where philosophy provides a unique lens through which we can understand and address psychological well-being. Commenting on the role of philosophy or philosophical ideas in mental health treatment or in helping people cope with mental health challenges, Dr Ooi highlights the increasing attention given to the therapeutic value of philosophical ideas.

He says, “The idea of ‘care for the soul’ and ‘care for the self’ is a historically important one that is of immense relevance for us today, and there are many important philosophical questions that we can ask that are highly relevant to issues surrounding mental health today. For instance, how do we understand the obligations individuals have to care for one another, should education systems have an ethical responsibility to ensure that students do not suffer certain harms, or how can individuals and societies understand values such as ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ so that those values shape the way humans treat each other?”

Many of the tools employed in philosophy and the intellectual dispositions it nurtures have broad applications – particularly in instances where careful reasoning is needed or when navigating any situations without any clear precedents. This intellectual rigour is what has drawn some undergraduates to take up Philosophy to complement other fields of study, recognising the value of the discipline’s critical thinking and reasoning skills.  

Joan Lim, a final-year Philosophy and Life Sciences double degree student, was first introduced to Philosophy in secondary school.

Joan was part of the pioneering batch at the College of Humanities and Sciences and says she jumped at the opportunity to take two contrasting degrees, believing in the importance of an interdisciplinary education to gain a deeper understanding of our increasingly complex and interconnected world. 

“I feel that the disciplines are complementary because science needs to be ethically applied, and the humanities benefit from the real-world grounding from the sciences.  Fields such as AI and sustainability consider the best ways to apply science and technology such that harm may be reduced; a purely scientific approach may lack that moral analysis.”

Armed with the insights gained from her philosophy studies, Joan is looking for a career that will allow her to contribute to the field of sustainability, another existential challenge for mankind. “I hope to provide an ethical and logical lens for analysing complex issues such as sustainability and AI, but also in the vein of the philosophical training that I have received here at NUS, one which is empathetic and kind,” she says.

Marliini, who has always felt very strongly about diversity, representation and inclusivity, is looking for opportunities to build bridges within the communities around her. “I'm still discovering what exactly my career will look like post-graduation, and what excites me is the prospect of fostering environments where people feel empowered, accepted and connected.”

Beyond its influence on society, Christopher believes that philosophy’s teachings have made an impact on his personal relationships.

“The clarity and discernment that philosophy teaches us should be channelled towards goodness. It reminds us to be compassionate because as (Chinese Confucian philosopher) Mengzi suggests, all humans have the heart of compassion. Whatever the psychological pain, I believe being compassionate, empathetic, and present should be our first response,” says Christopher, reflecting on the wisdom drawn from philosophy when dealing with friends and loved ones in need.

Enduring influence in shaping humanity

From artificial intelligence to mental health, philosophy offers a powerful lens for understanding and navigating the complexities of contemporary life. Whether for those immersed in academic inquiry or individuals looking for clarity in a fast-paced world, philosophy provides a space for thoughtful reflection, grounded in the search for truth and meaning.

Assoc Prof Loy has noted how students get to have a lot of intellectual fun reading philosophy while giving them leverage for other intellectual pursuits.

“Everyone stands to gain from the process of philosophical inquiry,” says Marliini. “The skills we learn are beneficial far beyond academics because philosophy at its core teaches us how to hold space for different perspectives while maintaining the rigour to examine and articulate our own.”

In the words of Peter Singer, one of the most highly regarded modern philosophers alive today, “Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.”

Acoustic metamaterials — architected materials that have tailored geometries designed to control the propagation of acoustic or elastic waves through a medium — have been studied extensively through computational and theoretical methods. Physical realizations of these materials to date have been restricted to large sizes and low frequencies.

“The multifunctionality of metamaterials — being simultaneously lightweight and strong while having tunable acoustic properties — make them great candidates for use in extreme-condition engineering applications,” explains Carlos Portela, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Chair and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “But challenges in miniaturizing and characterizing acoustic metamaterials at high frequencies have hindered progress towards realizing advanced materials that have ultrasonic-wave control capabilities.”

A new study coauthored by Portela; Rachel Sun, Jet Lem, and Yun Kai of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE); and Washington DeLima of the U.S. Department of Energy Kansas City National Security Campus presents a design framework for controlling ultrasound wave propagation in microscopic acoustic metamaterials. A paper on the work, “Tailored Ultrasound Propagation in Microscale Metamaterials via Inertia Design,” was recently published in the journal Science Advances. 

“Our work proposes a design framework based on precisely positioning microscale spheres to tune how ultrasound waves travel through 3D microscale metamaterials,” says Portela. “Specifically, we investigate how placing microscopic spherical masses within a metamaterial lattice affect how fast ultrasound waves travel throughout, ultimately leading to wave guiding or focusing responses.”

Through nondestructive, high-throughput laser-ultrasonics characterization, the team experimentally demonstrates tunable elastic-wave velocities within microscale materials. They use the varied wave velocities to spatially and temporally tune wave propagation in microscale materials, also demonstrating an acoustic demultiplexer (a device that separates one acoustic signal into multiple output signals). The work paves the way for microscale devices and components that could be useful for ultrasound imaging or information transmission via ultrasound.

“Using simple geometrical changes, this design framework expands the tunable dynamic property space of metamaterials, enabling straightforward design and fabrication of microscale acoustic metamaterials and devices,” says Portela.

The research also advances experimental capabilities, including fabrication and characterization, of microscale acoustic metamaterials toward application in medical ultrasound and mechanical computing applications, and underscores the underlying mechanics of ultrasound wave propagation in metamaterials, tuning dynamic properties via simple geometric changes and describing these changes as a function of changes in mass and stiffness. More importantly, the framework is amenable to other fabrication techniques beyond the microscale, requiring merely a single constituent material and one base 3D geometry to attain largely tunable properties.

“The beauty of this framework is that it fundamentally links physical material properties to geometric features. By placing spherical masses on a spring-like lattice scaffold, we could create direct analogies for how mass affects quasi-static stiffness and dynamic wave velocity,” says Sun, first author of the study. “I realized that we could obtain hundreds of different designs and corresponding material properties regardless of whether we vibrated or slowly compressed the materials.”

Acoustic metamaterials — architected materials that have tailored geometries designed to control the propagation of acoustic or elastic waves through a medium — have been studied extensively through computational and theoretical methods. Physical realizations of these materials to date have been restricted to large sizes and low frequencies.

“The multifunctionality of metamaterials — being simultaneously lightweight and strong while having tunable acoustic properties — make them great candidates for use in extreme-condition engineering applications,” explains Carlos Portela, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Chair and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “But challenges in miniaturizing and characterizing acoustic metamaterials at high frequencies have hindered progress towards realizing advanced materials that have ultrasonic-wave control capabilities.”

A new study coauthored by Portela; Rachel Sun, Jet Lem, and Yun Kai of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE); and Washington DeLima of the U.S. Department of Energy Kansas City National Security Campus presents a design framework for controlling ultrasound wave propagation in microscopic acoustic metamaterials. A paper on the work, “Tailored Ultrasound Propagation in Microscale Metamaterials via Inertia Design,” was recently published in the journal Science Advances. 

“Our work proposes a design framework based on precisely positioning microscale spheres to tune how ultrasound waves travel through 3D microscale metamaterials,” says Portela. “Specifically, we investigate how placing microscopic spherical masses within a metamaterial lattice affect how fast ultrasound waves travel throughout, ultimately leading to wave guiding or focusing responses.”

Through nondestructive, high-throughput laser-ultrasonics characterization, the team experimentally demonstrates tunable elastic-wave velocities within microscale materials. They use the varied wave velocities to spatially and temporally tune wave propagation in microscale materials, also demonstrating an acoustic demultiplexer (a device that separates one acoustic signal into multiple output signals). The work paves the way for microscale devices and components that could be useful for ultrasound imaging or information transmission via ultrasound.

“Using simple geometrical changes, this design framework expands the tunable dynamic property space of metamaterials, enabling straightforward design and fabrication of microscale acoustic metamaterials and devices,” says Portela.

The research also advances experimental capabilities, including fabrication and characterization, of microscale acoustic metamaterials toward application in medical ultrasound and mechanical computing applications, and underscores the underlying mechanics of ultrasound wave propagation in metamaterials, tuning dynamic properties via simple geometric changes and describing these changes as a function of changes in mass and stiffness. More importantly, the framework is amenable to other fabrication techniques beyond the microscale, requiring merely a single constituent material and one base 3D geometry to attain largely tunable properties.

“The beauty of this framework is that it fundamentally links physical material properties to geometric features. By placing spherical masses on a spring-like lattice scaffold, we could create direct analogies for how mass affects quasi-static stiffness and dynamic wave velocity,” says Sun, first author of the study. “I realized that we could obtain hundreds of different designs and corresponding material properties regardless of whether we vibrated or slowly compressed the materials.”

In 2015, 195 nations plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement and pledged to undertake plans designed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yet in 2023, the world exceeded that target for most, if not all of, the year — calling into question the long-term feasibility of achieving that target.

To do so, the world must reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and strategies for achieving levels that will “stabilize the climate” have been both proposed and adopted. Many of those strategies combine dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions with the use of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that removes CO₂ from the ambient air. As a reality check, a team of researchers in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) examined those strategies, and what they found was alarming: The strategies rely on overly optimistic — indeed, unrealistic — assumptions about how much CO₂ could be removed by DAC. As a result, the strategies won’t perform as predicted. Nevertheless, the MITEI team recommends that work to develop the DAC technology continue so that it’s ready to help with the energy transition — even if it’s not the silver bullet that solves the world’s decarbonization challenge.

DAC: The promise and the reality

Including DAC in plans to stabilize the climate makes sense. Much work is now under way to develop DAC systems, and the technology looks promising. While companies may never run their own DAC systems, they can already buy “carbon credits” based on DAC. Today, a multibillion-dollar market exists on which entities or individuals that face high costs or excessive disruptions to reduce their own carbon emissions can pay others to take emissions-reducing actions on their behalf. Those actions can involve undertaking new renewable energy projects or “carbon-removal” initiatives such as DAC or afforestation/reforestation (planting trees in areas that have never been forested or that were forested in the past). 

DAC-based credits are especially appealing for several reasons, explains Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at MITEI. With DAC, measuring and verifying the amount of carbon removed is straightforward; the removal is immediate, unlike with planting forests, which may take decades to have an impact; and when DAC is coupled with CO₂ storage in geologic formations, the CO₂ is kept out of the atmosphere essentially permanently — in contrast to, for example, sequestering it in trees, which may one day burn and release the stored CO₂.

Will current plans that rely on DAC be effective in stabilizing the climate in the coming years? To find out, Herzog and his colleagues Jennifer Morris and Angelo Gurgel, both MITEI principal research scientists, and Sergey Paltsev, a MITEI senior research scientist — all affiliated with the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) — took a close look at the modeling studies on which those plans are based.

Their investigation identified three unavoidable engineering challenges that together lead to a fourth challenge — high costs for removing a single ton of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The details of their findings are reported in a paper published in the journal One Earth on Sept. 20.

Challenge 1: Scaling up

When it comes to removing CO₂ from the air, nature presents “a major, non-negotiable challenge,” notes the MITEI team: The concentration of CO₂ in the air is extremely low — just 420 parts per million, or roughly 0.04 percent. In contrast, the CO₂ concentration in flue gases emitted by power plants and industrial processes ranges from 3 percent to 20 percent. Companies now use various carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies to capture CO₂ from their flue gases, but capturing CO₂ from the air is much more difficult. To explain, the researchers offer the following analogy: “The difference is akin to needing to find 10 red marbles in a jar of 25,000 marbles of which 24,990 are blue [the task representing DAC] versus needing to find about 10 red marbles in a jar of 100 marbles of which 90 are blue [the task for CCS].”

Given that low concentration, removing a single metric ton (tonne) of CO₂ from air requires processing about 1.8 million cubic meters of air, which is roughly equivalent to the volume of 720 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And all that air must be moved across a CO₂-capturing sorbent — a feat requiring large equipment. For example, one recently proposed design for capturing 1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year would require an “air contactor” equivalent in size to a structure about three stories high and three miles long.

Recent modeling studies project DAC deployment on the scale of 5 to 40 gigatonnes of CO₂ removed per year. (A gigatonne equals 1 billion metric tonnes.) But in their paper, the researchers conclude that the likelihood of deploying DAC at the gigatonne scale is “highly uncertain.”

Challenge 2: Energy requirement

Given the low concentration of CO₂ in the air and the need to move large quantities of air to capture it, it’s no surprise that even the best DAC processes proposed today would consume large amounts of energy — energy that’s generally supplied by a combination of electricity and heat. Including the energy needed to compress the captured CO₂ for transportation and storage, most proposed processes require an equivalent of at least 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity for each tonne of CO₂ removed.

The source of that electricity is critical. For example, using coal-based electricity to drive an all-electric DAC process would generate 1.2 tonnes of CO₂ for each tonne of CO₂ captured. The result would be a net increase in emissions, defeating the whole purpose of the DAC. So clearly, the energy requirement must be satisfied using either low-carbon electricity or electricity generated using fossil fuels with CCS. All-electric DAC deployed at large scale — say, 10 gigatonnes of CO₂ removed annually — would require 12,000 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is more than 40 percent of total global electricity generation today.

Electricity consumption is expected to grow due to increasing overall electrification of the world economy, so low-carbon electricity will be in high demand for many competing uses — for example, in power generation, transportation, industry, and building operations. Using clean electricity for DAC instead of for reducing CO₂ emissions in other critical areas raises concerns about the best uses of clean electricity.

Many studies assume that a DAC unit could also get energy from “waste heat” generated by some industrial process or facility nearby. In the MITEI researchers’ opinion, “that may be more wishful thinking than reality.” The heat source would need to be within a few miles of the DAC plant for transporting the heat to be economical; given its high capital cost, the DAC plant would need to run nonstop, requiring constant heat delivery; and heat at the temperature required by the DAC plant would have competing uses, for example, for heating buildings. Finally, if DAC is deployed at the gigatonne per year scale, waste heat will likely be able to provide only a small fraction of the needed energy.

Challenge 3: Siting

Some analysts have asserted that, because air is everywhere, DAC units can be located anywhere. But in reality, siting a DAC plant involves many complex issues. As noted above, DAC plants require significant amounts of energy, so having access to enough low-carbon energy is critical. Likewise, having nearby options for storing the removed CO₂ is also critical. If storage sites or pipelines to such sites don’t exist, major new infrastructure will need to be built, and building new infrastructure of any kind is expensive and complicated, involving issues related to permitting, environmental justice, and public acceptability — issues that are, in the words of the researchers, “commonly underestimated in the real world and neglected in models.”

Two more siting needs must be considered. First, meteorological conditions must be acceptable. By definition, any DAC unit will be exposed to the elements, and factors like temperature and humidity will affect process performance and process availability. And second, a DAC plant will require some dedicated land — though how much is unclear, as the optimal spacing of units is as yet unresolved. Like wind turbines, DAC units need to be properly spaced to ensure maximum performance such that one unit is not sucking in CO₂-depleted air from another unit.

Challenge 4: Cost

Considering the first three challenges, the final challenge is clear: the cost per tonne of CO₂ removed is inevitably high. Recent modeling studies assume DAC costs as low as $100 to $200 per ton of CO₂ removed. But the researchers found evidence suggesting far higher costs.

To start, they cite typical costs for power plants and industrial sites that now use CCS to remove CO₂ from their flue gases. The cost of CCS in such applications is estimated to be in the range of $50 to $150 per ton of CO₂ removed. As explained above, the far lower concentration of CO₂ in the air will lead to substantially higher costs.

As explained under Challenge 1, the DAC units needed to capture the required amount of air are massive. The capital cost of building them will be high, given labor, materials, permitting costs, and so on. Some estimates in the literature exceed $5,000 per tonne captured per year.

Then there are the ongoing costs of energy. As noted under Challenge 2, removing 1 tonne of CO₂ requires the equivalent of 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity. If that electricity costs $0.10 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of just the electricity needed to remove 1 tonne of CO₂ is $120. The researchers point out that assuming such a low price is “questionable,” given the expected increase in electricity demand, future competition for clean energy, and higher costs on a system dominated by renewable — but intermittent — energy sources.

Then there’s the cost of storage, which is ignored in many DAC cost estimates.

Clearly, many considerations show that prices of $100 to $200 per tonne are unrealistic, and assuming such low prices will distort assessments of strategies, leading them to underperform going forward.

The bottom line

In their paper, the MITEI team calls DAC a “very seductive concept.” Using DAC to suck CO₂ out of the air and generate high-quality carbon-removal credits can offset reduction requirements for industries that have hard-to-abate emissions. By doing so, DAC would minimize disruptions to key parts of the world’s economy, including air travel, certain carbon-intensive industries, and agriculture. However, the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO₂ credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn’t look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, and the price to buy the company’s carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.

The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.

Nevertheless, the researchers recommend that work to develop DAC continue “because it may be needed for meeting net-zero emissions goals, especially given the current pace of emissions.” But their paper concludes with this warning: “Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue.”

In 2015, 195 nations plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement and pledged to undertake plans designed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yet in 2023, the world exceeded that target for most, if not all of, the year — calling into question the long-term feasibility of achieving that target.

To do so, the world must reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and strategies for achieving levels that will “stabilize the climate” have been both proposed and adopted. Many of those strategies combine dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions with the use of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that removes CO₂ from the ambient air. As a reality check, a team of researchers in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) examined those strategies, and what they found was alarming: The strategies rely on overly optimistic — indeed, unrealistic — assumptions about how much CO₂ could be removed by DAC. As a result, the strategies won’t perform as predicted. Nevertheless, the MITEI team recommends that work to develop the DAC technology continue so that it’s ready to help with the energy transition — even if it’s not the silver bullet that solves the world’s decarbonization challenge.

DAC: The promise and the reality

Including DAC in plans to stabilize the climate makes sense. Much work is now under way to develop DAC systems, and the technology looks promising. While companies may never run their own DAC systems, they can already buy “carbon credits” based on DAC. Today, a multibillion-dollar market exists on which entities or individuals that face high costs or excessive disruptions to reduce their own carbon emissions can pay others to take emissions-reducing actions on their behalf. Those actions can involve undertaking new renewable energy projects or “carbon-removal” initiatives such as DAC or afforestation/reforestation (planting trees in areas that have never been forested or that were forested in the past). 

DAC-based credits are especially appealing for several reasons, explains Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at MITEI. With DAC, measuring and verifying the amount of carbon removed is straightforward; the removal is immediate, unlike with planting forests, which may take decades to have an impact; and when DAC is coupled with CO₂ storage in geologic formations, the CO₂ is kept out of the atmosphere essentially permanently — in contrast to, for example, sequestering it in trees, which may one day burn and release the stored CO₂.

Will current plans that rely on DAC be effective in stabilizing the climate in the coming years? To find out, Herzog and his colleagues Jennifer Morris and Angelo Gurgel, both MITEI principal research scientists, and Sergey Paltsev, a MITEI senior research scientist — all affiliated with the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) — took a close look at the modeling studies on which those plans are based.

Their investigation identified three unavoidable engineering challenges that together lead to a fourth challenge — high costs for removing a single ton of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The details of their findings are reported in a paper published in the journal One Earth on Sept. 20.

Challenge 1: Scaling up

When it comes to removing CO₂ from the air, nature presents “a major, non-negotiable challenge,” notes the MITEI team: The concentration of CO₂ in the air is extremely low — just 420 parts per million, or roughly 0.04 percent. In contrast, the CO₂ concentration in flue gases emitted by power plants and industrial processes ranges from 3 percent to 20 percent. Companies now use various carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies to capture CO₂ from their flue gases, but capturing CO₂ from the air is much more difficult. To explain, the researchers offer the following analogy: “The difference is akin to needing to find 10 red marbles in a jar of 25,000 marbles of which 24,990 are blue [the task representing DAC] versus needing to find about 10 red marbles in a jar of 100 marbles of which 90 are blue [the task for CCS].”

Given that low concentration, removing a single metric ton (tonne) of CO₂ from air requires processing about 1.8 million cubic meters of air, which is roughly equivalent to the volume of 720 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And all that air must be moved across a CO₂-capturing sorbent — a feat requiring large equipment. For example, one recently proposed design for capturing 1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year would require an “air contactor” equivalent in size to a structure about three stories high and three miles long.

Recent modeling studies project DAC deployment on the scale of 5 to 40 gigatonnes of CO₂ removed per year. (A gigatonne equals 1 billion metric tonnes.) But in their paper, the researchers conclude that the likelihood of deploying DAC at the gigatonne scale is “highly uncertain.”

Challenge 2: Energy requirement

Given the low concentration of CO₂ in the air and the need to move large quantities of air to capture it, it’s no surprise that even the best DAC processes proposed today would consume large amounts of energy — energy that’s generally supplied by a combination of electricity and heat. Including the energy needed to compress the captured CO₂ for transportation and storage, most proposed processes require an equivalent of at least 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity for each tonne of CO₂ removed.

The source of that electricity is critical. For example, using coal-based electricity to drive an all-electric DAC process would generate 1.2 tonnes of CO₂ for each tonne of CO₂ captured. The result would be a net increase in emissions, defeating the whole purpose of the DAC. So clearly, the energy requirement must be satisfied using either low-carbon electricity or electricity generated using fossil fuels with CCS. All-electric DAC deployed at large scale — say, 10 gigatonnes of CO₂ removed annually — would require 12,000 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is more than 40 percent of total global electricity generation today.

Electricity consumption is expected to grow due to increasing overall electrification of the world economy, so low-carbon electricity will be in high demand for many competing uses — for example, in power generation, transportation, industry, and building operations. Using clean electricity for DAC instead of for reducing CO₂ emissions in other critical areas raises concerns about the best uses of clean electricity.

Many studies assume that a DAC unit could also get energy from “waste heat” generated by some industrial process or facility nearby. In the MITEI researchers’ opinion, “that may be more wishful thinking than reality.” The heat source would need to be within a few miles of the DAC plant for transporting the heat to be economical; given its high capital cost, the DAC plant would need to run nonstop, requiring constant heat delivery; and heat at the temperature required by the DAC plant would have competing uses, for example, for heating buildings. Finally, if DAC is deployed at the gigatonne per year scale, waste heat will likely be able to provide only a small fraction of the needed energy.

Challenge 3: Siting

Some analysts have asserted that, because air is everywhere, DAC units can be located anywhere. But in reality, siting a DAC plant involves many complex issues. As noted above, DAC plants require significant amounts of energy, so having access to enough low-carbon energy is critical. Likewise, having nearby options for storing the removed CO₂ is also critical. If storage sites or pipelines to such sites don’t exist, major new infrastructure will need to be built, and building new infrastructure of any kind is expensive and complicated, involving issues related to permitting, environmental justice, and public acceptability — issues that are, in the words of the researchers, “commonly underestimated in the real world and neglected in models.”

Two more siting needs must be considered. First, meteorological conditions must be acceptable. By definition, any DAC unit will be exposed to the elements, and factors like temperature and humidity will affect process performance and process availability. And second, a DAC plant will require some dedicated land — though how much is unclear, as the optimal spacing of units is as yet unresolved. Like wind turbines, DAC units need to be properly spaced to ensure maximum performance such that one unit is not sucking in CO₂-depleted air from another unit.

Challenge 4: Cost

Considering the first three challenges, the final challenge is clear: the cost per tonne of CO₂ removed is inevitably high. Recent modeling studies assume DAC costs as low as $100 to $200 per ton of CO₂ removed. But the researchers found evidence suggesting far higher costs.

To start, they cite typical costs for power plants and industrial sites that now use CCS to remove CO₂ from their flue gases. The cost of CCS in such applications is estimated to be in the range of $50 to $150 per ton of CO₂ removed. As explained above, the far lower concentration of CO₂ in the air will lead to substantially higher costs.

As explained under Challenge 1, the DAC units needed to capture the required amount of air are massive. The capital cost of building them will be high, given labor, materials, permitting costs, and so on. Some estimates in the literature exceed $5,000 per tonne captured per year.

Then there are the ongoing costs of energy. As noted under Challenge 2, removing 1 tonne of CO₂ requires the equivalent of 1.2 megawatt-hours of electricity. If that electricity costs $0.10 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of just the electricity needed to remove 1 tonne of CO₂ is $120. The researchers point out that assuming such a low price is “questionable,” given the expected increase in electricity demand, future competition for clean energy, and higher costs on a system dominated by renewable — but intermittent — energy sources.

Then there’s the cost of storage, which is ignored in many DAC cost estimates.

Clearly, many considerations show that prices of $100 to $200 per tonne are unrealistic, and assuming such low prices will distort assessments of strategies, leading them to underperform going forward.

The bottom line

In their paper, the MITEI team calls DAC a “very seductive concept.” Using DAC to suck CO₂ out of the air and generate high-quality carbon-removal credits can offset reduction requirements for industries that have hard-to-abate emissions. By doing so, DAC would minimize disruptions to key parts of the world’s economy, including air travel, certain carbon-intensive industries, and agriculture. However, the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO₂ credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn’t look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, and the price to buy the company’s carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.

The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.

Nevertheless, the researchers recommend that work to develop DAC continue “because it may be needed for meeting net-zero emissions goals, especially given the current pace of emissions.” But their paper concludes with this warning: “Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue.”

Penn fourth-year Om Gandhi, from Barrington, Illinois, has been awarded a 2025 Rhodes Scholarship, which funds tuition and a living stipendfor graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. He is among 32 American Rhodes Scholars, and an expected 100 worldwide.

Brie Gettleson speaks about her role as a subject librarian with the Penn Libraries and liaison for the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies.

Inspired by the way that squids use jets to propel themselves through the ocean and shoot ink clouds, researchers from MIT and Novo Nordisk have developed an ingestible capsule that releases a burst of drugs directly into the wall of the stomach or other organs of the digestive tract.

This capsule could offer an alternative way to deliver drugs that normally have to be injected, such as insulin and other large proteins, including antibodies. This needle-free strategy could also be used to deliver RNA, either as a vaccine or a therapeutic molecule to treat diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic disorders.

“One of the longstanding challenges that we’ve been exploring is the development of systems that enable the oral delivery of macromolecules that usually require an injection to be administered. This work represents one of the next major advances in that progression,” says Giovanni Traverso, director of the Laboratory for Translational Engineering and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate member of the Broad Institute, and the senior author of the study.

Traverso and his students at MIT developed the new capsule along with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Novo Nordisk. Graham Arrick SM ’20 and Novo Nordisk scientists Drago Sticker and Aghiad Ghazal are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Nature.

Inspired by cephalopods

Drugs that consist of large proteins or RNA typically can’t be taken orally because they are easily broken down in the digestive tract. For several years, Traverso’s lab has been working on ways to deliver such drugs orally by encapsulating them in small devices that protect the drugs from degradation and then inject them directly into the lining of the digestive tract.

Most of these capsules use a small needle or set of microneedles to deliver drugs once the device arrives in the digestive tract. In the new study, Traverso and his colleagues wanted to explore ways to deliver these molecules without any kind of needle, which could reduce the possibility of any damage to the tissue.

To achieve that, they took inspiration from cephalopods. Squids and octopuses can propel themselves by filling their mantle cavity with water, then rapidly expelling it through their siphon. By changing the force of water expulsion and pointing the siphon in different directions, the animals can control their speed and direction of travel. The siphon organ also allows cephalopods to shoot jets of ink, forming decoy clouds to distract predators.

The researchers came up with two ways to mimic this jetting action, using compressed carbon dioxide or tightly coiled springs to generate the force needed to propel liquid drugs out of the capsule. The gas or spring is kept in a compressed state by a carbohydrate trigger, which is designed to dissolve when exposed to humidity or an acidic environment such as the stomach. When the trigger dissolves, the gas or spring is allowed to expand, propelling a jet of drugs out of the capsule.

In a series of experiments using tissue from the digestive tract, the researchers calculated the pressures needed to expel the drugs with enough force that they would penetrate the submucosal tissue and accumulate there, creating a depot that would then release drugs into the tissue.

“Aside from the elimination of sharps, another potential advantage of high-velocity columnated jets is their robustness to localization issues. In contrast to a small needle, which needs to have intimate contact with the tissue, our experiments indicated that a jet may be able to deliver most of the dose from a distance or at a slight angle,” Arrick says.

The researchers also designed the capsules so that they can target different parts of the digestive tract. One version of the capsule, which has a flat bottom and a high dome, can sit on a surface, such as the lining of the stomach, and eject drug downward into the tissue. This capsule, which was inspired by previous research from Traverso’s lab on self-orienting capsules, is about the size of a blueberry and can carry 80 microliters of drug.

The second version has a tube-like shape that allows it to align itself within a long tubular organ such as the esophagus or small intestine. In that case, the drug is ejected out toward the side wall, rather than downward. This version can deliver 200 microliters of drug.

Made of metal and plastic, the capsules can pass through the digestive tract and are excreted after releasing their drug payload.

Needle-free drug delivery

In tests in animals, the researchers showed that they could use these capsules to deliver insulin, a GLP-1 receptor agonist similar to the diabetes drug Ozempic, and a type of RNA called short interfering RNA (siRNA). This type of RNA can be used to silence genes, making it potentially useful in treating many genetic disorders.

They also showed that the concentration of the drugs in the animals’ bloodstream reached levels on the same order of magnitude as those seen when the drugs were injected with a syringe, and they did not detect any tissue damage.

The researchers envision that the ingestible capsule could be used at home by patients who need to take insulin or other injected drugs frequently. In addition to making it easier to administer drugs, especially for patients who don’t like needles, this approach also eliminates the need to dispose of sharp needles. The researchers also created and tested a version of the device that could be attached to an endoscope, allowing doctors to use it in an endoscopy suite or operating room to deliver drugs to a patient.

“This technology is a significant leap forward in oral drug delivery of macromolecule drugs like insulin and GLP-1 agonists. While many approaches for oral drug delivery have been attempted in the past, they tend to be poorly efficient in achieving high bioavailability. Here, the researchers demonstrate the ability to deliver bioavailability in animal models with high efficiency. This is an exciting approach which could be impactful for many biologics which are currently administered through injections or intravascular infusions,” says Omid Veiseh, a professor of bioengineering at Rice University, who was not involved in the research.

The researchers now plan to further develop the capsules, in hopes of testing them in humans.

The research was funded by Novo Nordisk, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

In developing a familial and inclusive residential community, inclusiveness has been a key theme at Pioneer House (PH) since its inception in 2017 as a new housing model at NUS centred on proactive pastoral care and mentoring. As such, PH adopts various academic approaches to nurture togetherness and warmth amongst its residents – students who hail from different academic years, as well as cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Since August 2024 (Semester 1, Academic Year 2024/2025), a pioneering group of ten students has taken this theme of fostering inclusiveness a step further by ‘formalising’ their initiatives to engage the international student community at PH. They embarked on a ‘Design-Your-Own-Course’ (DYOC) – an academic scheme at NUS which allows students the opportunities to pursue self-directed learning beyond their disciplines, through avenues such as engaging relevant subject matter experts at the University. While PH has consistently organised programmes and initiatives to engage its international student community, this step marks the first time it has been carried out through a DYOC framework.

Melding academia and application

The idea for a DYOC was mooted by team leader Nikol Goh (Year 2, Psychology), who wanted to do something meaningful in community building. Fueled by the determination to see the idea come to fruition, the initial team of four she pulled together managed to complete a quick recruitment via spreading the word and social media channels, eventually growing to a group of 10. They creatively named themselves PHamigo, tagging PH’s acronym to the word amigo which means ‘friend’ in Spanish.

Together with their mentors, PH Resident Fellows Dr Andi Sudjana Putra, Senior Lecturer at the College of Design and Engineering, and Associate Professor Wilson Tam, Deputy Head (Research) at NUS Nursing, the students formulated the intended learning outcomes through application of Bloom’s Taxonomy, an educational framework which categorises learning outcomes into seven ascending levels of thinking. Of the four intended learning outcomes from DYOC, evaluation of the community development journey required the PHamigo team to apply the sixth of seven levels of higher order learning, stretching the students' thinking.

“I was so proud that the students took charge of their own learning through DYOC. For example, the students themselves proposed the use of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) in framing their project,” said Dr Andi, referring to the strategy for community development that focuses on identifying and using a community's existing assets to improve the community.

“Many times, the student discussions during the sessions were so rigorous that I did not have to intervene much! It was very heartwarming to witness students being fully immersed in their learning,” Dr Andi enthused.

In terms of activity planning, which was one of the deliverables of DYOC, the students planned for events, tours and hands-on experiences for local and international students alike to explore cultures, cuisines, and landmarks​ of Singapore. During the student-organised tours affectionately called OpenJio, drawing from the colloquial term for an all-inclusive invitation to an activity, the PHamigo team led students on fortnightly visits to events such as the Singapore Light Festival and the Formula 1 Singapore night race, as well as to prominent local landmarks such as Parliament House, the Istana, and the Merlion.

International students also had the chance to experience Singapore’s local childhood games, such as the time-honoured pastime of flipping country erasers. And not to be omitted in a country with an identity rooted in culinary appreciation, students also introduced cuisines from their respective cultures to each other, which they would not have had the chance to try if not for the PHamigo programme.

These activities spanning across the semester were especially valuable in helping international students, most of whom may not have been in Singapore during the orientation season before the start of the academic year, stay plugged into the community.

Elevating community development

To cap off a fulfilling semester of hard work, the PHamigo team also organised a large Batik painting activity on 17 and 19 October 2024. In addition to 40 students, the event also saw the participation of seven members of PH’s housekeeping staff. It was a way for the students to express their gratitude to the staff, who have worked quietly behind the scenes to maintain the cleanliness at PH. It was a serendipitous culmination of many different initiatives which melded together seamlessly – from PHamigo’s framework to elevate community development in their penultimate activity for the semester, to a group of international students who were introduced to batik, to other students who wanted to bring the housekeeping team at PH on an outing.

“We wanted to emphasise the idea that ‘community’ in PH is not only students, but also staff, including the housekeeping team, whom we are grateful for. We wanted to appreciate them as part of PH for all the work that they have done,” Nikol reflected.

“The students originally wanted to bring the housekeeping team on an outing. However, after speaking with them, we realised the challenges in doing so due to their working hours and commitments. Some also had mobility issues, making moving around difficult for them. It was then we learnt that what we think they need, may not be what they actually need,” Nikol added, sharing that this led the team to decide to hold the activity in PH instead.

In additional to its cultural relevance and roots in Southeast Asia, the application of batik creation also tapped on the concept of ABCD that framed the DYOC, such as a group of students keen to introduce it to the community, and the knowledge drawn from previous cluster activities that many fellow students at PH have artistic talents in drawing. The batik workshop was received positively by local and international students, some who found it therapeutic and stress-relieving.

Reflecting on the experience with PHamigo, Nguyen Ky Minh, a first-year international student from Vietnam. “I found PHamigo a very useful and fascinating exercise in cultural exploration. I especially enjoyed the OpenJio walks around Singapore, which helped us learn more about facets of the Singaporean cultural mosaic that we probably would have never encountered on our own. I certainly second the continuation of this initiative, which will undoubtedly complement PH residents’ time in Singapore.”

“I think many students possess theoretical knowledge of community development. However, from its application in PH through DYOC, it was fulfilling to witness how the activities based on the concept were so enthusiastically accepted by the community, and it left me impressed by how many lives the activities have touched,” said Nikol.

Registrations for the next PHamigo DYOC, which will take place next semester, have opened, and the community eagerly looks forward to more activities in their experience of living, learning, and growing together.

By Pioneer House

A US$1.5 million gift from the Colossal Foundation, a non-profit organisation established by Colossal Biosciences, will help researchers in the Faculty of Science develop new approaches to the conservation of bird species in Australia and around the world.

The Doherty Council has today confirmed Professor Sharon Lewin AO has been reappointedDirector of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) foranother term.

On Nov. 15, eight distinguished alumni will receive Awards of Merit, the Alumni Social Impact Award, and the Creative Spirit Award, and André Dombrowski will receive the Faculty Award of Merit.

In April 2019, a group of astronomers from around the globe stunned the world when they revealed the first image of a black hole — the monstrous accumulation of collapsed stars and gas that lets nothing escape, not even light. The image, which was of the black hole that sits at the core of a galaxy called Messier 87 (M87), revealed glowing gas around the center of the black hole. In March 2021, the same team produced yet another stunning image that showed the polarization of light around the black hole, revealing its magnetic field.

The "camera" that took both images is the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which is not one singular instrument but rather a collection of radio telescopes situated around the globe that work together to create high-resolution images by combining data from each individual telescope. Now, scientists are looking to extend the EHT into space to get an even sharper look at M87's black hole. But producing the sharpest images in the history of astronomy presents a challenge: transmitting the telescope's massive dataset back to Earth for processing. A small but powerful laser communications (lasercom) payload developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory operates at the high data rates needed to image the aspects of interest of the black hole.   

Extending baseline distances into space

The EHT created the two existing images of M87's black hole via interferometry — specifically, very long-baseline interferometry. Interferometry works by collecting light in the form of radio waves simultaneously with multiple telescopes in separate places on the globe and then comparing the phase difference of the radio waves at the various locations in order to pinpoint the direction of the source. By taking measurements with different combinations of the telescopes around the planet, the EHT collaboration — which included staff members at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and MIT Haystack Observatory — essentially created an Earth-sized telescope in order to image the incredibly faint black hole 55 million light-years away from Earth.

With interferometry, the bigger the telescope, the better the resolution of the image. Therefore, in order to focus in on even finer characteristics of these black holes, a bigger instrument is needed. Details that astronomers hope to resolve include the turbulence of the gas falling into a black hole (which drives the accumulation of matter onto the black hole through a process called accretion) and a black hole's shadow (which could be used to help pin down where the jet coming from M87 is drawing its energy from). The ultimate goal is to observe a photon ring (the place where light orbits closest before escaping) around the black hole. Capturing an image of the photon ring would enable scientists to put Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity to the test.

With Earth-based telescopes, the farthest that two telescopes could be from one another is on opposite sides of the Earth, or about 13,000 kilometers apart. In addition to this maximum baseline distance, Earth-based instruments are limited by the atmosphere, which makes observing shorter wavelengths difficult. Earth's atmospheric limitations can be overcome by extending the EHT's baselines and putting at least one of the telescopes in space, which is exactly what the proposed CfA-led Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission aims to do.

One of the most significant challenges that comes with this space-based concept is transfer of information. The dataset to produce the first EHT image was so massive (totaling 4 petabytes) that the data had to be put on disks and shipped to a facility for processing. Gathering information from a telescope in orbit would be even more difficult; the team would need a system that can downlink data from the space telescope to Earth at approximately 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) in order to image the desired aspects of the black hole.

Enter TBIRD

Here is where Lincoln Laboratory comes in. In May 2023, the laboratory's TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) lasercom payload achieved the fastest data transfer from space, transmitting at a rate of 200 Gbps — which is 1,000 times faster than typical satellite communication systems — from low Earth orbit (LEO).

"We developed a novel technology for high-volume data transport from space to ground," says Jade Wang, assistant leader of the laboratory's Optical and Quantum Communications Group. "In the process of developing that technology, we looked for collaborations and other potential follow-on missions that could leverage this unprecedented data capability. The BHEX is one such mission. These high data rates will enable scientists to image the photon ring structure of a black hole for the first time."

A lasercom team led by Wang, in partnership with the CfA, is developing the long-distance, high-rate downlink needed for the BHEX mission in middle Earth orbit (MEO).

"Laser communications is completely upending our expectations for what astrophysical discoveries are possible from space," says CfA astrophysicist Michael Johnson, principal investigator for the BHEX mission. "In the next decade, this incredible new technology will bring us to the edge of a black hole, creating a window into the region where our current understanding of physics breaks down."

Though TBIRD is incredibly powerful, the technology needs some modifications to support the higher orbit that BHEX requires for its science mission. The small TBIRD payload (CubeSat) will be upgraded to a larger aperture size and higher transmit power. In addition, the TBIRD automatic request protocol — the error-control mechanism for ensuring data make it to Earth without loss due to atmospheric effects — will be adjusted to account for the longer round-trip times that come with a mission in MEO. Finally, the TBIRD LEO "buffer and burst" architecture for data delivery will shift to a streaming approach.

"With TBIRD and other lasercom missions, we have demonstrated that the lasercom technology for such an impactful science mission is available today," Wang says. "Having the opportunity to contribute to an area of really interesting scientific discovery is an exciting prospect."

The BHEX mission concept has been in development since 2019. Technical and concept studies for BHEX have been supported by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Internal Research and Development program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Arizona, and the ULVAC-Hayashi Seed Fund from the MIT-Japan Program at MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives. BHEX studies of lasercom have been supported by Fred Ehrsam and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. 

Anoushka Bose ’20 spent the summer of 2018 as an MIT Washington program intern, applying her nuclear physics education to arms control research with a D.C. nuclear policy think tank.

“It’s crazy how much three months can transform people,” says Bose, now an attorney at the Department of Justice.

“Suddenly, I was learning far more than I had expected about treaties, nuclear arms control, and foreign relations,” adds Bose. “But once I was hooked, I couldn’t be stopped as that summer sparked a much broader interest in diplomacy and set me on a different path.”

Bose is one of hundreds of MIT undergraduates whose academic and career trajectories were influenced by their time in the nation’s capital as part of the internship program.

Leah Nichols ’00 is a former D.C. intern, and now executive director of George Mason University’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. In 1998, Nichols worked in the office of U.S. Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., developing options for protecting open space on private land.

“I really started to see how science and policy needed to interact in order to solve environmental challenges,” she says. “I’ve actually been working at that interface between science and policy ever since.”

Marking its 30th anniversary this year, the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program has shaped the lives of alumni, and expanded MIT’s capital in the capital city.

Bose believes the MIT Washington summer internship is more vital than ever.

“This program helps steer more technical expertise, analytical thinking, and classic MIT innovation into policy spaces to make them better-informed and better equipped to solve challenges,” she says. With so much at stake, she suggests, it is increasingly important “to invest in bringing the MIT mindset of extreme competence as well as resilience to D.C.”

MIT missionaries

Over the past three decades, students across MIT — whether studying aeronautics or nuclear engineering, management or mathematics, chemistry or computer science — have competed for and won an MIT Washington summer internship. Many describe it as a springboard into high-impact positions in politics, public policy, and the private sector.

The program was launched in 1994 by Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin (1963) Distinguished Professor of Political Science, who still serves as the director.

“The idea 30 years ago was to make this a bit of a missionary program, where we demonstrate to Washington the utility of having MIT students around for things they’re doing,” says Stewart. “MIT’s reputation benefits because our students are unpretentious, down-to-earth, interested in how the world actually works, and dedicated to fixing things that are broken.”

The outlines of the program have remained much the same: A cohort of 15 to 20 students is selected from a pool of fall applicants. With the help of MIT’s Washington office, the students are matched with potential supervisors in search of technical and scientific talent. They travel in the spring to meet potential supervisors and receive a stipend and housing for the summer. In the fall, students take a course that Stewart describes as an “Oxbridge-type tutorial, where they contextualize their experiences and reflect on the political context of the place where they worked.”

Stewart remains as enthusiastic about the internship program as when he started and has notions for building on its foundations. His wish list includes running the program at other times of the year, and for longer durations. “Six months would really change and deepen the experience,” he says. He envisions a real-time tutorial while the students are in Washington. And he would like to draw more students from the data science world. “Part of the goal of this program is to hook non-obvious people into knowledge of the public policy realm,” he says.

Prized in Washington

MIT Vice Provost Philip Khoury, who helped get the program off the ground, praised Stewart’s vision for developing the initial idea.

“Charles understood why science- and technology-oriented students would be great beneficiaries of an experience in Washington and had something to contribute that other internship program students would not be able to do because of their prowess, their prodigious abilities in the technology-engineering-science world,” says Khoury.

Khoury adds that the program has benefited both the host organizations and the students.

“Members of Congress and senior staff who were developing policies prized MIT students, because they were powerful thinkers and workaholics, and students in the program learned that they really mattered to adults in Washington, wherever they went.”

David Goldston, director of the MIT Washington Office, says government is “kind of desperate for people who understand science and technology.” One example: The National Institute of Standards and Technology has launched an artificial intelligence safety division that is “almost begging for students to help conduct research and carry out the ever-expanding mission of worrying about AI issues,” he says.

Holly Krambeck ’06 MST/MCP, program manager of the World Bank Data Lab, can attest to this impact. She hired her first MIT summer intern, Chae Won Lee, in 2013, to analyze road crash data from the Philippines. “Her findings were so striking, we invited her to join the team on a mission to present her work to the government,” says Krambeck.

Subsequent interns have helped the World Bank demonstrate effective, low-cost, transit-fare collection systems; identify houses eligible for hurricane protection retrofits under World Bank loans; and analyze heatwave patterns in the Philippines to inform a lending program for mitigation measures.

“Every year, I’ve been so impressed by the maturity, energy, willingness to learn new skills, and curiosity of the MIT students,” says Krambeck. “At the end of each summer, we ask students to present their projects to World Bank staff, who are invariably amazed to learn that these are undergraduates and not PhD candidates!”

Career springboard

“It absolutely changed my career pathway,” says Samuel Rodarte Jr. ’13, a 2011 program alumnus who interned at the MIT Washington Office, where he tracked congressional hearings related to research at the Institute. Today, he serves as a legislative assistant to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer. An aerospace engineering and Latin American studies double major, Rodarte says the opportunity to experience policymaking from the inside came “at just the right time, when I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to do post-MIT.”

Miranda Priebe ’03 is director of the Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy for the Rand Corp. She briefs groups within the Pentagon, the U.S. Department of State, and the National Security Council, among others. “My job is to ask the big question: Does the United States have the right approach in the world in terms of advancing our interests with our capabilities and resources?”

Priebe was a physics major with an evolving interest in political science when she arrived in Washington in 2001 to work in the office of Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I was working really hard at MIT, but just hadn’t found my passion until I did this internship,” she says. “Once I came to D.C. I saw all the places I could fit in using my analytical skills — there were a million things I wanted to do — and the internship convinced me that this was the right kind of work for me.”

During her internship in 2022, Anushree Chaudhuri ’24, urban studies and planning and economics major, worked in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office, where she hoped to experience day-to-day life in a federal agency — with an eye toward a career in high-level policymaking. She developed a web app to help local governments determine which census tracts qualified for environmental justice funds.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see that even as a lower-level civil servant you can make change if you know how to work within the system.” Chaudhuri is now a Marshall Scholar, pursuing a PhD at the University of Oxford on the socioeconomic impacts of energy infrastructure. “I’m pretty sure I want to work in the policy space long term,” she says.

A crowd gathered at the MIT Media Lab in September for a concert by musician Jordan Rudess and two collaborators. One of them, violinist and vocalist Camilla Bäckman, has performed with Rudess before. The other — an artificial intelligence model informally dubbed the jam_bot, which Rudess developed with an MIT team over the preceding several months — was making its public debut as a work in progress.

Throughout the show, Rudess and Bäckman exchanged the signals and smiles of experienced musicians finding a groove together. Rudess’ interactions with the jam_bot suggested a different and unfamiliar kind of exchange. During one duet inspired by Bach, Rudess alternated between playing a few measures and allowing the AI to continue the music in a similar baroque style. Each time the model took its turn, a range of expressions moved across Rudess’ face: bemusement, concentration, curiosity. At the end of the piece, Rudess admitted to the audience, “That is a combination of a whole lot of fun and really, really challenging.”

Rudess is an acclaimed keyboardist — the best of all time, according to one Music Radar magazine poll — known for his work with the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning progressive metal band Dream Theater, which embarks this fall on a 40th anniversary tour. He is also a solo artist whose latest album, “Permission to Fly,” was released on Sept. 6; an educator who shares his skills through detailed online tutorials; and the founder of software company Wizdom Music. His work combines a rigorous classical foundation (he began his piano studies at The Juilliard School at age 9) with a genius for improvisation and an appetite for experimentation.

Last spring, Rudess became a visiting artist with the MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology (CAST), collaborating with the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments research group on the creation of new AI-powered music technology. Rudess’ main collaborators in the enterprise are Media Lab graduate students Lancelot Blanchard, who researches musical applications of generative AI (informed by his own studies in classical piano), and Perry Naseck, an artist and engineer specializing in interactive, kinetic, light- and time-based media. Overseeing the project is Professor Joseph Paradiso, head of the Responsive Environments group and a longtime Rudess fan. Paradiso arrived at the Media Lab in 1994 with a CV in physics and engineering and a sideline designing and building synthesizers to explore his avant-garde musical tastes. His group has a tradition of investigating musical frontiers through novel user interfaces, sensor networks, and unconventional datasets.

The researchers set out to develop a machine learning model channeling Rudess’ distinctive musical style and technique. In a paper published online by MIT Press in September, co-authored with MIT music technology professor Eran Egozy, they articulate their vision for what they call “symbiotic virtuosity:” for human and computer to duet in real-time, learning from each duet they perform together, and making performance-worthy new music in front of a live audience.

Rudess contributed the data on which Blanchard trained the AI model. Rudess also provided continuous testing and feedback, while Naseck experimented with ways of visualizing the technology for the audience.

“Audiences are used to seeing lighting, graphics, and scenic elements at many concerts, so we needed a platform to allow the AI to build its own relationship with the audience,” Naseck says. In early demos, this took the form of a sculptural installation with illumination that shifted each time the AI changed chords. During the concert on Sept. 21, a grid of petal-shaped panels mounted behind Rudess came to life through choreography based on the activity and future generation of the AI model.

“If you see jazz musicians make eye contact and nod at each other, that gives anticipation to the audience of what’s going to happen,” says Naseck. “The AI is effectively generating sheet music and then playing it. How do we show what’s coming next and communicate that?”

Naseck designed and programmed the structure from scratch at the Media Lab with assistance from Brian Mayton (mechanical design) and Carlo Mandolini (fabrication), drawing some of its movements from an experimental machine learning model developed by visiting student Madhav Lavakare that maps music to points moving in space. With the ability to spin and tilt its petals at speeds ranging from subtle to dramatic, the kinetic sculpture distinguished the AI’s contributions during the concert from those of the human performers, while conveying the emotion and energy of its output: swaying gently when Rudess took the lead, for example, or furling and unfurling like a blossom as the AI model generated stately chords for an improvised adagio. The latter was one of Naseck’s favorite moments of the show.

“At the end, Jordan and Camilla left the stage and allowed the AI to fully explore its own direction,” he recalls. “The sculpture made this moment very powerful — it allowed the stage to remain animated and intensified the grandiose nature of the chords the AI played. The audience was clearly captivated by this part, sitting at the edges of their seats.”

“The goal is to create a musical visual experience,” says Rudess, “to show what’s possible and to up the game.”

Musical futures

As the starting point for his model, Blanchard used a music transformer, an open-source neural network architecture developed by MIT Assistant Professor Anna Huang SM ’08, who joined the MIT faculty in September.

“Music transformers work in a similar way as large language models,” Blanchard explains. “The same way that ChatGPT would generate the most probable next word, the model we have would predict the most probable next notes.”

Blanchard fine-tuned the model using Rudess’ own playing of elements from bass lines to chords to melodies, variations of which Rudess recorded in his New York studio. Along the way, Blanchard ensured the AI would be nimble enough to respond in real-time to Rudess’ improvisations.

“We reframed the project,” says Blanchard, “in terms of musical futures that were hypothesized by the model and that were only being realized at the moment based on what Jordan was deciding.”

As Rudess puts it: “How can the AI respond — how can I have a dialogue with it? That’s the cutting-edge part of what we’re doing.”

Another priority emerged: “In the field of generative AI and music, you hear about startups like Suno or Udio that are able to generate music based on text prompts. Those are very interesting, but they lack controllability,” says Blanchard. “It was important for Jordan to be able to anticipate what was going to happen. If he could see the AI was going to make a decision he didn’t want, he could restart the generation or have a kill switch so that he can take control again.”

In addition to giving Rudess a screen previewing the musical decisions of the model, Blanchard built in different modalities the musician could activate as he plays — prompting the AI to generate chords or lead melodies, for example, or initiating a call-and-response pattern.

“Jordan is the mastermind of everything that’s happening,” he says.

What would Jordan do

Though the residency has wrapped up, the collaborators see many paths for continuing the research. For example, Naseck would like to experiment with more ways Rudess could interact directly with his installation, through features like capacitive sensing. “We hope in the future we’ll be able to work with more of his subtle motions and posture,” Naseck says.

While the MIT collaboration focused on how Rudess can use the tool to augment his own performances, it’s easy to imagine other applications. Paradiso recalls an early encounter with the tech: “I played a chord sequence, and Jordan’s model was generating the leads. It was like having a musical ‘bee’ of Jordan Rudess buzzing around the melodic foundation I was laying down, doing something like Jordan would do, but subject to the simple progression I was playing,” he recalls, his face echoing the delight he felt at the time. “You're going to see AI plugins for your favorite musician that you can bring into your own compositions, with some knobs that let you control the particulars,” he posits. “It’s that kind of world we’re opening up with this.”

Rudess is also keen to explore educational uses. Because the samples he recorded to train the model were similar to ear-training exercises he’s used with students, he thinks the model itself could someday be used for teaching. “This work has legs beyond just entertainment value,” he says.

The foray into artificial intelligence is a natural progression for Rudess’ interest in music technology. “This is the next step,” he believes. When he discusses the work with fellow musicians, however, his enthusiasm for AI often meets with resistance. “I can have sympathy or compassion for a musician who feels threatened, I totally get that,” he allows. “But my mission is to be one of the people who moves this technology toward positive things.”

“At the Media Lab, it’s so important to think about how AI and humans come together for the benefit of all,” says Paradiso. “How is AI going to lift us all up? Ideally it will do what so many technologies have done — bring us into another vista where we’re more enabled.”

“Jordan is ahead of the pack,” Paradiso adds. “Once it’s established with him, people will follow.”

Jamming with MIT

The Media Lab first landed on Rudess’ radar before his residency because he wanted to try out the Knitted Keyboard created by another member of Responsive Environments, textile researcher Irmandy Wickasono PhD ’24. From that moment on, “It's been a discovery for me, learning about the cool things that are going on at MIT in the music world,” Rudess says.

During two visits to Cambridge last spring (assisted by his wife, theater and music producer Danielle Rudess), Rudess reviewed final projects in Paradiso’s course on electronic music controllers, the syllabus for which included videos of his own past performances. He brought a new gesture-driven synthesizer called Osmose to a class on interactive music systems taught by Egozy, whose credits include the co-creation of the video game “Guitar Hero.” Rudess also provided tips on improvisation to a composition class; played GeoShred, a touchscreen musical instrument he co-created with Stanford University researchers, with student musicians in the MIT Laptop Ensemble and Arts Scholars program; and experienced immersive audio in the MIT Spatial Sound Lab. During his most recent trip to campus in September, he taught a masterclass for pianists in MIT’s Emerson/Harris Program, which provides a total of 67 scholars and fellows with support for conservatory-level musical instruction.

“I get a kind of rush whenever I come to the university,” Rudess says. “I feel the sense that, wow, all of my musical ideas and inspiration and interests have come together in this really cool way.”

For roboticists, one challenge towers above all others: generalization — the ability to create machines that can adapt to any environment or condition. Since the 1970s, the field has evolved from writing sophisticated programs to using deep learning, teaching robots to learn directly from human behavior. But a critical bottleneck remains: data quality. To improve, robots need to encounter scenarios that push the boundaries of their capabilities, operating at the edge of their mastery. This process traditionally requires human oversight, with operators carefully challenging robots to expand their abilities. As robots become more sophisticated, this hands-on approach hits a scaling problem: the demand for high-quality training data far outpaces humans’ ability to provide it.

Now, a team of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers has developed a novel approach to robot training that could significantly accelerate the deployment of adaptable, intelligent machines in real-world environments. The new system, called “LucidSim,” uses recent advances in generative AI and physics simulators to create diverse and realistic virtual training environments, helping robots achieve expert-level performance in difficult tasks without any real-world data.

LucidSim combines physics simulation with generative AI models, addressing one of the most persistent challenges in robotics: transferring skills learned in simulation to the real world. “A fundamental challenge in robot learning has long been the ‘sim-to-real gap’ — the disparity between simulated training environments and the complex, unpredictable real world,” says MIT CSAIL postdoc Ge Yang, a lead researcher on LucidSim. “Previous approaches often relied on depth sensors, which simplified the problem but missed crucial real-world complexities.”

The multipronged system is a blend of different technologies. At its core, LucidSim uses large language models to generate various structured descriptions of environments. These descriptions are then transformed into images using generative models. To ensure that these images reflect real-world physics, an underlying physics simulator is used to guide the generation process.

The birth of an idea: From burritos to breakthroughs

The inspiration for LucidSim came from an unexpected place: a conversation outside Beantown Taqueria in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ​​“We wanted to teach vision-equipped robots how to improve using human feedback. But then, we realized we didn’t have a pure vision-based policy to begin with,” says Alan Yu, an undergraduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) at MIT and co-lead author on LucidSim. “We kept talking about it as we walked down the street, and then we stopped outside the taqueria for about half-an-hour. That’s where we had our moment.”

To cook up their data, the team generated realistic images by extracting depth maps, which provide geometric information, and semantic masks, which label different parts of an image, from the simulated scene. They quickly realized, however, that with tight control on the composition of the image content, the model would produce similar images that weren’t different from each other using the same prompt. So, they devised a way to source diverse text prompts from ChatGPT.

This approach, however, only resulted in a single image. To make short, coherent videos that serve as little “experiences” for the robot, the scientists hacked together some image magic into another novel technique the team created, called “Dreams In Motion.” The system computes the movements of each pixel between frames, to warp a single generated image into a short, multi-frame video. Dreams In Motion does this by considering the 3D geometry of the scene and the relative changes in the robot’s perspective.

“We outperform domain randomization, a method developed in 2017 that applies random colors and patterns to objects in the environment, which is still considered the go-to method these days,” says Yu. “While this technique generates diverse data, it lacks realism. LucidSim addresses both diversity and realism problems. It’s exciting that even without seeing the real world during training, the robot can recognize and navigate obstacles in real environments.”

The team is particularly excited about the potential of applying LucidSim to domains outside quadruped locomotion and parkour, their main test bed. One example is mobile manipulation, where a mobile robot is tasked to handle objects in an open area; also, color perception is critical. “Today, these robots still learn from real-world demonstrations,” says Yang. “Although collecting demonstrations is easy, scaling a real-world robot teleoperation setup to thousands of skills is challenging because a human has to physically set up each scene. We hope to make this easier, thus qualitatively more scalable, by moving data collection into a virtual environment.”

Who's the real expert?

The team put LucidSim to the test against an alternative, where an expert teacher demonstrates the skill for the robot to learn from. The results were surprising: Robots trained by the expert struggled, succeeding only 15 percent of the time — and even quadrupling the amount of expert training data barely moved the needle. But when robots collected their own training data through LucidSim, the story changed dramatically. Just doubling the dataset size catapulted success rates to 88 percent. “And giving our robot more data monotonically improves its performance — eventually, the student becomes the expert,” says Yang.

“One of the main challenges in sim-to-real transfer for robotics is achieving visual realism in simulated environments,” says Stanford University assistant professor of electrical engineering Shuran Song, who wasn’t involved in the research. “The LucidSim framework provides an elegant solution by using generative models to create diverse, highly realistic visual data for any simulation. This work could significantly accelerate the deployment of robots trained in virtual environments to real-world tasks.”

From the streets of Cambridge to the cutting edge of robotics research, LucidSim is paving the way toward a new generation of intelligent, adaptable machines — ones that learn to navigate our complex world without ever setting foot in it.

Yu and Yang wrote the paper with four fellow CSAIL affiliates: Ran Choi, an MIT postdoc in mechanical engineering; Yajvan Ravan, an MIT undergraduate in EECS; John Leonard, the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering; and Phillip Isola, an MIT associate professor in EECS. Their work was supported, in part, by a Packard Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Office of Naval Research, Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency, Amazon, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions. The researchers presented their work at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) in early November.

For roboticists, one challenge towers above all others: generalization — the ability to create machines that can adapt to any environment or condition. Since the 1970s, the field has evolved from writing sophisticated programs to using deep learning, teaching robots to learn directly from human behavior. But a critical bottleneck remains: data quality. To improve, robots need to encounter scenarios that push the boundaries of their capabilities, operating at the edge of their mastery. This process traditionally requires human oversight, with operators carefully challenging robots to expand their abilities. As robots become more sophisticated, this hands-on approach hits a scaling problem: the demand for high-quality training data far outpaces humans’ ability to provide it.

Now, a team of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers has developed a novel approach to robot training that could significantly accelerate the deployment of adaptable, intelligent machines in real-world environments. The new system, called “LucidSim,” uses recent advances in generative AI and physics simulators to create diverse and realistic virtual training environments, helping robots achieve expert-level performance in difficult tasks without any real-world data.

LucidSim combines physics simulation with generative AI models, addressing one of the most persistent challenges in robotics: transferring skills learned in simulation to the real world. “A fundamental challenge in robot learning has long been the ‘sim-to-real gap’ — the disparity between simulated training environments and the complex, unpredictable real world,” says MIT CSAIL postdoc Ge Yang, a lead researcher on LucidSim. “Previous approaches often relied on depth sensors, which simplified the problem but missed crucial real-world complexities.”

The multipronged system is a blend of different technologies. At its core, LucidSim uses large language models to generate various structured descriptions of environments. These descriptions are then transformed into images using generative models. To ensure that these images reflect real-world physics, an underlying physics simulator is used to guide the generation process.

The birth of an idea: From burritos to breakthroughs

The inspiration for LucidSim came from an unexpected place: a conversation outside Beantown Taqueria in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ​​“We wanted to teach vision-equipped robots how to improve using human feedback. But then, we realized we didn’t have a pure vision-based policy to begin with,” says Alan Yu, an undergraduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) at MIT and co-lead author on LucidSim. “We kept talking about it as we walked down the street, and then we stopped outside the taqueria for about half-an-hour. That’s where we had our moment.”

To cook up their data, the team generated realistic images by extracting depth maps, which provide geometric information, and semantic masks, which label different parts of an image, from the simulated scene. They quickly realized, however, that with tight control on the composition of the image content, the model would produce similar images that weren’t different from each other using the same prompt. So, they devised a way to source diverse text prompts from ChatGPT.

This approach, however, only resulted in a single image. To make short, coherent videos that serve as little “experiences” for the robot, the scientists hacked together some image magic into another novel technique the team created, called “Dreams In Motion.” The system computes the movements of each pixel between frames, to warp a single generated image into a short, multi-frame video. Dreams In Motion does this by considering the 3D geometry of the scene and the relative changes in the robot’s perspective.

“We outperform domain randomization, a method developed in 2017 that applies random colors and patterns to objects in the environment, which is still considered the go-to method these days,” says Yu. “While this technique generates diverse data, it lacks realism. LucidSim addresses both diversity and realism problems. It’s exciting that even without seeing the real world during training, the robot can recognize and navigate obstacles in real environments.”

The team is particularly excited about the potential of applying LucidSim to domains outside quadruped locomotion and parkour, their main test bed. One example is mobile manipulation, where a mobile robot is tasked to handle objects in an open area; also, color perception is critical. “Today, these robots still learn from real-world demonstrations,” says Yang. “Although collecting demonstrations is easy, scaling a real-world robot teleoperation setup to thousands of skills is challenging because a human has to physically set up each scene. We hope to make this easier, thus qualitatively more scalable, by moving data collection into a virtual environment.”

Who's the real expert?

The team put LucidSim to the test against an alternative, where an expert teacher demonstrates the skill for the robot to learn from. The results were surprising: Robots trained by the expert struggled, succeeding only 15 percent of the time — and even quadrupling the amount of expert training data barely moved the needle. But when robots collected their own training data through LucidSim, the story changed dramatically. Just doubling the dataset size catapulted success rates to 88 percent. “And giving our robot more data monotonically improves its performance — eventually, the student becomes the expert,” says Yang.

“One of the main challenges in sim-to-real transfer for robotics is achieving visual realism in simulated environments,” says Stanford University assistant professor of electrical engineering Shuran Song, who wasn’t involved in the research. “The LucidSim framework provides an elegant solution by using generative models to create diverse, highly realistic visual data for any simulation. This work could significantly accelerate the deployment of robots trained in virtual environments to real-world tasks.”

From the streets of Cambridge to the cutting edge of robotics research, LucidSim is paving the way toward a new generation of intelligent, adaptable machines — ones that learn to navigate our complex world without ever setting foot in it.

Yu and Yang wrote the paper with four fellow CSAIL affiliates: Ran Choi, an MIT postdoc in mechanical engineering; Yajvan Ravan, an MIT undergraduate in EECS; John Leonard, the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering; and Phillip Isola, an MIT associate professor in EECS. Their work was supported, in part, by a Packard Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Office of Naval Research, Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency, Amazon, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions. The researchers presented their work at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) in early November.

Forty-six NUS researchers have been placed among the world’s most prominent researchers, based on the Highly Cited Researchers 2024 List published by data analytics firm Clarivate. This annual recognition honours researchers who have demonstrated significant and far-reaching influence in their field of research.

The Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list features NUS researchers whose publications rank in the top 1 per cent by citations for their respective fields and publication year in the Web of Science over the past decade. These NUS honourees have made significant contributions to diverse fields including, Chemistry, Clinical Medicine, Computer Science, Economics and Business, Engineering, Immunology, Materials Science, Microbiology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Physics, Psychiatry and Psychology and more.

This year, 6,636 researchers from 59 countries and regions have been named Highly Cited Researchers. In the list, 3,560 researchers have been recognised in specific fields and 3,326 researchers for cross-field impact, with 238 researchers being named in two or more fields.

Professor Liu Bin, NUS Deputy President (Research and Technology), said, “NUS is incredibly proud of our exceptional researchers, whose dedication to excellence and groundbreaking discoveries continue to push the frontiers of knowledge. Their meaningful contributions have had a profound impact in addressing real-world issues and paving the way towards a better future for all.”

David Pendlebury, Head of Research Analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, said, “The Highly Cited Researchers list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers at NUS whose significant and broad influence in their fields translates to impact in their research community. Their pioneering innovations contribute to a healthier, more sustainable and secure world. These researchers’ achievements strengthen the foundation of excellence and innovation that drives societal progress.”

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) at Clarivate creates a new list of Highly Cited Researchers each year based on a rolling 11-year window of citation evaluation by applying a rigorous editorial selection process to identify trusted journals in the Web of Science.

The 46 highly cited NUS researchers in their respective fields are:

A new $24.79 million project is poised to revolutionise pest management for Australian grain and vegetable growers. This initiative is a crucial step in preparing these key food production industries to reduce reliance on broad-spectrum insecticides and implement innovative strategies to manage pest populations and promote beneficial insects.

By Assoc Prof (Joint) Mythily Subramaniam from NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health

• The Straits Times, 9 November 2024, Insight, pB7

• Suria News Online, 9 November 2024

From early development to old age, cell death is a part of life. Without enough of a critical type of cell death known as apoptosis, animals wind up with too many cells, which can set the stage for cancer or autoimmune disease. But careful control is essential, because when apoptosis eliminates the wrong cells, the effects can be just as dire, helping to drive many kinds of neurodegenerative disease.

By studying the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans — which was honored with its fourth Nobel Prize last month — scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research have begun to unravel a longstanding mystery about the factors that control apoptosis: how a protein capable of preventing programmed cell death can also promote it. Their study, led by Robert Horvitz, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at MIT, and reported Oct. 9 in the journal Science Advances, sheds light on the process of cell death in both health and disease.

“These findings, by graduate student Nolan Tucker and former graduate student, now MIT faculty colleague, Peter Reddien, have revealed that a protein interaction long thought to block apoptosis in C. elegans likely instead has the opposite effect,” says Horvitz, who is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the McGovern Institute. Horvitz shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering and characterizing the genes controlling cell death in C. elegans.

Mechanisms of cell death

Horvitz, Tucker, Reddien, and colleagues have provided foundational insights in the field of apoptosis by using C. elegans to analyze the mechanisms that drive apoptosis, as well as the mechanisms that determine how cells ensure apoptosis happens when and where it should. Unlike humans and other mammals, which depend on dozens of proteins to control apoptosis, these worms use just a few. And when things go awry, it’s easy to tell: When there’s not enough apoptosis, researchers can see that there are too many cells inside the worms’ translucent bodies. And when there’s too much, the worms lack certain biological functions or, in more extreme cases, can’t reproduce or die during embryonic development.

Work in the Horvitz lab defined the roles of many of the genes and proteins that control apoptosis in worms. These regulators proved to have counterparts in human cells, and for that reason studies of worms have helped reveal how human cells govern cell death and pointed toward potential targets for treating disease.

A protein’s dual role

Three of C. elegans’ primary regulators of apoptosis actively promote cell death, whereas just one, CED-9, reins in the apoptosis-promoting proteins to keep cells alive. As early as the 1990s, however, Horvitz and colleagues recognized that CED-9 was not exclusively a protector of cells. Their experiments indicated that the protector protein also plays a role in promoting cell death. But while researchers thought they knew how CED-9 protected against apoptosis, its pro-apoptotic role was more puzzling.

CED-9’s dual role means that mutations in the gene that encode it can impact apoptosis in multiple ways. Most ced-9 mutations interfere with the protein’s ability to protect against cell death and result in excess cell death. Conversely, mutations that abnormally activate ced-9 cause too little cell death, just like mutations that inactivate any of the three killer genes.

An atypical ced-9 mutation, identified by Reddien when he was a PhD student in Horvitz’s lab, hinted at how CED-9 promotes cell death. That mutation altered the part of the CED-9 protein that interacts with the protein CED-4, which is proapoptotic. Since the mutation specifically leads to a reduction in apoptosis, this suggested that CED-9 might need to interact with CED-4 to promote cell death.

The idea was particularly intriguing because researchers had long thought that CED-9’s interaction with CED-4 had exactly the opposite effect: In the canonical model, CED-9 anchors CED-4 to cells’ mitochondria, sequestering the CED-4 killer protein and preventing it from associating with and activating another key killer, the CED-3 protein — thereby preventing apoptosis.

To test the hypothesis that CED-9’s interactions with the killer CED-4 protein enhance apoptosis, the team needed more evidence. So graduate student Nolan Tucker used CRISPR gene editing tools to create more worms with mutations in CED-9, each one targeting a different spot in the CED-4-binding region. Then he examined the worms. “What I saw with this particular class of mutations was extra cells and viability,” he says — clear signs that the altered CED-9 was still protecting against cell death, but could no longer promote it. “Those observations strongly supported the hypothesis that the ability to bind CED-4 is needed for the pro-apoptotic function of CED-9,” Tucker explains. Their observations also suggested that, contrary to earlier thinking, CED-9 doesn’t need to bind with CED-4 to protect against apoptosis.

When he looked inside the cells of the mutant worms, Tucker found additional evidence that these mutations prevented CED-9’s ability to interact with CED-4. When both CED-9 and CED-4 are intact, CED-4 appears associated with cells’ mitochondria. But in the presence of these mutations, CED-4 was instead at the edge of the cell nucleus. CED-9’s ability to bind CED-4 to mitochondria appeared to be necessary to promote apoptosis, not to protect against it.

Looking ahead

While the team’s findings begin to explain a long-unanswered question about one of the primary regulators of apoptosis, they raise new ones, as well. “I think that this main pathway of apoptosis has been seen by a lot of people as more-or-less settled science. Our findings should change that view,” Tucker says.

The researchers see important parallels between their findings from this study of worms and what’s known about cell death pathways in mammals. The mammalian counterpart to CED-9 is a protein called BCL-2, mutations in which can lead to cancer.  BCL-2, like CED-9, can both promote and protect against apoptosis. As with CED-9, the pro-apoptotic function of BCL-2 has been mysterious. In mammals, too, mitochondria play a key role in activating apoptosis. The Horvitz lab’s discovery opens opportunities to better understand how apoptosis is regulated not only in worms but also in humans, and how dysregulation of apoptosis in humans can lead to such disorders as cancer, autoimmune disease, and neurodegeneration.

From early development to old age, cell death is a part of life. Without enough of a critical type of cell death known as apoptosis, animals wind up with too many cells, which can set the stage for cancer or autoimmune disease. But careful control is essential, because when apoptosis eliminates the wrong cells, the effects can be just as dire, helping to drive many kinds of neurodegenerative disease.

By studying the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans — which was honored with its fourth Nobel Prize last month — scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research have begun to unravel a longstanding mystery about the factors that control apoptosis: how a protein capable of preventing programmed cell death can also promote it. Their study, led by Robert Horvitz, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at MIT, and reported Oct. 9 in the journal Science Advances, sheds light on the process of cell death in both health and disease.

“These findings, by graduate student Nolan Tucker and former graduate student, now MIT faculty colleague, Peter Reddien, have revealed that a protein interaction long thought to block apoptosis in C. elegans likely instead has the opposite effect,” says Horvitz, who is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the McGovern Institute. Horvitz shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering and characterizing the genes controlling cell death in C. elegans.

Mechanisms of cell death

Horvitz, Tucker, Reddien, and colleagues have provided foundational insights in the field of apoptosis by using C. elegans to analyze the mechanisms that drive apoptosis, as well as the mechanisms that determine how cells ensure apoptosis happens when and where it should. Unlike humans and other mammals, which depend on dozens of proteins to control apoptosis, these worms use just a few. And when things go awry, it’s easy to tell: When there’s not enough apoptosis, researchers can see that there are too many cells inside the worms’ translucent bodies. And when there’s too much, the worms lack certain biological functions or, in more extreme cases, can’t reproduce or die during embryonic development.

Work in the Horvitz lab defined the roles of many of the genes and proteins that control apoptosis in worms. These regulators proved to have counterparts in human cells, and for that reason studies of worms have helped reveal how human cells govern cell death and pointed toward potential targets for treating disease.

A protein’s dual role

Three of C. elegans’ primary regulators of apoptosis actively promote cell death, whereas just one, CED-9, reins in the apoptosis-promoting proteins to keep cells alive. As early as the 1990s, however, Horvitz and colleagues recognized that CED-9 was not exclusively a protector of cells. Their experiments indicated that the protector protein also plays a role in promoting cell death. But while researchers thought they knew how CED-9 protected against apoptosis, its pro-apoptotic role was more puzzling.

CED-9’s dual role means that mutations in the gene that encode it can impact apoptosis in multiple ways. Most ced-9 mutations interfere with the protein’s ability to protect against cell death and result in excess cell death. Conversely, mutations that abnormally activate ced-9 cause too little cell death, just like mutations that inactivate any of the three killer genes.

An atypical ced-9 mutation, identified by Reddien when he was a PhD student in Horvitz’s lab, hinted at how CED-9 promotes cell death. That mutation altered the part of the CED-9 protein that interacts with the protein CED-4, which is proapoptotic. Since the mutation specifically leads to a reduction in apoptosis, this suggested that CED-9 might need to interact with CED-4 to promote cell death.

The idea was particularly intriguing because researchers had long thought that CED-9’s interaction with CED-4 had exactly the opposite effect: In the canonical model, CED-9 anchors CED-4 to cells’ mitochondria, sequestering the CED-4 killer protein and preventing it from associating with and activating another key killer, the CED-3 protein — thereby preventing apoptosis.

To test the hypothesis that CED-9’s interactions with the killer CED-4 protein enhance apoptosis, the team needed more evidence. So graduate student Nolan Tucker used CRISPR gene editing tools to create more worms with mutations in CED-9, each one targeting a different spot in the CED-4-binding region. Then he examined the worms. “What I saw with this particular class of mutations was extra cells and viability,” he says — clear signs that the altered CED-9 was still protecting against cell death, but could no longer promote it. “Those observations strongly supported the hypothesis that the ability to bind CED-4 is needed for the pro-apoptotic function of CED-9,” Tucker explains. Their observations also suggested that, contrary to earlier thinking, CED-9 doesn’t need to bind with CED-4 to protect against apoptosis.

When he looked inside the cells of the mutant worms, Tucker found additional evidence that these mutations prevented CED-9’s ability to interact with CED-4. When both CED-9 and CED-4 are intact, CED-4 appears associated with cells’ mitochondria. But in the presence of these mutations, CED-4 was instead at the edge of the cell nucleus. CED-9’s ability to bind CED-4 to mitochondria appeared to be necessary to promote apoptosis, not to protect against it.

Looking ahead

While the team’s findings begin to explain a long-unanswered question about one of the primary regulators of apoptosis, they raise new ones, as well. “I think that this main pathway of apoptosis has been seen by a lot of people as more-or-less settled science. Our findings should change that view,” Tucker says.

The researchers see important parallels between their findings from this study of worms and what’s known about cell death pathways in mammals. The mammalian counterpart to CED-9 is a protein called BCL-2, mutations in which can lead to cancer.  BCL-2, like CED-9, can both promote and protect against apoptosis. As with CED-9, the pro-apoptotic function of BCL-2 has been mysterious. In mammals, too, mitochondria play a key role in activating apoptosis. The Horvitz lab’s discovery opens opportunities to better understand how apoptosis is regulated not only in worms but also in humans, and how dysregulation of apoptosis in humans can lead to such disorders as cancer, autoimmune disease, and neurodegeneration.

MIT physicists have shown that it should be possible to create an exotic form of matter that could be manipulated to form the qubit (quantum bit) building blocks of future quantum computers that are even more powerful than the quantum computers in development today.

The work builds on a discovery last year of materials that host electrons that can split into fractions of themselves but, importantly, can do so without the application of a magnetic field. 

The general phenomenon of electron fractionalization was first discovered in 1982 and resulted in a Nobel Prize. That work, however, required the application of a magnetic field. The ability to create the fractionalized electrons without a magnetic field opens new possibilities for basic research and makes the materials hosting them more useful for applications.

When electrons split into fractions of themselves, those fractions are known as anyons. Anyons come in variety of flavors, or classes. The anyons discovered in the 2023 materials are known as Abelian anyons. Now, in a paper reported in the Oct. 17 issue of Physical Review Letters, the MIT team notes that it should be possible to create the most exotic class of anyons, non-Abelian anyons.

“Non-Abelian anyons have the bewildering capacity of ‘remembering’ their spacetime trajectories; this memory effect can be useful for quantum computing,” says Liang Fu, a professor in MIT’s Department of Physics and leader of the work. 

Fu further notes that “the 2023 experiments on electron fractionalization greatly exceeded theoretical expectations. My takeaway is that we theorists should be bolder.”

Fu is also affiliated with the MIT Materials Research Laboratory. His colleagues on the current work are graduate students Aidan P. Reddy and Nisarga Paul, and postdoc Ahmed Abouelkomsan, all of the MIT Department of Phsyics. Reddy and Paul are co-first authors of the Physical Review Letters paper.

The MIT work and two related studies were also featured in an Oct. 17 story in Physics Magazine. “If this prediction is confirmed experimentally, it could lead to more reliable quantum computers that can execute a wider range of tasks … Theorists have already devised ways to harness non-Abelian states as workable qubits and manipulate the excitations of these states to enable robust quantum computation,” writes Ryan Wilkinson.

The current work was guided by recent advances in 2D materials, or those consisting of only one or a few layers of atoms. “The whole world of two-dimensional materials is very interesting because you can stack them and twist them, and sort of play Legos with them to get all sorts of cool sandwich structures with unusual properties,” says Paul. Those sandwich structures, in turn, are called moiré materials.

Anyons can only form in two-dimensional materials. Could they form in moiré materials? The 2023 experiments were the first to show that they can. Soon afterwards, a group led by Long Ju, an MIT assistant professor of physics, reported evidence of anyons in another moiré material. (Fu and Reddy were also involved in the Ju work.)

In the current work, the physicists showed that it should be possible to create non-Abelian anyons in a moiré material composed of atomically thin layers of molybdenum ditelluride. Says Paul, “moiré materials have already revealed fascinating phases of matter in recent years, and our work shows that non-Abelian phases could be added to the list.”

Adds Reddy, “our work shows that when electrons are added at a density of 3/2 or 5/2 per unit cell, they can organize into an intriguing quantum state that hosts non-Abelian anyons.”

The work was exciting, says Reddy, in part because “oftentimes there’s subtlety in interpreting your results and what they are actually telling you. So it was fun to think through our arguments” in support of non-Abelian anyons.

Says Paul, “this project ranged from really concrete numerical calculations to pretty abstract theory and connected the two. I learned a lot from my collaborators about some very interesting topics.”

This work was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The authors also acknowledge the MIT SuperCloud and Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Simons Foundation.

MIT physicists have shown that it should be possible to create an exotic form of matter that could be manipulated to form the qubit (quantum bit) building blocks of future quantum computers that are even more powerful than the quantum computers in development today.

The work builds on a discovery last year of materials that host electrons that can split into fractions of themselves but, importantly, can do so without the application of a magnetic field. 

The general phenomenon of electron fractionalization was first discovered in 1982 and resulted in a Nobel Prize. That work, however, required the application of a magnetic field. The ability to create the fractionalized electrons without a magnetic field opens new possibilities for basic research and makes the materials hosting them more useful for applications.

When electrons split into fractions of themselves, those fractions are known as anyons. Anyons come in variety of flavors, or classes. The anyons discovered in the 2023 materials are known as Abelian anyons. Now, in a paper reported in the Oct. 17 issue of Physical Review Letters, the MIT team notes that it should be possible to create the most exotic class of anyons, non-Abelian anyons.

“Non-Abelian anyons have the bewildering capacity of ‘remembering’ their spacetime trajectories; this memory effect can be useful for quantum computing,” says Liang Fu, a professor in MIT’s Department of Physics and leader of the work. 

Fu further notes that “the 2023 experiments on electron fractionalization greatly exceeded theoretical expectations. My takeaway is that we theorists should be bolder.”

Fu is also affiliated with the MIT Materials Research Laboratory. His colleagues on the current work are graduate students Aidan P. Reddy and Nisarga Paul, and postdoc Ahmed Abouelkomsan, all of the MIT Department of Phsyics. Reddy and Paul are co-first authors of the Physical Review Letters paper.

The MIT work and two related studies were also featured in an Oct. 17 story in Physics Magazine. “If this prediction is confirmed experimentally, it could lead to more reliable quantum computers that can execute a wider range of tasks … Theorists have already devised ways to harness non-Abelian states as workable qubits and manipulate the excitations of these states to enable robust quantum computation,” writes Ryan Wilkinson.

The current work was guided by recent advances in 2D materials, or those consisting of only one or a few layers of atoms. “The whole world of two-dimensional materials is very interesting because you can stack them and twist them, and sort of play Legos with them to get all sorts of cool sandwich structures with unusual properties,” says Paul. Those sandwich structures, in turn, are called moiré materials.

Anyons can only form in two-dimensional materials. Could they form in moiré materials? The 2023 experiments were the first to show that they can. Soon afterwards, a group led by Long Ju, an MIT assistant professor of physics, reported evidence of anyons in another moiré material. (Fu and Reddy were also involved in the Ju work.)

In the current work, the physicists showed that it should be possible to create non-Abelian anyons in a moiré material composed of atomically thin layers of molybdenum ditelluride. Says Paul, “moiré materials have already revealed fascinating phases of matter in recent years, and our work shows that non-Abelian phases could be added to the list.”

Adds Reddy, “our work shows that when electrons are added at a density of 3/2 or 5/2 per unit cell, they can organize into an intriguing quantum state that hosts non-Abelian anyons.”

The work was exciting, says Reddy, in part because “oftentimes there’s subtlety in interpreting your results and what they are actually telling you. So it was fun to think through our arguments” in support of non-Abelian anyons.

Says Paul, “this project ranged from really concrete numerical calculations to pretty abstract theory and connected the two. I learned a lot from my collaborators about some very interesting topics.”

This work was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The authors also acknowledge the MIT SuperCloud and Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Simons Foundation.

In a QA, Fred Dickinson of the Department of History discusses his semester as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Vietnam and building out Southeast Asian studies at Penn.

Students share the campus and their experiences at Penn with visitors in person and online, forming meaningful friendships and lasting connections.

MIT physicists have taken a key step toward solving the puzzle of what leads electrons to split into fractions of themselves. Their solution sheds light on the conditions that give rise to exotic electronic states in graphene and other two-dimensional systems.

The new work is an effort to make sense of a discovery that was reported earlier this year by a different group of physicists at MIT, led by Assistant Professor Long Ju. Ju’s team found that electrons appear to exhibit “fractional charge” in pentalayer graphene — a configuration of five graphene layers that are stacked atop a similarly structured sheet of boron nitride.

Ju discovered that when he sent an electric current through the pentalayer structure, the electrons seemed to pass through as fractions of their total charge, even in the absence of a magnetic field. Scientists had already shown that electrons can split into fractions under a very strong magnetic field, in what is known as the fractional quantum Hall effect. Ju’s work was the first to find that this effect was possible in graphene without a magnetic field — which until recently was not expected to exhibit such an effect.

The phenemonon was coined the “fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect,” and theorists have been keen to find an explanation for how fractional charge can emerge from pentalayer graphene.

The new study, led by MIT professor of physics Senthil Todadri, provides a crucial piece of the answer. Through calculations of quantum mechanical interactions, he and his colleagues show that the electrons form a sort of crystal structure, the properties of which are ideal for fractions of electrons to emerge.

“This is a completely new mechanism, meaning in the decades-long history, people have never had a system go toward these kinds of fractional electron phenomena,” Todadri says. “It’s really exciting because it makes possible all kinds of new experiments that previously one could only dream about.”

The team’s study appeared last week in the journal Physical Review Letters. Two other research teams — one from Johns Hopkins University, and the other from Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory  — have each published similar results in the same issue. The MIT team includes Zhihuan Dong PhD ’24 and former postdoc Adarsh Patri.

“Fractional phenomena”

In 2018, MIT professor of physics Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and his colleagues were the first to observe that new electronic behavior could emerge from stacking and twisting two sheets of graphene. Each layer of graphene is as thin as a single atom and structured in a chicken-wire lattice of hexagonal carbon atoms. By stacking two sheets at a very specific angle to each other, he found that the resulting interference, or moiré pattern, induced unexpected phenomena such as both superconducting and insulating properties in the same material. This “magic-angle graphene,” as it was soon coined, ignited a new field known as twistronics, the study of electronic behavior in twisted, two-dimensional materials.

“Shortly after his experiments, we realized these moiré systems would be ideal platforms in general to find the kinds of conditions that enable these fractional electron phases to emerge,” says Todadri, who collaborated with Jarillo-Herrero on a study that same year to show that, in theory, such twisted systems could exhibit fractional charge without a magnetic field. “We were advocating these as the best systems to look for these kinds of fractional phenomena,” he says.

Then, in September of 2023, Todadri hopped on a Zoom call with Ju, who was familiar with Todari’s theoretical work and had kept in touch with him through Ju’s own experimental work.

“He called me on a Saturday and showed me the data in which he saw these [electron] fractions in pentalayer graphene,” Todadri recalls. “And that was a big surprise because it didn’t play out the way we thought.”

In his 2018 paper, Todadri predicted that fractional charge should emerge from a precursor phase characterized by a particular twisting of the electron wavefunction. Broadly speaking, he theorized that an electron’s quantum properties should have a certain twisting, or degree to which it can be manipulated without changing its inherent structure. This winding, he predicted, should increase with the number of graphene layers added to a given moiré structure.

“For pentalayer graphene, we thought the wavefunction would wind around five times, and that would be a precursor for electron fractions,” Todadri says. “But he did his experiments and discovered that it does wind around, but only once. That then raised this big question: How should we think about whatever we are seeing?”

Extraordinary crystal

In the team’s new study, Todadri went back to work out how electron fractions could emerge from pentalayer graphene if not through the path he initially predicted. The physicists looked through their original hypothesis and realized they may have missed a key ingredient.

“The standard strategy in the field when figuring out what’s happening in any electronic system is to treat electrons as independent actors, and from that, figure out their topology, or winding,” Todadri explains. “But from Long’s experiments, we knew this approximation must be incorrect.”

While in most materials, electrons have plenty of space to repel each other and zing about as independent agents, the particles are much more confined in two-dimensional structures such as pentalayer graphene. In such tight quarters, the team realized that electrons should also be forced to interact, behaving according to their quantum correlations in addition to their natural repulsion. When the physicists added interelectron interactions to their theory, they found it correctly predicted the winding that Ju observed for pentalayer graphene.

Once they had a theoretical prediction that matched with observations, the team could work from this prediction to identify a mechanism by which pentalayer graphene gave rise to fractional charge.

They found that the moiré arrangement of pentalayer graphene, in which each lattice-like layer of carbon atoms is arranged atop the other and on top of the boron-nitride, induces a weak electrical potential. When electrons pass through this potential, they form a sort of crystal, or a periodic formation, that confines the electrons and forces them to interact through their quantum correlations. This electron tug-of-war creates a sort of cloud of possible physical states for each electron, which interacts with every other electron cloud in the crystal, in a wavefunction, or a pattern of quantum correlations, that gives the winding that should set the stage for electrons to split into fractions of themselves.

“This crystal has a whole set of unusual properties that are different from ordinary crystals, and leads to many fascinating questions for future research,” Todadri says. “For the short term, this mechanism provides the theoretical foundation for understanding the observations of fractions of electrons in pentalayer graphene and for predicting other systems with similar physics.”

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

The Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity (AFSE) today announced its 2025 cohort of Fellows from an unprecedented five Pacific countries.

The VCA Art Grad Show returns this week with an extraordinary display of new work by graduating students at the University of Melbournes Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).

Through his work as an interdisciplinary chemist, Booker has has made advancements in human health and innovative new treatments of disease.

Katharine Strunk, dean of the Graduate School of Education, began her tenure in July 2023. This week, she announced the School’s strategic vision, Together for Good.

At age 22, aerospace engineer Eric Shaw worked on some of the world’s most powerful airplanes, yet learning to fly even the smallest one was out of reach. Just out of college, he could not afford civilian flight school and spent the next two years saving $12,000 to earn his private pilot’s license. Shaw knew there had to be a better, less expensive way to train pilots.  

Now a graduate student at the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program, Shaw joined the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AeroAstro) Certificate in Aerospace Innovation program to turn a years-long rumination into a viable solution. Along with fellow graduate students Gretel Gonzalez and Shaan Jagani, Shaw proposed training aspiring pilots on electric and hybrid planes. This approach reduces flight school expenses by up to 34 percent while shrinking the industry’s carbon footprint.

The trio shared their plan to create the Aeroelectric Flight Academy at the certificate program’s signature Pitchfest event last spring. Equipped with a pitch deck and a business plan, the team impressed the judges, who awarded them the competition’s top prize of $10,000.

What began as a curiosity to test an idea has reshaped Shaw’s view of his industry.

“Aerospace and entrepreneurship initially seemed antithetical to me,” Shaw says. “It’s a hard sector to break into because the capital expenses are huge and a few big dogs have a lot of influence. Earning this certificate and talking face-to-face with folks who have overcome this seemingly impossible gap has filled me with confidence.”

Disruption by design

AeroAstro introduced the Certificate in Aerospace Innovation in 2021 after engaging in a strategic planning process to take full advantage of the research and ideas coming out of the department. The initiative is spearheaded by AeroAstro professors Olivier L. de Weck SM ʼ99, PhD ʼ01 and Zoltán S. Spakovszky SM ʼ99, PhD ʼ00, in partnership with the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Its creation recognizes the aerospace industry is at an inflection point. Major advancements in drone, satellite, and other technologies, coupled with an infusion of nongovernmental funding, have made it easier than ever to bring aerospace innovations to the marketplace.

“The landscape has radically shifted,” says Spakovszky, the Institute’s T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Aeronautics. “MIT students are responding to this change because startups are often the quickest path to impact.”

The certificate program has three requirements: coursework in both aerospace engineering and entrepreneurship, a speaker series primarily featuring MIT alumni and faculty, and hands-on entrepreneurship experience. In the latter, participants can enroll in the Trust Center’s StartMIT program and then compete in Pitchfest, which is modeled after the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. They can also join a summer incubator, such as the Trust Center’s MIT delta v or the Venture Exploration Program, run by the MIT Office of Innovation and the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps.

“At the end of the program, students will be able to look at a technical proposal and fairly quickly run some numbers and figure out if this innovation has market viability or if it’s completely utopian,” says de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and associate department head of AeroAstro.

Since its inception, 46 people from the MIT community have participated and 13 have fulfilled the requirements of the two-year program to earn the certificate. The program’s fourth cohort is underway this fall with its largest enrollment yet, with 21 postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate seniors across seven courses and programs at MIT.

A unicorn industry

When Eddie Obropta SM ʼ13, SM ʼ15 attended MIT, aerospace entrepreneurship meant working for SpaceX or Blue Origin. Yet he knew more was possible. He gave himself a crash course in entrepreneurship by competing in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition four times. Each year, his ideas became more refined and battle-tested by potential customers.

In his final entry in the competition, Obropta, along with MIT doctoral student Nikhil Vadhavkar and Forrest Meyen SM ’13 PhD ’17, proposed using drones to maximize crop yields. Their business, Raptor Maps, won. Today, Obropta serves as the co-founder and chief technology officer of Raptor Maps, which builds software to automate the operations and maintenance of solar farms using drones, robots, and artificial intelligence

While Obropta received support from AeroAstro and MIT's existing entrepreneurial ecosystem, the tech leader was excited when de Weck and Spakovszky shared their plans to launch the Certificate in Aerospace Innovation. Obropta currently serves on the program’s advisory board, has been a presenter at the speaker series, and has served as a mentor and judge for Pitchfest.

“While there are a lot of excellent entrepreneurship programs across the Institute, the aerospace industry is its own unique beast,” Obropta says. “Today’s aspiring founders are visionaries looking to build a spacefaring civilization, but they need specialized support in navigating complex multidisciplinary missions and heavy government involvement.”

Entrepreneurs are everywhere, not just at startups

While the certificate program will likely produce success stories like Raptor Maps, that is not the ultimate goal, say de Weck and Spakovszky. Thinking and acting like an entrepreneur — such as understanding market potential, dealing with failure, and building a deep professional network — are characteristics that benefit everyone, no matter their occupation. 

Paul Cheek, executive director of the Trust Center who also teaches a course in the certificate program, agrees.

“At its core, entrepreneurship is a mindset and a skill set; it’s about moving the needle forward for maximum impact,” Cheek says. “A lot of organizations, including large corporations, nonprofits, and the government, can benefit from that type of thinking.”

That form of entrepreneurship resonates with the Aeroelectric Flight Academy team. Although they are meeting with potential investors and looking to scale their business, all three plan to pursue their first passions: Jagani hopes to be an astronaut, Shaw would like to be an executive at one of the “big dog” aerospace companies, and Gonzalez wants to work for the Mexican Space Agency.

Gonzalez, who is on track to earn her certificate in 2025, says she is especially grateful for the people she met through the program.

“I didn’t know an aerospace entrepreneurship community even existed when I began the program,” Gonzalez says. “It’s here and it’s filled with very dedicated and generous people who have shared insights with me that I don’t think I would have learned anywhere else.”

To fend off the worst impacts of climate change, “we have to decarbonize, and do it even faster,” said William H. Green, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, at MITEI’s Annual Research Conference.

“But how the heck do we actually achieve this goal when the United States is in the middle of a divisive election campaign, and globally, we’re facing all kinds of geopolitical conflicts, trade protectionism, weather disasters, increasing demand from developing countries building a middle class, and data centers in countries like the U.S.?”

Researchers, government officials, and business leaders convened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sept. 25-26 to wrestle with this vexing question at the conference that was themed, “A durable energy transition: How to stay on track in the face of increasing demand and unpredictable obstacles.”

“In this room we have a lot of power,” said Green, “if we work together, convey to all of society what we see as real pathways and policies to solve problems, and take collective action.”

The critical role of consensus-building in driving the energy transition arose repeatedly in conference sessions, whether the topic involved developing and adopting new technologies, constructing and siting infrastructure, drafting and passing vital energy policies, or attracting and retaining a skilled workforce.

Resolving conflicts

There is “blowback and a social cost” in transitioning away from fossil fuels, said Stephen Ansolabehere, the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University, in a panel on the social barriers to decarbonization. “Companies need to engage differently and recognize the rights of communities,” he said.

Nora DeDontney, director of development at Vineyard Offshore, described her company’s two years of outreach and negotiations to bring large cables from ocean-based wind turbines onshore.

“Our motto is, 'community first,'” she said. Her company works to mitigate any impacts towns might feel because of offshore wind infrastructure construction with projects, such as sewer upgrades; provides workforce training to Tribal Nations; and lays out wind turbines in a manner that provides safe and reliable areas for local fisheries.

Elsa A. Olivetti, professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and the lead of the Decarbonization Mission of MIT’s new Climate Project, discussed the urgent need for rapid scale-up of mineral extraction. “Estimates indicate that to electrify the vehicle fleet by 2050, about six new large copper mines need to come on line each year,” she said. To meet the demand for metals in the United States means pushing into Indigenous lands and environmentally sensitive habitats. “The timeline of permitting is not aligned with the temporal acceleration needed,” she said.

Larry Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is trying to resolve such tensions with universities playing the role of mediators. He is creating renewable energy clinics where students train to participate in emerging disputes over siting. “Talk to people before decisions are made, conduct joint fact finding, so that facilities reduce harms and share the benefits,” he said.

Clean energy boom and pressure

A relatively recent and unforeseen increase in demand for energy comes from data centers, which are being built by large technology companies for new offerings, such as artificial intelligence.

“General energy demand was flat for 20 years — and now, boom,” said Sean James, Microsoft’s senior director of data center research. “It caught utilities flatfooted.” With the expansion of AI, the rush to provision data centers with upwards of 35 gigawatts of new (and mainly renewable) power in the near future, intensifies pressure on big companies to balance the concerns of stakeholders across multiple domains. Google is pursuing 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, said Devon Swezey, the company’s senior manager for global energy and climate.

“We’re pursuing this by purchasing more and different types of clean energy locally, and accelerating technological innovation such as next-generation geothermal projects,” he said. Pedro Gómez Lopez, strategy and development director, Ferrovial Digital, which designs and constructs data centers, incorporates renewable energy into their projects, which contributes to decarbonization goals and benefits to locales where they are sited. “We can create a new supply of power, taking the heat generated by a data center to residences or industries in neighborhoods through District Heating initiatives,” he said.

The Inflation Reduction Act and other legislation has ramped up employment opportunities in clean energy nationwide, touching every region, including those most tied to fossil fuels. “At the start of 2024 there were about 3.5 million clean energy jobs, with 'red' states showing the fastest growth in clean energy jobs,” said David S. Miller, managing partner at Clean Energy Ventures. “The majority (58 percent) of new jobs in energy are now in clean energy — that transition has happened. And one-in-16 new jobs nationwide were in clean energy, with clean energy jobs growing more than three times faster than job growth economy-wide”

In this rapid expansion, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is prioritizing economically marginalized places, according to Zoe Lipman, lead for good jobs and labor standards in the Office of Energy Jobs at the DoE. “The community benefit process is integrated into our funding,” she said. “We are creating the foundation of a virtuous circle,” encouraging benefits to flow to disadvantaged and energy communities, spurring workforce training partnerships, and promoting well-paid union jobs. “These policies incentivize proactive community and labor engagement, and deliver community benefits, both of which are key to building support for technological change.”

Hydrogen opportunity and challenge

While engagement with stakeholders helps clear the path for implementation of technology and the spread of infrastructure, there remain enormous policy, scientific, and engineering challenges to solve, said multiple conference participants. In a “fireside chat,” Prasanna V. Joshi, vice president of low-carbon-solutions technology at ExxonMobil, and Ernest J. Moniz, professor of physics and special advisor to the president at MIT, discussed efforts to replace natural gas and coal with zero-carbon hydrogen in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in such major industries as steel and fertilizer manufacturing.

“We have gone into an era of industrial policy,” said Moniz, citing a new DoE program offering incentives to generate demand for hydrogen — more costly than conventional fossil fuels — in end-use applications. “We are going to have to transition from our current approach, which I would call carrots-and-twigs, to ultimately, carrots-and-sticks,” Moniz warned, in order to create “a self-sustaining, major, scalable, affordable hydrogen economy.”

To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, ExxonMobil intends to use carbon capture and sequestration in natural gas-based hydrogen and ammonia production. Ammonia can also serve as a zero-carbon fuel. Industry is exploring burning ammonia directly in coal-fired power plants to extend the hydrogen value chain. But there are challenges. “How do you burn 100 percent ammonia?”, asked Joshi. “That's one of the key technology breakthroughs that's needed.” Joshi believes that collaboration with MIT’s “ecosystem of breakthrough innovation” will be essential to breaking logjams around the hydrogen and ammonia-based industries.

MIT ingenuity essential

The energy transition is placing very different demands on different regions around the world. Take India, where today per capita power consumption is one of the lowest. But Indians “are an aspirational people … and with increasing urbanization and industrial activity, the growth in power demand is expected to triple by 2050,” said Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing director of the Tata Power Co. Ltd., in his keynote speech. For that nation, which currently relies on coal, the move to clean energy means bringing another 300 gigawatts of zero-carbon capacity online in the next five years. Sinha sees this power coming from wind, solar, and hydro, supplemented by nuclear energy.

“India plans to triple nuclear power generation capacity by 2032, and is focusing on advancing small modular reactors,” said Sinha. “The country also needs the rapid deployment of storage solutions to firm up the intermittent power.” The goal is to provide reliable electricity 24/7 to a population living both in large cities and in geographically remote villages, with the help of long-range transmission lines and local microgrids. “India’s energy transition will require innovative and affordable technology solutions, and there is no better place to go than MIT, where you have the best brains, startups, and technology,” he said.

These assets were on full display at the conference. Among them a cluster of young businesses, including:

• the MIT spinout Form Energy, which has developed a 100-hour iron battery as a backstop to renewable energy sources in case of multi-day interruptions;
• startup Noya that aims for direct air capture of atmospheric CO₂ using carbon-based materials;
• the firm Active Surfaces, with a lightweight material for putting solar photovoltaics in previously inaccessible places;
• Copernic Catalysts, with new chemistry for making ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel far more inexpensively than current processes; and
• Sesame Sustainability, a software platform spun out of MITEI that gives industries a full financial analysis of the costs and benefits of decarbonization.

The pipeline of research talent extended into the undergraduate ranks, with a conference “slam” competition showcasing students’ summer research projects in areas from carbon capture using enzymes to 3D design for the coils used in fusion energy confinement.

“MIT students like me are looking to be the next generation of energy leaders, looking for careers where we can apply our engineering skills to tackle exciting climate problems and make a tangible impact,” said Trent Lee, a junior in mechanical engineering researching improvements in lithium-ion energy storage. “We are stoked by the energy transition, because it’s not just the future, but our chance to build it.”

J-PAL North America recently selected government partners for the 2024-25 Leveraging Evaluation and Evidence for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) Evaluation Incubator cohort. Selected collaborators will receive funding and technical assistance to develop or launch a randomized evaluation for one of their programs. These collaborations represent jurisdictions across the United States and demonstrate the growing enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking.

Launched in 2023, LEVER is a joint venture between J-PAL North America and Results for America. Through the Evaluation Incubator, trainings, and other program offerings, LEVER seeks to address the barriers many state and local governments face around finding and generating evidence to inform program design. LEVER offers government leaders the opportunity to learn best practices for policy evaluations and how to integrate evidence into decision-making. Since the program’s inception, more than 80 government jurisdictions have participated in LEVER offerings.

J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubator helps collaborators turn policy-relevant research questions into well-designed randomized evaluations, generating rigorous evidence to inform pressing programmatic and policy decisions. The program also aims to build a culture of evidence use and give government partners the tools to continue generating and utilizing evidence in their day-to-day operations.

In addition to funding and technical assistance, the selected state and local government collaborators will be connected with researchers from J-PAL’s network to help advance their evaluation ideas. Evaluation support will also be centered on community-engaged research practices, which emphasize collaborating with and learning from the groups most affected by the program being evaluated.

Evaluation Incubator selected projects

Pierce County Human Services (PCHS) in the state of Washington will evaluate two programs as part of the Evaluation Incubator. The first will examine how extending stays in a fentanyl detox program affects the successful completion of inpatient treatment and hospital utilization for individuals. “PCHS is interested in evaluating longer fentanyl detox stays to inform our funding decisions, streamline our resource utilization, and encourage additional financial commitments to address the unmet needs of individuals dealing with opioid use disorder,” says Trish Crocker, grant coordinator.

The second PCHS program will evaluate the impact of providing medication and outreach services via a mobile distribution unit to individuals with opioid use disorders on program take-up and substance usage. Margo Burnison, a behavioral health manager with PCHS, says that the team is “thrilled to be partnering with J-PAL North America to dive deep into the data to inform our elected leaders on the best way to utilize available resources.”

The City of Los Angeles Youth Development Department (YDD) seeks to evaluate a research-informed program: Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM (SEEDS). This intergenerational STEM mentorship program supports underrepresented middle school and college students in STEM by providing culturally responsive mentorship. The program seeks to foster these students’ STEM identity and degree attainment in higher education. YDD has been working with researchers at the University of Southern California to measure the SEEDS program’s impact, but is interested in developing a randomized evaluation to generate further evidence. Darnell Cole, professor and co-director of the Research Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice, shares his excitement about the collaboration with J-PAL: “We welcome the opportunity to measure the impact of the SEEDS program on our students’ educational experience. Rigorously testing the SEEDS program will help us improve support for STEM students, ultimately enhancing their persistence and success.”

The Fort Wayne Police Department’s Hope and Recovery Team in Indiana will evaluate the impact of two programs that connect social workers with people who have experienced an overdose, or who have a mental health illness, to treatment and resources. “We believe we are on the right track in the work we are doing with the crisis intervention social worker and the recovery coach, but having an outside evaluation of both programs would be extremely helpful in understanding whether and what aspects of these programs are most effective,” says Police Captain Kevin Hunter.

The County of San Diego’s Office of Evaluation, Performance and Analytics, and Planning & Development Services will engage with J-PAL staff to explore evaluation opportunities for two programs that are a part of the county’s Climate Action Plan. The Equity-Driven Tree Planting Program seeks to increase tree canopy coverage, and the Climate Smart Land Stewardship Program will encourage climate-smart agricultural practices. Ricardo Basurto-Davila, chief evaluation officer, says that “the county is dedicated to evidence-based policymaking and taking decisive action against climate change. The work with J-PAL will support us in combining these commitments to maximize the effectiveness in decreasing emissions through these programs.”

J-PAL North America looks forward to working with the selected collaborators in the coming months to learn more about these promising programs, clarify our partner’s evidence goals, and design randomized evaluations to measure their impact.

J-PAL North America recently selected government partners for the 2024-25 Leveraging Evaluation and Evidence for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) Evaluation Incubator cohort. Selected collaborators will receive funding and technical assistance to develop or launch a randomized evaluation for one of their programs. These collaborations represent jurisdictions across the United States and demonstrate the growing enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking.

Launched in 2023, LEVER is a joint venture between J-PAL North America and Results for America. Through the Evaluation Incubator, trainings, and other program offerings, LEVER seeks to address the barriers many state and local governments face around finding and generating evidence to inform program design. LEVER offers government leaders the opportunity to learn best practices for policy evaluations and how to integrate evidence into decision-making. Since the program’s inception, more than 80 government jurisdictions have participated in LEVER offerings.

J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubator helps collaborators turn policy-relevant research questions into well-designed randomized evaluations, generating rigorous evidence to inform pressing programmatic and policy decisions. The program also aims to build a culture of evidence use and give government partners the tools to continue generating and utilizing evidence in their day-to-day operations.

In addition to funding and technical assistance, the selected state and local government collaborators will be connected with researchers from J-PAL’s network to help advance their evaluation ideas. Evaluation support will also be centered on community-engaged research practices, which emphasize collaborating with and learning from the groups most affected by the program being evaluated.

Evaluation Incubator selected projects

Pierce County Human Services (PCHS) in the state of Washington will evaluate two programs as part of the Evaluation Incubator. The first will examine how extending stays in a fentanyl detox program affects the successful completion of inpatient treatment and hospital utilization for individuals. “PCHS is interested in evaluating longer fentanyl detox stays to inform our funding decisions, streamline our resource utilization, and encourage additional financial commitments to address the unmet needs of individuals dealing with opioid use disorder,” says Trish Crocker, grant coordinator.

The second PCHS program will evaluate the impact of providing medication and outreach services via a mobile distribution unit to individuals with opioid use disorders on program take-up and substance usage. Margo Burnison, a behavioral health manager with PCHS, says that the team is “thrilled to be partnering with J-PAL North America to dive deep into the data to inform our elected leaders on the best way to utilize available resources.”

The City of Los Angeles Youth Development Department (YDD) seeks to evaluate a research-informed program: Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM (SEEDS). This intergenerational STEM mentorship program supports underrepresented middle school and college students in STEM by providing culturally responsive mentorship. The program seeks to foster these students’ STEM identity and degree attainment in higher education. YDD has been working with researchers at the University of Southern California to measure the SEEDS program’s impact, but is interested in developing a randomized evaluation to generate further evidence. Darnell Cole, professor and co-director of the Research Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice, shares his excitement about the collaboration with J-PAL: “We welcome the opportunity to measure the impact of the SEEDS program on our students’ educational experience. Rigorously testing the SEEDS program will help us improve support for STEM students, ultimately enhancing their persistence and success.”

The Fort Wayne Police Department’s Hope and Recovery Team in Indiana will evaluate the impact of two programs that connect social workers with people who have experienced an overdose, or who have a mental health illness, to treatment and resources. “We believe we are on the right track in the work we are doing with the crisis intervention social worker and the recovery coach, but having an outside evaluation of both programs would be extremely helpful in understanding whether and what aspects of these programs are most effective,” says Police Captain Kevin Hunter.

The County of San Diego’s Office of Evaluation, Performance and Analytics, and Planning & Development Services will engage with J-PAL staff to explore evaluation opportunities for two programs that are a part of the county’s Climate Action Plan. The Equity-Driven Tree Planting Program seeks to increase tree canopy coverage, and the Climate Smart Land Stewardship Program will encourage climate-smart agricultural practices. Ricardo Basurto-Davila, chief evaluation officer, says that “the county is dedicated to evidence-based policymaking and taking decisive action against climate change. The work with J-PAL will support us in combining these commitments to maximize the effectiveness in decreasing emissions through these programs.”

J-PAL North America looks forward to working with the selected collaborators in the coming months to learn more about these promising programs, clarify our partner’s evidence goals, and design randomized evaluations to measure their impact.

By Assoc Prof (Practice) Terence Ho from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS

• CNA Online, 13 November 2024

By Mr Carl Skadian, Senior Associate Director from the Middle East Institute at NUS

• CNA Online, 13 November 2024

By Dr Ng Weiyi from the Dept of Strategy and Policy at the NUS Business School

• The Straits Times, 13 November 2024, Opinion, pB3

By Visiting Prof Jeannette Ickovics from the Division of Social Sciences, and May Lee, a Psychology student, both from the Yale-NUS College

• The Straits Times, 13 November 2024, Opinion, pB4

By Dr Stefan Huebner, Senior Research Fellow from the Asia Research Institute at NUS

• CNA Online, 14 November 2024

Any child who’s spent a morning building sandcastles only to watch the afternoon tide ruin them in minutes knows the ocean always wins.

Yet, coastal protection strategies have historically focused on battling the sea — attempting to hold back tides and fighting waves and currents by armoring coastlines with jetties and seawalls and taking sand from the ocean floor to “renourish” beaches. These approaches are temporary fixes, but eventually the sea retakes dredged sand, intense surf breaches seawalls, and jetties may just push erosion to a neighboring beach. The ocean wins.

With climate change accelerating sea level rise and coastal erosion, the need for better solutions is urgent. Noting that eight of the world’s 10 largest cities are near a coast, a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report pointed to 2023’s record-high global sea level and warned that high tide flooding is now 300 to 900 percent more frequent than it was 50 years ago, threatening homes, businesses, roads and bridges, and a range of public infrastructure, from water supplies to power plants.    

Island nations face these threats more acutely than other countries and there’s a critical need for better solutions. MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab is refining an innovative one that demonstrates the value of letting nature take its course — with some human coaxing.

The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of nearly 1,200 islands, has traditionally relied on land reclamation via dredging to replenish its eroding coastlines. Working with the Maldivian climate technology company Invena Private Limited, the Self-Assembly Lab is pursuing technological solutions to coastal erosion that mimic nature by harnessing ocean currents to accumulate sand. The Growing Islands project creates and deploys underwater structures that take advantage of wave energy to promote accumulation of sand in strategic locations — helping to expand islands and rebuild coastlines in sustainable ways that can eventually be scaled to coastal areas around the world. 

“There’s room for a new perspective on climate adaptation, one that builds with nature and leverages data for equitable decision-making,” says Invena co-founder and CEO Sarah Dole.

MIT’s pioneering work was the topic of multiple presentations during the United Nations General Assembly and Climate week in New York City in late September. During the week, Self-Assembly Lab co-founder and director Skylar Tibbits and Maldives Minister of Climate Change, Environment and Energy Thoriq Ibrahim also presented findings of the Growing Islands project at MIT Solve’s Global Challenge Finals in New York.

“There’s this interesting story that’s emerging around the dynamics of islands,” says Tibbits, whose U.N.-sponsored panel (“Adaptation Through Innovation: How the Private Sector Could Lead the Way”) was co-hosted by the Government of Maldives and the U.S. Agency for International Development, a Growing Islands project funder. 

In a recent interview, Tibbits said islands “are almost lifelike in their characteristics. They can adapt and grow and change and fluctuate.” Despite some predictions that the Maldives might be inundated by sea level rise and ravaged by erosion, “maybe these islands are actually more resilient than we thought. And maybe there’s a lot more we can learn from these natural formations of sand … maybe they are a better model for how we adapt in the future for sea level rise and erosion and climate change than our man-made cities.”

Building on a series of lab experiments begun in 2017, the MIT Self-Assembly Lab and Invena have been testing the efficacy of submersible structures to expand islands and rebuild coasts in the Maldivian capital of Male since 2019. Since then, researchers have honed the experiments based on initial results that demonstrate the promise of using submersible bladders and other structures to utilize natural currents to encourage strategic accumulation of sand.

The work is “boundary-pushing,” says Alex Moen, chief explorer engagement officer at the National Geographic Society, an early funder of the project.

“Skylar and his team’s innovative technology reflect the type of forward-thinking, solutions-oriented approaches necessary to address the growing threat of sea level rise and erosion to island nations and coastal regions,” Moen said.

Most recently, in August 2024, the team submerged a 60-by-60-meter structure in a lagoon near Male. The structure is six times the size of its predecessor installed in 2019, Tibbits says, adding that while the 2019 island-building experiment was a success, ocean currents in the Maldives change seasonally and it only allowed for accretion of sand in one season.

“The idea of this was to make it omnidirectional. We wanted to make it work year-round. In any direction, any season, we should be accumulating sand in the same area,” Tibbits says. “This is our largest experiment so far, and I think it has the best chance to accumulate the most amount of sand, so we’re super excited about that.”

The next experiment will focus not on building islands, but on overcoming beach erosion. This project, planned for installation later this fall, is envisioned to not only enlarge a beach but also provide recreational benefits for local residents and enhanced habitat for marine life such as fish and corals.

“This will be the first large-scale installment that’s intentionally designed for marine habitats,” Tibbits says.

Another key aspect of the Growing Islands project takes place in Tibbits’ lab at MIT, where researchers are improving the ability to predict and track changes in low-lying islands through satellite imagery analysis — a technique that promises to facilitate what is now a labor-intensive process involving land and sea surveys by drones and researchers on foot and at sea.

“In the future, we could be monitoring and predicting coastlines around the world — every island, every coastline around the world,” Tibbits says. “Are these islands getting smaller, getting bigger? How fast are they losing ground? No one really knows unless we do it by physically surveying right now and that’s not scalable. We do think we have a solution for that coming.”

Also hopefully coming soon is financial support for a Mobile Ocean Innovation Lab, a “floating hub” that would provide small island developing states with advanced technologies to foster coastal and climate resilience, conservation, and renewable energy. Eventually, Tibbits says, it would enable the team to travel “any place around the world and partner with local communities, local innovators, artists, and scientists to help co-develop and deploy some of these technologies in a better way.”

Expanding the reach of climate change solutions that collaborate with, rather than oppose, natural forces depends on getting more people, organizations, and governments on board. 

“There are two challenges,” Tibbits says. “One of them is the legacy and history of what humans have done in the past that constrains what we think we can do in the future. For centuries, we’ve been building hard infrastructure at our coastlines, so we have a lot of knowledge about that. We have companies and practices and expertise, and we have a built-up confidence, or ego, around what’s possible. We need to change that.

“The second problem,” he continues, “is the money-speed-convenience problem — or the known-versus-unknown problem. The hard infrastructure, whether that’s groins or seawalls or just dredging … these practices in some ways have a clear cost and timeline, and we are used to operating in that mindset. And nature doesn’t work that way. Things grow, change, and adapt on their on their own timeline.”

Teaming up with waves and currents to preserve islands and coastlines requires a mindset shift that’s difficult, but ultimately worthwhile, Tibbits contends.

Faculty and researchers receive many external awards throughout the year. The MIT School of Engineering periodically highlights the honors, prizes, and medals won by community members working in academic departments, labs, and centers. Summer 2024 honorees include the following:

Polina Anikeeva, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was recognized as a finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards in the category of physical sciences and engineering. The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists is the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America’s most promising, faculty-level scientific researchers under the age of 42.

Gabriele Farina, the X-Window Consortium Career Development Professor and assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), received an honorable mention for the 2023 Doctoral Dissertation Award. The award is presented annually to the author(s) of the best doctoral dissertation(s) in computer science and engineering.

James Fujimoto, the Elihu Thomson Professor in Electrical Engineering, won the 2024 Honda Prize for his research group’s development of optical coherence tomography. The Honda Prize is an international award that acknowledges the efforts of an individual or a group to contribute new ideas that may lead the next generation in the field of ecotechnology.

Jeehwan Kim, an associate professor in MIT’s departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, won the engineering and technology category for the 2024 Falling Walls Global Call for his innovations in semiconductor technology. The Falling Walls Global Call is an international competition that seeks the most recent and innovative science breakthroughs, bringing together science enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds.

Samuel Madden, the College of Computing Distinguished Professor of Computing and faculty head of computer science in the Department of EECS, received the Edgar F Codd Innovations Award. The award is given for innovative and highly significant contributions of enduring value to the development, understanding, or use of database systems and databases.

Jelena Notaros, an assistant professor in the Department of EECS, received the 2024 Optica CLEO Highlighted Talk Award as co-principal investigator. The Optica CLEO Awards Program celebrates the field's technical, research, education, business, leadership, and service accomplishments.

Carlos Portela, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the Army Early Career Program Award. The award is among the most prestigious honors granted by the U.S. Army Research Office to outstanding early-career scientists.

Yogesh Surendranath, the Donner Professor of Science in the departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, was recognized as a finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards in the category of chemical sciences. The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists is the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to the United States' most promising, faculty-level scientific researchers under the age of 42.

Ashia Wilson, an assistant professor in the Department of EECS, received the Best Paper Award at the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT). ACM FAccT is an interdisciplinary conference dedicated to bringing together a diverse community of scholars from computer science, law, social sciences, and humanities to investigate and tackle issues in this emerging area.