In math and in music, senior Holden Mui values interesting ideas, solving problems creatively, and finding meaning in their structures. “People want fresh, new, non-recycled approaches to math and music,” he says.

Senior Audrey Lorvo is researching AI safety, which seeks to ensure increasingly intelligent AI models are reliable and can benefit humanity. The growing field focuses on technical challenges like robustness and AI alignment with human values, as well as societal concerns like transparency and accountability.

A new study in India co-authored by MIT economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee shows a wide gap between the kinds of math problems kids who work in retail markets do well and the kinds of problems kids in school do well.

Evan Lieberman, director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, describes new research in which he and colleagues find a sharp partisan divide over providing aid to poor nations. “Our research suggests that emphasizing a bit of blaming and shaming is more powerful than more diffuse messages of shared responsibility,” he explains.

MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Knight Science Journalism Program present “Radical Collaborations and Entrepreneurial Energy: Building a Thriving Science Journalism Ecosystem,” an event featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Usha Lee McFarling, on Wednesday, April 2 at 5:15 p.m. in Building E51-145. McFarling will discuss the current landscape and explore ways the field and its dedicated community of practitioners can meet current economic and political challenges.

MIT Anthropology and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program present “Love Across Difference: Mixed Marriage in Lebanon” with Scripps College anthropologist Laura Deeb on Thursday, April 3 at 12 p.m. in Building E51-275. The event introduces her new book of the same name and discusses intersectarian and interreligious marriages in Lebanese society. Food will be provided.