Research

Impact Areas

Lead

David Clark

Karen Sollins

David Clark

Karen Sollins

Research Group

Algorithms Group

We devise new mathematical tools to tackle the increasing difficulty and importance of problems we pose to computers.

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Michael Goemans

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Aleksander Madry

Ankur Moitra

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Michael Goemans

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Aleksander Madry

Ankur Moitra

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Our vision is data-driven machine learning systems that advance the quality of healthcare, the understanding of cyber arms races and the delivery of online education.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Applied Computing Group

We design software for high performance computing, develop algorithms for numerical linear algebra, and research random matrix theory and its applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Community of Research

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

This CoR brings together researchers at CSAIL working across a broad swath of application domains. Within these lie novel and challenging machine learning problems serving science, social science and computer science.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Center for Brains, Minds and Machines

Our main goal is developing a computationally based understanding of human intelligence and establishing an engineering practice based on that understanding.

Tomaso Poggio

Leads

Tomaso Poggio

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Tomaso Poggio

Research Group

Clinical Decision-Making Group

We focus on furthering the application of technology and artificial intelligence in medicine and health-care.

+10

Peter Szolovits

Leads

Peter Szolovits

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Peter Szolovits

+10

Peter Szolovits

Community of Research

Cognitive AI Community of Research

This CoR aims to develop AI technology that synthesizes symbolic reasoning, probabilistic reasoning for dealing with uncertainty in the world, and statistical methods for extracting and exploiting regularities in the world, into an integrated picture of intelligence that is informed by computational insights and by cognitive science.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Howard Shrobe

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+21

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+21

Research Group

Computational Perception & Cognition

We combine methods from computer science, neuroscience and cognitive science to explain and model how perception and cognition are realized in human and machine.

Aude Oliva

Leads

Aude Oliva

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aude Oliva

Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

This community is interested in understanding and affecting the interaction between computing systems and society through engineering, computer science and public policy research, education, and public engagement.

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+15

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+15

Research Group

Decentralized Information Group

We are investigating decentralized technologies that affect social change.

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Group

Geometric Data Processing Group

Our group studies geometric problems in computer graphics, computer vision, machine learning, optimization, and other disciplines.

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Graphics & Vision

Impact Areas

Lead

Justin Solomon

Research Group

Haystack Group

We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers blending approaches from human-computer interaction, social computing, databases, information management, and databases.

Lea Verou

David Karger

Leads

David Karger

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Lead

David Karger

Lea Verou

David Karger

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Multimodal Understanding Group

Our objective is to build techniques, software, and hardware that enable natural interaction with
computation.

Randall Davis

Leads

Randall Davis

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Randall Davis

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

The Systems CoR is focused on building and investigating large-scale software systems that power modern computers, phones, data centers, and networks, including operating systems, the Internet, wireless networks, databases, and other software infrastructure.

+21

Sam Madden

Leads

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

+21

Sam Madden

Research Group

Theory of Distributed Systems Group

We work on a wide range of problems in distributed computing theory. We study algorithms and lower bounds for typical problems that arise in distributed systems---like resource allocation, implementing shared memory abstractions, and reliable communication.

Nancy Lynch

Leads

Nancy Lynch

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nancy Lynch

Community of Research

Vertical AI Community of Research

This CoR takes a unified approach to cover the full range of research areas required for success in artificial intelligence, including hardware, foundations, software systems, and applications.

Martin Rinard

Leads

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Graphics & Vision

Impact Areas

Lead

Martin Rinard

Research Group

Weiss Laboratory for Synthetic Biology

The Weiss Lab seeks to create integrated biological systems capable of autonomously performing useful tasks, and to elucidate the design principles underlying complex phenotypes.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

15 Project Results

Project

Active Learning of Models for Planning

Machine Learning

We aim to develop a systematic framework for robots to build models of the world and to use these to make effective and safe choices of actions to take in complex scenarios.

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Leads

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Entertainment

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Project

Algorithmic Aspects of Performance Engineering

Supertech Research Group

The project concerns algorithmic solutions for writing fast codes.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

Project

Alloy

Software Design Group

Alloy is a language for describing structures and a tool for exploring them. It has been used in a wide range of applications from finding holes in security mechanisms to designing telephone switching networks. Hundreds of projects have used Alloy for design analysis, for verification, for simulation, and as a backend for many other kinds of analysis and synthesis tools, and Alloy is currently being taught in courses worldwide.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Bayesian Optimization for Global Optimization of Expensive Black-box Functions

Machine Learning

We study the fundamentals of Bayesian optimization and develop efficient Bayesian optimization methods for global optimization of expensive black-box functions originated from a range of different applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Supertech Research Group

Wikipedia is one of the most widely accessed encyclopedia sites in the world, including by scientists. Our project aims to investigate just how far Wikipedia’s influence goes in shaping science.

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Leads

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Project

Deterministic Algorithms for Robotic Task and Motion Planning

Our goal is to investigate deterministic algorithms for robotic task and motion planning.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Transportation

Project

Distributed Co-prime Sampling Algorithms

To further parallelize co-prime sampling based sparse sensing, we introduce Diophantine Equation in different algebraic structures to build generalized lattice arrays.
With strong relationship to generalized Chinese Remainder Theorem, the geometry properties in the remainder code space, a special lattice space, are explored.

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Hanshen Xiao

Project

Distributed Robot Garden

The robot garden provides an aesthetically pleasing educational platform that can visualize computer science concepts and encourage young students to pursue programming and robotics.

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Lindsay Sanneman

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Entertainment

Project

Helping robots learn using demonstrations

Help robots learn faster by providing demonstrations when they need help

Joseph DelPreto

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Joseph DelPreto

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

To enable privacy preservation in decentralized optimization, differential privacy is the most commonly used approach. However, under such scenario, the trade-off between accuracy (even efficiency) and privacy is inevitable. In this project, distributed numerical optimization scheme incorporated with lightweight cryptographic information sharing are explored. The affect on the convergence rate from network topology is considered.

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Decentralized Information Group

Hanshen Xiao

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Computing & Society Community of Research

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Robot Compiler

The Robot Compiler allows non-engineering users to rapidly fabricate customized robots, facilitating the proliferation of robots in everyday life. It thereby marks an important step towards the realization of personal robots that have captured imaginations for decades.

Joseph DelPreto

Daniela Rus

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Model-Based Embedded and Robotics Systems Group

Internet of Things

Joseph DelPreto

Daniela Rus

Project

Securing IoT

IoT devices primarily use free embedded Linux which has many security flaws. We are conducting penetration tests on IoT and developing a secure version of embedded Linux.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Howard Shrobe

Project

Starling: Query Optimization for Cloud Services

Data Systems Group

Starling is a scalable query execution engine built on cloud function services that computes at a fine granularity, helping people more easily match workload demand.

Sam Madden

Matthew Perron

Leads

Sam Madden

Matthew Perron

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Model-Based Embedded and Robotics Systems Group

Sam Madden

Matthew Perron

Project

Uhura: Personal Assistant that Manages Risk

Computation Structures Group

Uhura is an autonomous system that collaborates with humans in planning and executing complex tasks, especially under over-subscribed and risky situations.

Leads

Yuening Zhang

Brian Williams

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Entertainment

Advanced Network Architecture Group

16 People Results

PI
Core/Dual

David Clark

Senior Research Scientist

Internet architectures, communications policy, security

E ddc@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6003

Lead

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Member

Computing & Society Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

Internet architectures, communications policy, security

R. David Edelman

Director, Project on Technology, Economy & National Security

Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance

E rde@mit.edu

T 258-6389

Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance

Gregory Falco

Research Affiliate

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

E gfalco@mit.edu

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

PI
Core/Dual

David Karger

Professor

Helping people manage information

E karger@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6167

Lead

Haystack Group

Mavo: Creating Interactive Data-Driven Web Applications by Authoring HTML

Algorithms Group

Wikum: Bridging Discussion Systems and Wikis with Collective Summarization

Squadbox: Combating Online Harassment using Friendsourced Moderation

Eyebrowse: Social and Public Web Browsing

Talkademic: Motivating Online Academic Discourse

Member

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

Helping people manage information

PI
Core/Dual

Dina Katabi

Professor

Wireless, networks, machine learning

E dina@csail.mit.edu

T 324-6027

Lead

Networks at MIT

EQ-Radio: Emotion Recognition using Wireless Signals

Member

Vertical AI Community of Research

Wireless, networks, machine learning

PI
Core/Dual

Charles E. Leiserson

Professor

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

E cel@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5833

Lead

Supertech Research Group

Algorithms Group

Performance Engineering of Cache Profilers

CilkPride

A Simplified and Extensible Cilk Runtime for Research

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Tapir

Member

Systems Community of Research

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

PI
Core/Dual

Albert R. Meyer

Professor Emeritus

Programming languages, theory, complexity, online education

E meyer@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6024

Programming languages, theory, complexity, online education

PI
Core/Dual

Una-May O'Reilly

Principal Research Scientist

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

E unamay@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6437

Lead

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Adversarial Cyber Security

GIGABEATS: Data science for medical sensor data

MOOC Learner Project: Data science for e-learning

Member

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

PI
Core/Dual

Ronald Rivest

Institute Professor

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

E rivest@mit.edu

T 253-5880

Lead

Member

Computing & Society Community of Research

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

PI
Core/Dual

Daniela Rus

Director

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

E rus@csail.mit.edu

T 258-7567

RM 32/ 32-368/ 374

Lead

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Safety Standards for Autonomous Vehicles

Soft Contact Modeling

Practical Secure Computation

Self-Driving Vehicles

Robust Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

Brain-Controlled Robots

Planning in Congestion for Autonomous Vehicles

Socially-Compliant Behavior for Autonomous Driving

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

M-Blocks Modular Robotics

Robot Compiler

Distributed Robot Garden

Route and Motion Planning for Mobility-on-Demand with Rules of the Road

Member

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Wearable Blind Navigation

Drones that Drive

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

SoFi - The Soft Robotic Fish

Controlling drones and other robots with gestures

Using Muscle Signals to Lift Objects with Robots

Embodied Intelligence Community of Research

Helping robots learn using demonstrations

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

PI
Core/Dual

Justin Solomon

Associate Professor

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

E jsolomon@mit.edu

Lead

Computer Graphics Group

Geometric Data Processing Group

Geometry in Large-Scale Machine Learning

Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

Optimal transport for statistics and machine learning

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

Member

Visual Computing Community of Research

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

PI
Core/Dual

Russ Tedrake

Professor

Robotics, machine learning, motion planning and control

E russt@csail.mit.edu

T 253-1778

RM 32-380B

Lead

Robot Locomotion Group

Localizing External Contact Using Proprioceptive Sensors

Tactile and Physical Perception

Soft Contact Modeling

Self-Driving Vehicles

Member

Tactile and Physical Perception

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Embodied Intelligence Community of Research

Robotics, machine learning, motion planning and control

Yu Wang

Graduate Student

E wangyu9@mit.edu

RM 32-D475A

Member

Geometric Data Processing Group

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

PI
Core/Dual

Brian Williams

Professor

Robotics, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning

E williams@csail.mit.edu

T 253-2739

Lead

Model-Based Embedded and Robotics Systems Group

RADMAX

Geordi: A Driver's Assistant for Risk-bounded Maneuvering

Robots Adapting to Human Intent

Risk-aware Network Resource Allocation

Uhura: Personal Assistant that Manages Risk

Artificial Social Intelligence for Successful Teams (ASIST)

Member

Robotics, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning

PI
Core/Dual

Ryan Williams

Professor

Theory, algorithms, complexity.

E rrw@mit.edu

Lead

Complexity Theory Group

Algorithms Group

Member