News and Blog Landing | MIT Sustainability

Desirée Plata, the School of Engineering Distinguished Climate and Energy Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been named associate dean of engineering.

MIT News Office

April 8, 2026

Desirée Plata appointed associate dean of engineering

Faculty member in civil and environmental engineering will advance research and entrepreneurial initiatives across the School of Engineering.

MIT researchers developed an intelligent system for balancing the tasks of storage devices inside a data center, which can extend the longevity of storage hardware and help a data center operate more efficiently.

MIT News Office

April 7, 2026

Helping data centers deliver higher performance with less hardware

Researchers developed a system that intelligently balances workloads to improve the efficiency of flash storage hardware in a data center.

“By becoming a nuclear engineer, you become one of a select number of people responsible for carbon-free energy generation in the United States,” says MIT Assistant Professor Dean Price.

MIT News Office

April 3, 2026

Working to advance the nuclear renaissance

Dean Price, assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, sees a bright future for nuclear power, and believes AI can help us realize that vision.

Sara Jex MCP ’25 (second from left) and family members visit 7000 Central Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio, a vacant 183,000-square-foot factory once used to manufacture Hulett unloaders. The building is among the first strategic acquisitions of the Site Readiness Fund for Good Jobs, which is working to redevelop disinvested industrial sites.

MIT News Office

April 3, 2026

Urban planning students engage with communities through the Freedom Summer Fellowship

“You can’t teach planning today without grappling with how policy actually unfolds within communities,” says Professor Phillip Thompson.

“Creating high-impact technologies is always fun,” says Sobek.

MIT News Office

April 3, 2026

Toward cheaper, cleaner hydrogen production

Co-founded by Dan Sobek ’88, SM ’92, PhD ’97, 1s1 Energy has developed electrochemical cell materials for hydrogen electrolyzers that it says reduces energy use by 30 percent.

New work by MIT researchers shows how to generate nearly real-time vehicle emissions information — which can measure the effects of policy changes, such as New York City's congestion pricing.

MIT News Office

April 2, 2026

MIT researchers measure traffic emissions, to the block, in real-time

A new study pieces together existing data sources in order to develop a detailed, dynamic picture of auto emissions.

MIT researchers developed an easy-to-use tool that generates an accurate, aesthetics-first preview of how an object will look before it is 3D printed, in an effort to help makers avoid reprints that waste time, effort, and material.

MIT News Office

April 1, 2026

Preview tool helps makers visualize 3D-printed objects

By quickly generating aesthetically accurate previews of fabricated objects, the VisiPrint system could make prototyping faster and less wasteful.

As sea surface temperatures rise over the next century, phytoplankton in polar regions will adapt to be less rich in proteins, heavier in carbohydrates, and lower in nutrients overall. “We’re moving in the poles toward a sort of fast-food ocean,” says MIT postdoc Shlomit Sharoni.

MIT News Office

March 31, 2026

Climate change may produce “fast-food” phytoplankton

With warmer ocean temperatures, the composition of marine plankton could shift from protein-rich to carb-heavy, a new study suggests.

“We’ve now reached the point where stellarator performances can exceed those of tokamaks, because we’re able to optimize them very well, but you have to put the effort in,” says Sophia Henneberg.

MIT News Office

March 25, 2026

Championing fusion’s promising underdog

Sophia Henneberg, assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, is developing stellarators to harness fusion energy.