Research

This year the Dan David Foundation International Board has selected Marvin Minsky to receive the Dan David Foundation Prize for the Future Time Dimension titled “Artificial Intelligence: The Digital Mind. Prof. Minsky was selected as one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence. He is cited as among the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century in a variety of disciplines, including AI, robotics, computation, learning, cognition, philosophy and optics. Read more.

Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL) including Anantha Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering, recent EECS PhD graduate Marcus Yip, EECS graduate student Rui Jin and research scientist Nathan Ickes, together with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), have developed a new, low-power signal-processing chip that could lead to a cochlear implant that requires no external hardware. The implant would be wirelessly recharged -- taking just two minutes -- and would run for about eight hours on each charge. Read more.

Timothy K. Lu, Assistant Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Biological Engineering and principal investigator in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), has been selected for a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in support of work to understand biological cells as state machines leading to insights into natural biological systems and synthetic gene circuits. Read more.

The Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering presented the "Agustin de Betancourt" award to Professor Tomás Palacios on Nov. 26. This award, the most prestigious given in Spain to an engineer less than 36 years old, recognizes Prof. Palacios’ work on nanotechnologies applied to high frequency electronic devices based on GaN and graphene.

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's (CSAIL) Aude Oliva, associate professor of cognitive science at MIT's Brain and Cognitive Sciences working with her CSAIL colleagues including Antonio Torralba, associate professor in MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department and also a member of in the MIT Computer Vision Group has developed an algorithm to slightly modify a person's face — making it more memorable without altering that person's overall appearance.

Manolis Kellis, associate professor of computer science at MIT has teamed with a former CSAIL postdoc to combine work developing algorithms that predict how strands of RNA are likely to unfold with a team of computational biologists at MIT and with experimental biologists at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to identify biologically meaningful RNA folds within living cells. Published in Nature this week, this work shows promised for understanding RNA machinery -- a major avenue towards understanding genetic and biological function in living cells.

Prof. Dina Katabi, principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT working with members of her research group has developed a 3-D motion tracking system that has potential for gaming and far more. Read more in the CSAIL Dec. 12, 2013 article

Prof. Mildred Dresselhaus, Institute professor emerita and faculty member in the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Physics Departments, received the Materials Research Society Von Hippel Award in recognition of her work and close association with Prof. Von Hippel. Read more.

Professors Dina Katabi and Nir N. Shavit have been elected to 2013 Fellow by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). As part of a select 1% of ACM membership, Fellows are recognized “for their contributions to computing that are driving innovations across multiple domains and disciplines - accelerating the digital revolution and impacting every dimension of how we live work and play.” Read more.

Under the direction of EECS professor Jeffrey Shapiro, and senior research scientist Franco Wong - both members of the Research Laboratory of Electronic's (RLE) Optical and Quantum Communications Group and of Vivek Goyal, RLE research scientist and head of the Signal Transformation and Information Representation Group, EECS doctoral student Ahmed Kirmani, working under Goyal, has developed a computational imager that uses one photon per pixel allowing laser rangefinders to infer depth (3D) from a hundredth as much light and produce images from one 900th the light needed. Read more.

"There's a very strong need for that computer to turn electrical signals into optical signals very efficiently," Dirk Englund the Jamieson Career Development Assistant Professor in the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department explained to Marketplace Tech. Englund was approached to discuss his work in the Quantum Photonics Laboratory, where computer chips made of graphene and silicon are encouraging information to move near the speed of light. Read more.