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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Spectrum Winter 2018 PLUS INTRODUCING THE MIT INTELLIGENCE QUEST P. 3 5 PATHWAYS POLICY President’s Letter Ernest J. Moniz poses with a student following his delivery of the fall 2017 Compton Lecture at MIT. Now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus and special advisor to the MIT President, Moniz served as US Secretary of Energy from 2013 to 2017. In that role, he placed energy science and technology innovation at the center of the global response to climate change and negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement alongside the Secretary of State. Moniz joined MIT’s faculty in 1973 and was founding director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Under his leadership, MITEI began producing its series of in-depth studies providing technically grounded analysis to energy leaders and policy makers on topics such as nuclear power, coal, the electric grid, and natural gas. From Research PHOTO: JAKE BELCHER Winter 2018 to Policy MIT Spectrum connects friends When engineers describe how an idea becomes a product, we say that it moves from and supporters of the Massachusetts “lab to market.” It’s a clean, concise way to capture what in reality can be a messy, Institute of Technology to MIT’s vision, arduous, and unpredictable path to success. impact, and exceptional community. Melissa Nobles, Kenan Sahin Dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social SPECIAL SECTION Contact Us Sciences, and former head of our Department of Political Science, sees a compelling 617.324.7 7 19 Wide Angle Pathways to Policy Breakthroughs and Insights parallel in the work of MIT’s social scientists whose ideas move from “research [email protected] to policy.” As social scientists conduct research to inform policy, they iterate. They spectrum.mit.edu prototype. They optimize. And in the end—like everyone at MIT—they aim to 2 A radical meeting of art 8 J-PAL’s Government Partnership Initiative: 28 Tomaso Poggio’s quest to demystify deep betterworld.mit.edu make a positive impact in the world. and science: György Kepes embracing evidence neural networks giving.mit.edu/spectrum Across campus, in all five schools, MIT’s faculty, researchers, and students are and CAVS 10 MIT Election Data and Science Lab: 32 How Cullen Buie’s startup may break the grappling with tough policy questions that affect the entire planet. From artificial championing the democratic process bottleneck in genetic engineering Vice President for intelligence and cybersecurity, to health care and energy efficiency, we’re applying Resource Development the Institute’s “mens et manus” ethos to assessing existing policies and advancing 12 International Policy Lab: faculty ideas in the 33 An AeroAstro grad student zeroes in on global Julie A. Lucas research that informs new ones, for the betterment of humankind. Subjects corridors of power internet connectivity Director of Marketing and Take, for instance, MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a network 14 Seminar XXI: educating national security leaders Communications Aimée Jack of 158 affiliated professors from 49 universities working to reduce global poverty. 4 12.A03 Meteorite from 15 Joint Program on the Science and Policy To determine which poverty programs are actually making a difference, in the US and Mars Kills Dog: The Inside of Global Change: modeling uncertainty Inside the MIT Campaign Editor around the world, J-PAL tests them through the gold standard of double-blind Story on Planets Nicole Estvanik Taylor randomized evaluations. Just as a biologist assesses the efficacy of a new vaccine, 16 David Hsu: urban policy strategies for a Better World J-PAL’s researchers experiment, gather evidence, evaluate the results, and optimize Creative Director 17 Valerie Karplus: energizing environmental the policy—MIT at its finest. Barbara Malec cooperation 34 New Theater Arts building premieres As you’ll read in this issue of Spectrum, J-PAL has launched an initiative to partner Associate Art and Web Director 18 Grad students share their routes into policy with governments to design and evaluate policies more broadly. From improving 34 Campaign fundraising update Elizabeth Connolly FRONT COVER education in Zambia to fighting crime in Brazil, J-PAL is now applying its trademark 20 MIT engineers and Georgetown law students 35 MIT Intelligence Quest Graduate students from all five MIT Design rigor to complex policy challenges beyond global poverty—and in the process, schools are making policy connections team up on internet privacy Stoltze Design showing the world that optimizing for impact is how we do just about everything (see page 18). Clockwise from left: 35 New wind tunnel Daniel Gilford, Mayara Felix, Samantha 21 Internet Policy Research Initiative: tackling here at MIT. Copy Editor Zyontz, Abigail Regitsky, Reed Jordan. cybercrime 36 Better World tour heads to Seattle and Miami Evanthia Malliris PHOTO: M. SCOTT BRAUER 22 Examining AI ethics at the MIT Media Lab 36 Hemant ’97, MEng ’99 and Jessica Taneja: supporting MIT.nano Spectrum Online BACK COVER 24 Faculty books on AI and society Stephanie Eich The MIT List Visual Arts Center’s 37 Caroline Huang SM ’85, PhD ’91 and exhibition Before Projection: Video 25 Online tools address Haitian education, banking Sculpture 1974–1995 runs February 8–April Mike Phillips: fellowship support in EECS The Office of Resource Development 15, 2018. Pictured, from that exhibition: reform, and global development gratefully acknowledges the leadership Nam June Paik’s Charlotte Moorman II, of the MIT Corporation in the LEARN MORE 1995. Courtesy Rose Art Museum, Brandeis 26 Retsef Levi: improving patient outcomes MIT Campaign for a Better World. L . RAFAEL REIF betterworld.mit.edu University; Hays Acquisition Fund. Visit listar t.mit.edu. 27 Maria Zuber urges Congress to build a STEM- PHOTO: © NAM JUNE PAIK ESTATE capable workforce spectrum.mit.edu 1 Wide Angle Half a century ago, György Kepes (1906–2001) established the Center for spanned many of the disciplines he himself practiced, including painting, Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT as a lab for interdisciplinary art photography, stage design, graphic design, and film—into technologically practice and research. As a direct result, more than 200 contemporary adventurous collaboration with MIT’s scientists and engineers. A Radical artists would form an affiliation with MIT in the subsequent decades. To mark the 50th anniversary of CAVS, the MIT Museum has organized The Hungarian-born Kepes first came to MIT in the years following two exhibitions of Kepes’s photography, including many works never World War II, at a moment when the Institute was reimagining its before displayed to the public, some newly printed from original, vintage Meeting curriculum and cultural role in peacetime. At that time, Kepes was best negatives. A look at his pre-MIT work closes March 5. Photographs known as a mentee of Bauhaus legend László Moholy-Nagy and as from Kepes’s MIT years will be on view beginning March 22, highlighting the author of the influential design book Language of Vision. According his experimentation with the principles and techniques of image- of Art and to MIT Museum curator Gary Van Zante, Kepes “immediately assimilated making and the range of scientific imagery that influenced his work. into MIT culture: scientific research became hugely influential to him.” Selected works from the history of CAVS—which is now part of the In his own art, and in his curating and theoretical writing, Kepes “looked MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT)—can also be seen Science at scientific imagery and traditional photographic imagery with equal at the MIT Museum starting February 15, as well as in a new online interest, in a way that was pretty radical,” Van Zante says. The founding archive launched by ACT last fall. ACT will also sponsor a series of of CAVS fulfilled Kepes’s vision of bringing cutting-edge artists—who campus-wide events and exhibits in honor of the anniversary this spring. 1937: Kepes emigrates 1946: Kepes accepts 1967: Kepes establishes 1968: Pictured: CAVS to the US and begins an invitation from MIT’s CAVS, which moves into a fellow Vassilakis Takis’s teaching at the New School of Architecture renovated Building W11 at electromagnetic Bauhaus in Chicago. and Planning to teach 40 Massachusetts Avenue. sculpture Antigravity. visual design. PHOTO: NICHAN BICHAJIAN 1972: Pictured: sketch of 1971–73: The Charles River sculpture over photograph Project, an early CAVS collab ora - for proposed environ men- tion, exhibits site-specific tal sculpture Pigeon House, proposals intended to provide urban by CAVS fellows Maryanne residents with opportunities Amacher, Luis Frangella, for interaction with and contem- and Keiko Prince. plation of their environment. 1974: Otto Piene succeeds 1977: Germany’s “documenta Kepes as director and will 6” exhibition commissions hold the position for 20 from CAVS one of its most years. He intensifies the ambitious undertakings: CAVS commitment to “art Centerbeam, a massive kinet- at the civic scale” while ic sculpture remounted solidifying his place as one year later on the a leading figure in kinetic National Mall. and technology-based art PHOTO: ELIZABETH GOLDRING (pictured: Olympic Rainbow, Munich Olympics, 1972). PHOTO: MIRA CANTOR 1996: Stephen Benton ’63, 1994: VAP faculty member 1989: The MIT Visual Arts 1989: By the end of his inventor of the rain- Krzysztof Wodiczko Program (VAP) is founded two decades at CAVS, bow hologram, assumes becomes CAVS director. within the Department of conceptual artist Lowry the directorship of He is instrumental Architecture by Professor Burgess has created the CAVS. Following Benton’s in its shift toward Ed Levine to provide first artistic payload death, Wodiczko will questions of geopolitics, undergraduate and graduate to be carried into resume the role. identity, and environ- instruction in the arts.

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