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    Susan Solomon earns Killian Award, MIT’s highest faculty honor

    Atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, whose pioneering scientific and environmental policy work has helped to shape international agreements for healing the ozone layer and mitigating climate change, has been named the recipient of the 2020-2021 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award. The Killian Award is the highest honor the MIT faculty can give to one […] More

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    Climate knowledge for everyone

    MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel has made it a personal mission to speak publicly about climate change. He felt a new and surprising duty to speak up after the scientific issue became politicized in the United States. In fact, political identity is the number one indicator of whether or not an American agrees with the irrefutable […] More

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    3 Questions: Harnessing wave power to rebuild islands

    Many island nations, including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, are facing an existential threat as a result of a rising sea level induced by global climate change. A group of MIT researchers led by Skylar Tibbits, an associate professor of design research in the Department of Architecture, is testing ways of harnessing nature’s own […] More

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    Kerry Emanuel, David Sabatini, and Peter Shor receive BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge awards

    The BBVA Foundation awarded three MIT professors Frontiers of Knowledge Awards for their work in climate change, biology and biomedicine, and quantum computation. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Professor Kerry A. Emanuel, Department of Biology Professor David Sabatini, and Department of Mathematics Professor Peter Shor were recognized in the 12th edition of this […] More

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    Kerry Emanuel elected a Royal Society foreign member

    Kerry Emanuel, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Atmospheric Science in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), is among 62 exceptional scientists elected as fellows, foreign members, and honorary fellows of the Royal Society this year. The independent academy of learned individuals, located in the United Kingdom, identifies and supports excellence […] More

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    3 Questions: Anne McCants on climate change in history

    MIT faculty, students, and alumni in the humanistic fields have research-informed perspectives that can help the world address the myriad social and ecological impacts of climate change. The following Q&A is the first in a new series of publications that highlight these insights. Anne McCants, an MIT professor of history, is a Margaret MacVicar Faculty […] More

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    Researchers explore ocean microbes’ role in climate effects

    A new study shows that “hotspots” of nutrients surrounding phytoplankton — which are tiny marine algae producing approximately half of the oxygen we breathe every day — play an outsized role in the release of a gas involved in cloud formation and climate regulation. The new research quantifies the way specific marine bacteria process a […] More

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    Maria Zuber on climate change: “Breakthroughs will happen”

    Climate change is a very personal issue to Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research. A native of eastern Pennsylvania, she watched her grandfathers, both coal miners, battle black-lung disease. “The burning of anthracite coal drove my community and was a central part of my childhood,” says Zuber. “Yet it’s been known since the 1800s […] More