Brussels must require tech companies to disclose data centers’ energy and water use, the European Environment Agency says.

Companies transporting pharmaceuticals, food and high-value technology goods such as microchips are particularly vulnerable to temperature, humidity and delays.

"Other mountainous regions of the world ... have all experienced a steep decline in snow cover but not at the rate that we saw in the Greek mountains," a snow hydrologist said.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 27 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02644-7

Climate debates often frame individual behaviour and systems change as distinct pathways to action. We suggest that social change arises from individuals’ agency within their roles in societal systems, and that this agency should be actively leveraged to achieve meaningful climate change mitigation.

An EFF analysis of millions of searches of Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) data by police has uncovered a troubling pattern: in the absence of a warrant requirement to search ALPR databases, law enforcement agencies have moved beyond specific investigations to use these surveillance networks for virtually any whim.

Our findings suggest that the absence of a warrant requirement has fostered a culture of unrestricted access to sensitive location data, allowing agencies to leverage that data beyond the scope of specific criminal investigations.

As a refresher: Law enforcement agencies lease or purchase camera systems from Flock Safety and then mount them by the side of the road and at intersections to document every vehicle that passes, including the plate, make, model, color and distinguishing characteristics, along with the date, time and location of where it was seen. 

Law enforcement's talking points—often scripted by the company itself—trumpet their role in solving high-stakes crimes. But the data reveals a different story. What they're not saying is that ALPRs are also frequently used for extremely low-level investigations, such as verifying whether a student lives within a particular school zone. In some cases, police have even used this tech to conduct employment background checks and investigations into loud music complaints. Recently, a motorcyclist was even targeted for simply holding a cell phone while riding.

The reach of this ALPR surveillance is amplified by the nature of the indiscriminate sharing these technologies encourage. Most agencies choose to share broadly, often as part of a nationwide pool, making it common for a single city's system to be searched hundreds of thousands of times each month. By analyzing these "network audit logs," privacy advocates and journalists have uncovered evidence of the technology being used to surveil protesters, abortion-seekers, immigrants, and even ethnic Roma populations. 

While these high-profile abuses are shocking, the more mundane uses are also problematic, signaling a massive, unchecked mission creep that has turned an alleged “crime-fighting” tool into a universal tracker of everyone’s movements. 

Residency Checks

School systems in the U.S. conduct "residency verification" investigations of their parents or guardians to ensure enrolled children live in the district. To carry out these checks, some school districts have enlisted law enforcement officers for help, leveraging ALPR databases to track the comings and goings of families across the region. 

Buford City Schools in Georgia, which serves only about 6,000 students, illustrates the scale of this prying. Between January 2025 and March 2026, school police ran more than 375 searches where officers listed school residency verification, or simply "RV," as the reason for the search. That accounts for more than half of all ALPR searches in that period, and in those three months of 2026, three-quarters of all searches were related to residency verification. 

School officials stand by the searches. "[B]ecause Buford City Schools is a highly sought-after district, we experience ongoing challenges with residency fraud," a spokesperson told Appen Media, which shared the email with EFF. "Flock Safety is one of the tools we use to verify residency and protect the integrity of the Buford City School System for families who live within the district."

A search of ALPR data will show a lot more than whether a family lives within the right zone. In these Buford cases, officers ran some searches across more than 5,800 different networks nationwide. Every time a plate is searched, it can reveal personal information about a family: when they go to the doctor, when they go to worship, when they go out at night, and where they travel on vacation. None of that is the school district's business, and these searches are a huge invasion of privacy. 

While Buford was by the far the most prolific, it wasn't the only agency to run school residency checks. For example, Delhi Township Police Department (DTPD) in Ohio ran 35 searches related to students in five schools in a three-month period during spring 2025, and similarly stood by the practice, citing a warning given to parents that submitting a false statement of residency may be a felony. 

After EFF sent an inquiry to DTPD, the agency conducted a brief investigation and found that "these searches were not done to verify residency upon submission, but to investigate cases where it was believed the form was filled out with false information." DTPD did not say what kind of evidence was required to establish suspicion before an ALPR query, nor did it offer information on how many of these investigations turned out to be justified. 

However, the official told EFF: "in response to your inquiry, the department will be implementing a change to how these queries are documented in the Flock system and internally, to increase accountability and help avoid any confusion moving forward."

Other agencies that ran school residency searches include Cortland Police Department in Ohio and Lincoln Police Department in Alabama. Several agencies also ran searches with "residency," "residency investigation" or "residency verification" as the reason, but that could refer to a number of public services. These agencies include Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi, Fairfield County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina, Manteno Police Department in Illinois, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and Mora County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico. 

Background Checks

Few people would imagine that applying for a government job would open you up to an ALPR search. Yet, several law enforcement agencies ran searches through the Flock network related to employment. 

For example:

• Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in Missouri ran six searches across 2,853 networks, documenting "employment" in the reason field.
• Little Elm Police Department in Texas ran 10 searches across 6,306 networks, documenting "EMPLOYMENT" in the reason field.
• Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi ran two searches across more than 6,000 networks documenting "employment background inv" in the reason field.
• Texas City Police Department, Texas ran three searches across 728 networks, documenting "pre employment background" in the reason field. 
• Zion Police Department in Illinois ran a research across 585 networks documenting "Employee Background" in the reason field. 

Davidson Police Department in North Carolina logged a search listed as "Employment Background," but in response to an inquiry from EFF, the chief described this as "poor choice of words by our investigator." He further stated that the agency does not use ALPRs as part of employment background checks, but in this case, the agency shared that a potential violation of a protective order came to light during a background check, hence the reference to it in the search log.

In addition to the agencies mentioned, several agencies ran searches that simply referred to "background check" or "background checks," which could be related to employment or perhaps some other issue, such as a concealed weapons permit, for example. These include Avon Police Department in Indiana, Rockford Police Department in Illinois, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office in California, and Seaford Police Department in Delaware.

Noise Complaints

Many people have probably been irritated at some point or another by a car blasting a deep bassline or even the infamous "whistle tip." Some may have even called the cops to complain about a neighbor’s house party. But that's a far cry from the types of serious crimes that Flock and its customers have claimed that the ALPR systems would be used to solve. 

Yet, EFF identified 26 agencies where officers felt it was appropriate to pry into a driver's life because of a noise complaint, ranging from house parties to loud exhausts to just "music": 

Some of these agencies searched upwards of 6,500 networks’ cameras—the equivalent of launching a nationwide goose chase over a booming subwoofer or a busted muffler. 

When Mission Creep Is Just Plain Creepy

An observant reader of this report may have noticed that Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi ran searches in all three of the categories we reported above.

However, after the city first installed the Flock Safety cameras, the then-police chief told the press that the technology helps solve cases that range from "theft to crimes of violence"—without disclosing that the range would extend much further.

When police and salespeople trot out cherry-picked cases to argue that a mass surveillance technology is an "important" tool,  they obfuscate that it's a convenient shortcut around due process. For serious crimes, police can already go through the standard legal process: making the case to a judge on why they should get a search warrant for location data, whether it's from cell phones or service providers. But police treat ALPR databases as if no such threshold exists, giving them free rein to track a person’s movements without a sliver of judicial oversight.

When police and salespeople trot out cherry-picked cases to argue that a mass surveillance technology is an "important" tool,  they obfuscate that it's a convenient shortcut around due process.

"This is the same as if I put a police officer on the side of the road with a pen and a notepad and he writes down every license plate number that drives by,” the former chief said, repeating a commonly circulated talking point. 

That rhetoric may sound reasonable if we were just talking about a single camera on a street corner, but Ridgeland now operates more than 50 cameras—the equivalent of one for every 500 residents—and maintains access to tens of thousands more. 

If the chief had stood in front of the city’s aldermen and asked for permission to search more than 20,000 cameras so his officers could investigate the high crime of "music," it’s quite unlikely that they would have been nodding their heads along. 

Ridgeland Police Department did not respond to EFF’s requests for comment.

Ten MIT affiliates — including undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni — have accepted Fulbright grants to conduct research in countries across the world. Five other students declined their awards to pursue other opportunities, and another student is still deciding. In total, 16 of MIT’s 30 Fulbright applicants won awards this year. 

Funded by the U.S. Department of State with annual appropriations from Congress, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers year-long opportunities for American-citizen students and recent alumni to conduct independent research, pursue graduate studies, or teach English in over 140 countries. This past February, MIT was recognized by the Fulbright Program as the nation’s No. 1 “Top Producing Institution” among special focus STEM universities. 

MIT students and alumni interested in applying to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program should contact Julia Mongo, Fulbright program advisor, in the Distinguished Fellowships office in Career Advising and Professional Development.

Jessica Chomik-Morales SM ’25 earned her master’s in science writing at MIT, where she previously spent three years as a post-bac cognitive neuroscience researcher in the labs of professors Nancy Kanwisher and Laura Schulz. For her Fulbright in Spain, she will research the science of science communication at Universitat Pompeu Fabra’s Center for Brain and Cognition in Barcelona. Her project will investigate how narrative features in science writing interact with reader characteristics to shape comprehension, trust, and engagement. Chomik-Morales is the creator, host, and producer of “Mi Última Neurona,” an MIT-sponsored Spanish-language neuroscience podcast that has featured more than 60 scientists from Latin America, the United States, and Spain. She is currently producing “Lab Notes on Love,” an audio miniseries for Scientific American. She is committed to making science communication more inclusive, empirically grounded, and emotionally resonant.

Stella Gassman will graduate this month with a BS in biological engineering and a concentration in women’s and gender studies. For her Fulbright year, she will conduct microbiology research at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. At MIT, Gassman researched the vaginal microbiome and mucosal membranes, with a particular focus on bacterial vaginosis. Important moments of her research journey included time at an MGH gynecology clinic and at the FRESH clinical trial site in South Africa, where she gained firsthand perspectives on the human context behind her laboratory samples. Gassman also interned at Pfizer Oncology, developing an in vivo tumor model to test preclinical compounds. She volunteered in the MGH Emergency Department and served on the Biological Engineering Undergraduate Board. After Fulbright, she hopes to attend medical school to bridge scientific discovery and human impact.

Chen Li SM ’25 graduated from MIT with a master’s in system design and management. She has developed generative artificial intelligence tools for patient engagement at Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen through MISTI Denmark and applied AI to help prevent gait freezing in Parkinson’s patients through the MIT–Mexico program. As a research assistant in the MIT Global Teamwork Lab, her thesis used large language models and statistical methods to build a 3D urban design platform to study teamwork behavior. She also served as a teaching assistant for data mining courses at MIT Sloan School of Management and the MicroMasters program. As a Fulbright Iceland-NSF Arctic Research Award recipient, Chen will explore how AI and systems thinking can be applied to support health and well-being in Arctic communities. She plans to pursue a PhD in information and systems science following her Fulbright experience.

Liam Moser will graduate this week with a PhD in geophysics from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences’ MIT-WHOI Joint Program. His research has focused on understanding the structure and dynamics of subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, generating the Earth’s largest earthquakes and creating volcanic arcs. During his PhD, Moser helped found the annual MIT-WHOI Geophysics Retreat, promoting interconnectedness between MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). He also taught incoming graduate students in the MIT-WHOI Summer Math Review for five years, organizing the review for the final two years of his PhD. Moser was awarded a Fulbright Iceland-National Science Foundation Arctic Research Award for a postdoctoral fellowship at Reykjavík University, where he will use earthquake recordings to study the structure and dynamics of the Hengill volcano and geothermal area.

Lilia Ould-Hammou is a senior majoring in mechanical engineering with a concentration in controls, robotics, and instrumentation. As a recipient of the Fulbright U.S.-Korea Presidential STEM Initiative Award, she will conduct research at Seoul National University’s Wearable Robotics Laboratory. Her work will involve advancing adaptive exosuit control for balance recovery. She plans to improve her language skills while exploring Korea’s history and culture. At MIT, Ould-Hammou has worked in the d’Arbeloff Robotics Lab on soft modular robotic straps, served as a tutor in the MIT Women’s Technology Program, and competed as a thrower on the MIT track and field team. After her Fulbright fellowship, she will pursue a master’s degree in robotics at Johns Hopkins University.

Bryan Sperry ’23 graduated from MIT with dual bachelor’s degrees in physics and mechanical engineering, focusing on renewable energy systems. Since graduating, he has worked at VEIR as a systems integration engineer, designing superconducting power transmission lines. As a Fulbright Brazil grantee, he will study pathways to improve climate resilience and energy equity in urban power grids alongside the Cenergia Lab at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. After Fulbright, he plans to enroll at Columbia University to complete a master’s in urban planning to continue working on urban disaster preparedness.

Sophie Thompson is a senior majoring in chemical engineering. For her Fulbright research in Sweden, she will test the performance of recycled carbon fiber composites at the Swedish School of Textiles in Boras. Thompson has researched natural fiber-reinforced composites for prosthetic socket use in low-resource environments with the Herr Lab in the MIT Media Lab, worked on immunoengineering technology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and interned at the textile recycling startup MacroCycle Technologies. She also completed a summer research internship at the Weizmann Institute in Israel through MISTI. She serves as captain on the MIT lightweight women’s rowing team, and has held leadership roles with the MIT chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, TEDxMIT, and MIT Hillel. After Fulbright, Thompson will pursue a PhD in molecular engineering at the University of Chicago.

Claire Underwood is a senior studying chemical-biological engineering. As a recipient of a Fulbright Portugal award, she will conduct research at the University of Minho in Guimaraes, studying high-throughput fabrication techniques for cell-embedded microtissues with applications in drug discovery. At MIT, Underwood worked in the Hammond and Olsen labs exploring interactions between biology and polymeric systems. For the past two years, she has focused on lipid nanoparticle drug delivery for cancer treatment, and is excited to continue investigating biomaterials and biomimetic systems. She was also a member of the varsity volleyball team and active in her sorority Alpha Phi, Cru, and Athletes in Action. After Fulbright, she will pursue a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sophie Vulpe is a senior majoring in physics and mathematics. Her Fulbright will take her to the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) institute in Măgurele, Romania, where she will develop advanced data-processing algorithms for a new monoenergetic gamma ray spectrometer. She looks forward to strengthening her computational and experimental skills and connecting with her Romanian heritage. At MIT, Vulpe worked with Professor Mikhail Ivanov on characterizing black hole quasi-normal modes using tools from the mathematical field of representation theory. Passionate about expanding access to physics through education and outreach, she was co-president of the Undergraduate Women in Physics group, a mentor in the physics mentorship program, and a teaching assistant in the Experimental Study Group. She was also a member of Dancetroupe and the Musical Theater Guild. After Fulbright, Vulpe plans to pursue a PhD in physics. 

Josephine Wang will graduate this month with a BS in computer science. For her Fulbright grant to Switzerland, she will conduct research at EPFL in Lausanne with the NeuroAI Lab. Her work will explore whether brain-inspired language models can develop functionally specialized clusters analogous to cortical organization, and how targeted disruptions to those clusters affect language-related behavior. At MIT, Wang’s research has focused on computational models of cognition, movement, and human behavior. She has most recently worked in the Seethapathi Motor Control Group, where she developed a computer vision pipeline for world-grounded pose estimation in children and examined how computational models can support pediatric gait analysis. Outside of research, Wang enjoys traveling, trying new cuisines, and learning French.

“Avatar,” the highest-grossing film of all time, took viewers to a new world, Pandora, and it advanced filmmaking to its own new world: developing the field of virtual production. 

Leveraging a wide range of technologies such as performance capture, LED virtual environments, and advanced 3D imaging technologies, virtual production is changing the landscape of modern cinema. While millions of people have seen “Avatar,” only a fraction of that number understand the magic behind the scenes. Exposing filmmaking students to this magic is what MIT Media Lab alumnus Daniel Pillis SM ’24 is all about.

“Motion capture, like that in 'Avatar,' bridges real human movement with digital technology,” says Pillis. “In this digital age, and as artificial intelligence becomes more involved in film studios, technology that enables the authenticity of human expression and performance is becoming increasingly important.” 

That is what Pillis, now an assistant professor at Emerson College, teaches his students in his filmmaking courses. To bring the lesson to life, each semester the class travels across the river to MIT, where Emerson undergraduate and graduate students use the capabilities of the MIT.nano Immersion Lab to create their own virtual productions.

Donning full-body motion-capture suits that pair to the 28-camera OptiTrack system in the Immersion Lab, the students become their own avatars — generating virtual characters that dance, fight, or play the guitar like The Beatles. They see their animation data immediately on a computer screen and can change or add to their character’s movements in real time. Later, they take their data back to Emerson to build into short films for their final projects.

“It has been truly gratifying to support this course and to see the curiosity and ingenuity students have brought to the stage,” says Talis Reks, who manages the MIT.nano Immersion Lab. “This class highlights the range of what our lab can offer, extending well beyond research and into art and the performing arts."

The MIT.nano Immersion Lab — there’s really nothing else like it

Pillis first learned about the MIT.nano Immersion Lab during his time as a graduate student in Professor Hiroshi Ishii’s Tangible Media group at the MIT Media Lab. Working with colleague Georine Pierre SM ’24, the two collaborated on a Haitian folklore dance project, creating a motion capture-driven simulation of Haitian folkloric dance traditions, specifically the sacred Yanvalou dance. They built a living archive using the capabilities of the Immersion Lab that let participants dance with an interactive AI-driven ancestral avatar animation.

When he became faculty at Emerson, Pillis knew the Immersion Lab was a perfect fit to elevate his students’ experiences. “The level of high-end film production that the Immersion Lab supports is out of reach for so many students who would benefit from this technology in their practice,” explains Pillis. “The facility is unique, well-equipped, and even accessible to those outside of MIT — there really is nothing else like it in the Boston area.”

With the type of mechanical character animation the Immersion Lab technology allows, the final projects end up light-years beyond what these students thought they could achieve, continues Pillis. And they’re having fun. “They really get into it,” says Reks. “These students are not necessarily trained as actors, but the moment they see themselves as virtual characters, the realistic, granular movement enabled by motion capture, they get fully into performing.”

Rewarding professionalism

In the past two years, over 60 Emerson College students have used the Immersion Lab for Pillis’ class. Emerson undergraduate student Nick Forsch received an EVVY Award nomination for his project. The Emerson version of an Emmy, EVVYs are awarded to students whose projects are judged and selected by a panel of industry experts looking for creativity, quality, and professionalism.

“Being able to use the MIT.nano Immersion Lab really elevated my project,” says Forsch who created “Enter,” a short film about a human transported into a digital world to meet an artificial intelligence. “I was excited to submit it for an EVVY, knowing the technology behind my work was on a professional level.”

Another undergraduate student, Evan Costa, recently created a virtual recreation of The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” capturing a version of each musician’s performance and reconstructing a simulation of 1950s television. Costa will be joining the MIT Learning Engineering and Practice Group, led by principal research scientist John Liu in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, this summer to continue exploring virtual production as an intern.

“Having the opportunity to gather motion-capture data within the Immersion Lab gave me more than advanced technology for my project; it provided insight into an often-unseen world of creativity,” says Costa. “Modern storytelling exists across a wide range of mediums, from film to video games, and witnessing the inner workings of this process has deepened my passion for virtual production.”

In the coming academic year, Pillis and Reks plan to leverage advanced Immersion Lab technologies to teach facial animation, hand and finger tracking, multi-modal data capture, and further advances in interactive generative motion capture as they gear up for the next set of productions.

“I came to MIT Sloan intent on joining a vibrant ecosystem for entrepreneurship and leadership development,” says Alecia Asiamigbe, an MIT Sloan Fellow and MBA student in the MIT Sloan School of Management who is graduating this week.

Before coming to MIT Sloan, Asiamigbe worked as an energy and infrastructure professional with over 20 years of leadership experience, delivering complex energy infrastructure solutions.

It was MIT Sloan’s work to embed sustainability in new ventures that attracted Asiamigbe. Additionally, the MIT Sloan Fellows program gave her the opportunity to earn an MBA in one year. “I was anchored to my choice by the Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework and the potential to focus on climate and energy entrepreneurship.”

Currently, Asiamigbe is working to build out a sustainability-focused venture, Resilient Grid, a renewable energy company that aims to convert organic waste into sustainable natural gas able to produce reliable, dispatchable renewable power in fuel import-dependent markets. Its modular systems reduce reliance on imported fuels, lower energy costs, and stabilize grids where solar and wind alone are insufficient. By capturing methane, diverting waste from landfills, and producing useful byproducts, it delivers measurable impact across energy security, emissions reduction, and circular economic development.

“My work in sustainability is deeply rooted in my need to give back to the community and to be an agent for systems-level change. We must solve the dual challenge of providing access to opportunities to innovate and build for those not currently in the loop, while also stopping the damage currently being done to the planet. Knowing that we want better for our grandchildren, what will we do differently?”

The following photo gallery provides a snapshot of what a typical day for Asiamigbe has been like at MIT.

Not identifying people based on their use of Wi-Fi routers, but identifying people using Wi-Fi signals.

This is accomplished through what is known as WiFi sensing, or the use of WiFi signals to infer information about a physical environment. When radio signals like WiFi travel through a space, they interact with the objects and people around them. Those signals can be reflected, scattered, or absorbed. By analyzing how the signal is expected to behave compared with how it is actually received, researchers can infer details about the surrounding environment...

The Trump administration has swept away climate change policies, Democrats are focused on energy costs, and environmental groups have gone quiet.

Countries are building more coal-fired power plants and keeping old ones open "as a form of system insurance," according to a nonprofit that tracks energy infrastructure.

Possible contenders are near projects that have already been canceled, are still far from construction and are saddled with hefty price tags.

Kevin Guthrie said new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has made changes that may ease the process for the Sunshine State.

The complaint comes before the European Commission is expected to adopt a new sustainability label for data centers as part of its “tech sovereignty package” on June 3.

The French plan calls for EU climate transition funds to make room for oil and gas companies with a “clear path of transition towards sustainability,” the documents show.

Projects are being developed as alternatives to traditional asphalt lots to beat the heat and curb water runoff as climate change worsens.

In a theater, the first thing the audience sees, and looks at the longest, is the stage. Even so, set design is something most of us know little about. Why does a set have its form and elements? How does it suit the performance? 

Consider a set that designer and MIT Associate Professor Sara Brown created in 2015, when the Brooklyn of Academy of Music adapted the canonical Japanese Noh play “Hagoromo,” turning it into a chamber opera with dance. 

Noh plays have a traditional structure and a crucial final transformation. In “Hagomoro,” an angel loses her cloak; a fisherman only reluctantly returns it, after the angel performs a ritual dance; the angel then ascends to the heavens. To focus on the main characters, Brown’s design featured three high walls surrounding center stage, with musicians and a chorus elevated behind them. 

“That set was a framing device more than anything else,” says Brown, who is also associate head of MIT’s Music and Theater Arts program. “It lifted the musicians to a different plane, almost a heavenly place, so we have a heaven-and-Earth contrast. It allows the dancers to be seen against a plain backdrop. I didn’t want to lose their bodies in a sea of other bodies.”

For a formal play structure, then, Brown created a formal setting, with vertical layering suggestive of its contents. The trickiest part was lighting: Brown worked with the lighting designer Clifton Taylor to cut vents in the high walls for more light, while a rigging structure allowed them to spotlight dancers.

“Solving for those things is what makes the design,” Brown says. “There’s an artistic idea that underbeds everything, and there are practical considerations, which are as important, to make the piece work the way you want.”

Brown has designed sets at many major venues, tackling everything from “Carmen” to “Death of a Salesman” and debut productions. She ranges broadly across theatrical genres, while teaching classes that get MIT students thinking visually, intellectually, and creatively.

“Every play you’re working on should have something you grab onto as a creative challenge,” Brown says. That challenge is a collective one; it involves working with directors, performers, and design teams focused on lighting, sound, media, and costumes.

“In theater-making, you have to work in a community,” Brown emphasizes. “You might bump up against some rough edges, but you develop strategies to work with everybody with dignity, and that’s important.”

For her extensive work and teaching, Brown received tenure at MIT last year. 

Minnesota kind

Brown grew up in Minnesota, where her parents made sure the whole family grasped the value of humility. 

That experience, says Brown, has given her “a voice I carry with me that channels my family. The worst thing you could be where I grew up was too big for your britches. So it’s a voice that says, ‘What are you doing and what is the value of this?’ Because of my upbringing and my family, it’s a kind voice, but it is a self-reflection I try to carry with me.”

Brown received her BA from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, then earned an MFA from the University of Virginia. At MIT, she has successfully combined professional set design with classroom teaching.

When Brown agrees to design the set for a production, the first thing she does is read the work in question. Then she sits down with the director to talk about it.

“Usually I’ll talk to the director after my first read of the play,” Brown says, citing the influence of a prominent U.S. set designer, the late Skip Mercier. “He said the only thing he brings to the first meeting is a love of the play. That is a great approach. You come understanding the material, wanting to find something within it you love and are excited to work on. You’re not closed; you’re there to discover what you have in common.” 

Indeed, Brown emphasizes how much she appreciates the collaborative aspects of theater. Inevitably, directors, designers, and actors will not agree on everything, but from sorting through those varying viewpoints, a production emerges. 

“It’s about serving the whole instead of being your personal project,” Brown says. “There will always be tension, but the idea is that through that tension, something is going to result that will be better than anything you could do by yourself.”

Brown does have some creative tendencies that reappear across productions. She will often opt for simplicity and adaptability on stage. For a production of “Pride and Prejudice” in Hartford, Connecticut, Brown designed a circular space at the front of the stage, with a slightly elevated rear area containing a piano and columns, allowing the set to shift among the many social settings of the work. 

Remarkably, another set Brown designed was actually used for two different plays running at the same time: “Death of a Salesman” and “Skeleton Crew,” a 2008 play about a closing auto plant in Detroit.

“A throughline in my work is that I gravitate to things that appear to have a simplicity and integrity or formalism, and then reveal different aspects of themselves, so they change over time,” Brown says. “But there is something essential in them. I’m drawn to simplicity, something without a lot of noise.”

“Where the good stuff is”

Still, Brown is always open to new challenges. She once designed the set for the contemporary play “The Lily’s Revenge,” which has five acts and requires the audience to move around in the theater.

“You have to figure out how to reconfigure the space in many different ways with the available materials and it has to feel like a big transformation,” Brown says. “Sometimes you’re working on things and don’t understand the totality of it [the production] until you step back and see it all together.”

Much as Brown works on a variety of theater projects, she also works with a variety of MIT students, from any given course of study, in the classroom. 

“It’s everybody, which is great,” Brown says. “There are students who did high school theater and people who have never seen a play.”

While teaching classes in the Music and Theater Arts program — which include classes on set design, the foundations of design, and drawing for designers — Brown has also served as a faculty advisor for MIT Morningside Academy of Design, an interdisciplinary hub for design on campus. 

“There’s an underlying process of design that does unite disciplines,” Brown says. Consider set design and architecture, for instance:

“Sometimes in theater you’re trying to make spaces that actually express an inefficiency. You’re creating obstacles for people onstage,” Brown says. By contrast, architects might be trying to get people to flow efficiently through buildings. Still, she adds, “It’s the same process, with different results.” Besides, architects do try to design common spaces, whether atriums, lounges, or meeting rooms, where people stop and interact, mirroring set design to an extent.

In any case, Brown notes, when she is working with MIT students in design classes, she is often “reversing the idea that there’s something external you’re seeking that is the right answer, which I think they’re used to doing in other realms of education.”

Instead, in theater, whether it’s Brown’s own professional work, or a first-time design for a student, she says, “This is a process where you have to mine your interior life and think about what you want to bring out in this event that’s going to happen onstage. That can be scary, but that’s where the good stuff is.”

The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) needs to regulate squid fishing in the South Pacific.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

A new short film from MIT Open Learning explores the origin, influence, and global reach of MIT OpenCourseWare, reflecting on its role in establishing MIT, in 2001, as the first higher education institution to make educational resources freely available to learners across the world.

Part of MIT Open Learning, MIT OpenCourseWare helped spark a global movement that continues to shape how knowledge is shared across the world. The film, titled “The Courage to Be Open: MIT OpenCourseWare and the Democratization of Knowledge,” captures both the vision behind this work and the lasting impact it has had on expanding access to learning at scale.

Video by MIT Open Learning | 15 minutes, 22 seconds

Crazy story:

Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history.

News article.