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At a spirited Commencement ceremony, the Class of 2026 is urged to “run toward the hardest problems”
After years of study and instruction, MIT’s Class of 2026 received one last piece of guidance this afternoon en route to picking up their diplomas and starting the next chapter of their lives.
“Run toward the hardest problems,” said Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94, the chair and CEO of semiconductor powerhose Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and the featured Commencement speaker at today’s OneMIT ceremony. “Hard problems really teach you what you’re capable of.”
Su’s career as one of the world’s leading technology executives has long been intertwined with MIT. She holds three degrees in electrical engineering from the Institute, along with another distinction: Building 12, home of the MIT.nano facility, was named after her in 2022.
A central theme of Su’s address involved learning by taking on difficult challenges. At MIT, as she put it, she acquired “not the confidence that I would always know the answer, but the confidence that even when I didn’t know the answer, I could figure it out.”
Speaking before a large and appreciative audience in MIT’s Killian Court, Su also urged MIT’s new class of graduates to lead purposeful lives, with a sense of the greater good and an eye toward addressing societal challenges.
“The world does not just need people who know how to use powerful tools,” Su said. “It needs people who know what to use them for. People with a sense of purpose. Judgment. Courage.”
Science: Curiosity on a Mission
The OneMIT ceremony is an Institute-wide Commencement event with a featured speaker and other traditional elements. MIT’s Commencement week also includes specific ceremonies in which undergraduates, and graduate students in the Institute’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, walk across stage to receive their diplomas.
After Su spoke, MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth delivered a charge to the graduates, discussing the Institute’s core values, especially the ideas of excellence and curiosity. She also emphasized MIT’s role in making advances that benefit the nation and society at large, from medicine to energy, agriculture, and other areas of need.
“A few of those values that will serve you wherever you go,” Kornbluth observed, while noting MIT’s commitment to “the highest standards of intellectual and creative excellence” in its work. She observed that the Institute lives this ethos, by spurning legacy admissions and “back-door” admissions for donors’ families, among other merit-based practices.
“MIT is custom-made for people whose curiosity never sleeps,” Kornbluth said, offering that “curiosity is also our intellectual rocket fuel — and that fact is enormously important for our society as a whole.”
She added: “At MIT, we know that curiosity-driven science is the path to new knowledge,” Kornbluth said. “The kind that spawns world-changing innovations. Curiosity is the force that transforms deadly cancers into treatable conditions. That turns fusion energy from a dream to a reality. That uncovers new ways to grow more food using less of every resource.”
Indeed, Kornbluth emphasized, “We like to say that science is curiosity on a mission.”
“The responsibility to work with others”
MIT students earned a total of 1,165 undergraduate and 2,817 graduate degrees this academic year.
The OneMIT ceremony began with the annual alumni parade, which has come to feature graduates from the 50th anniversary class. In this case the undergraduate class of 1976 had the honors, entering with processional entry music from the Killian Court Brass Ensemble, conducted by Kenneth Amis.
In another annual component of the OneMIT ceremony, Thea Keith-Lucas, the Chaplain to the Institute, delivered the invocation. The Chorallaries of MIT sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the outset of the event. Near the conclusion, they sang the school song, “In praise of MIT,” and another Institute anthem, “Take Me Back to Tech.”
By tradition, speakers at the OneMIT event also included Teddy Warner, president of MIT’s Graduate Student Council, and Heba Hussein, president of the undergraduate class of 2026.
“As MIT graduates, we have the responsibility to work with others to generate, disseminate, and preserve knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges,” Warner said. “We cannot solve global problems without global cooperation or with limited techniques. I implore everyone to apply the cooperative, interdisciplinary skills used every day at MIT to effect positive change in all areas of the global community.”
In her speech, Hussein reflected on the many ways her classmates supported each other during their time at MIT. “As we move forward, I urge you to continue to carry care,” Hussein said. “Care for our work, for each other, and for the people far beyond MIT whose lives are connected by what we choose to do.
Following the students’ remarks, Stephen DeFalco ’83, SM ’88, president of the MIT Alumni Association, issued a welcome to the new graduates.
MIT: “Where I really learned to solve problems”
For her part, Su recounted that when she first came to campus, she was “pretty sure I was good at math.” Then, drawing laughs from the audience, she recalled stepping into two MIT first-year courses, 6.001 and 6.002.
“Within about two weeks, I realized there were a lot of people at MIT who were very, very good at math,” Su said.
She stuck with it, and, as she told the crowd today, “Along the way, I started believing in myself. … What I realize now is that MIT was teaching me something much bigger than semiconductor device physics.” Referring to MIT’s enduring motto of “mens et manus,” or “mind and hand,” Su underscored the importance of both thinking through problems and working to solve them in practical terms.
“When I was a student, I thought it was just a motto,” Su said. “Now I think it captures exactly what makes MIT so special. MIT teaches you to think deeply. But it also teaches you to build. To test ideas. To keep going when the first experiment — or even the fifth experiment — doesn’t work. And over time, you start believing that you can solve problems that once felt impossible. I carried that feeling with me long after I left campus.”
Su’s remarks specifically credited the mentorship of MIT electrical engineer Dimitri Antoniadis, one of her PhD advisors, who today is the Ray and Maria Stata Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in whose lab she worked as a doctoral candidate.
“That was where I really learned how to solve problems,” Su said.
After receiving her PhD from MIT, Su worked at Texas Instruments; IBM; and Freescale Semiconductor. In 2012, she joined AMD, which she has helped revitalize as a global leader in the semiconductor space. In 2014, she was named president and CEO of the company. Under her guidance, AMD has both grown and diversified its products, with expanding reach in high-performance computing, among other areas.
Su has received many awards and honors in her career, including the IEEE’s Robert Noyce Medal in 2021; she was the first woman to be awarded the honor.
In her remarks, Su referenced the many technology advances of recent decades, and noted the potential for new changes due to artificial intelligence. Su outlined her hope that AI can “accelerate discovery in every field,” including medicine and health care, suggesting it could help assemble more information than ever in valuable ways.
“This I think is the promise of AI at its best,” Su said. “It makes each of us more capable. Medicine. Science. Energy. Climate.”
At the same time, Su observed, “Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like.” Rather, she noted, people do: “For everything AI can do, AI cannot decide which problems are worth solving. It can’t make the hard judgments when the data is not there. It can’t take responsibility for the outcome. These are actually our responsibilities. And they matter more now than ever.”
“The commitment to act ethically”
In her charge to the graduates, Kornbluth also encouraged the MIT class of 2026 to apply their knowledge and skills in socially beneficial, responsible ways.
“I mentioned excellence and curiosity, two of MIT’s core values,” Kornbluth said. “But I hope we also hold, together, another core value: the commitment to always act ethically, with integrity, and with consideration for our fellow human beings.”
She added: “I have no doubt that … with your uncommon talent, you can do it! And if you keep that goal in sight, I know you will do great things for the world. Congratulations — and warmest best wishes to all of you for a happy life and a fulfilling career.”
Commencement address by Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94
Below is the text of Lisa Su’s Commencement remarks, as prepared for delivery today.
Good afternoon.
President Kornbluth, Chairman Gorenberg, trustees, faculty, families, friends … and most importantly, the MIT Class of 2026.
Congratulations.
You earned this.
Standing here feels different than I expected.
I've given a lot of talks over the years … but this one is personal. And as Murphy’s Law would have it, I somehow managed to lose my voice this week … so please bear with me if my voice sounds a little rough.
I came to MIT in the fall of 1986. My parents dropped me off at Next House. I was 17 years old. Born in Taiwan, raised in Queens … and pretty sure I was good at math.
Then I walked into 6.001 and 6.002.
Within about two weeks, I realized there were a lot of people at MIT who were very, very good at math.
I remember staring at those first problem sets thinking … man, these are super hard.
I had never really pulled all-nighters until freshman year … it was a new experience, but it was a lot of fun doing it together with your classmates.
MIT has this incredible way of pushing you further than you thought you could go.
You wrestled with the problem.
You blew up a circuit or two.
And then, somehow … the thing worked.
And suddenly, you realized you could build something real.
And, that’s when I started feeling like an engineer.
One of the best parts of MIT is UROP.
The opportunity, as an undergraduate, to work on real research.
That changed my life.
My first UROP was in Professor Hank Smith’s lab in Building 39 … making X-ray lithography mask blanks for a graduate student.
To be clear, at the time I had absolutely no idea what that actually meant.
But I got to put on my first bunny suit, walk into the clean room, and start building devices on little 2-inch wafers.
I learned very quickly to be careful because those wafers were delicate, and I definitely did not want to be responsible for breaking them.
I ran a bunch of experiments. Most of them didn’t work the way we expected. So, we adjusted. And tried again.
It was the coolest thing ever.
For the first time, I wasn’t just learning about technology in a classroom. I was part of a team trying to discover something new.
I remember thinking: wow, we can build things this small?
Things tiny enough to fit on a die the size of a coin … but powerful enough to change the world.
And that is when I fell in love with semiconductors.
Later, I had the privilege of working with Professor Dimitri Antoniadis, who became my PhD advisor.
That was where I really learned how to solve problems.
I remember spending weeks in the clean room fabricating devices, then bringing my wafers up to the test lab, only to discover they didn’t behave the way I expected at all.
So, I’d go back to Dimitri’s office, and we’d figure out what experiment we should try next.
Looking back, that was probably where I grew the most at MIT.
Because little by little, I went from a new grad student learning about the field…to someone doing original research and actually contributing something new to the field.
And along the way, I started believing in myself.
Not the confidence that I would always know the answer.
But the confidence that even when I didn’t know the answer yet…I could figure it out.
What I realize now is that MIT was teaching me something much bigger than semiconductor physics.
Mens et manus.
Mind and hand.
When I was a student, I thought it was just a motto.
Now I think it captures exactly what makes MIT special.
MIT teaches you to think deeply.
But it also teaches you to build.
To test ideas.
To keep going when the first experiment — or even the fifth experiment — doesn’t work.
And over time, you start believing you can solve problems that once felt impossible.
I carried that feeling with me long after I left campus.
When I joined IBM, I found myself starting all over again.
IBM had hundreds of thousands of employees. I was 25 years old wondering how I could possibly make a difference in a company that big.
But I learned something important very quickly: engineering doesn’t care how old you are.
It cares whether your ideas work.
And one of my mentors told me something that I’ve never forgotten:
Run toward the hardest problems.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant.
But over time, I realized this was the best advice I ever received.
Hard problems teach you what you're capable of.
Fast forward a bit … 12 years ago, I got a chance to put that lesson to the test.
I had the opportunity to become CEO of AMD.
AMD had enormous potential, but the company had been through some tough years.
Some of my mentors thought taking the job was risky.
But for me, this was my dream job.
This was what I’d been training for all those years.
The opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of technology on problems that really mattered.
The first thing we had to figure out was what we wanted to be when we grew up.
We made a long-term bet that high-performance computing would be the most important technology of the future.
We gave our talented team the room to think big.
Over the next several years, we built technology to enable the most powerful computers in the world.
And, through all of it, I used every skill that MIT ever taught me … And then some.
I call it the engineer’s instinct.
The ability to face what seemed like an unsolvable problem, break it down, and methodically work through it step by step.
But, at AMD, I learned something else.
The engineer’s instinct is even more powerful when it becomes shared by a team.
And the greatest satisfaction of my career has been bringing people together to do something more than any of us thought was possible.
Which brings me to today.
Over the last few decades, we’ve experienced several major technology shifts.
The internet changed how we communicate.
Mobile computing changed how we live.
Cloud computing changed how we work.
And now we are at the beginning of the AI wave.
To me, AI is different from those earlier technology waves.
It is not just a tool that can help us do things faster. It is deeper than that.
It has the potential to accelerate discovery in every field and help us solve problems we have never been able to solve before.
To make it personal, one of the areas that excites me most is medicine and healthcare.
We’ve all experienced firsthand what it feels like when someone you love is sick.
And even with incredible doctors and the best care, you realize how hard it is for any one person to bring together all of the knowledge that exists in the world to help in that critical time of need.
AI can help us change that.
It can help doctors and researchers bring the world’s best expertise to each patient … and deliver care with the best chance of a successful outcome.
That is the promise of AI at its best.
It does not replace people.
It makes each of us more capable.
Medicine.
Science.
Energy.
Climate.
We may discover more in the next ten years than we have in the last thirty.
Now let me be clear.
Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like.
People do.
For all the promise of AI …
AI cannot decide which problems are worth solving.
It cannot make the hard judgment calls with imperfect information.
It cannot take responsibility for the outcome.
These are our responsibilities.
And they matter more now than ever.
That is why this is such an extraordinary moment to graduate from MIT.
Because the world does not just need people who know how to use powerful tools.
It needs people who know what to use them for.
People with a sense of purpose.
Judgment.
Courage.
People who look at a hard problem and say: I know this is important, and we can figure this out.
And that is exactly who you have become here.
So here is what I want to leave you with.
I am fortunate in many ways.
I am fortunate to have great parents.
I received an extraordinary education.
I have had the chance to work with great people.
But I also believe I’ve been very lucky in my career.
When people ask me for career advice, I often tell them: work hard … but also understand that luck matters.
And, over time, I’ve come to believe that the best people find ways to make their luck.
Luck is not just being in the right place at the right time.
It is taking the risk to work on something hard.
It is challenging yourself.
Choosing problems at the edge of what you know.
Surrounding yourself with people who make you better.
And believing that, yes … you can change the world.
So be ambitious about the problems you choose.
Run toward the hardest ones.
And trust your engineer’s instinct.
That is how you make your luck.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge all the families and loved ones here in the audience today.
None of these graduates got here alone.
Thank you for believing in them, supporting them, and helping them reach this moment.
This achievement belongs to you too.
And to the Class of 2026…
Remember … somewhere in the years ahead, you’re going to walk into another room where you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.
You’ve done this before.
Go figure it out.
As one MITer to another … I am incredibly honored to be here with you today.
Congratulations, Class of 2026.
New laboratory at MIT aims to advance quantum research for the nation
On May 28, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced plans for a new laboratory to accelerate the development of next-generation quantum technologies that will enable Massachusetts to remain a national hub for quantum innovation.
Speaking at the Samberg Conference Center on campus, the leaders introduced the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL) at MIT, a shared-use facility that will catalyze quantum development in the region and help keep America at the forefront of a technology seen as critical for a range of industries.
“Quantum technologies have the potential to drive transformative change in fields from computing, security, and navigation to health sciences, defense technologies, and space exploration,” Kornbluth said. “Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent of anywhere in the world, so it has been clear to us for some time that if we could magnify all of that talent with the right facilities — a shared quantum toolbox — we could establish Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation and help catalyze the next generation of quantum technologies.”
The Quantum Systems Laboratory will join a state-of-the-art quantum computer with the components needed to make it a scalable, practical technology for solving complex, real-world problems. Such components include peripheral hardware such as sensors and quantum interconnects, which are physical channels that transfer quantum information. Located at MIT’s Building 39, the facilities will be open to researchers both from and beyond MIT.
Thanks to a $25 million investment from the state, announced today, 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. The Commonwealth’s investment adds to MIT’s own financial commitment, as well as generous philanthropic support from Thomas Tull.
“This is good news for MIT, good news for Massachusetts, and frankly, good news for the world that we’re working together to make this happen,” Healey said. “The return on investment is clear: We know the Quantum Systems Laboratory will be a first-of-its-kind center for the shared study and development of quantum science and technology. It’s going to unleash the great power of scientists and innovators from around the state and across the world, and also be a place for collaboration, both for academic and commercial ventures. It will offer incredible opportunities for both scientific progress and economic growth. It’s a testament to MIT’s unrelenting, unyielding belief in the power of openness and collaboration to advance science.”
The new lab will be the physical home for the MIT Quantum Initiative (or QMIT) announced by President Kornbluth in December. It also complements advanced facilities already used for quantum research at MIT, such as MIT.nano and MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s SQUILL foundry, both of which share the mission of democratizing access to world-class facilities. SQUILL and MIT.nano have already made a major impact on the quantum industry through research, startups, and new standards for creating and transmitting quantum information.
“I want to emphasize that just as MIT.nano is a facility for all, there will be many people from beyond MIT that come to use this equipment” at QSL, Kornbluth said. “This is a hub to make Massachusetts the center of the world for quantum. These resources are rare enough that we have to make sure they are available to our colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Harvard, and beyond. Our plan is to mobilize all the talent in the area through this facility.”
Leading in quantum innovation is important for the prosperity and security of the country, but quantum research requires meticulously controlled environments. The new facilities will give scientists access to the cutting-edge quantum hardware and specialized experimental capabilities needed to achieve the full transformative potential of quantum science and engineering.
The new laboratory’s underlying mission is to return 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 local economy, with dozens of startups working in the area. The new lab is designed to create new job opportunities in the form of academic research, startups, and more. Construction on the QSL facility alone is anticipated to create over 150 full-time, on-site 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 region’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.
Sally Kornbluth’s charge to the Class of 2026
Below is the text of President Sally Kornbluth’s Commencement remarks, as prepared for delivery today.
Technically, as MIT’s president, it’s now my job to deliver a “charge” to the graduates.
But this year, I faced that assignment with a serious case of humility. You’re entering a world that I’m certain you’ll navigate better than I could.
So, for your “charge,” I decided to draw on a special resource: the collective wisdom of our alumni.
I talk with a lot of MIT graduates — around the world, across the country, on our faculty.
They each put it their own way. But nearly all of them talk about how MIT changed their lives. It wasn’t a subject they studied, or a skill they acquired. It was the whole MIT experience! Of living and working here, together, and of belonging to a community with our distinctive passions and values.
So, as you go out into the world, I want to emphasize a few of those values that will serve you wherever you go. The banners in Lobby 7 feature our whole MIT Values Statement. Let’s focus first on the two words at the top: Excellence and Curiosity.
Now, “excellence” is an easy thing to say. Most companies claim it. Probably every university too. But I have never seen a community live its commitment to excellence the way it’s done at MIT.
It’s easy to measure in the outward accomplishments of our faculty and graduates: the prizes, the discoveries, the inventions. The architecture and the industries. The companies and cures.
But you also feel it here, every day — when everyone you meet in the hallway wants to tell you about what they’re working on – and it just blows you away.
As members of this community, we strive to hold ourselves to “the highest standards of intellectual and creative excellence.” Just as important, we inspire each other to reach for those standards too!
(As one timely metaphor: This week 400 of you apparently felt that earning a degree from MIT wasn’t hard enough – so you also had to jump out of a plane!)
As an institution, we support these standards of individual excellence with a systematic focus on merit. For instance: No legacy admissions. No back-door admissions for donors.
Because we value “potential over pedigree.”
A long-ago colleague had a sign in his office. It said, “If you take a lick of the lollipop of mediocrity, you will suck forever.”
Now, let me be clear — I’m talking about self-discipline, not self-regard.
In the work we do, a conscious commitment to excellence is not the same as arrogance.
In fact, it’s kind of the opposite.
The American poet Walt Whitman captured this idea. As he wrote,
“I like the scientific spirit — the holding off, the being sure, but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: This … keeps the way beyond open [and] … gives the whole man a chance to try over again.”
So I hope, wherever your life and work lead you, that you’ll strive to sustain our MIT standards of excellence.
And I also hope, in the spirit of Whitman, that you’ll “accept the risk of failing as a rung on the ladder of growth.” Because, in all the fields you’ve studied, the willingness to try, and fail, and try again is the golden path to breakthroughs!
Now, for curiosity.
A few months ago, I was interviewed by a journalist who understands the current challenges for higher education.
He described me as “inexplicably ebullient.”
(He doesn’t see me every day!)
But honestly, if I’m ebullient in leading this community, it’s entirely explicable!
MIT is custom-made for people whose curiosity never sleeps. Which describes our faculty, our staff, our alumni — and every one of you.
Feeding that curiosity is an incredible source of pleasure. You don’t need me to encourage you in this life-long feast!
But I do hope I can count on you to help the world understand that curiosity is also our intellectual rocket fuel — and that this fact is enormously important for our society as a whole.
At MIT, we know that curiosity-driven science is the path to new knowledge – the kind that spawns world-changing innovations.
Curiosity is the force that transforms deadly cancers into treatable conditions, that turns fusion energy from a dream to a reality, that uncovers new ways to grow more food using less of every resource.
We like to say that science is curiosity on a mission.
But we also know that the “curious” path to those deep discoveries can look like a wandering road.
(Years ago, after a long conversation about my PhD work, my own grandmother once asked, “Wait, you’re not trying to cure cancer in humans, you’re trying to give it to chickens?”)
Luckily, over eight decades, the United States had the foresight to see the value of discovery science. It invested public money with steady patience, knowing that the “practical payoff” could be 20, 30, 40 years away.
Today – as many of you know from experience in your own labs — US investment in curiosity-driven science is in sharp decline.
The tragedy here is that shrinking the pipeline of basic discovery research means choking off the flow of future solutions, innovations and cures – and shrinking the supply of future scientists.
So I hope you will join in a great shared effort to sustain the work of scientific curiosity — on a mission to serve.
A final thought: Every one of you here possesses uncommon talent. And with great talent comes great responsibility.
I have no doubt that, like our alumni, you will be top-flight performers in your fields: Innovators. Engineers. Scientists. Doctors and designers. Entrepreneurs, investors and astronauts. Pioneers in whatever realm you chose.
I mentioned Excellence and Curiosity, two of MIT's core values.
But I hope we also hold, together, another core value — the commitment to always act ethically, with integrity, and with consideration for our fellow human beings.
After more than six decades on Earth, I know that living up to this standard requires constant reinforcement and awareness! You will face many temptations, and opportunities to lose focus on that north star.
And you simply have to resist.
I have no doubt that, with your uncommon talent, you can do it!
And if you keep that goal in sight, I know you will do great things for the world.
Congratulations — and warmest best wishes to you for a happy life and fulfilling career!
MIT researchers develop a low-cost technique to get lithium out of rocks
Demand for lithium has surged in recent years as lithium-ion batteries power increasingly more of our world. And yet, even as places like the U.S., Europe, and Australia have abundant lithium resources within their borders, China dominates global lithium refining. The biggest hurdle to tapping into the U.S. and Australia’s lithium is getting it out of hard rock minerals in a form that is useful.
Extracting lithium from hard rock today is an energy- and waste-intensive process that is often far more expensive than getting lithium from brine water, which also has major environmental drawbacks. Currently, lithium hard rock extraction involves baking the rock at over 1,000 Celsius and chemically leaching it to extract lithium. The rest of the rock is discarded.
Now, a team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere has developed a low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from the most common type of lithium-bearing mineral. The process uses a liquid reagent to dissolve the rock into the useful forms of its constituent parts: not just battery-ready lithium salts, but also smelter-grade alumina and cement-ready silica. After the minerals are extracted, the solvent and reagent can be recovered and used again so waste levels approach zero.
The researchers estimate the closed-loop process is half the cost of traditional lithium hard rock extraction and could make it cost-competitive with extracting lithium from brine water.
A paper describing the process was published today in Science. The researchers have already begun commercializing the technology through an MIT spinout, Rock Zero.
“By 2040, we need to quadruple production of lithium globally, which amounts to hundreds of new lithium producing assets,” says author Camden Hunt, a former project manager in MIT’s Center for Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry. “Hard rock is abundant; you can find it everywhere. But most hard rock refining is done in China. Our central thesis is if you can find an easier way to crack the rock, get lithium out, and make battery-grade lithium salts, you can change the lithium market. It aligns with the recent push to onshore production of critical minerals in the U.S.”
Joining Hunt on the paper are former MIT postdoc Benjamin Mowbray; PhD candidate Kalyn Fuelling; MIT undergraduate Jacqueline Prawira; Khashayar Jafari, a former senior research scientist at the MIT green cement spinout Sublime Systems; and Yet-Ming Chiang, MIT’s Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.
From bathrooms to batteries
The research has its roots in a bathroom renovation. About 25 years ago, as Chiang made a trip to a hardware store to look for something that would turn clear glass blocks translucent, he stumbled on a glass etching cream that works by “eating away” at the surface of the glass. The active ingredient turned out to be ammonium fluoride.
More recently, as Chiang was brainstorming ways to chemically break apart the most abundant lithium-bearing mineral, spodumene, he thought back to that etching cream. Spodumene, like glass, consists mostly of silica. Conventional chemistry-based methods for extracting metals from ores preferentially dissolve more reactive elements and leave behind a silica-enriched residue because of the strength of silicon-oxygen bonds. By designing their process to use a mixture of water and ammonium fluoride, the researchers are able to dissolve silica first, reversing the process.
The researchers showed they could dissolve spodumene rock at room temperature, which represented a breakthrough over traditional processes requiring extreme heat. But it was still only the first step to a closed-loop system that produced useful materials.
“Dissolving silica is the hard part in mining,” Mowbray says. “The next question was how do we apply it to impactful mineral processing problems?”
The mineral spodumene is mainly made up of three elements: lithium, aluminum, and silica. Mowbray and Hunt, who both have their PhDs in chemistry, began exploring ways to refine those components separately after they were broken apart in the ammonium fluoride solution.
First, the researchers isolated lithium fluoride, a useful input for common electrolyte materials used in batteries. Chiang, who has founded several battery companies over his multi-decade career at MIT, next asked the research team if they could isolate lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate, two lithium salts useful for making battery cathodes. The researchers went back to the lab and found they could make both by developing new processes, some of which involved adding carbon dioxide or sodium carbonate. Chiang tasked the research team with a similar challenge for the aluminum part of the rock, which was isolated using a high-temperature separation technique, and then silica, which was isolated by precipitation.
“First our goal was to produce these products, then there were additional steps of characterizing their purity and properties and making sure our products met the specifications for target markets,” Mowbray explains. “For the lithium salts, we identified the purity specifications for battery-grade lithium carbonate, the most widely used lithium salt. For the silica, we wanted it to be used as a cement additive, so we did cement reactivity tests and eventually created cubes of cement from it for strength testing using industrial methods. For aluminum, we targeted smelter-grade aluminum. If any product didn’t meet the target specs, you’d end up with a waste stream.”
The researchers then developed a process to reuse the ammonium fluoride and water that starts the reaction.
“We’re able to dissolve the rock with the spodumene in it, and that liberates all the elements, including the aluminum and lithium,” Chiang says. “The silica is in the solution, but on the way to making ammonium fluoride, ammonia gas also comes off. If that ammonia gas is then reapplied, it precipitates the silica again. That sequence gives us back the starting ammonium fluoride. That’s why it’s a circular process.”
The researchers successfully processed 17 different spodumene rock sources, showing its widespread applicability using rocks around the world.
“You’ve heard of nose-to-tail eating?” Chiang says. “We refer to this as nose-to-tail mining. Our researchers came to MIT to look for impactful problems to work on in sustainability. With their skill sets, it was just a matter of setting them loose on this problem. We went through all these steps, and for each one, I’d just say, ‘Can you do this next step?’ And a week or two later they’d say, ‘Okay, we’ve shown we can do that.’ That’s how this entire process got built.”
Scaling the process
Chiang further challenged his research team to evaluate the commercial feasibility of their new system.
“Once we had these core operations worked out, Yet encouraged us to do some math,” Mowbray explains. “Is there enough spodumene in the world to supply 100 terrawatt-hours of battery production? The follow up was: If you supply all the world’s batteries with this process, what are the volumes of the co-products? Do they match global commodity markets? Then we started looking at the cost of the reagents, the cost of the energy, equipment. We started gaining conviction that this could have a big impact.”
The work has special significance for Mowbray, who grew up in a historic mining town in rural British Columbia.
The researchers worked with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office to spin out their company, Rock Zero, which is now located at The Engine and scaling up the system.
“We believe this approach is the lowest-energy, lowest-cost way of getting lithium not only out of hard rock, but period,” Chiang says. “That’s what’s motivating us to scale this. It will enable the energy transition through batteries that use lithium. This was one of the goals of The Climate Project at MIT — to work on projects that, within a short number of years, could transition from the lab to commercialization and impact.”
The work was supported, in part, by the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the MIT Climate Grant Challenges program, and the National Science Foundation. The work made use of MIT.nano facilities.
Age Verification is a Privacy Nightmare
In the rush to block young people from certain parts of the internet, lawmakers are creating a privacy and security nightmare for everyone. This scenario is already playing out globally. Help us stop it and keep the web open and accessible for all.
Protect the web for everyone
Even with the best intentions, every online age verification scheme has the same result: users are forced to reveal sensitive personal information to third parties simply to access the web. Once that valuable data is centralized, it becomes an immediate target for leaks, hacks, and misuse. This isn’t hypothetical: it has already happened several times.
Support digital rights in EFF's new Claw Back member t-shirt and Privacy Badger Crewneck.
Thanks to our members, EFF is on the front lines fighting against online age gating and identity verification online. We’re working with lawmakers to pass better policies, educating the public, and fighting the wildfire of age verification proposals around the world. Now all we need is you.
🐝 No, It’s Not a BugWe all want young people to be safe online, but we don’t need to trade everyone's digital rights to achieve it. These new restrictive mandates are used to justify government-led censorship and expanded surveillance. That's no accident.
Whether you trust today’s lawmakers or not, handing anyone keys to new forms of censorship and surveillance is a serious risk. Because history shows us that these powers are always abused. It’s time to demand better.
Help us claw back your privacy
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A new sensor could enable earlier detection of bladder cancer
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.
Media Advisory: MIT to establish regional quantum hub
- 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.
MIT Corporation elects 10 term members, two life members for 2026
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.