Every year, about 85,000 Americans are diagnosed with bladder cancer. While treatment is often successful, bladder cancer has one of the highest rates of recurrence of any cancer: Following treatment, about 50 percent of patients develop tumors again within the next five years. This makes it one of the most expensive cancers for society to treat.

MIT researchers have now developed a new way to regularly monitor those patients, which could enable regrowing tumors to be detected much earlier. Using a catheter coated with specialized nanosensors, the team showed that they could detect very low levels of a protein produced by bladder cancer cells and image their location in tissue.

The researchers calculate that this sensing approach is nearly 50,000 times more sensitive than urinalysis, an approach that has been used to monitor bladder cancer in patients. In an animal study, they showed that fluorescent signals produced by the sensors can be used to pinpoint the location of the tumor within the lining of the bladder, providing a chemical image.

“It’s like a camera for molecules instead of light,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. “If you have a billion nanosensors in an array, you can use them to make a chemical image that helps you locate their source.” 

Strano is the senior author of the study, which appears today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Wonjun Yim, a Schmidt Science postdoc, and Hohyung Kang, an MIT postdoc, are the lead authors of the paper. Other authors include MIT graduate student Marco Machado, undergraduate student Maeve McGinnis, and postdoc Byungha Kang.

“Chemical images”

The new detection approach is based on carbon nanotubes — hollow, nanometer-thick cylinders made of carbon that naturally fluoresce when exposed to laser light. Over the past 10 years, Strano’s lab has shown that these nanotubes can be customized to sense different molecules by coating them with “synthetic antibodies” — polymers that can be designed to interact with a specific target.

When the target analytes are present, their interaction with the synthetic antibodies causes the carbon nanotubes to shift the wavelength or change the fluorescent intensity that they produce. Strano’s lab has previously developed about two dozen different sensors that can detect different targets, including hydrogen peroxide, riboflavin, and viral proteins.

For the new study, the researchers designed a sensor that could detect a protein known as nuclear matrix protein 22 (NMP-22), which is already FDA-approved for use as a biomarker for bladder cancer. NMP-22 can be detected in urine samples, but it is often significantly diluted, degraded, and cleared after secretion. This means that tumors can only be detected once they have reached more advanced stages.

To enable earlier detection, the MIT team sought a way to deploy their sensors inside the bladder, where they could detect NMP-22 near the tumor at locally elevated concentrations. The device they designed consists of a urinary catheter coated with nanotubes that can sense NMP-22. The catheter also contains a tiny device known as a ball lens, located within the tip of the catheter. 

This lens rotates 360 degrees, emitting laser light and then absorbing the fluorescent light emitted by the nanosensors. By analyzing the color and location of these fluorescent signals, the researchers can map the location of any biomarker that is detected.

These chemical images can reveal not only whether the biomarker is present, but also the location of the cancerous cells.

“If you are scanning over a region of tissue, you would like to know not just that there is a signal indicating that a tumor is there, but also its location so that you can treat it or perform a biopsy,” Strano says. “Before an early-stage tumor breaks through the urothelium so that it’s visible, it’s under the surface but still emitting chemical signals that can be imaged. When a chemical hits the catheter, we don’t just detect its presence, but we collect a map that pinpoints its location.”

Tests in animal bladders showed that this type of detection can be 180 times more sensitive than performing a conventional urinalysis because it detects biomarkers directly where they are produced in the bladder, rather than measuring them later in dilute fluids such as urine, where their concentration is much lower. This high degree of sensitivity would allow the sensors to detect signals from a tumor as small as 16 square millimeters, the researchers say.

Earlier detection

Researchers in Strano’s lab are now working on designing a more compact version of their prototype imaging system, so that it could be used more easily at a doctor’s office. They also hope to incorporate their sensors into a type of catheter known as a cystoscope, which has a camera attached and is used to visualize tumors in the lining of the bladder. 

Currently, patients who have been treated for bladder cancer undergo cystoscopy annually, or in some cases even more often, to monitor for cancer recurrence. The new MIT diagnostics should be able to detect recurring tumors earlier than cystoscopy, making them easier to treat and cutting down on the costs of treatment and monitoring, the researchers say.

“What we’re looking for is something that could be faster and more effective. It could be used right in a doctor’s office, and it could make that screening more efficient and less invasive, with much lower cost. The goal is to be able to detect potential tumors much earlier,” Strano says. 

“This paper is exciting because it shows how diagnostics can be more effective when the sensor is brought to the individual,” says Daniel Heller, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine, who was not involved in the research. “Strano and colleagues demonstrated that a carbon nanotube-based nanosensor technology can be used to monitor a cancer right where it is, improving the speed of cancer detection, and potentially enabling the improvement of cancer treatment.”

This approach could also be integrated with endoscopy to detect other types of cancer or other diseases, such as cardiovascular or gastrointestinal diseases, by swapping out the nanosensors attached to the catheter.

“The beauty of polymer chemistry is that if we understand the molecular structures of target biomarkers and the design principles of binding sites, we can develop new sensors tailored to different diseases,” Yim says. “You can imagine if these sensors were integrated onto the catheter, they could reveal invisible biomarkers that current endoscopic procedures miss, opening the door to detecting many other diseases in the future.”

The research was funded by the Bridge Project of the Koch Institute and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, a Schmidt Science Fellowship, the MIT UROP Program, Mathworks Inc., and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

• MIT and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announced plans to establish the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL) at MIT, which will be open to researchers across the region. 
• With the new funding from the state, which will match federal funding for quantum research already underway at MIT, the Institute aims to begin construction on the QSL facility this summer. 
• The QSL will host specialized facilities that will enable Massachusetts scientists to undertake impactful work applying quantum research across practical domains, including life sciences and national defense.

Quantum technologies promise transformative changes in fields from computing, security, and navigation to health sciences, defense technologies, and space exploration. But how do we ensure Massachusetts stays on the leading edge of our nation’s coming quantum leap? Doing so is vital to the prosperity and security of our Commonwealth and country, serving to protect and advance America’s technological leadership in a world that has been upended by geopolitical rivalries.   

On Thursday, May 28, Governor Maura Healey joined President Sally Kornbluth at MIT to announce a new effort aimed at establishing Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation and catalyzing next generation quantum technologies. MIT and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announced plans to establish the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL) at MIT, a new shared-use facility that will serve as a quantum toolbox for the region, aimed at accelerating quantum research, innovation, and growth in this critical field.

The QSL seeks to be the first facility in the world to bring together state‑of‑the‑art quantum computers with quantum sensors and peripherals, joined by quantum interconnects (physical channels that transfer quantum information). The facility will provide researchers from MIT and other institutions hands‑on access to significant quantum hardware and specialized experimental capabilities that are necessary to achieve the full transformative potential of quantum science and engineering. 

Thanks to a $25 million investment from the state, which will match a portion of the federal funding for quantum research already underway at MIT, the Institute is now in a position to move forward as early as this summer with construction on the QSL facility, positioning the region to dominate the next generation of quantum research, according to Institute officials. The Commonwealth’s investment adds to MIT’s own financial commitment, as well as generous philanthropic support from Thomas Tull.

“Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world, working on a range of potential applications. Through the new Quantum Systems Laboratory, we will help position Massachusetts to lead the next era of quantum technologies,” says Kornbluth. “This facility will serve those at the edges of our wildest imaginations in physics and quantum computing, yes. But it will also equip the talent in our region -- and ultimately, our nation -- to push our knowledge to new limits, and new innovations.” 

The QSL will be located at Building 39 on the MIT campus and will serve as a multi-disciplinary quantum hub with modern experimental infrastructure. Because quantum research involves the creation and study of coherent phenomena in systems that are isolated from the rest of the universe, it must take place in a highly controlled environment. Work is already underway in Building 39, with significant investments by MIT, to upgrade the physical infrastructure for these unique demands. The state’s support will supercharge this work and allow for the transformation of the lab into a hub for scientists across the region working on next-generation quantum technologies, startup applications, defense and health tech, and more. 

“Our region has unparalleled strengths in science-intensive innovations and tough tech breakthroughs that combine engineering, science, and computing,” notes Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s provost. “With the new Quantum Systems Laboratory, we aim to arm Massachusetts with the compute power and integrated platforms needed to lead the coming era of quantum technologies.”

By the numbers 

The QSL will host specialized facilities that will enable Massachusetts scientists to undertake impactful work applying quantum research across practical domains. As a shared-use facility, the QSL is being developed with the underlying mission of returning broad scientific, workforce, and economic benefit to the public. 

For example, quantum technologies provide significant opportunities in the fields of life sciences and defense technologies, which are $50 billion contributors to the Massachusetts economy, with dozens of startups working in the area. During a time of increased economic anxiety and labor market concerns, investing in foundational quantum facilities will infuse our region with new job opportunities, in academic research institutions, startups and more. Construction on the QSL facility alone is anticipated to create over 150 full-time, on-site construction jobs, plus another 75 to 100 jobs across the Commonwealth in supply chain and professional services supporting the project. 

Startups from MIT are also a key driver of the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem; in 2015, Sloan Professors Edward Roberts and Fiona Murray published a report detailing how the Institute’s alumni entrepreneurs have created more than 30,000 active companies, employing 4.6 million people, and generating annual global revenues of $1.9 trillion, a figure greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s 10th-largest economy, as of 2014. The QSL facility will provide the necessary equipment and facilities for startups working on quantum technologies, thereby strengthening the region’s innovation economy. 

“The new QSL will introduce modern experimental infrastructure to quantum research at MIT and beyond, allowing us to scale experiments and expand into critical domains in disciplines such as biology and chemistry, where we see enormous innovative potential,” explains Ian Waitz, MIT’s vice president for research. “As the new physical home of the MIT Quantum Initiative (or QMIT), the QSL will serve not only as an on-campus incubator, but more broadly, a regional hub to catalyze quantum innovation, growth, and investment in this critical R&D sector for the Commonwealth.” 

One floor of the facility will allow for development of radio-frequency (RF) electronics for controlling and interfacing with quantum systems. The QSL will also support researchers in the creation of customized quantum experiments with advanced high-frequency packages, which are required to protect quantum data in real-world applications. The facility will also develop the associated THz electronics needed by advanced quantum systems. 

A history of future-focused plays

Nearly a decade ago, MIT made a similarly big bet on nanotechnology, developing MIT.nano — a state-of-the-art, shared-use facility with more than 200 tools and instruments that support nanoscale discovery and innovation through imaging, fabrication, characterization, and prototyping. Set in the heart of campus in the Lisa T. Su Building, MIT.nano is home to a thriving research community, an industry consortium, and a startup accelerator. More than a fifth of the 1,500 users of MIT.nano come from outside of MIT, and half of the companies in its START.nano accelerator have had non-MIT founders.

The QSL will also complement the capabilities of MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s SQUILL Foundry, a quantum fabrication hub for superconducting qubit systems that serves researchers across Massachusetts and the nation free of charge.

The MIT Corporation — the Institute’s board of trustees — has elected 10 full-term members, who will serve five-year terms, and two life members. Corporation Chair Mark P. Gorenberg ’76 announced the election results today.

The full-term members are: Kate A. Bergeron, Elizabeth Choe, Kevin B. Churchwell, Stephen P. DeFalco, Bennett W. Golub, Pearl S. Huang, Steve Isakowitz, Adrianna C. Ma, Pamela Melroy, and Alex Morcos. The life members are Eran Broshy and Ray A. Rothrock. Gorenberg was also re-elected as Corporation chair.

David L. Fung ’85, the 2026-2027 president of the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of MIT, will also join the Corporation as an ex officio member. He succeeds Stephen P. DeFalco ’83, SM ’88.

As of July 1, 2026, the Corporation will consist of 75 distinguished leaders in education, science, engineering, and industry. Of those, 22 are life members and eight are ex officio. An additional 33 individuals are life members emeritus.

The 10 new term members are:

Kate A. Bergeron ’93, MBA ’13, vice president of hardware engineering at Apple, Inc.

Bergeron joined Apple in 2002 as a senior mechanical engineer and has served as vice president of hardware engineering since 2014. Previously, she was senior director for ecosystem products and technologies and senior director of Macintosh product design. Bergeron co-developed the course MIT D-Lab: Design for Scale, which she co-taught from 2013 to 2017. Earlier in her career, she worked as a mechanical engineer at EM Designs and at the Palo Alto Design Group (now Flextronics International Ltd.). She has regularly been named by Business Insider as one of the most powerful female engineers in the world and was elected to the National Academy of Engineers in 2022.

Elizabeth Choe ’13, PhD ’25, director of AI strategy for translational medicine at AstraZeneca 

At AstraZeneca, Choe oversees the deployment of biomedical deep-learning models for cancer drug development and leads upskilling programs for biologists and clinicians. As an MIT PhD student, she worked on brain cancer therapies at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Between her undergraduate and graduate studies, she worked in digital media in several roles: leading MIT+K12 Videos, producing media for National Geographic and the National Institutes of Health, designing global online teacher training programs at the MIT Media Lab’s Learning Initiative, and serving as assistant director of communications in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Throughout her graduate studies, she was actively involved in campus leadership, serving as a graduate resident advisor and participating in the Graduate Student Council, the Presidential Search Committee, and other groups.

Kevin B. Churchwell ’83, CEO of Boston Children’s Hospital

At Boston Children’s Hospital, Churchwell leads an organization dedicated to advancing child health through clinical care, research and innovation, medical education, and community engagement. Since joining the hospital in 2013 as chief operating officer and executive vice president of health affairs, he led a transformation that significantly reduced safety events affecting patients and employees. Earlier, Churchwell served as CEO of Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington and CEO and executive director of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He is currently a professor of pediatric anesthesia and the Robert and Dana Smith Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School.

Stephen P. DeFalco ’83, SM ’88, executive chair of Creation Technologies

Before assuming his current role, DeFalco served as chairman and CEO at Creation Technologies, an electronics manufacturing services provider, for six years. Prior to that, he was a partner at Lindsay Goldberg Private Equity, following a role as president and CEO of Crane Currency. DeFalco has also held CEO roles at MDS, a global life sciences company; Senseonics, a diabetes care company, where he is still chairman; and PathoGenetix. He was also president of PerkinElmer Instruments, a strategy consultant at McKinsey and Company, and a product development leader at IBM.

Bennett W. Golub ’79, SM ’82, PhD ’84, co-founder of and senior advisor at BlackRock

In 1988, Golub was one of eight people to start the global asset management company BlackRock, Inc; he stepped down from his day-to-day activities in 2022 to assume a part-time role of senior policy advisor. Formerly, he served as chief risk officer with responsibilities that included investment, counterparty, technology, and operational risk, and he chaired BlackRock’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee. Beginning in 1995, he was co-head and founder of BlackRock Solutions, the company’s risk advisory business. He also served as the acting CEO of Trepp, LLC. and as vice president at The First Boston Corporation (now Credit Suisse).

Pearl S. Huang ’80, CEO and president of Dunad Therapeutics, Inc.

Huang has decades of experience spanning the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, with oversight across early drug discovery and development, translational research, and alliance management. Prior to Dunad, she was CEO and president of Cygnal Therapeutics, founded by Flagship Pioneering, where she was also a venture partner. Earlier, she held leadership roles as senior vice president of therapeutic modalities at Roche; vice president and global head of discovery partnerships with academia at GSK; and vice president, oncology franchise integrator, at Merck. She was also a founder and acting chief scientific officer of Beigene. 

Steve Isakowitz ’83, SM ’84, former CEO and president of the Aerospace Corporation

Throughout his career, Isakowitz has worked across the public and private sectors to advance U.S. leadership in space. At the Aerospace Corporation, he led a strategic transformation of the organization to address the rapid commercialization of the space sector, the emergence of space as a warfighting domain, and the need for faster, more agile technical execution. Before that, he held leadership positions as chief technology officer at Virgin Galactic, and later president of the company’s space ventures business; chief financial officer at the U.S. Department of Energy; and deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA. He also served in roles at the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

Adrianna C. Ma ’95, MEng ’96, operating partner at Index Ventures

At Index Ventures, Ma oversees operations, facilitates the investment process, and is responsible for fundraising and capital partnering. Previously, she was a managing partner of the investment firm the Fremont Group, a managing director of General Atlantic, and a technology mergers and acquisitions banker at Morgan Stanley. At the Fremont Group, she oversaw a portfolio of actively managed funds, public securities, and private co-investments; chaired the investment committee; and assisted with Fremont’s direct private equity investments. During her 10 years at General Atlantic, she led investments in, and served on the boards of, growth-stage technology companies around the world. At Morgan Stanley, she focused on technology-related mergers and acquisitions.

Pamela Melroy SM ’84, president and managing partner of Melroy and Hollett Technology Partners

As deputy administrator of NASA, Melroy was responsible for laying the agency’s vision and representing NASA to the executive office of the president and others. Before retiring from the U.S. Air Force in 2007, she logged more than 6,000 flight hours as a co-pilot, aircraft commander, instructor pilot, and test pilot. She is a veteran of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Just Cause. As a NASA astronaut, Melroy served as pilot on two space shuttle missions and was the mission commander on a third. She later took on a number of leadership roles, including at Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Nova Systems, and as an advisor to the Australian Space Agency.

Alex Morcos ’97, ’98, MEng ’98, co-founder of Chaincode Labs

Morcos co-founded Hudson River Trading in 2002, where he spent 10 years helping to build the quantitative trading firm. In 2014, he and fellow co-founder Suhas Daftuar started Chaincode Labs, a research and development center for Bitcoin, with a focus on open-source software and education. Recently, he applied his interest in emerging technologies to help found Fulcrum Science, a public good initiative to use AI to accelerate scientific research.

The two new life members are:

Eran Broshy ’79, former CEO and chair of Syneos Health

Broshy has spent more than 35 years as a health care executive, building high-growth public and private health care businesses as CEO, board chair, director, strategist, and investor. He served for over a decade as CEO and chairman of Syneous Health (formerly inVentiv Health), taking the company public and turning it into the leading global provider of outsourced clinical and commercial services to pharmaceutical and life sciences companies. Before that, he served as the CEO of the biotechnology platform company Coelacanth Corp, and as a managing partner at The Boston Consulting Group. Since 2010, Broshy has worked in private equity across the health care space globally.

Ray A. Rothrock SM ’78, partner emeritus at Venrock

A philanthropist, venture capitalist, and advocate for clean energy, Rothrock spent 25 years at the venture capital firm Venrock, focusing on early-stage investments related to information technology, cybersecurity, and energy. He served as chair of the National Venture Capital Association and as CEO of the cybersecurity technology startup RedSeal, and he previously held management positions at Sun Microsystems. Earlier in his career, Rothrock held various engineering positions at Yankee Atomic Electric, Exxon Minerals, and Sagus. Today, he is a venture partner with Shield Capital and advisor to numerous venture capital firms. He was a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, and in the last decade he co-produced several documentary films.

The attorney said GOP lawmakers are doing Big Oil’s bidding to stamp out expensive litigation.

The state is employing an integrated approach to quicken and deepen its recovery from a major wildfire in 2022.

The World Meteorological Organization predicts that the world's hottest year, so far, will come before 2030.

The refusal of the COP31 host country to recognize Cyprus has made things awkward for the EU.

They warned that the number of free carbon permits under the Emissions Trading System needs dramatic readjustments.

Rising sea levels, storm surges and other factors have intensified coastal erosion in Puerto Rico, the government said in a statement.

As more people, houses, solar farms and infrastructure move into areas prone to hail, the risk and damage increases, an expert said.

Steven Guilbeault will exit the Liberal caucus as the prime minister breaks with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on climate policy.

“Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” he told reporters at the White House.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 28 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02653-6

Climate change worsens air pollution, posing major health risks, yet current social cost of carbon (SCC) models exclude these damages. This Review outlines a framework for including air quality impacts in the SCC and reviews existing evidence to inform near-term modelling efforts.

When doctors and scientists want to see inside a body, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful tool. MRI can noninvasively capture detailed images of the body’s muscles, organs, and bones. It can monitor blood flow to generate a map of brain activity. And with new sensors developed by bioengineers at MIT, MRI can track the kinds of molecules that make our brains and bodies work.

In the May 13 issue of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team led by Alan Jasanoff, the Eugene McDermott Professor in the Brain Sciences and Human Behavior at MIT, reports on their new sensors, which can brighten or dim MRI signals in response to specific molecular targets. The probes are designed to amplify the effect that each target molecule has on MRI signal, dramatically improving sensitivity over previous small-molecule sensors. Jasanoff, who is also an associate investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, says the approach his team used should enable the development of MRI sensors that detect neurotransmitters and other important molecules in the brain.

“We want to be able to measure distinct chemical signals like neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and metabolites as they fluctuate across the whole brain,” Jasanoff says. “These chemicals are important ingredients in neural computations, and we want to use the types of probes that we developed to detect these signals dynamically.”

Jasanoff explains that researchers have struggled to use MRI to sensitively detect small molecules in the brain because the amount of any given neurochemical is low. Sensors can be designed to change the brightness of an MRI signal in the presence of specific molecules — but it takes a lot of contrast agent to achieve this. If every molecule of contrast agent needs its own target molecule to activate it, low concentrations of the target molecule limit the sensors’ visibility in an MRI scan. “The signal change that you see in the imaging will be very modest,” Jasanoff says. “It won’t let us detect physiological events.”

The Jasanoff team’s new sensors, whose development was led by postdoc Sayani Das and graduate student Jacob Cyert Simon, overcome this problem. To generate a greater signal change in response to target molecules, the researchers designed probes in which a single target molecule impacts not one contrast agent, but many.

To achieve this, Das and Simon packaged an MRI contrast agent inside tiny sacs called liposomal nanoparticles. Each nanoparticle is packed with many molecules of gadolinium, a magnetic material that brightens the MRI signal that arises from hydrogen atoms in water. Inside their protective sacs, gadolinium has no effect on MRI signal, unless water molecules can easily get in and out.

Das and Simon built water channels into the walls of their gadolinium-filled nanoparticles, engineering them so that their opening depends on the presence or absence of a target molecule. When the channels open, more water enters and the gadolinium brightens the local MRI signal, lighting up that spot in a scan.

The researchers call their target-responsive sensors liposomal nanoparticle reporters, or LisNRs (pronounced “listeners”). They designed LisNRs that let water in only in the presence of their target molecule. The water channels in these nanoparticles stay blocked until they encounter their target, which can knock aside a channel-blocking bit of protein. 

Once the channel blocker is displaced, water enters and MRI signal brightens. They also made LisNRs that dim the MRI signal in the presence of the molecule they are designed to detect. These have a channel that stays open until the target molecule comes along and blocks it, keeping water out. Jasanoff lab members Vinay Sharma, Samira Abozeid, and Gregory Thiabaud played key roles in understanding and optimizing these interactions, and collaborators in the laboratory of Masayuki Inoue at the University of Tokyo helped the group engineer channels with higher potency.

In experiments led by postdoc Miranda Dawson, Jasanoff’s team used their LisNRs to detect a molecule called biotin in the brains and bodies of living rats, illustrating the probe’s amplifying effects. “We showed that we could detect micromolar-scale levels of biotin with about tenfold greater sensitivity than we would have if we’d used a more conventional, one-to-one type sensing approach,” Jasanoff says. He adds that the team’s modeling suggests that with further development, they may be able to achieve even greater sensitivity gains.

The group showed that the new sensors can be delivered systemically, reaching various organs and spreading throughout the brain. This makes them promising tools for brain-wide imaging, as well as imaging targets in the peripheral nervous system or other tissues.

A next step will be engineering LisNRs that respond to the specific neurochemicals that Jasanoff and his team hope to study. “There are something like 100 neurochemicals in the brain that we’d love to detect, in principle,” he says. They’ll start with dopamine and glutamate — two important and relatively abundant molecules that mediate communications between neurons.

This research, including support for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students involved in the work, was funded, in part, by Lore Harp McGovern, the Yang Tan Collective at MIT, the K. Lisa Yang Brain-Body Center at MIT, the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research at MIT, and the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics at MIT.

Aiming to transition away from fossil fuels and avert the worst consequences of climate change, world leaders aspire to achieve net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. But actions to meet such targets and minimize adverse impacts on lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure are not one-size-fits-all; they will require different approaches in different places. 

To better understand the patchwork causes and effects of the climate crisis and elements of viable solutions to it, researchers in MIT’s Living Climate Futures (LCF) initiative — 20 MIT faculty and affiliates from across the Institute — collaborate with frontline communities in diverse physical and socioeconomic landscapes around the world. 

Funded by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) and based at the MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHASS), LCF is a multi-disciplinary research hub and community of practice; focuses on how climate change impacts people’s everyday lives; and creates knowledge and research collaborations with community organizations. 

At MIT on April 23-25 — just after Earth Day — LCF showcased several of these collaborations at its second Living Climate Futures Symposium, which brought together community environmental organizations with MIT researchers and students to explore how climate change challenges and responses to them are playing out in locations from New England to Mongolia. 

“Across the next two days, we’ll have conversations about community-based work and scholarly research that’s aimed at understanding the structural causes and social effects of climate change as it’s experienced in people’s everyday lives,” said MIT professor of anthropology and MITHIC faculty co-lead Heather Paxson in remarks at the start of the first full day of the conference. “I’m really excited for this symposium, and for where Living Climate Futures can go from here.”

Resisting environmental harm: Confronting data centers

A session on data centers, energy concerns, and community health in Greene County in Western Pennsylvania highlighted how stakeholders are attempting to proactively avert long-term threats to the environment and public health in and beyond their neighborhoods. Nicholas Hood, senior organizer at the Center for Coalfield Justice (CCJ), which has worked to improve policy and regulations on fossil fuel extraction and use in the region since 1994, described local environmental and health impacts of these activities, including fracking, which has increased water pollution, asthma, and lymphoma. “We have coal mines, these old oil wells, and fracking on top of that, and now we’re going to add data centers,” he said. “So, ask yourself, do you think we want that?”

CCJ community advocate Jason Capello noted that market forces compel data center developers to build as cheaply as possible in places where they believe the population is unlikely to raise concerns about adverse environmental and health impacts. These impacts include pollution from on-site water-based cooling systems, diesel generators and mini-power plants that run on natural gas, and fine particulate matter-linked illnesses such as childhood asthma, heart attacks, stroke, and lung disease. But in a subsequent presentation, Livia Garofalo, a cultural and medical anthropologist on Data and Society’s Trustworthy Infrastructures team in Philadelphia, showed that many communities have pushed back against data center project proposals. “Through protests, canvassing, petitions, and public hearings, communities have been able to resist and even stop data center projects,” she said. 

To help communities resist or limit the impact of proposed data center projects, Michael Cork, a postdoc in biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, described a tool he has developed to estimate emissions, model how pollution would spread, estimate who will be exposed, and assess likely health and economic impacts. To further explore how communities can respond to such projects, MIT associate professor of anthropology Amy Moran-Thomas and Stanford University postdoc Anjuli Jain Figueroa facilitated an educational game conceived by Northeastern University associate professor of sociology and health science Sara Wylie. 

The game helped teach participants how often-overlooked community stakeholders can negotiate community benefit agreements (CBAs), or plans that specify project developers’ commitments to address their concerns and provide local improvements such as jobs and affordable housing. Gathered around several tables, symposium participants worked together to identify potential pros, cons, and trade-offs of allowing a data center to be built in a fictitious community. Offering another avenue for community advocacy, Moran-Thomas also moderated a workshop led by public anthropologist Ieva Jusionyte on how to write op-eds that inspire change.

Repairing environmental harm: More than a matter of money

A session on global perspectives and methodologies for potential climate reparations focused on the context for and definition of the term. Veronica Coptis, senior advisor at Taproot Earth, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, described her view of climate justice as a movement about reducing not only excessive greenhouse gas emissions, but also changing the systems that have produced them, all while building a world where everyone can live, rest, and thrive in the places they love. “[Taproot Earth’s] mission is building power and cultivating solutions with frontline communities to advance climate justice through Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, and democracy,” said Coptis.

Eliane Lakam, global policy and partnerships specialist at Taproot Earth, described a two-decades-long process, sparked by Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of marginalized communities on the U.S. Gulf Coast, that led to a Global Climate Reparations Working Statement at the Global Climate Reparations Governance Assembly of 200 climate leaders in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2024.

Urban agriculture: Reclaiming and revitalizing degraded land

A session on advancing urban agriculture in a changing climate featured a panel of four organizational representatives of various growing spaces in Greater Boston, many of which were formerly vacant lots and garbage dumps that were repurposed as farms and gardens. The panel included Sabrina Pilet-Jones, urban farm manager at Haley House; Cecilia Del Cid, director of food justice and youth programs at GreenRoots; Olivia Golden, urban agriculture educator at UMass Extension; and Matthew Ellison, assistant farm manager at the Urban Farming Institute. 

The panelists showed how their efforts to grow food locally in an urban setting are challenging past and ongoing environmental inequality in myriad ways. These include preserving and expanding green spaces, increasing access to fresh produce, empowering their communities to become actively engaged in how their food is grown, building community connection and pride, and inspiring young people to grow food in their neighborhoods. They framed their organizations’ youth education programs as gateways for enabling the transfer of knowledge from elders to young people, promoting a strong work ethic and healthy lifestyles, and identifying pathways to livelihoods that address food access and sustainability. To provide participants with an opportunity to learn about urban agriculture and do some volunteer farm labor, the symposium offered a field trip to The Food Project in Roxbury. 

Rural and urban adaptation: Responding to a changing climate

A session on climate change as a place-based phenomenon explored how communities are responding to a changing climate on Mongolian grasslands, in the greater Southwestern United States, and along the Boston Harbor. 

Munkh-Erdene Gantulga, a PhD candidate in geography at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, described his studies at the National University of Mongolia on how pastoralists at two field sites are protecting their livelihoods as more-frequent severe weather events increase livestock mortality and pasture degradation. Perceiving climate change as a lack of rainfall, hotter temperatures, and inadequate grass growth, herders at the two sites are either migrating to greener pastures or applying three strategies: not milking their animals so as to boost survival of mothers and their offspring; selling off parts of their herds; or specializing in more climate-resilient animals, such as camels. A separate screening of the film “If Only I Could Hibernate” dramatized the environmental and economic obstacles faced by youth in Mongolia. 

Breanna Lameman, an Indigenous data sovereignty doctoral scholar and graduate research associate at the University of Arizona, and Nekai Eversole, wildlife biologist and program lead with Climate Change Program - Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife, described how traditional Diné ecological knowledge and innovative technologies are helping Navajo Nation communities to adapt to hotter temperatures, long droughts, and harsher soil conditions. Lameman cited Diné concepts of restoring balance and maintaining kinship with the natural world as essential to the local response. “This reminds us that the plants, animals, water, and soils are relatives, not resources, and that we all need to work together,” she said. “Watching the stars, observing the winds, the plant cycles, and animal behaviors, really helps us predict seasonal shifts better than any app out there.” Eversole noted that this mindset is combined with innovative technologies ranging from hydroponics to wetland restoration structures. A separate screening of the film “Climate Voices” and Q&A with director Leslie Jonas, MLK Jr. Visiting Scholar and Elder Eel Clan member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, explored perspectives from Native experts and climate scientists working on the front lines.

Elisa Guerrero, community engagement manager at the Stone Living Lab and Sustainable Solutions Lab at the University of Massachusetts Boston, highlighted two examples of adaptation measures to protect vulnerable Boston Harbor infrastructure from sea-level rise, coastal storms, and storm surges: testing seawalls designed to mimic natural habitat for how well they slow down wave action and preserve marine biodiversity, and monitoring salt marshes to better understand the factors that degrade and promote their health. A separate Stone Living Lab tour enabled symposium participants to visit a living seawall, nature-based flood protection infrastructures, and a community-based flood sensor project as Boston tries to address rising sea levels.

Training the next generation in community-oriented research

In addition to highlighting LCF’s role as a research hub linking MIT researchers and students with community organizations in the United States and around the world, the symposium also sought to draw attention to efforts to train the next generation in this approach. The Saturday session “Experiential Learning, ‘Anthro-Engineering,’ and Learning to Do Community-Oriented Research” showcased some of the interdisciplinary classes that LCF supports. MIT students who participated in these classes engaged in activities ranging from building chicken coops with a Boston farming collective while learning about urban agriculture to exploring how to decarbonize the steel industry in Pittsburgh and Southeast Chicago while creating well-paying green jobs to spending time in Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts (informal residential areas) while working with Mongolian collaborators on non-coal methods for heating homes. 

Student panelists shared highlights from their learning experiences through presentations, activities, artwork, and written accounts from their travel notebooks.

“People have always been part of why I chose to study engineering,” said nuclear engineering PhD student Alina Jugan. “But learning how to integrate a human perspective, and one that accounts for multitudes of realities, is essential. The first step in making a solution is learning what the real problem is and how people experience it. This is what ‘Anthro-Engineering’ teaches us.”

Panel and symposium co-organizer Laura Frye-Levine, a research scientist at the MIT Anthropology Section and affiliate of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy, concurred. “In building relationships in place-based contexts, the students on this panel demonstrate the value of engaging with social and cultural expertise in addressing climate change,” she said. “These projects are fantastic examples of collaborations that hold promise for MIT’s approach to developing climate solutions.”

Lessons in resilience from frontline community groups 

In a session entitled “Xa xah Xechnging: A Sacred Obligation in a Time of Climate Chaos,” panelists from Se’Si’Le and Children of the Setting Sun Productions — two Indigenous-led environmental organizations from the U.S Pacific Northwest that have collaborated with LCF on experiential learning activities — described how they draw upon cultural, spiritual, scientific, legal, and other resources in their efforts to heal and restore the planet amid political and corporate opposition. At the core of their work is a perspective in which everything has a spirit, and is thus worthy of love, honor, respect, dignity, pride, and compassion.

Sundance chief Rueben George, a board member of Se’Si’Le, recounted how this perspective energized the campaign he led against the development of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, a fossil fuel megaproject on Tsleil-Waututh Nation territories in British Columbia. “We just shared facts about what it is, and we led with our culture,” said George, who is also chair of Salish Elements, an Indigenous-run company that produces green hydrogen. “That’s the biggest, most important thing, is we always led with our culture.”

At an earlier session, representatives of organizations that participated in the 2022 Living Climate Futures symposium, ranging from GreenRoots to Se’Si’Le, said that they draw strength from the wisdom of ancestors, a growth mindset, and communal bonds among people who seek a better future for the places they call home. Kurt Russo, co-executive director of Se’Si’Le, noted: “I come back to the indomitability of the human spirit.”

Additional photos can be viewed here.

You will never catch Krystal Montgomery running to class. Literally. She is that fast.

The MIT senior — a Course 6-3 (Computer Science and Engineering) major and Course 4 (Design) minor — was recently named the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference Women’s Track Athlete of the Week — for the second time. Montgomery ran a national top 10 time in the 800 meters at the Friar Invitational in Providence, Rhode Island, in April. Her time of 2:10.67 was the fastest Division III runner in the field, ranking her eighth nationally. She beat that time with a personal best (2:09.51) at the FIRE Meet hosted by Williams College in early May. 

Montgomery also runs the 400 meters or 800 meters on the relay team; last year, she and her teammates were national champions in the 4x400m race, which helped MIT win its first NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championship. 

Her success running at MIT was hard-fought. After a stellar undergraduate first year and earning a place at the NCAA Division III finals, she suffered an injury at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships. Unable to compete at the start of her second year, the increasing demands of her coursework and interviewing for internships took a toll.

“Sophomore year was super tough, academically,” says Montgomery. “I think the mental load affected my athletic performance. I was thinking that I would quit after my sophomore year and just focus on school. Then I started dropping times and thought that maybe I could improve if I just stuck it out.”

What Montgomery found was a new way to focus on herself that positively impacted her work on and off the track.

“It’s definitely been a journey of learning how to be more mentally tough throughout the last four years,” she says. “I think that has kind of helped both my academic and athletic performances. My junior year was great. I just kept pushing myself and continued to drop my times. I kind of learned how to balance my life. I prioritized sleeping and eating and tried not to be too stressed about schoolwork so I could lock in on race day.”

Supporting creative energy

Montgomery says she was a “pretty crafty person” before attending MIT. The former president of her high school’s chapter of Girls Who Code, she knew she was going to major in computer science. It was her love for building, making, and creating that led her to explore design courses. In her first year, Montgomery took her first design class 4.021 (Design Studio: How to Design), with Paul Pettigrew. 

“That was an amazing experience because I got to use the workshops and the labs in the architecture department,” she says. “It was just crazy to have all these materials at my fingertips that I could build with. I learned how to laser cut; spray paint; powder coat; and cut metal, wood, and fabric. I found it all really interesting, and what I made encouraged me to take more of these classes.”

Montgomery says she realized that pursuing her interest in design while majoring in computer science would allow her to foster her “creative energy” throughout her time at MIT.

In her junior year, Montgomery took class 4.031 (Design Studio: Objects and Interaction) with associate professor of the practice in architecture Marcelo Coelho. She enjoyed it so much she took another of Coelho’s courses, 4.043 (Design Studio: Interaction Intelligence) — twice.

The course provides a foundation in technical skills such as physical prototyping, coding, collecting data, and deploying neural network models. The end result is developing interactive prototypes that can be deployed and experienced by real users. Montgomery enjoyed the process of working with a new group of classmates and partnering to create a prototype in each class. 

“[Coelho’s] classes have been a great combination of designing a physical object and learning how to code, which brought in my computer science background,” says Montgomery. “It gave me the opportunity to combine both fields creatively.”

Moving forward

Montgomery says she hasn’t fully wrapped her head around the fact that her time at MIT is ending. It’s all been good: friends, clubs, courses. 

“My last two years, I chose to focus on memories instead of being stressed over a lot of things,” she says. “I feel like I chose each of the things I did intentionally, so I put my time in things that I’ll carry with me past college.”

Before Commencement, Montgomery will join her teammates in her final meet: the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. At last year’s championships, Montgomery and her teammates took first place in the women’s 4x400m relay. 

After Commencement, Montgomery will move to Austin, Texas to work as a software developer at Apple, and she will keep competing in track as an unattached athlete, potentially transitioning to marathons later in her career. 

“I’ve seen a lot of post-grads from MIT continue to train and compete in track meets and perform even better than they did in college,” says Montgomery. “I don’t know when I’ll make the switch to longer-distance running. For now, the sweet spot is the 800 meters.”

The 2025 Internet Crime Report was published a few weeks ago, but I only just saw it.
Lots of interesting statistics.

Press release. News articles.

The White House is reviewing EPA’s rollback of some Biden-era standards for some coal- and gas-fired power plants.

The senior Senate Democrat wants a training manual for judges to include a chapter on climate change.

Members of the task forces said the department has stopped communication, saying DOE has "gone dark" on the committees.