Community

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares179 Views

    MIT welcomes nine MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars for 2023-24

    by

    Established in 1990, the MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars Program at MIT welcomes outstanding scholars to the Institute for visiting appointments. MIT aspires to attract candidates who are, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom.” The program honors King’s life and legacy by expanding and extending the reach of our community. 

    The MLK Scholars Program has welcomed more than 140 professors, practitioners, and professionals at the forefront of their respective fields to MIT. They contribute to the growth and enrichment of the community through their interactions with students, staff, and faculty. They pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy of service and social justice, and they embody MIT’s values: excellence and curiosity, openness and respect, and belonging and community.  

    Each new cohort of scholars actively participates in community engagement and supports MIT’s mission of “advancing knowledge and educating students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.” 

    The 2023-2024 MLK Scholars:

    Tawanna Dillahunt is an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information with a joint appointment in their electrical engineering and computer science department. She is joining MIT at the end of a one-year visiting appointment as a Harvard Radcliffe Fellow. Her faculty hosts at the Institute are Catherine D’Ignazio in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Fotini Christia in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Dillahunt’s research focuses on equitable and inclusive computing. During her appointment, she will host a podcast to explore ethical and socially responsible ways to engage with communities, with a special emphasis on technology. 

    Kwabena Donkor is an assistant professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business; he is hosted by Dean Eckles, an associate professor of marketing at MIT Sloan School of Management. Donkor’s work bridges economics, psychology, and marketing. His scholarship combines insights from behavioral economics with data and field experiments to study social norms, identity, and how these constructs interact with policy in the marketplace.

    Denise Frazier joins MIT from Tulane University, where she is an assistant director in the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South. She is a researcher and performer and brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to her work at the intersection of cultural studies, environmental justice, and music. Frazier is hosted by Christine Ortiz, the Morris Cohen Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. 

    Wasalu Jaco, an accomplished performer and artist, is renewing his appointment at MIT for a second year; he is hosted jointly by Nick Montfort, a professor of digital media in the Comparative Media Studies Program/Writing, and Mary Fuller, a professor in the Literature Section and the current chair of the MIT faculty. In his second year, Jaco will work on Cyber/Cypher Rapper, a research project to develop a computational system that participates in responsive and improvisational rap.

    Morgane Konig first joined the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT in December 2021 as a postdoc. Now a member of the 2023–24 MLK Visiting Scholars Program cohort, she will deepen her ties with scholars and research groups working in cosmology, primarily on early-universe inflation and late-universe signatures that could enable the scientific community to learn more about the mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy. Her faculty hosts are David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics, and Alan Guth, the Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics, both from the Department of Physics.

    The former minister of culture for Colombia and a transformational leader dedicated to environmental protection, Angelica Mayolo-Obregon joins MIT from Buenaventura, Colombia. During her time at MIT, she will serve as an advisor and guest speaker, and help MIT facilitate gatherings of environmental leaders committed to addressing climate action and conserving biodiversity across the Americas, with a special emphasis on Afro-descendant communities. Mayolo-Obregon is hosted by John Fernandez, a professor of building technology in the Department of Architecture and director of MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative, and by J. Phillip Thompson, an associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (and a former MLK Scholar).

    Jean-Luc Pierite is a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and the president of the board of directors of North American Indian Center of Boston. While at MIT, Pierite will build connections between MIT and the local Indigenous communities. His research focuses on enhancing climate resilience planning by infusing Indigenous knowledge and ecological practices into scientific and other disciplines. His faculty host is Janelle Knox-Hayes, the Lister Brothers Professor of Economic Geography and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

    Christine Taylor-Butler ’81 is a children’s book author who has written over 90 books; she is hosted by Graham Jones, an associate professor of anthropology. An advocate for literacy and STEAM education in underserved urban and rural schools, Taylor-Butler will partner with community organizations in the Boston area. She is also completing the fourth installment of her middle-grade series, “The Lost Tribe.” These books follow a team of five kids as they use science and technology to crack codes and solve mysteries.

    Angelino Viceisza, a professor of economics at Spelman College, joins MIT Sloan as an MLK Visiting Professor and the Phyllis Wallace Visiting Professor; he is hosted by Robert Gibbons, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, and Ray Reagans, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Management, professor of organization studies, and associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at MIT Sloan. Viceisza has strong, ongoing connections with MIT. His research focuses on remittances, retirement, and household finance in low-income countries and is relevant to public finance and financial economics, as well as the development and organizational economics communities at MIT. 

    Javit Drake, Moriba Jah, and Louis Massiah, members of last year’s cohort of MLK Scholars, will remain at MIT through the end of 2023.

    There are multiple opportunities throughout the year to meet our MLK Visiting Scholars and learn more about their research projects and their social impact. 

    For more information about the MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars Program and upcoming events, visit the website. More

    More stories

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Day of AI curriculum meets the moment

      by

      MIT Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) recently celebrated the second annual Day of AI with two flagship local events. The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston hosted a human rights and data policy-focused event that was streamed worldwide. Dearborn STEM Academy in Roxbury, Massachusetts, hosted a student workshop in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. With over 8,000 registrations across all 50 U.S. states and 108 countries in 2023, participation in Day of AI has more than doubled since its inaugural year.

      Day of AI is a free curriculum of lessons and hands-on activities designed to teach kids of all ages and backgrounds the basics and responsible use of artificial intelligence, designed by researchers at MIT RAISE. This year, resources were available for educators to run at any time and in any increments they chose. The curriculum included five new modules to address timely topics like ChatGPT in School, Teachable Machines, AI and Social Media, Data Science and Me, and more. A collaboration with the International Society for Technology in Education also introduced modules for early elementary students. Educators across the world shared photos, videos, and stories of their students’ engagement, expressing excitement and even relief over the accessible lessons.

      Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of RAISE, dean for digital learning at MIT, and head of the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots research group, said, “It’s been a year of extraordinary advancements in AI, and with that comes necessary conversations and concerns about who and what this technology is for. With our Day of AI events, we want to celebrate the teachers and students who are putting in the work to make sure that AI is for everyone.”

      Reflecting community values and protecting digital citizens

      Play video

      On May 18, 2023, MIT RAISE hosted a global Day of AI celebration featuring a flagship local event focused on human rights and data policy at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. Students from the Warren Prescott Middle School and New Mission High School heard from speakers the City of Boston, Liberty Mutual, and MIT to discuss the many benefits and challenges of artificial intelligence education. Video: MIT Open Learning

      MIT President Sally Kornbluth welcomed students from Warren Prescott Middle School and New Mission High School to the Day of AI program at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Kornbluth reflected on the exciting potential of AI, along with the ethical considerations society needs to be responsible for.

      “AI has the potential to do all kinds of fantastic things, including driving a car, helping us with the climate crisis, improving health care, and designing apps that we can’t even imagine yet. But what we have to make sure it doesn’t do is cause harm to individuals, to communities, to us — society as a whole,” she said.

      This theme resonated with each of the event speakers, whose jobs spanned the sectors of education, government, and business. Yo Deshpande, technologist for the public realm, and Michael Lawrence Evans, program director of new urban mechanics from the Boston Mayor’s Office, shared how Boston thinks about using AI to improve city life in ways that are “equitable, accessible, and delightful.” Deshpande said, “We have the opportunity to explore not only how AI works, but how using AI can line up with our values, the way we want to be in the world, and the way we want to be in our community.”

      Adam L’Italien, chief innovation officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance (one of Day of AI’s founding sponsors), compared our present moment with AI technologies to the early days of personal computers and internet connection. “Exposure to emerging technologies can accelerate progress in the world and in your own lives,” L’Italien said, while recognizing that the AI development process needs to be inclusive and mitigate biases.

      Human policies for artificial intelligence

      So how does society address these human rights concerns about AI? Marc Aidinoff ’21, former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff, led a discussion on how government policy can influence the parameters of how technology is developed and used, like the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Aidinoff said, “The work of building the world you want to see is far harder than building the technical AI system … How do you work with other people and create a collective vision for what we want to do?” Warren Prescott Middle School students described how AI could be used to solve problems that humans couldn’t. But they also shared their concerns that AI could affect data privacy, learning deficits, social media addiction, job displacement, and propaganda.

      In a mock U.S. Senate trial activity designed by Daniella DiPaola, PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, the middle schoolers investigated what rights might be undermined by AI in schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and corporations. Meanwhile, New Mission High School students workshopped the ideas behind bill S.2314, the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, in an activity designed by Raechel Walker, graduate research assistant in the Personal Robots Group, and Matt Taylor, research assistant at the Media Lab. They discussed what level of control could or should be introduced at the parental, educational, and governmental levels to reduce the risks of internet addiction.

      “Alexa, how do I program AI?”

      Play video

      The 2023 Day of AI celebration featured a flagship local event at the Dearborn STEM Academy in Roxbury in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. Students participated in a hands-on activity using MIT App Inventor as part of Day of AI’s Alexa lesson. Video: MIT Open Learning

      At Dearborn STEM Academy, Amazon Future Engineer helped students work through the Intro to Voice AI curriculum module in real-time. Students used MIT App Inventor to code basic commands for Alexa. In an interview with WCVB, Principal Darlene Marcano said, “It’s important that we expose our students to as many different experiences as possible. The students that are participating are on track to be future computer scientists and engineers.”

      Breazeal told Dearborn students, “We want you to have an informed voice about how you want AI to be used in society. We want you to feel empowered that you can shape the world. You can make things with AI to help make a better world and a better community.”

      Rohit Prasad ’08, senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa at Amazon, and Victor Reinoso ’97, global director of philanthropic education initiatives at Amazon, also joined the event. “Amazon and MIT share a commitment to helping students discover a world of possibilities through STEM and AI education,” said Reinoso. “There’s a lot of current excitement around the technological revolution with generative AI and large language models, so we’re excited to help students explore careers of the future and navigate the pathways available to them.” To highlight their continued investment in the local community and the school program, Amazon donated a $25,000 Innovation and Early College Pathways Program Grant to the Boston Public School system.

      Day of AI down under

      Not only was the Day of AI program widely adopted across the globe, Australian educators were inspired to adapt their own regionally specific curriculum. An estimated 161,000 AI professionals will be needed in Australia by 2030, according to the National Artificial Intelligence Center in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an Australian government agency and Day of AI Australia project partner. CSIRO worked with the University of New South Wales to develop supplementary educational resources on AI ethics and machine learning. Day of AI Australia reached 85,000 students at 400-plus secondary schools this year, sparking curiosity in the next generation of AI experts.

      The interest in AI is accelerating as fast as the technology is being developed. Day of AI offers a unique opportunity for K-12 students to shape our world’s digital future and their own.

      “I hope that some of you will decide to be part of this bigger effort to help us figure out the best possible answers to questions that are raised by AI,” Kornbluth told students at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. “We’re counting on you, the next generation, to learn how AI works and help make sure it’s for everyone.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Learner in Afghanistan reaches beyond barriers to pursue career in data science

      by

      Tahmina S. was a junior studying computer engineering at a top university in Afghanistan when a new government policy banned women from pursuing education. In August 2021, the Taliban prohibited girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade. While women were initially allowed to continue to attend universities, by October 2021, an order from the Ministry of Higher Education declared that all women in Afghanistan were suspended from attending public and private centers of higher education.

      Determined to continue her studies and pursue her ambitions, Tahmina found the MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT) and was accepted to its Certificate in Computer Science and Data Science program in 2022.

      “ReACT helped me realize that I can do big things and be a part of big things,” she says.

      MIT ReACT provides education and professional opportunities to learners from refugee and forcibly displaced communities worldwide. ReACT’s core pillars include academic development, human skills development, employment pathways, and network building. Since 2017, ReACT has offered its Certificate in Computer and Data Science (CDS) program free-of-cost to learners wherever they live. In 2022, ReACT welcomed its largest and most diverse cohort to date — 136 learners from 29 countries — including 25 learners from Afghanistan, more than half of whom are women.

      Tahmina was able to select her classes in the program, and especially valued learning Python — which has led to her studying other programming languages and gaining more skills in data science. She’s continuing to take online courses in hopes of completing her undergraduate degree, and someday pursuing a masters degree in computer science and becoming a data scientist.

      “It’s an important and fun career. I really love data,” she says. “If this is my only time for this experience, I will bring to the table what I have, and do my best.”

      In addition to the education ban, Tahmina also faced the challenge of accessing an internet connection, which is expensive where she lives. But she regularly studies between 12 and 14 hours a day to achieve her dreams.

      The ReACT program offers a blend of asynchronous and synchronous learning. Learners complete a curated series of online, rigorous MIT coursework through MITx with the support of teaching assistants and collaborators, and also participate in a series of interactive online workshops in interpersonal skills that are critical to success in education and careers.

      ReACT learners engage with MIT’s global network of experts including MIT staff, faculty, and alumni — as well as collaborators across technology, humanitarian, and government sectors.

      “I loved that experience a lot, it was a huge achievement. I’m grateful ReACT gave me a chance to be a part of that team of amazing people. I’m amazed I completed that program, because it was really challenging.”

      Theory into practice

      Tahmina was one of 10 students from the ReACT cohort accepted to the highly competitive MIT Innovation Leadership Bootcamp program. She worked on a team of five people who initiated a business proposal and took the project through each phase of the development process. Her team’s project was creating an app for finance management for users aged 23-51 — including all the graphic elements and a final presentation. One valuable aspect of the boot camp, Tahmina says, was presenting their project to real investors who then provided business insights and actionable feedback.

      As part of this ReACT cohort, Tahmina also participated in the Global Apprenticeship Program (GAP) pilot, an initiative led by Talanta and with the participation of MIT Open Learning as curriculum provider. The GAP initiative focuses on improving diverse emerging talent job preparedness and exploring how companies can successfully recruit, onboard, and retain this talent through remote, paid internships. Through the GAP pilot, Tahmina received training in professional skills, resume and interview preparation, and was matched with a financial sector firm for a four-month remote internship in data science.

      To prepare Tahmina and other learners for these professional experiences, ReACT trains its cohorts to work with people who have diverse backgrounds, experiences, and challenges. The nonprofit Na’amal offered workshops covering areas such as problem-solving, innovation and ideation, goal-setting, communication, teamwork, and infrastructure and info security. Tahmina was able to access English classes and learn valuable career skills, such as writing a resume.“This was an amazing part for me. There’s a huge difference going from theoretical to practical,” she says. “Not only do you have to have the theoretical experience, you have to have soft skills. You have to communicate everything you learn to other people, because other people in the business might not have that knowledge, so you have to tell the story in a way that they can understand.”

      ReACT wanted the women in the program to be mentored by women who were not only leaders in the tech field, but working in the same geographic region as learners. At the start of the internship, Na’amal connected Tahmina with a mentor, Maha Gad, who is head of talent development at Talabat and lives in Dubai. Tahmina met with Gad at the beginning and end of each month, giving her the opportunity to ask expansive questions. Tahmina says Gad encouraged her to research and plan first, and then worked with her to explore new tools, like Trello.

      Wanting to put her skills to use locally, Tahmina volunteered at the nonprofit Rumie, a community for Afghan women and girls, working as a learning designer, translator, team leader, and social media manager. She currently volunteers at Correspondents of the World as a story ambassador, helping Afghan people share stories, community, and culture — especially telling the stories of Afghan women and the changes they’ve made in the world.

      “It’s been the most beautiful journey of my life that I will never forget,” says Tahmina. “I found ReACT at a time when I had nothing, and I found the most valuable thing.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Festival of Learning 2023 underscores importance of well-designed learning environments

      by

      During its first in-person gathering since 2020, MIT’s Festival of Learning 2023 explored how the learning sciences can inform the Institute on how to best support students. Co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor (OVC), this annual event celebrates teaching and learning innovations with MIT instructors, students, and staff.

      Bror Saxberg SM ’85, PhD ’89, founder of LearningForge LLC and former chief learning officer at Kaplan, Inc., was invited as keynote speaker, with opening remarks by MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles and Vice President for Open Learning Eric Grimson, and discussion moderated by Senior Associate Dean of Open Learning Christopher Capozzola. This year’s festival focused on how creating well-designed learning environments using learning engineering can increase learning success.

      Play video

      2023 Festival of Learning: Highlights

      Well-designed learning environments are key

      In his keynote speech “Learning Engineering: What We Know, What We Can Do,” Saxberg defined “learning engineering” as the practical application of learning sciences to real-world problems at scale. He said, “High levels can be reached by all learners, given access to well-designed instruction and motivation for enough practice opportunities.”

      Informed by decades of empirical evidence from the field of learning science, Saxberg’s own research, and insights from Kaplan, Inc., Saxberg finds that a hands-on strategy he calls “prepare, practice, perform” delivers better learning outcomes than a traditional “read, write, discuss” approach. Saxberg recommends educators devote at least 60 percent of learning time to hands-on approaches, such as producing, creating, and engaging. Only 20-30 percent of learning time should be spent in the more passive “knowledge acquisition” modes of listening and reading.

      “Here at MIT, a place that relies on data to make informed decisions, learning engineering can provide a framework for us to center in on the learner to identify the challenges associated with learning, and to apply the learning sciences in data-driven ways to improve instructional approaches,” said Nobles. During their opening remarks, Nobles and Grimson both emphasized how learning engineering at MIT is informed by the Institute’s commitment to educating the whole student, which encompasses student well-being and belonging in addition to academic rigor. “What lessons can we take away to change the way we think about education moving forward? This is a chance to iterate,” said Grimson.

      Well-designed learning environments are informed by understanding motivation, considering the connection between long-term and working memory, identifying the range of learners’ prior experience, grounding practice in authentic contexts (i.e., work environments), and using data-driven instructional approaches to iterate and improve.

      Play video

      2023 Festival of Learning: Keynote by Bror Saxberg

      Understand learner motivation

      Saxberg asserted that before developing course structures and teaching approaches known to encourage learning, educators must first examine learner motivation. Motivation doesn’t require enjoyment of the subject or task to spur engagement. Similar to how a well-designed physical training program can change your muscle cells, if a learner starts, persists, and exerts mental effort in a well-designed learning environment, they can change their neurons — they learn. Saxberg described four main barriers to learner motivation, and solutions for each:

      The learner doesn’t see the value of the lesson. Ways to address this include helping the learners find value; leveraging the learner’s expertise in another area to better understand the topic at hand; and making the activity itself enjoyable. “Finding value” could be as simple as explaining the practical applications of this knowledge in their future work in the field, or how this lesson prepares learners for their advanced level courses. 
      Self-efficacy for learners who don’t think they’re capable. Educators can point to parallel experiences with similar goals that students may have already achieved in another context. Alternatively, educators can share stories of professionals who have successfully transitioned from one area of expertise to another. 
      “Something” in the learner’s way, such as not having the time, space, or correct materials. This is an opportunity to demonstrate how a learner can use problem-solving skills to find a solution to their perceived problem. As with the barrier of self-efficacy, educators can assure learners that they are in control of the situation by sharing similar stories of those who’ve encountered the same problem and the solution they devised.
      The learner’s emotional state. This is no small barrier to motivation. If a learner is angry, depressed, scared, or grieving, it will be challenging for them to switch their mindset into learning mode. A wide array of emotions require a wide array of possible solutions, from structured conversation techniques to recommending professional help.
      Consider the cognitive load

      Saxberg has found that learning occurs when we use working memory to problem-solve, but our working memory can only process three to five verbal or conscious thoughts at a time. Long-term memory stores knowledge that can be accessed non-verbally and non-consciously, which is why experts appear to remember information effortlessly. Until a learner develops that expertise, extraneous information in a lesson will occupy space in their working memory, running the risk of distracting the learner from the desired learning outcome.

      To accommodate learners’ finite cognitive load, Saxberg suggested the solution of reevaluating which material is essential, then simplifying the exercise or removing unnecessary material accordingly. “That notion of, ‘what do we really need students to be able to do?’ helps you focus,” said Saxberg.

      Another solution is to leverage the knowledge, skills, and interests learners already bring to the course — these long-term memories can scaffold the new material. “What do you have in your head already, what do you love, what’s easy to draw from long-term memory? That would be the starting point for challenging new skills. It’s not the ending point because you want to use your new skills to then find out new things,” Saxberg said. Finally, consider how your course engages with the syllabi. Do you explain the reasoning behind the course structure? Do you show how the exercises or material will be applied to future courses or the field? Do you share best practices for engaging working memory and learning? By acknowledging and empathizing with the practical challenges that learners face, you can remove a barrier from their cognitive load.

      Ground practice in authentic contexts

      Saxberg stated that few experts read textbooks to learn new information — they discover what they need to know while working in the field, using those relevant facts in context. As such, students will have an easier time remembering facts if they’re practicing in relevant or similar environments to their future work.

      If students can practice classifying problems in real work contexts rather than theoretical practice problems, they can build a framework to classify what’s important. That helps students recognize the type of problem they’re trying to solve before trying to solve the problem itself. With enough hands-on practice and examples of how experts use processes and identify which principles are relevant, learners can holistically learn entire procedures. And that learning continues once learners graduate to the workforce: professionals often meet to exchange knowledge at conferences, charrettes, and other gatherings.

      Enhancing teaching at MIT

      The Festival of Learning furthers the Office of the Chancellor’s mission to advance academic innovation that will foster the growth of MIT students. The festival also aligns with the MIT Open Learning’s Residential Education team’s goal of making MIT education more effective and efficient. Throughout the year, their team offers continuous support to MIT faculty and instructors using digital technologies to augment and transform how they teach.

      “We are doubling down on our commitment to continuous growth in how we teach,” said Nobles. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Research, education, and connection in the face of war

      by

      When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Tetiana Herasymova had several decisions to make: What should she do, where should she live, and should she take her MITx MicroMasters capstone exams? She had registered for the Statistics and Data Science Program’s final exams just days prior to moving out of her apartment and into a bomb shelter. Although it was difficult to focus on studying and preparations with air horns sounding overhead and uncertainty lingering around her, she was determined to try. “I wouldn’t let the aggressor in the war squash my dreams,” she says.

      A love of research and the desire to improve teaching 

      An early love of solving puzzles and problems for fun piqued Herasymova’s initial interest in mathematics. When she later pursued her PhD in mathematics at Kiev National Taras Shevchenko University, Herasymova’s love of math evolved into a love of research. Throughout Herasymova’s career, she’s worked to close the gap between scientific researchers and educators. Starting as a math tutor at MBA Strategy, a company that prepares Ukrainian leaders for qualifying standardized tests for MBA programs, she was later promoted as the head of their test preparation department. Afterward, she moved on to an equivalent position at ZNOUA, a new project that prepared high school students for Ukraine’s standardized test, and she eventually became ZNOUA’s CEO.

      In 2018, she founded Prosteer, a “self-learning community” of educators who share research, pedagogy, and experience to learn from one another. “It’s really interesting to have a community of teachers from different domains,” she says, speaking of educators and researchers whose specialties range across language, mathematics, physics, music, and more.

      Implementing new pedagogical research in the classroom is often up to educators who seek out studies on an individual basis, Herasymova has found. “Lots of scientists are not practitioners,” she says, and the reverse is also true. She only became more determined to build these connections once she was promoted to head of test preparation at MBA Strategy because she wanted to share more effective pedagogy with the tutors she was mentoring.

      First, Herasymova knew she needed a way to measure the teachers’ effectiveness. She was able to determine whether students who received the company’s tutoring services improved their scores. Moreover, Ukraine keeps an open-access database of national standardized test scores, so anyone could analyze the data in hopes of improving the level of education in the country. She says, “I could do some analytics because I am a mathematician, but I knew I could do much more with this data if I knew data science and machine learning knowledge.”

      That’s why Herasymova sought out the MITx MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science offered by the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). “I wanted to learn the fundamentals so I could join the Learning Analytics domain,” she says. She was looking for a comprehensive program that covered the foundations without being overly basic. “I had some knowledge from the ground, so I could see the deepness of that course,” she says. Because of her background as an instructional designer, she thought the MicroMasters curriculum was well-constructed, calling the variety of videos, practice problems, and homework assignments that encouraged learners to approach the course material in different ways, “a perfect experience.”

      Another benefit of the MicroMasters program was its online format. “I had my usual work, so it was impossible to study in a stationary way,” she says. She found the structure to be more flexible than other programs. “It’s really great that you can construct your course schedule your own way, especially with your own adult life,” she says.

      Determination and support in the midst of war

      When the war first forced Herasymova to flee her apartment, she had already registered to take the exams for her four courses. “It was quite hard to prepare for exams when you could hear explosions outside of the bomb shelter,” she says. She and other Ukranians were invited to postpone their exams until the following session, but the next available testing period wouldn’t be held until October. “It was a hard decision, but I had to allow myself to try,” she says. “For all people in Ukraine, when you don’t know if you’re going to live or die, you try to live in the now. You have to appreciate every moment and what life brings to you. You don’t say, ‘Someday’ — you do it today or tomorrow.”

      In addition to emotional support from her boyfriend, Herasymova had a group of friends who had also enrolled in the program, and they supported each other through study sessions and an ongoing chat. Herasymova’s personal support network helped her accomplish what she set out to do with her MicroMasters program, and in turn, she was able to support her professional network. While Prosteer halted its regular work during the early stages of the war, Herasymova was determined to support the community of educators and scientists that she had built. They continued meeting weekly to exchange ideas as usual. “It’s intrinsic motivation,” she says. They managed to restore all of their activities by October.

      Despite the factors stacked against her, Herasymova’s determination paid off — she passed all of her exams in May, the final step to earning her MicroMasters certificate in statistics and data science. “I just couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was definitely a bifurcation point. The moment when you realize that you have something to rely on, and that life is just beginning to show all its diversity despite the fact that you live in war.” With her newly minted certificate in hand, Herasymova has continued her research on the effectiveness of educational models — analyzing the data herself — with a summer research program at New York University. 

      The student becomes the master

      After moving seven times between February and October, heading west from Kyiv until most recently settling near the border of Poland, Herasymova hopes she’s moved for the last time. Ukrainian Catholic University offered her a position teaching both mathematics and programming. Before enrolling in the MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science, she had some prior knowledge of programming languages and mathematical algorithms, but she didn’t know Python. She took MITx’s Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python to prepare. “It gave me a huge step forward,” she says. “I learned a lot. Now, not only can I work with Python machine learning models in programming language R, I also have knowledge of the big picture of the purpose and the point to do so.”

      In addition to the skills the MicroMasters Program trained her in, she gained firsthand experience in learning new subjects and exploring topics more deeply. She will be sharing that practice with the community of students and teachers she’s built, plus, she plans on guiding them through this course during the next year. As a continuation of her own educational growth, says she’s looking forward to her next MITx course this year, Data Analysis.

      Herasymova advises that the best way to keep progressing is investing a lot of time. “Adults don’t want to hear this, but you need one or two years,” she says. “Allow yourself to be stupid. If you’re an expert in one domain and want to switch to another, or if you want to understand something new, a lot of people don’t ask questions or don’t ask for help. But from this point, if I don’t know something, I know I should ask for help because that’s the start of learning. With a fixed mindset, you won’t grow.”

      July 2022 MicroMasters Program Joint Completion Celebration. Ukrainian student Tetiana Herasymova, who completed her program amid war in her home country, speaks at 43:55. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Gaining real-world industry experience through Break Through Tech AI at MIT

      by

      Taking what they learned conceptually about artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) this year, students from across the Greater Boston area had the opportunity to apply their new skills to real-world industry projects as part of an experiential learning opportunity offered through Break Through Tech AI at MIT.

      Hosted by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Break Through Tech AI is a pilot program that aims to bridge the talent gap for women and underrepresented genders in computing fields by providing skills-based training, industry-relevant portfolios, and mentoring to undergraduate students in regional metropolitan areas in order to position them more competitively for careers in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

      “Programs like Break Through Tech AI gives us opportunities to connect with other students and other institutions, and allows us to bring MIT’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusion to the learning and application in the spaces that we hold,” says Alana Anderson, assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

      The inaugural cohort of 33 undergraduates from 18 Greater Boston-area schools, including Salem State University, Smith College, and Brandeis University, began the free, 18-month program last summer with an eight-week, online skills-based course to learn the basics of AI and machine learning. Students then split into small groups in the fall to collaborate on six machine learning challenge projects presented to them by MathWorks, MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and Replicate. The students dedicated five hours or more each week to meet with their teams, teaching assistants, and project advisors, including convening once a month at MIT, while juggling their regular academic course load with other daily activities and responsibilities.

      The challenges gave the undergraduates the chance to help contribute to actual projects that industry organizations are working on and to put their machine learning skills to the test. Members from each organization also served as project advisors, providing encouragement and guidance to the teams throughout.

      “Students are gaining industry experience by working closely with their project advisors,” says Aude Oliva, director of strategic industry engagement at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the MIT director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. “These projects will be an add-on to their machine learning portfolio that they can share as a work example when they’re ready to apply for a job in AI.”

      Over the course of 15 weeks, teams delved into large-scale, real-world datasets to train, test, and evaluate machine learning models in a variety of contexts.

      In December, the students celebrated the fruits of their labor at a showcase event held at MIT in which the six teams gave final presentations on their AI projects. The projects not only allowed the students to build up their AI and machine learning experience, it helped to “improve their knowledge base and skills in presenting their work to both technical and nontechnical audiences,” Oliva says.

      For a project on traffic data analysis, students got trained on MATLAB, a programming and numeric computing platform developed by MathWorks, to create a model that enables decision-making in autonomous driving by predicting future vehicle trajectories. “It’s important to realize that AI is not that intelligent. It’s only as smart as you make it and that’s exactly what we tried to do,” said Brandeis University student Srishti Nautiyal as she introduced her team’s project to the audience. With companies already making autonomous vehicles from planes to trucks a reality, Nautiyal, a physics and mathematics major, shared that her team was also highly motivated to consider the ethical issues of the technology in their model for the safety of passengers, drivers, and pedestrians.

      Using census data to train a model can be tricky because they are often messy and full of holes. In a project on algorithmic fairness for the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the hardest task for the team was having to clean up mountains of unorganized data in a way where they could still gain insights from them. The project — which aimed to create demonstration of fairness applied on a real dataset to evaluate and compare effectiveness of different fairness interventions and fair metric learning techniques — could eventually serve as an educational resource for data scientists interested in learning about fairness in AI and using it in their work, as well as to promote the practice of evaluating the ethical implications of machine learning models in industry.

      Other challenge projects included an ML-assisted whiteboard for nontechnical people to interact with ready-made machine learning models, and a sign language recognition model to help disabled people communicate with others. A team that worked on a visual language app set out to include over 50 languages in their model to increase access for the millions of people that are visually impaired throughout the world. According to the team, similar apps on the market currently only offer up to 23 languages. 

      Throughout the semester, students persisted and demonstrated grit in order to cross the finish line on their projects. With the final presentations marking the conclusion of the fall semester, students will return to MIT in the spring to continue their Break Through Tech AI journey to tackle another round of AI projects. This time, the students will work with Google on new machine learning challenges that will enable them to hone their AI skills even further with an eye toward launching a successful career in AI. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Ad hoc committee releases report on remote teaching best practices for on-campus education

      by

      The Ad Hoc Committee on Leveraging Best Practices from Remote Teaching for On-Campus Education has released a report that captures how instructors are weaving lessons learned from remote teaching into in-person classes. Despite the challenges imposed by teaching and learning remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, the report says, “there were seeds planted then that, we hope, will bear fruit in the coming years.”

      “In the long run, one of the best things about having lived through our remote learning experience may be the intense and broad focus on pedagogy that it necessitated,” the report continues. “In a moment when nobody could just teach the way they had always done before, all of us had to go back to first principles and ask ourselves: What are our learning goals for our students? How can we best help them to achieve these goals?”

      The committee’s work is a direct response to one of the Refinement and Implementation Committees (RIC) formed as part of Task Force 2021 and Beyond. Led by co-chairs Krishna Rajagopal, the William A. M. Burden Professor of Physics, and Janet Rankin, director of the MIT Teaching + Learning Lab, the committee engaged with faculty and instructional staff, associate department heads, and undergraduate and graduate officers across MIT.

      The findings are distilled into four broad themes:

      Community, Well-being, and Belonging. Conversations revealed new ways that instructors cultivated these key interrelated concepts, all of which are fundamental to student learning and success. Many instructors focused more on supporting well-being and building community and belonging during the height of the pandemic precisely because the MIT community, and everyone in it, was under such great stress. Some of the resulting practices are continuing, the committee found. Examples include introducing simple gestures, such as start-of-class welcoming practices, and providing extensions and greater flexibility on student assignments. Also, many across MIT felt that the week-long Thanksgiving break offered in 2020 should become a permanent fixture in the academic calendar, because it enhances the well-being of both students and instructors at a time in the fall semester when everyone’s batteries need recharging. 
      Enhancing Engagement. The committee found a variety of practices that have enhanced engagement between students and instructors; among students; and among instructors. For example, many instructors have continued to offer some office hours on Zoom, which seems to reduce barriers to participation for many students, while offering in-person office hours for those who want to take advantage of opportunities for more open-ended conversations. Several departments increased their usage of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) in ways that make students’ learning experience more engaging and give the UTAs a real teaching experience. In addition, many instructors are leveraging out-of-class communication spaces like Slack, Perusall, and Piazza so students can work together, ask questions, and share ideas. 
      Enriching and Augmenting the Learning Environment. The report presents two ways in which instructors have enhanced learning within the classroom: through blended learning and by incorporating authentic experiences. Although blended learning techniques are not new at MIT, after having made it through remote teaching many faculty have found new ways to combine synchronous in-person teaching with asynchronous activities for on-campus students, such as pre-class or pre-lab sequences of videos with exercises interspersed, take-home lab kits, auto-graded online problems that give students immediate feedback, and recorded lab experiences for subsequent review. In addition, instructors found many creative ways to make students’ learning more authentic by going on virtual field trips, using Zoom to bring experts from around the world into MIT classrooms or to enable interactions with students at other universities, and live-streaming experiments that students could not otherwise experience since they cannot be performed in a teaching lab.   
       Assessing Learning. For all its challenges, the report notes, remote teaching prompted instructors to take a step back and think about what they wanted students to learn, how to support it, and how to measure it. The committee found a variety of examples of alternatives to traditional assessments, such as papers or timed, written exams, that instructors tried during the pandemic and are continuing to use. These alternatives include shorter, more frequent, lower-stakes assessments; oral exams or debates; asynchronous, open-book/notes exams; virtual poster sessions; alternate grading schemes; and uploading paper psets and exams into Gradescope to use its logistics and rubrics to improve grading effectiveness and efficiency.
      A large portion of the report is devoted to an extensive, annotated list of best practices from remote instruction that are being used in the classroom. Interestingly, Rankin says, “so many of the strategies and practices developed and used during the pandemic are based on, and supported by, solid educational research.”

      The report concludes with one broad recommendation: that all faculty and instructors read the findings and experiment with some of the best practices in their own instruction. “Our hope is that the practices shared in the report will continue to be adopted, adapted, and expanded by members of the teaching community at MIT, and that instructors’ openness in sharing and learning from each will continue,” Rankin says.

      Two additional, specific recommendations are included in the report. First, the committee endorses the RIC 16 recommendation that a Classroom Advisory Board be created to provide strategic input grounded in evolving pedagogy about future classroom use and technology needs. In its conversations, the committee found a number of ways that remote teaching and learning have impacted students’ and instructors’ perceptions as they have returned to the classroom. For example, during the pandemic students benefited from being able to see everyone else’s faces on Zoom. As a result, some instructors would prefer classrooms that enable students to face each other, such as semi-circular classrooms instead of rectangular ones.

      More generally, the committee concluded, MIT needs classrooms with seats and tables that can be quickly and flexibly reconfigured to facilitate varying pedagogical objectives. The Classroom Advisory Board could also examine classroom technology; this includes the role of videoconferencing to create authentic engagement between MIT students and people far from campus, and blended learning that allows students to experience more of the in-classroom engagement with their peers and instructors from which the “magic of MIT” originates.

      Second, the committee recommends that an implementation group be formed to investigate the possibility of changing the MIT academic calendar to create a one-week break over Thanksgiving. “Finalizing an implementation plan will require careful consideration of various significant logistical challenges,” the report says. “However, the resulting gains to both well-being and learning from this change to the fall calendar make doing so worthwhile.”

      Rankin notes that the report findings dovetail with the recently released MIT Strategic Action Plan for Belonging, Achievement and Composition. “I believe that one of the most important things that became really apparent during remote teaching was that community, inclusion, and belonging really matter and are necessary for both learning and teaching, and that instructors can and should play a central role in creating structures and processes to support them in their classrooms and other learning environments,” she says.

      Rajagopal finds it inspiring that “during a time of intense stress — that nobody ever wants to relive — there was such an intense focus on how we teach and how our students learn that, today, in essentially every direction we look we see colleagues improving on-campus education for tomorrow. I hope that the report will help instructors across the Institute, and perhaps elsewhere, learn from each other. Its readers will see, as our committee did, new ways in which students and instructors are finding those moments, those interactions, where the magic of MIT is created.”

      In addition to the report, the co-chairs recommend two other valuable remote teaching resources: a video interview series, TLL’s Fresh Perspectives, and Open Learning’s collection of examples of how MIT faculty and instructors leveraged digital technology to support and transform teaching and learning during the heart of the pandemic. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      Empowering Cambridge youth through data activism

      by

      For over 40 years, the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP, or the Mayor’s Program) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been providing teenagers with their first work experience, but 2022 brought a new offering. Collaborating with MIT’s Personal Robots research group (PRG) and Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) this summer, MSYEP created a STEAM-focused learning site at the Institute. Eleven students joined the program to learn coding and programming skills through the lens of “Data Activism.”

      MSYEP’s partnership with MIT provides an opportunity for Cambridge high schoolers to gain exposure to more pathways for their future careers and education. The Mayor’s Program aims to respect students’ time and show the value of their work, so participants are compensated with an hourly wage as they learn workforce skills at MSYEP worksites. In conjunction with two ongoing research studies at MIT, PRG and RAISE developed the six-week Data Activism curriculum to equip students with critical-thinking skills so they feel prepared to utilize data science to challenge social injustice and empower their community.

      Rohan Kundargi, K-12 Community Outreach Administrator for MIT Office of Government and Community Relations (OGCR), says, “I see this as a model for a new type of partnership between MIT and Cambridge MSYEP. Specifically, an MIT research project that involves students from Cambridge getting paid to learn, research, and develop their own skills!”

      Cross-Cambridge collaboration

      Cambridge’s Office of Workforce Development initially contacted MIT OGCR about hosting a potential MSYEP worksite that taught Cambridge teens how to code. When Kundargi reached out to MIT pK-12 collaborators, MIT PRG’s graduate research assistant Raechel Walker proposed the Data Activism curriculum. Walker defines “data activism” as utilizing data, computing, and art to analyze how power operates in the world, challenge power, and empathize with people who are oppressed.

      Walker says, “I wanted students to feel empowered to incorporate their own expertise, talents, and interests into every activity. In order for students to fully embrace their academic abilities, they must remain comfortable with bringing their full selves into data activism.”

      As Kundargi and Walker recruited students for the Data Activism learning site, they wanted to make sure the cohort of students — the majority of whom are individuals of color — felt represented at MIT and felt they had the agency for their voice to be heard. “The pioneers in this field are people who look like them,” Walker says, speaking of well-known data activists Timnit Gebru, Rediet Abebe, and Joy Buolamwini.

      When the program began this summer, some of the students were not aware of the ways data science and artificial intelligence exacerbate systemic oppression in society, or some of the tools currently being used to mitigate those societal harms. As a result, Walker says, the students wanted to learn more about discriminatory design in every aspect of life. They were also interested in creating responsible machine learning algorithms and AI fairness metrics.

      A different side of STEAM

      The development and execution of the Data Activism curriculum contributed to Walker’s and postdoc Xiaoxue Du’s respective research at PRG. Walker is studying AI education, specifically creating and teaching data activism curricula for minoritized communities. Du’s research explores processes, assessments, and curriculum design that prepares educators to use, adapt, and integrate AI literacy curricula. Additionally, her research targets how to leverage more opportunities for students with diverse learning needs.

      The Data Activism curriculum utilizes a “libertatory computing” framework, a term Walker coined in her position paper with Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE, dean for digital learning, and head of PRG, and Eman Sherif, a then-undergraduate researcher from University of California at San Diego, titled “Liberty Computing for African American Students.” This framework ensures that students, especially minoritized students, acquire a sound racial identity, critical consciousness, collective obligation, liberation centered academic/achievement identity, as well as the activism skills to use computing to transform a multi-layered system of barriers in which racism persists. Walker says, “We encouraged students to demonstrate competency in every pillar because all of the pillars are interconnected and build upon each other.”

      Walker developed a series of interactive coding and project-based activities that focused on understanding systemic racism, utilizing data science to analyze systemic oppression, data drawing, responsible machine learning, how racism can be embedded into AI, and different AI fairness metrics.

      This was the students’ first time learning how to create data visualizations using the programming language Python and the data analysis tool Pandas. In one project meant to examine how different systems of oppression can affect different aspects of students’ own identities, students created datasets with data from their respective intersectional identities. Another activity highlighted African American achievements, where students analyzed two datasets about African American scientists, activists, artists, scholars, and athletes. Using the data visualizations, students then created zines about the African Americans who inspired them.

      RAISE hired Olivia Dias, Sophia Brady, Lina Henriquez, and Zeynep Yalcin through the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and PRG hired freelancer Matt Taylor to work with Walker on developing the curriculum and designing interdisciplinary experience projects. Walker and the four undergraduate researchers constructed an intersectional data analysis activity about different examples of systemic oppression. PRG also hired three high school students to test activities and offer insights about making the curriculum engaging for program participants. Throughout the program, the Data Activism team taught students in small groups, continually asked students how to improve each activity, and structured each lesson based on the students’ interests. Walker says Dias, Brady, Henriquez, and Yalcin were invaluable to cultivating a supportive classroom environment and helping students complete their projects.

      Cambridge Rindge and Latin School senior Nina works on her rubber block stamp that depicts the importance of representation in media and greater representation in the tech industry.

      Photo: Katherine Ouellette

      Previous item
      Next item

      Student Nina says, “It’s opened my eyes to a different side of STEM. I didn’t know what ‘data’ meant before this program, or how intersectionality can affect AI and data.” Before MSYEP, Nina took Intro to Computer Science and AP Computer Science, but she has been coding since Girls Who Code first sparked her interest in middle school. “The community was really nice. I could talk with other girls. I saw there needs to be more women in STEM, especially in coding.” Now she’s interested in applying to colleges with strong computer science programs so she can pursue a coding-related career.

      From MSYEP to the mayor’s office

      Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui visited the Data Activism learning site on Aug. 9, accompanied by Breazeal. A graduate of MSYEP herself, Siddiqui says, “Through hands-on learning through computer programming, Cambridge high school students have the unique opportunity to see themselves as data scientists. Students were able learn ways to combat discrimination that occurs through artificial intelligence.” In an Instagram post, Siddiqui also said, “I had a blast visiting the students and learning about their projects.”

      Students worked on an activity that asked them to envision how data science might be used to support marginalized communities. They transformed their answers into block-printed T-shirt designs, carving pictures of their hopes into rubber block stamps. Some students focused on the importance of data privacy, like Jacob T., who drew a birdcage to represent data stored and locked away by third party apps. He says, “I want to open that cage and restore my data to myself and see what can be done with it.”

      The subject of Cambridge Community Charter School student Jacob T.’s project was the importance of data privacy. For his T-shirt design, he drew a birdcage to represent data stored and locked away by third party apps. (From right to left:) Breazeal, Jacob T. Kiki, Raechel Walker, and Zeynep Yalcin.

      Photo: Katherine Ouellette

      Previous item
      Next item

      Many students wanted to see more representation in both the media they consume and across various professional fields. Nina talked about the importance of representation in media and how that could contribute to greater representation in the tech industry, while Kiki talked about encouraging more women to pursue STEM fields. Jesmin said, “I wanted to show that data science is accessible to everyone, no matter their origin or language you speak. I wrote ‘hello’ in Bangla, Arabic, and English, because I speak all three languages and they all resonate with me.”

      Student Jesmin (left) explains the concept of her T-shirt design to Mayor Siddiqui. She wants data science to be accessible to everyone, no matter their origin or language, so she drew a globe and wrote ‘hello’ in the three languages she speaks: Bangla, Arabic, and English.

      Photo: Katherine Ouellette

      Previous item
      Next item

      “Overall, I hope the students continue to use their data activism skills to re-envision a society that supports marginalized groups,” says Walker. “Moreover, I hope they are empowered to become data scientists and understand how their race can be a positive part of their identity.” More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Data Management & Statistics

      MIT to launch new Office of Research Computing and Data

      by

      As the computing and data needs of MIT’s research community continue to grow — both in their quantity and complexity — the Institute is launching a new effort to ensure that researchers have access to the advanced computing resources and data management services they need to do their best work. 

      At the core of this effort is the creation of the new Office of Research Computing and Data (ORCD), to be led by Professor Peter Fisher, who will step down as head of the Department of Physics to serve as the office’s inaugural director. The office, which formally opens in September, will build on and replace the MIT Research Computing Project, an initiative supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research, which contributed in recent years to improving the computing resources available to MIT researchers.

      “Almost every scientific field makes use of research computing to carry out our mission at MIT — and computing needs vary between different research groups. In my world, high-energy physics experiments need large amounts of storage and many identical general-purpose CPUs, while astrophysical theorists simulating the formation of galaxy clusters need relatively little storage, but many CPUs with high-speed connections between them,” says Fisher, the Thomas A. Frank (1977) Professor of Physics, who will take up the mantle of ORCD director on Sept. 1.

      “I envision ORCD to be, at a minimum, a centralized system with a spectrum of different capabilities to allow our MIT researchers to start their projects and understand the computational resources needed to execute them,” Fisher adds.

      The Office of Research Computing and Data will provide services spanning hardware, software, and cloud solutions, including data storage and retrieval, and offer advice, training, documentation, and data curation for MIT’s research community. It will also work to develop innovative solutions that address emerging or highly specialized needs, and it will advance strategic collaborations with industry.

      The exceptional performance of MIT’s endowment last year has provided a unique opportunity for MIT to distribute endowment funds to accelerate progress on an array of Institute priorities in fiscal year 2023, beginning July 1, 2022. On the basis of community input and visiting committee feedback, MIT’s leadership identified research computing as one such priority, enabling the expanded effort that the Institute commenced today. Future operation of ORCD will incorporate a cost-recovery model.

      In his new role, Fisher will report to Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, and coordinate closely with MIT Information Systems and Technology (IS&T), MIT Libraries, and the deans of the five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, among others. He will also work closely with Provost Cindy Barnhart.

      “I am thrilled that Peter has agreed to take on this important role,” says Zuber. “Under his leadership, I am confident that we’ll be able to build on the important progress of recent years to deliver to MIT researchers best-in-class infrastructure, services, and expertise so they can maximize the performance of their research.”

      MIT’s research computing capabilities have grown significantly in recent years. Ten years ago, the Institute joined with a number of other Massachusetts universities to establish the Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke to provide the high-performance, low-carbon computing power necessary to carry out cutting-edge research while reducing its environmental impact. MIT’s capacity at the MGHPCC is now almost fully utilized, however, and an expansion is underway.

      The need for more advanced computing capacity is not the only issue to be addressed. Over the last decade, there have been considerable advances in cloud computing, which is increasingly used in research computing, requiring the Institute to take a new look at how it works with cloud services providers and then allocates cloud resources to departments, labs, and centers. And MIT’s longstanding model for research computing — which has been mostly decentralized — can lead to inefficiencies and inequities among departments, even as it offers flexibility.

      The Institute has been carefully assessing how to address these issues for several years, including in connection with the establishment of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. In August 2019, a college task force on computing infrastructure found a “campus-wide preference for an overarching organizational model of computing infrastructure that transcends a college or school and most logically falls under senior leadership.” The task force’s report also addressed the need for a better balance between centralized and decentralized research computing resources.

      “The needs for computing infrastructure and support vary considerably across disciplines,” says Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “With the new Office of Research Computing and Data, the Institute is seizing the opportunity to transform its approach to supporting research computing and data, including not only hardware and cloud computing but also expertise. This move is a critical step forward in supporting MIT’s research and scholarship.”

      Over time, ORCD (pronounced “orchid”) aims to recruit a staff of professionals, including data scientists and engineers and system and hardware administrators, who will enhance, support, and maintain MIT’s research computing infrastructure, and ensure that all researchers on campus have access to a minimum level of advanced computing and data management.

      The new research computing and data effort is part of a broader push to modernize MIT’s information technology infrastructure and systems. “We are at an inflection point, where we have a significant opportunity to invest in core needs, replace or upgrade aging systems, and respond fully to the changing needs of our faculty, students, and staff,” says Mark Silis, MIT’s vice president for information systems and technology. “We are thrilled to have a new partner in the Office of Research Computing and Data as we embark on this important work.” More