School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes six new faculty for 2026

MIT Professor Susumu Tonegawa, renowned molecular biologist and Nobel laureate, dies at 86

Susumu Tonegawa, a renowned MIT professor of biology and neuroscience and a Nobel laureate, has died at the age of 86. His discovery of how the immune system generates many different antibodies earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1987.

Can AI build a jet engine? JARVIS Challenge tests role of AI copilots in tough-tech engineering

MIT's JARVIS Challenge (Jet-engine AI Research and Validation Intensive Sprint) is a new academic competition asking MIT students to explore whether AI can compress the design-build-test cycle so engineers can build faster and better.

A baseball-sized sensor can detect chemical threats

Viện Công nghệ Massachusetts (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory đã phát triển TOSSIT, một cảm biến hình cầu cỡ quả bóng chày có thể ném, thả từ drone hoặc phóng vào khu vực nghi ngờ để phát hiện hơi hóa chất nguy hiểm và aerosol. Thiết bị này phân tích không khí bằng camera nội bộ quan sát sự thay đổi màu sắc trên thẻ thuốc nhuộm, cảnh báo người dùng qua ứng dụng hoặc còi onboard nếu phát hiện mối đe dọa như tác nhân thần kinh, tác nhân gây phồng rộp hoặc bụi fentanyl. Công nghệ này đang được chuyển giao cho quân đội Mỹ sau quá trình thử nghiệm thực địa.

Lập trình viên nên đọc bài này để khám phá cách tích hợp cảm biến hóa học nhỏ gọn vào hệ thống IoT và ứng dụng AI trong phân tích môi trường an ninh, giúp mở rộng khả năng phát triển các giải pháp thông minh cho các lĩnh vực bảo vệ môi trường và an ninh công nghệ.

Ana Miljački named head of the Department of Architecture

Ana Miljački, Francis White Davis Professor of Architecture, has been named the new head of MIT's Department of Architecture effective July 1. With nearly 20 years at MIT, she has directed multiple graduate programs and founded the Critical Broadcasting Lab in 2018. She is known for her curatorial work, including co-curating the U.S. Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 2025 Venice Biennale collateral event on climate. Alongside her new leadership role, the department is relocating to the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse, a building adaptively reused by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which Miljački sees as a teaching opportunity aligned with the discipline's shift toward reuse and sustainability.

Jesse Thaler named director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science

Professor Jesse Thaler has been appointed director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), effective August 1, succeeding Professor Bolek Wyslouch. Thaler is a theoretical particle physicist known for combining quantum field theory and machine learning to tackle fundamental physics questions. He previously served as inaugural director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) since 2020, which was recently renewed for five years. At LNS, he plans to advance AI-driven scientific discovery, building on his work applying cutting-edge AI algorithms to collider experiment data and theoretical calculations in particle physics.

MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars

MIT-Kalaniyot, a program connecting MIT with Israeli researchers, is welcoming its second cohort of 11 scholars — seven postdoctoral fellows and four sabbatical scholars — for the 2026-27 academic year. Founded by MIT professors Or Hen and Ernest Fraenkel as a response to campus tensions over Middle East conflict, the program spans all five MIT schools and covers disciplines from quantum computing to modern history. The model has since been adopted by Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth, Penn, and USC. Founders aim to eventually establish Kalaniyot as a recognized MIT center with seed grant funding for cross-border research.

Summer 2026 recommended reading from MIT

MIT faculty and staff published a wide range of books between July 2025 and June 2026, spanning fiction, poetry, science, engineering, humanities, social sciences, technology, and entrepreneurship. Highlights include works on AI auditing, carbon removal, vaccine skepticism, drone warfare, Bayesian entrepreneurship, climate tech startups, and cultural evolution in the age of AI. The list covers authors from departments including MIT Sloan, Media Lab, Comparative Media Studies, and more.