MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing recently marked a significant milestone as it celebrated the inauguration of its new building with a dedication ceremony. Attended by members of the MIT community, distinguished guests, and supporters, the ceremony provided an opportunity to reflect on the transformative gift that initiated the biggest change to MIT’s institutional structure in over 70 years. Made by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chair, CEO, and co-founder of the investment firm Blackstone, the gift was the foundation for establishing the college.

A new machine-learning model developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and ETH Zurich, can identify the different stages of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a type of pre invasive tumor that sometimes progresses to a highly deadly form of breast cancer. Their model can help clinicians with the difficult task of determining type and stage of DCIS and reduce the overtreatment of patients. https://bit.ly/AIModelDCIS

16 projects led by MIT researchers across 9 departments in all 5 schools and the college, have been awarded funding by the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. The newly established seed grants aim to inspire researchers to make a meaningful contribution to responsible technology development and deployment. https://lnkd.in/eFAXZgr5

MIT researchers have introduced a new technique that could help people determine whether to trust an AI model’s predictions. Because the technique is scalable, it can be applied to huge deep-learning models that are increasingly being deployed in health care and other safety-critical situations. https://bit.ly/IF-COMP

A project 13 years in the making, "Foundations of Computer Vision," authored by MIT EECS Professors Antonio Torralba, Phillip Isola, and William Freeman, brings clarity and coherence to a dynamic research field — and its roots. Learn more about the 800+ page textbook in a Q&A with the authors. https://lnkd.in/eBDdxUnB

MIT researchers have found that artificial intelligence models that are most accurate at predicting race and gender from X-ray images also show the biggest “fairness gaps" — that is, discrepancies in their ability to accurately diagnose images of people of different races or genders. The findings suggest that these models may be using “demographic shortcuts” when making their diagnostic evaluations, which lead to incorrect results for women, Black people, and other groups, the researchers say. https://lnkd.in/eAzDsdR3

Christopher Maynard SM '24, a recent graduate of the Technology & Policy Program in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), won this year's Institute-wide essay contest, Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize, for his imaginative paper about a fictional breakthrough human-to-animal translation software. Read more about this year's competition and watch Maynard's presentation at https://lnkd.in/ewDGNyWi.

Fotini Christia has been named the new director of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Known for building connections between the social sciences, data science, and computation, the MIT Political Science professor will lead IDSS into its next chapter. Congratulations! Read more about Christia at https://lnkd.in/eM4kzuRX.

In the latest issue of MIT Spectrum, a look at the ongoing impact of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing — from innovations in education, to addressing the social, ethical, and policy aspects of computing, to increasing MIT's academic capacity in computing and AI. Read more: https://bit.ly/SCC-Impact

A new algorithmic framework developed in a lab led by Assistant Professor Connor Coley, a shared faculty member in the MIT departments of Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, automatically identifies the best molecules to test for more streamlined drug discovery. https://bit.ly/MITSPARROW