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Cutbacks to U.S. Antarctic Science Risk Geopolitical Shifts at the South Pole

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Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Antarctica may be remote, but it hasn’t escaped the scans of Google Street View. If you digitally drop into McMurdo Station, the U.S.’s busiest Antarctic installation, and slide along the volcanic rock of Ross Island, you’ll find muddy, tire-tracked roads. Along their edges are cargo containers marked “USAP,” the U.S. Antarctic Program, run by the National Science Foundation (NSF); you may also see Ivan the Terra Bus, a substantial people mover with burly tires that are nearly six feet tall.But McMurdo—normally a humming hub of research—has gotten quieter. Amid budget concerns and delayed upgrades to the station’s aging infrastructure, the NSF has pulled back on the number of scientific projects and associated people it sends to the globe’s deepest south.As the U.S. presence has decreased, though, other countries have been pouring more resources into the Antarctic. And although it’s not a contest, some experts are sounding alarms about that disparity. Security researchers say that “presence equals influence” in Antarctica, and they’re worried that the U.S. may slip in both categories while setting its scientific work back. Adrop inU.S. influence could affect geopolitics in the region and potentially endanger the safeguards ensuring the peaceful use of the Antarctic.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Antarctica, as a continent and an idea, isn’t just some icy backwater: it’s an important place environmentally, scientifically and politically. “People just think of Antarctica as really far away and that it doesn’t have any impact on them,” says Deneb Karentz, vice president for science at the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The Southern Ocean’s circulation redistributes heat globally, and deep ocean currents also carry nutrients toward the equator. “It’s a really vital part of the whole ocean system and the way that the ocean interacts with the atmosphere,” Karentz says.Antarctica is also a prime place for space research. With its stable atmosphere and lack of electromagnetic interference from civilization, astronomers and physicists can seek faint signals from long-ago, faraway, mysterious parts of the universe—signals that may be hidden from instruments on busier continents. People come from all over the world to study the ice itself, which contains 90 percent of the world’s surface fresh water. And then there’s the geology, the sea life, the extremophiles and the changing climate.Karentz’s organization, SCAR, helps countries share scientific results of all sorts and collaborate on projects. In August the organization will bring the global community together in Chile for the SCAR Open Science Conference—the first in-person meeting since 2018. Carolina Merino, a biologist at the University of La Frontera in Chile, plans to be at the meeting. She’s a member of SCAR and studies how microbes survive Antarctica’s harsh conditions. “Understanding these processes can have significant implications for climate change science and environmental conservation,” she says. At the SCAR meeting, she’s hoping to bolster international collaboration on research.In addition, the group serves as science adviser to the Antarctic Treaty system—a treaty and related documents that govern existence on the continent. SCAR shares expertise about topics such as which areas should be protected or what’s going on with climate change lately.The Antarctic Treaty isn’t complicated. “There are two things in the treaty,” Karentz says: one, Antarctica is to be used only for science, and two, “it has to be peaceful,” she says. Militaries are allowed to provide logistical support; the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security do so for the U.S. The treaty also has an Environmental Protection Protocol that lays out conservation measures and environmental management policies.The treaty was originally signed in 1959 and entered force in 1961, with the conflicted superpowers of the U.S. and the Soviet Union both coming onboard. “They agreed at that time that expanding the cold war into the coldest continent was not a useful activity,” says William Muntean, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Even with that enforced peace, though, Antarctica is geopolitically important: it contains, for instance, resources such as fisheries, minerals and natural gas that, because of the treaty, no one can exploit. It’s also geopolitically strange. “It’s not divvied up into countries or ownership in the way the rest of the world is,” says Muntean, who served as senior adviser for Antarctica at the U.S. Department of State and, in that role, led the nation’s delegation to Antarctic Treaty meetings. Before the treaty, seven countries had already made claims on the continent, but when they signed the agreement, they barred themselves from legally acting on those claims.That’s a sovereignty situation unlike any other on Earth—and one that many researchers don’t think about when they’re preparing neutrino detectors and ice corers for the South Pole. Few people in the United States focus on the politics of Antarctica, Muntean says. “You could find a lot of scientists who can talk about penguins and ice cubes and all that sort of stuff, but very few talk about the politics of it,” he adds.The science that they do, however, is twined with the politics. Research projects—and infrastructure such as McMurdo or the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station—exist not just for the sake of knowledge gathering but also for the sake of influence. “If you want to be influential in any capacity—be it diplomatically, economically, militarily, doesn’t matter—you need to be present in a region,” says Ryan Burke, a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s Center for Arctic Security and Resilience. That’s especially true in a place where military flexes, traditional ways for nations to establish both presence and influence, are prohibited. Muntean cites China and South Korea as countries that are increasing their Antarctic footprint and therefore their own influence.Burke and Muntean are both concerned that the U.S., meanwhile, has decreased its presence in Antarctica. In 2023 NSF announced that it was canceling more than half of the USAP projects and activities that had been funded for the 2023–2024 research season. In the two summers to follow, the announcement said, the agency would focus on already-funded projects. It did not solicit any new USAP proposals in 2024.Those changes came in part because McMurdo Station needed to be modernized for the 21st century and is in the midst of upgrades.The initial renovation was interrupted by the COVID pandemic, as were Antarctic trips in general. The disease and its disruptions delayed the work—a new dorm, for instance, is off schedule by three years—meaning there aren’t enough beds available for the typical number of scientists who would visit. Plus, as grocery stores on the mainland show, costs of all sorts have increased, meaning a given amount of money results in less renovation.Not taking new proposals in 2024 “allows NSF to focus resources on reducing the lingering backlog of projects affected by the pandemic and major upgrade work at McMurdo Station,” an NSF spokesperson says.The science agency also stated last year that it would only operate one research ship in the coming decades, rather than the two it has in the past, partially because of budgetary concerns. The Coast Guard, meanwhile, is experiencing problems with its Polar Security Cutter program, and acquisitions of new ships are delayed.All of that together, despite the logistical and financial constraints that make it seemingly necessary, has the effect of decreasing American presence in Antarctica and backing up the scientific pipeline. “It is an issue,” Karentz says, “and I think there’s legitimate concern about what it's doing to the future of the U.S. Antarctic Program.”Muntean worries about early-career researchers, whose research path might be more affected by delays due to the Antarctic slowdown and who could also face more competition because of the backup. “Right now it’s a little bit tough, I think, to say South Pole or Antarctic research has got a bright future,” he says.In Muntean’s view, U.S. planners aren’t thinking enough about pipelines in general, such as replacement plans for aging ships and planes that can move in that harsh environment. As with the on-land infrastructure, if you wait until vehicles face obsolescence, you often face a gap in capability. “The icebreaker that is currently operational—Polar Star—is almost as old as I am,” Muntean says, describing the ship that creates a channel through the ice to clear the way to McMurdo Sound. “This is not good for us.”An NSF spokesperson points to President Biden’s May 2024 National Security Memorandum on U.S. Policy on the Antarctic Region, “which reaffirms the importance of the Antarctic Treaty System ... [and] reiterates the long-standing mandate to maintain an ‘active and influential presence.’”But if the U.S. loses influence in Antarctica, there could be negative consequences for the dynamics of the region. “We have a nice, neutral, calming effect, usually, on the politics of Antarctica,” Muntean says.Burke agrees. “The U.S. is largely interested in maintaining the continent as a zone of peace and research,” he says—upholding the original tenets of the treaty, in other words.The current American pullback has led some to worry that, as Muntean put it in a recent commentary, other countries may be more likely to “pursue their individual interests rather than their collective interest.”The collective interest involves those “peace and science” ideals in the treaty, and individual interests perhaps include putting dual-use capabilities at Antarctic installations—instrumentation that’s useful both to scientists and to the military—or looking into using resources that have been set aside for conservation.Worries about countries pursuing individual interests are why treaties have enforcement mechanisms. The Antarctic Treaty has two. Countries can do unannounced inspections of other nations’ stations. “Countries show up and check out what’s happening to see whether countries are doing what they’re saying they’re doing,” Muntean says. Every state present in Antarctica also has to document their planned activities, equipment and in-person presence.A U.S. team slid in just before the pandemic in 2020 to perform recent inspections. It was led by Muntean, and members included officials from the Department of State, the Coast Guard, NSF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We were welcomed with open arms by all stations,” Muntean says.Over the entire lifetime of the treaty, however, only around 60 inspections have occurred—not exactly enough to keep a sharp eye on the goings-on. And in 2023 just 10 of 29 parties had done their required documentation every year for the past decade.Given all those fuzzy variables, Muntean believes that scientists who study the Antarctic shouldn’t just pay attention to their own projects and care about their own results. They also need to be part of the policy and the politics, especially if they want to ensure they get to continue to do their science at the levels they have in the past. “The U.S. needs to be thinking about how to make the platforms, and maintain the platforms, for decades to come in a manner that keeps us in the forefront of science [and] environmental protection,” Muntean says, “as well as the politics.”

Reductions to American research at the South Pole could affect the politics of the southernmost continent

Antarctica may be remote, but it hasn’t escaped the scans of Google Street View. If you digitally drop into McMurdo Station, the U.S.’s busiest Antarctic installation, and slide along the volcanic rock of Ross Island, you’ll find muddy, tire-tracked roads. Along their edges are cargo containers marked “USAP,” the U.S. Antarctic Program, run by the National Science Foundation (NSF); you may also see Ivan the Terra Bus, a substantial people mover with burly tires that are nearly six feet tall.

But McMurdo—normally a humming hub of research—has gotten quieter. Amid budget concerns and delayed upgrades to the station’s aging infrastructure, the NSF has pulled back on the number of scientific projects and associated people it sends to the globe’s deepest south.

As the U.S. presence has decreased, though, other countries have been pouring more resources into the Antarctic. And although it’s not a contest, some experts are sounding alarms about that disparity. Security researchers say that “presence equals influence” in Antarctica, and they’re worried that the U.S. may slip in both categories while setting its scientific work back. Adrop inU.S. influence could affect geopolitics in the region and potentially endanger the safeguards ensuring the peaceful use of the Antarctic.


On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.


Antarctica, as a continent and an idea, isn’t just some icy backwater: it’s an important place environmentally, scientifically and politically. “People just think of Antarctica as really far away and that it doesn’t have any impact on them,” says Deneb Karentz, vice president for science at the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The Southern Ocean’s circulation redistributes heat globally, and deep ocean currents also carry nutrients toward the equator. “It’s a really vital part of the whole ocean system and the way that the ocean interacts with the atmosphere,” Karentz says.

Antarctica is also a prime place for space research. With its stable atmosphere and lack of electromagnetic interference from civilization, astronomers and physicists can seek faint signals from long-ago, faraway, mysterious parts of the universe—signals that may be hidden from instruments on busier continents. People come from all over the world to study the ice itself, which contains 90 percent of the world’s surface fresh water. And then there’s the geology, the sea life, the extremophiles and the changing climate.

Karentz’s organization, SCAR, helps countries share scientific results of all sorts and collaborate on projects. In August the organization will bring the global community together in Chile for the SCAR Open Science Conference—the first in-person meeting since 2018. Carolina Merino, a biologist at the University of La Frontera in Chile, plans to be at the meeting. She’s a member of SCAR and studies how microbes survive Antarctica’s harsh conditions. “Understanding these processes can have significant implications for climate change science and environmental conservation,” she says. At the SCAR meeting, she’s hoping to bolster international collaboration on research.

In addition, the group serves as science adviser to the Antarctic Treaty system—a treaty and related documents that govern existence on the continent. SCAR shares expertise about topics such as which areas should be protected or what’s going on with climate change lately.

The Antarctic Treaty isn’t complicated. “There are two things in the treaty,” Karentz says: one, Antarctica is to be used only for science, and two, “it has to be peaceful,” she says. Militaries are allowed to provide logistical support; the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security do so for the U.S. The treaty also has an Environmental Protection Protocol that lays out conservation measures and environmental management policies.

The treaty was originally signed in 1959 and entered force in 1961, with the conflicted superpowers of the U.S. and the Soviet Union both coming onboard. “They agreed at that time that expanding the cold war into the coldest continent was not a useful activity,” says William Muntean, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Even with that enforced peace, though, Antarctica is geopolitically important: it contains, for instance, resources such as fisheries, minerals and natural gas that, because of the treaty, no one can exploit. It’s also geopolitically strange. “It’s not divvied up into countries or ownership in the way the rest of the world is,” says Muntean, who served as senior adviser for Antarctica at the U.S. Department of State and, in that role, led the nation’s delegation to Antarctic Treaty meetings. Before the treaty, seven countries had already made claims on the continent, but when they signed the agreement, they barred themselves from legally acting on those claims.

That’s a sovereignty situation unlike any other on Earth—and one that many researchers don’t think about when they’re preparing neutrino detectors and ice corers for the South Pole. Few people in the United States focus on the politics of Antarctica, Muntean says. “You could find a lot of scientists who can talk about penguins and ice cubes and all that sort of stuff, but very few talk about the politics of it,” he adds.

The science that they do, however, is twined with the politics. Research projects—and infrastructure such as McMurdo or the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station—exist not just for the sake of knowledge gathering but also for the sake of influence. “If you want to be influential in any capacity—be it diplomatically, economically, militarily, doesn’t matter—you need to be present in a region,” says Ryan Burke, a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s Center for Arctic Security and Resilience. That’s especially true in a place where military flexes, traditional ways for nations to establish both presence and influence, are prohibited. Muntean cites China and South Korea as countries that are increasing their Antarctic footprint and therefore their own influence.

Burke and Muntean are both concerned that the U.S., meanwhile, has decreased its presence in Antarctica. In 2023 NSF announced that it was canceling more than half of the USAP projects and activities that had been funded for the 2023–2024 research season. In the two summers to follow, the announcement said, the agency would focus on already-funded projects. It did not solicit any new USAP proposals in 2024.

Those changes came in part because McMurdo Station needed to be modernized for the 21st century and is in the midst of upgrades.

The initial renovation was interrupted by the COVID pandemic, as were Antarctic trips in general. The disease and its disruptions delayed the work—a new dorm, for instance, is off schedule by three years—meaning there aren’t enough beds available for the typical number of scientists who would visit. Plus, as grocery stores on the mainland show, costs of all sorts have increased, meaning a given amount of money results in less renovation.

Not taking new proposals in 2024 “allows NSF to focus resources on reducing the lingering backlog of projects affected by the pandemic and major upgrade work at McMurdo Station,” an NSF spokesperson says.

The science agency also stated last year that it would only operate one research ship in the coming decades, rather than the two it has in the past, partially because of budgetary concerns. The Coast Guard, meanwhile, is experiencing problems with its Polar Security Cutter program, and acquisitions of new ships are delayed.

All of that together, despite the logistical and financial constraints that make it seemingly necessary, has the effect of decreasing American presence in Antarctica and backing up the scientific pipeline. “It is an issue,” Karentz says, “and I think there’s legitimate concern about what it's doing to the future of the U.S. Antarctic Program.”

Muntean worries about early-career researchers, whose research path might be more affected by delays due to the Antarctic slowdown and who could also face more competition because of the backup. “Right now it’s a little bit tough, I think, to say South Pole or Antarctic research has got a bright future,” he says.

In Muntean’s view, U.S. planners aren’t thinking enough about pipelines in general, such as replacement plans for aging ships and planes that can move in that harsh environment. As with the on-land infrastructure, if you wait until vehicles face obsolescence, you often face a gap in capability. “The icebreaker that is currently operational—Polar Star—is almost as old as I am,” Muntean says, describing the ship that creates a channel through the ice to clear the way to McMurdo Sound. “This is not good for us.”

An NSF spokesperson points to President Biden’s May 2024 National Security Memorandum on U.S. Policy on the Antarctic Region, “which reaffirms the importance of the Antarctic Treaty System ... [and] reiterates the long-standing mandate to maintain an ‘active and influential presence.’”

But if the U.S. loses influence in Antarctica, there could be negative consequences for the dynamics of the region. “We have a nice, neutral, calming effect, usually, on the politics of Antarctica,” Muntean says.

Burke agrees. “The U.S. is largely interested in maintaining the continent as a zone of peace and research,” he says—upholding the original tenets of the treaty, in other words.

The current American pullback has led some to worry that, as Muntean put it in a recent commentary, other countries may be more likely to “pursue their individual interests rather than their collective interest.”

The collective interest involves those “peace and science” ideals in the treaty, and individual interests perhaps include putting dual-use capabilities at Antarctic installations—instrumentation that’s useful both to scientists and to the military—or looking into using resources that have been set aside for conservation.

Worries about countries pursuing individual interests are why treaties have enforcement mechanisms. The Antarctic Treaty has two. Countries can do unannounced inspections of other nations’ stations. “Countries show up and check out what’s happening to see whether countries are doing what they’re saying they’re doing,” Muntean says. Every state present in Antarctica also has to document their planned activities, equipment and in-person presence.

A U.S. team slid in just before the pandemic in 2020 to perform recent inspections. It was led by Muntean, and members included officials from the Department of State, the Coast Guard, NSF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We were welcomed with open arms by all stations,” Muntean says.

Over the entire lifetime of the treaty, however, only around 60 inspections have occurred—not exactly enough to keep a sharp eye on the goings-on. And in 2023 just 10 of 29 parties had done their required documentation every year for the past decade.

Given all those fuzzy variables, Muntean believes that scientists who study the Antarctic shouldn’t just pay attention to their own projects and care about their own results. They also need to be part of the policy and the politics, especially if they want to ensure they get to continue to do their science at the levels they have in the past. “The U.S. needs to be thinking about how to make the platforms, and maintain the platforms, for decades to come in a manner that keeps us in the forefront of science [and] environmental protection,” Muntean says, “as well as the politics.”

Read the full story here.
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As Happened in Texas, Ignoring EPA Science Will Allow Pollution and Cancer to Fester

Trump administration plans to destroy EPA science will leave the air we breathe and the water we drink more polluted

As Happened in Texas, Ignoring EPA Science Will Allow Pollution and Cancer to FesterTrump administration plans to destroy EPA science will leave the air we breathe and the water we drink more pollutedBy Jennifer Sass Cows graze near the Oak Grove Power Plant in Robertson County, Texas, subject to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) rules to reduce carbon emissions and mercury pollution under the Biden administration. Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesI’ve spent my scientific career asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set stronger, lawful public-health protections from toxic chemicals. I do not always agree with EPA’s final decisions, but I respect the scientific process and am always grateful for the agency’s scientists—our public brain trust.In one of the most dangerous acts against facts and science, the Trump administration announced in March that it will shutter the EPA’s independent research office. This will cut more than 1,000 scientists and technical experts who help the agency determine if, for example, a chemical poses a cancer risk, or a factory is polluting a nearby river. At the same time, Trump’s EPA has installed former oil and chemical industry lobbyists to write the rules to regulate those industries.There’s a lot of empty talk about making us healthy coming from this administration. Future generations will be even worse off.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What is left unsaid by the Trump EPA is this: eliminating scientists from the EPA is kneecapping environmental safeguards. Every major environmental statute—the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Superfund law governing cleanup requirements—relies on EPA scientists to calculate how hazardous chemicals are, how people and wildlife may be exposed and what health and ecological harms may occur. Questions critical to environmental and community protections are researched, such as: Will exposure to this chemical in my workplace increase my risk of breast cancer? Is the air quality from power plant emissions safe for the neighboring community? What is an acceptable standard for PFAS forever chemicals in our drinking water?A drone view of the Sulphur Bank mercury mine Superfund site in Clearlake Oaks, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024.Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty ImagesInstead, the Trump team is yet again swinging its chainsaw, this time against independent science to favor polluting industries. Consequent to gutting scientific inquiries by the government and decimating academic scientific research, only one type of scientific research will be available for setting environmental standards: polluter research. And that’s trouble. The public is right to distrust polluter-sponsored science; see “tobacco science” and the myth of safe nuclear waste for starters.Just ask Texas. The state of Texas’s vigorous defense of ethylene oxide, a well-known carcinogen, provides an ongoing example of the perils to public health from science done by a polluting industry with a financial interest in the outcome and the support of a state government hell-bent on rewriting scientific facts about a cancer-causing chemical.In 2016, after nearly 10 years of research and analysis, the EPA determined ethylene oxide, a chemical widely used in facilities in Texas and Louisiana to sterilize medical equipment, was linked to cancer—with a 30 times greater risk than the EPA had previously found. EPA’s new risk evaluation included a study of over 300 breast cancer cases in women working with the chemical and adjusted for added risks where children may be exposed.EPA’s report was finalized after multiple internal reviews, and reviews from other government agencies, with public input including from Texas and the industry on many occasions. There were also two rounds of public review by the agency’s science advisory board.Rather than accept that finding, the chemical industry and Texas’ regulatory agency issued its own alternative report in 2020 on ethylene oxide. In stark contrast with EPA’s evaluation, the Texas assessment is a contractor product sponsored by the ethylene oxide industry with limited public review. It fails to account for the risk of breast cancer and could allow over 3,000 times more air pollution to be emitted, which would drastically increase illnesses and deaths—including from cancer—for workers and nearby communities.In an effort to compel EPA to adopt Texas’ cancer-friendly risk estimates nationally, Texas requested a review of its findings by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the nation’s top source of high-quality trusted science and health advice.In March, the National Academies issued its final report, rebuking the foundations of the Texas analysis, finding it repeatedly deviated from best scientific practices and failed to offer a “credible basis” for its findings, specifically its determination that ethylene oxide was not associated with breast cancer.Texas’ efforts to rewrite the history of cancer-causing ethylene oxide as a benign, no-big-deal chemical, is just the beginning of the toxic mayhem and misinformation we can expect from the Trump team to support the financial interests of toxic polluters.Erasing cancer evidence, fudging data, and pretending wild claims are the truth will become the norm, undermining every environmental law and regulation in the nation, and compromising our right to health.All of us will suffer for it.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

MIT affiliates named 2024 AAAS Fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science recognizes six current affiliates and 27 additional MIT alumni for their efforts to advance science and related fields.

Six current MIT affiliates and 27 additional MIT alumni have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The 2024 class of AAAS Fellows includes 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators, spanning all 24 of AAAS disciplinary sections, who are being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87, life member of the MIT Corporation, was named a AAAS Fellow “for outstanding leadership in biotechnology, in particular mRNA therapeutics, and for advocacy for recognition of the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress.” Afeyan is the founder and CEO of the venture creation company Flagship Pioneering, which has built over 100 science-based companies to transform human health and sustainability. He is also the chairman and cofounder of Moderna, which was awarded a 2024 National Medal of Technology and Innovation for the development of its Covid-19 vaccine. Afeyan earned his PhD in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987 and was a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management for 16 years, starting in 2000. Among other activities at the Institute, he serves on the advisory board of the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning and delivered MIT’s 2024 Commencement address.Cynthia Breazeal SM ’93, ScD ’00 is a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, where she founded and directs the Personal Robots group in the MIT Media Lab. At MIT Open Learning, she is the MIT dean for digital learning, and in this role, she leverages her experience in emerging digital technologies and business, research, and strategic initiatives to lead Open Learning’s business and research and engagement units. She is also the director of the MIT-wide Initiative on Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (raise.mit.edu). She co-founded the consumer social robotics company, Jibo, Inc., where she served as chief scientist and chief experience officer. She is recognized for distinguished contributions in the field of artificial intelligence education, particularly around the use of social robots, and learning at scale.Alan Edelman PhD ’89 is an applied mathematics professor for the Department of Mathematics and leads the Applied Computing Group of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the MIT Julia Lab. He is recognized as a 2024 AAAS fellow for distinguished contributions and outstanding breakthroughs in high-performance computing, linear algebra, random matrix theory, computational science, and in particular for the development of the Julia programming language. Edelman has been elected a fellow of five different societies — AMS, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and AAAS.Robert B. Millard '73, life member and chairman emeritus of the MIT Corporation, was named a 2024 AAAS Fellow for outstanding contributions to the scientific community and U.S. higher education "through exemplary leadership service to such storied institutions as AAAS and MIT." Millard joined the MIT Corporation as a term member in 2003 and was elected a life member in 2013. He served on the Executive Committee for 10 years and on the Investment Company Management Board for seven years, including serving as its chair for the last four years. He served as a member of the Visiting Committees for Physics, Architecture, and Chemistry. In addition, Millard has served as a member of the Linguistics and Philosophy Visiting Committee, the Corporation Development Committee, and the Advisory Council for the Council for the Arts. In 2011, Millard received the Bronze Beaver Award, the MIT Alumni Association’s highest honor for distinguished service.Jagadeesh S. Moodera is a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics. His research interests include experimental condensed matter physics: spin polarized tunneling and nano spintronics; exchange coupled ferromagnet/superconductor interface, triplet pairing, nonreciprocal current transport and memory toward superconducting spintronics for quantum technology; and topological insulators/superconductors, including Majorana bound state studies in metallic systems. His research in the area of spin polarized tunneling led to a breakthrough in observing tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) at room temperature in magnetic tunnel junctions. This resulted in a huge surge in this area of research, currently one of the most active areas. TMR effect is used in all ultra-high-density magnetic data storage, as well as for the development of nonvolatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM) that is currently being advanced further in various electronic devices, including for neuromorphic computing architecture. For his leadership in spintronics, the discovery of TMR, the development of MRAM, and for mentoring the next generation of scientists, Moodera was named a 2024 AAAS Fellow. For his TMR discovery he was awarded the Oliver Buckley Prize (2009) by the American Physical Society (APS), named an American National Science Foundation Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow (2008-10), won IBM and TDK Research Awards (1995-98), and became a Fellow of APS (2000).Noelle Eckley Selin, the director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and a professor in the Institute for Data, Systems and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, uses atmospheric chemistry modeling to inform decision-making strategies on air pollution, climate change, and toxic substances, including mercury and persistent organic pollutants. She has also published articles and book chapters on the interactions between science and policy in international environmental negotiations, in particular focusing on global efforts to regulate hazardous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants. She is named a 2024 AAAS Fellow for world-recognized leadership in modeling the impacts of air pollution on human health, in assessing the costs and benefits of related policies, and in integrating technology dynamics into sustainability science.Additional MIT alumni honored as 2024 AAAS Fellows include: Danah Boyd SM ’02 (Media Arts and Sciences); Michael S. Branicky ScD ’95 (EECS); Jane P. Chang SM ’95, PhD ’98 (Chemical Engineering); Yong Chen SM '99 (Mathematics); Roger Nelson Clark PhD '80 (EAPS); Mark Stephen Daskin ’74, PhD ’78 (Civil and Environmental Engineering); Marla L. Dowell PhD ’94 (Physics); Raissa M. D’Souza PhD ’99 (Physics); Cynthia Joan Ebinger SM '86, PhD '88 (EAPS/WHOI); Thomas Henry Epps III ’98, SM ’99 (Chemical Engineering); Daniel Goldman ’94 (Physics); Kenneth Keiler PhD ’96 (Biology); Karen Jean Meech PhD '87 (EAPS); Christopher B. Murray PhD ’95 (Chemistry); Jason Nieh '89 (EECS); William Nordhaus PhD ’67 (Economics); Milica Radisic PhD '04 (Chemical Engineering); James G. Rheinwald PhD ’76 (Biology); Adina L. Roskies PhD ’04 (Philosophy); Linda Rothschild (Preiss) PhD '70 (Mathematics); Soni Lacefield Shimoda PhD '03 (Biology); Dawn Y. Sumner PhD ’95 (EAPS); Tina L. Tootle PhD ’04 (Biology); Karen Viskupic PhD '03 (EAPS); Brant M. Weinstein PhD ’92 (Biology); Chee Wei Wong SM ’01, ScD ’03 (Mechanical Engineering; and Fei Xu PhD ’95 (Brain and Cognitive Sciences). 

Out of the Lab and Into the Streets, Researchers and Doctors Rally for Science Against Trump Cuts

Researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters are venturing out of labs, hospitals and offices across the country to stand up to what they call an attack on life-saving science by the Trump administration

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters ventured out of labs, hospitals and offices Friday to stand up to what they call a blitz on life-saving science by the Trump administration.In the nation's capital, several hundred people gathered at the Stand Up for Science rally. Organizers said similar rallies were planned in more than 30 U.S. cities. Politicians, scientists, musicians, doctors and their patients were expected to make the case that firings, budget and grant cuts in health, climate, science and other research government agencies in the Trump administration's first 47 days in office are endangering not just the future but the present.“Science is under attack in the United States,” said rally co-organizer Colette Delawalla, a doctoral student in clinical psychology. “We're not just going to stand here and take it.”“American scientific progress and forward movement is a public good and public good is coming to a screeching halt right now,” Delawalla said. “It's a very bad time with all the promise and momentum," said Collins. Friday's rally in Washington was at the Lincoln Memorial, in the shadow of a statue of the president who created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Some of the expected speakers study giant colliding galaxies, the tiny genetic blueprint of life inside humans and the warming atmosphere.Nobel Prize winning biologist Victor Ambros, Bill Nye The Science Guy, former NASA chief Bill Nelson and a host of other politicians, and patients — some with rare diseases — were expected to take the stage to talk about their work and the importance of scientific research. The rallies were organized mostly by graduate students and early career scientists. Dozens of other protests were also planned around the world, including more than 30 in France, Delawalla said.“The cuts in science funding affects the world,” she said.She said the administration’s campaign to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion have delayed and threatened her grant because the National Institutes of Health is scrubbing proposals with words such as “female” or “woman.” Her research focuses on compulsive alcohol use in people, which is different for men and women.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

A leg up for STEM majors

MIT undergraduates broaden their perspectives and prospects through political science.

Senior Kevin Guo, a computer science major, and junior Erin Hovendon, studying mechanical engineering, are on widely divergent paths at MIT. But their lives do intersect in one dimension: They share an understanding that their political science and public policy minors provide crucial perspectives on their research and future careers.For Guo, the connection between computer science and policy emerged through his work at MIT's Election Data and Science Lab. “When I started, I was just looking for a place to learn how to code and do data science,” he reflects. “But what I found was this fascinating intersection where technical skills could directly shape democratic processes.”Hovendon is focused on sustainable methods for addressing climate change. She is currently participating in a multisemester research project at MIT's Environmental Dynamics Lab (ENDLab) developing monitoring technology for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR).She believes the success of her research today and in the future depends on understanding its impact on society. Her academic track in policy provides that grounding. “When you’re developing a new technology, you need to focus as well on how it will be applied,” she says. “This means learning about the policies required to scale it up, and about the best ways to convey the value of what you’re working on to the public.”Bridging STEM and policyFor both Hovendon and Guo, interdisciplinary study is proving to be a valuable platform for tangibly addressing real-world challenges.Guo came to MIT from Andover, Massachusetts, the son of parents who specialize in semiconductors and computer science. While math and computer science were a natural track for him, Guo was also keenly interested in geopolitics. He enrolled in class 17.40 (American Foreign Policy). “It was my first engagement with MIT political science and I liked it a lot, because it dealt with historical episodes I wanted to learn more about, like World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam,” says Guo.He followed up with a class on American Military History and on the Rise of Asia, where he found himself enrolled with graduate students and active duty U.S. military officers. “I liked attending a course with people who had unusual insights,” Guo remarks. “I also liked that these humanities classes were small seminars, and focused a lot on individual students.”From coding to electionsIt was in class 17.835 (Machine Learning and Data Science in Politics) that Guo first realized he could directly connect his computer science and math expertise to the humanities. “They gave us big political science datasets to analyze, which was a pretty cool application of the skills I learned in my major,” he says.Guo springboarded from this class to a three-year, undergraduate research project in the Election Data and Science Lab. “The hardest part is data collection, which I worked on for an election audit project that looked at whether there were significant differences between original vote counts and audit counts in all the states, at the precinct level,” says Guo. “We had to scrape data, raw PDFs, and create a unified dataset, standardized to our format, that we could publish.”The data analysis skills he acquired in the lab have come in handy in the professional sphere in which he has begun training: investment finance.“The workflow is very similar: clean the data to see what you want, analyze it to see if I can find an edge, and then write some code to implement it,” he says. “The biggest difference between finance and the lab research is that the development cycle is a lot faster, where you want to act on a dataset in a few days, rather than weeks or months.”Engineering environmental solutionsHovendon, a native of North Carolina with a deep love for the outdoors, arrived at MIT committed “to doing something related to sustainability and having a direct application in the world around me,” she says.Initially, she headed toward environmental engineering, “but then I realized that pretty much every major can take a different approach to that topic,” she says. “So I ended up switching to mechanical engineering because I really enjoy the hands-on aspects of the field.”In parallel to her design and manufacturing, and mechanics and materials courses, Hovendon also immersed herself in energy and environmental policy classes. One memorable anthropology class, 21A.404 (Living through Climate Change), asked students to consider whether technological or policy solutions could be fully effective on their own for combating climate change. “It was useful to apply holistic ways of exploring human relations to the environment,” says Hovendon.Hovendon brings this well-rounded perspective to her research at ENDLab in marine carbon capture and fluid dynamics. She is helping to develop verification methods for mCDR at a pilot treatment plant in California. The facility aims to remove 100 tons of carbon dioxide directly from the ocean by enhancing natural processes. Hovendon hopes to design cost-efficient monitoring systems to demonstrate the efficacy of this new technology. If scaled up, mCDR could enable oceans to store significantly more atmospheric carbon, helping cool the planet.But Hovendon is well aware that innovation with a major impact cannot emerge on the basis of technical efficacy alone.“You're going to have people who think that you shouldn't be trying to replicate or interfere with a natural system, and if you're putting one of these facilities somewhere in water, then you're using public spaces and resources,” she says. “It's impossible to come up with any kind of technology, but especially any kind of climate-related technology, without first getting the public to buy into it.”She recalls class 17.30J (Making Public Policy), which emphasized the importance of both economic and social analysis to the successful passage of highly impactful legislation, such as the Affordable Care Act.“I think that breakthroughs in science and engineering should be evaluated not just through their technological prowess, but through the success of their implementation for general societal benefit,” she says. “Understanding the policy aspects is vital for improving accessibility for scientific advancements.”Beyond the domeGuo will soon set out for a career as a quantitative financial trader, and he views his political science background as essential to his success. While his expertise in data cleaning and analysis will come into play, he believes other skills will as well: “Understanding foreign policy, considering how U.S. policy impacts other places, that's actually very important in finance,” he explains. “Macroeconomic changes and politics affect trading volatility and markets in general, so it's very important to understand what's going on.”With one year to go, Hovendon is contemplating graduate school in mechanical engineering, perhaps designing renewable energy technologies. “I just really hope that I'm working on something I'm genuinely passionate about, something that has a broader purpose,” she says. “In terms of politics and technology, I also hope that at least some government research and development will still go to climate work, because I'm sure there will be an urgent need for it.”

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