Research

  • Impact Areas
  • Research Areas

Algorithms & Theory

Foundational work that includes complexity, parallel computing and game theory

AI & ML

Spanning natural language processing, deep-learning, computer vision and more

Computational Biology

Understanding disease via epigenomics, gene regulation and bioinformatics

Computer Architecture

How CPUs, memory and other systems are designed and organized

Graphics & Vision

Teaching computers to interpret, create and animate visual data

Human-Computer Interaction

Software and hardware that let us naturally interact with technology

Programming Languages & Software Engineering

From compilers and verification to software design and engineering

Robotics

Vision, actuation, sensing and manipulation of machines

Security & Cryptography

Developing technologies to prevent and recover from cyber-attacks

Systems & Networking

From distributed systems and databases to wireless

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18 Group Results

Research Group

Advanced Network Architecture Group

The challenge that motivates the ANA group is to foster a healthy future for the Internet. The interplay of private sector investment, public sector regulation and public interest advocacy, as well as the global diversity in drivers and aspirations, makes for an uncertain future.
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+4
Clark

David Clark

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

Leads

Clark

David Clark

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

Research Areas

Security & Cryptography
Systems & Networking

Impact Areas

Wireless

Lead

Clark

David Clark

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

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+4
 
Clark

David Clark

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

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.
Abelson
Berners-Lee
Brewer-headshot
+8
Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Algorithms & Theory
AI & ML
Human-Computer Interaction
Security & Cryptography
Systems & Networking

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Health Care
Internet of Things
Transportation
Wireless

Lead

Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner

Abelson
Berners-Lee
Brewer-headshot
+8
 
Weitzner

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

Goldwasser

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Silvio Micali

Rivest

Ronald Rivest

vaikuntanathan-headshot

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Lampson

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Algorithms & Theory
Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Cybersecurity
Wireless

Lead

Goldwasser

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Silvio Micali

Rivest

Ronald Rivest

vaikuntanathan-headshot

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Lampson

Butler Lampson

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.
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+2

Leads

Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner

Abelson

Hal Abelson

Clark

David Clark

Kagal-headshot

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

AI & ML
Human-Computer Interaction
Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Internet of Things
Transportation

Lead

Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner

Abelson

Hal Abelson

Clark

David Clark

Kagal-headshot

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Gerald Sussman

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+2

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.
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Arvind
Hari Balakrishnan
+21
Madden

Sam Madden

Leads

Madden

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Computer Architecture
Programming Languages & Software Engineering
Security & Cryptography
Systems & Networking

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Internet of Things
Transportation
Wireless

Lead

Madden

Sam Madden

Alizadeh-headshot
Arvind
Hari Balakrishnan
+21
 
Madden

Sam Madden

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.
Amarasinghe
Regina Barzilay
Broderick-headshot
+7
Rinard

Martin Rinard

Leads

Rinard

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Algorithms & Theory
AI & ML
Graphics & Vision
Programming Languages & Software Engineering
Security & Cryptography
Systems & Networking

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Health Care
Internet of Things
Transportation
Wireless

Lead

Rinard

Martin Rinard

Amarasinghe
Regina Barzilay
Broderick-headshot
+7
 
Rinard

Martin Rinard

Research Group

Vision Group

Our researchers create state-of-the-art systems to better recognize objects, people, scenes, behaviors and more, with applications in health-care, gaming, tagging systems and more.

Leads

Ted Adelson

Ted Adelson

Durand

Fredo Durand

John W. Fisher III

John Fisher

Freeman

William Freeman

Polina Golland

Polina Golland

Grimson

Eric Grimson

Horn

Berthold Horn

oliva-headshot

Aude Oliva

Torralba

Antonio Torralba

Research Areas

AI & ML
Graphics & Vision

Impact Areas

Entertainment
Health Care
Transportation

Lead

Ted Adelson

Ted Adelson

Durand

Fredo Durand

John W. Fisher III

John Fisher

Freeman

William Freeman

Polina Golland

Polina Golland

Grimson

Eric Grimson

Horn

Berthold Horn

oliva-headshot

Aude Oliva

Torralba

Antonio Torralba

17 Project Results

Project

Alloy

Software Design Group
Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research
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.
Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Human-Computer Interaction
Programming Languages & Software Engineering
Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Education
Transportation
Wireless
 
Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Project

An Interlock for Self Driving Cars

Software Design Group
Computer-Aided Programming
Vertical AI Community of Research
Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research
Self-driving cars are likely to be safer, on average, than human-driven cars. But they may fail in new and catastrophic ways that a human driver could prevent. This project is designing a new architecture for a highly dependable self-driving car.
Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Solar-Lezama

Armando Solar-Lezama

Leads

Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Solar-Lezama

Armando Solar-Lezama

Research Areas

AI & ML
Human-Computer Interaction
Programming Languages & Software Engineering
Robotics
Systems & Networking

Impact Areas

Transportation
 
Jackson image

Daniel Jackson

Solar-Lezama

Armando Solar-Lezama

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.
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Hanshen Xiao

Leads

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Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Algorithms & Theory
AI & ML
Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Cybersecurity
Wireless
 
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Hanshen Xiao

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Decentralized Information Group
Cognitive AI Community of Research
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.
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Kagal-headshot

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Kagal-headshot

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

AI & ML
Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Big Data
Cybersecurity
Education
Energy
Entertainment
Health Care
Internet of Things
Manufacturing
Transportation
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Kagal-headshot

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

20 People Results

R. David Edelman - Headshot

R. David Edelman

Director, Project on Technology, Economy & National Security
Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance
R. David Edelman - Headshot
T 258-6389
Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance
Gregory Falco

Gregory Falco

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

Michael Foshey

Mechanical Engineer/Project Manager
Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, Digital Fabrication
...
RM 32-321
Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, Digital Fabrication
Freeman

PI
Core/Dual

William Freeman

Professor
Vision, machine learning, Bayesian modeling
Freeman
T 253-8828
RM 32-D476

Lead

Vision Group
Computer Graphics Group
Visual Computing Community of Research

Member

Single-Image 3D Interpreter Network
Visual Dynamics: Probabilistic Future Frame Synthesis via Cross Convolutional Networks
Learning the Arrow of Time from Videos
3D Generative Adversarial Networks
Embodied Intelligence Community of Research
Vision, machine learning, Bayesian modeling
Karger

PI
Core/Dual

David Karger

Professor
Helping people manage information
Karger
T 258-6167
RM 32-G592

Lead

Haystack Group
Human-Computer Interaction
Algorithms Group
Mavo: Creating Interactive Data-Driven Web Applications by Authoring HTML
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
Theory of Computation Community of Research
Systems Community of Research
Helping people manage information
Madden

PI
Core/Dual

Sam Madden

Professor
Systems for processing and manipulating data
Madden
T 258-6643
RM 32-G938

Lead

Data Systems Group
Aurum: Large Scale Data Discovery
System that Learns From IoT
Data Civilizer
Autonomous Vehicle Databases
Building a Scalable Database for Autonomous Vehicles
Chameleon: Using Machine Learning to Make Databases Faster!
Data Discovery
Systems Community of Research
Video Data Querying
Starling: Query Optimization for Cloud Services

Member

Aurum: Large Scale Data Discovery
Computation Structures Group
Systems for processing and manipulating data
Rus

PI
Core/Dual

Daniela Rus

Director
CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy
Rus
T 258-7567
RM 32/ 32-368/ 374

Lead

Distributed Robotics Laboratory
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
Torralba

PI
Core/Dual

Antonio Torralba

Professor
Vision, graphics, perception, machine learning
Torralba
T 324-0900
RM 32-386G

Lead

Vision Group
Understanding Light via Deep Neural Networks
Understandable Deep Networks
Understanding Food images

Member

Predictive Vision
Where Are They Looking?
Single-Image 3D Interpreter Network
VirtualHome: Representing Activities as Programs
Places Database for Scene Recognition
Semantic Scene Understanding through ADE20K dataset
Crossing the Vision-Language Boundary
Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)
Visual Computing Community of Research
Embodied Intelligence Community of Research
Vision, graphics, perception, machine learning

21 News Results

System directs camera-equipped drones to maintain framing of an aerial shot.
Algorithms & Theory AI & ML Graphics & Vision Robotics Entertainment Transportation

Cinematography on the fly

In recent years, a host of Hollywood blockbusters — including “The Fast and the Furious 7,” “Jurassic World,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” — have included aerial tracking shots provided by drone helicopters outfitted with cameras. Those shots required separate operators for the drones and the cameras, and careful planning to avoid collisions. But a team of researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and ETH Zurich hope to make drone cinematography more accessible, simple, and reliable.

Cinematography on the fly

At the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will present a new system for allocating bandwidth in data center networks.
Systems & Networking Internet of Things Wireless

Faster page loads

A webpage today is often the sum of many different components. A user’s home page on a social-networking site, for instance, might display the latest posts from the users’ friends; the associated images, links, and comments; notifications of pending messages and comments on the user’s own posts; a list of events; a list of topics currently driving online discussions; a list of games, some of which are flagged to indicate that it’s the user’s turn; and of course the all-important ads, which the site depends on for revenues.

Faster page loads

Left to right: PhD student Fadel Adib, PhD student Mingmin Zhao, and Professor Dina Katabi pose with their EQ-Radio device, which can detect emotion using wireless signals.
Systems & Networking Wireless

Detecting emotions with wireless signals

As many a relationship book can tell you, understanding someone else’s emotions can be a difficult task. Facial expressions aren’t always reliable: a smile can conceal frustration, while a poker face might mask a winning hand.But what if technology could tell us how someone is really feeling?Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed “EQ-Radio,” a device that can detect a person’s emotions using wireless signals.

Detecting emotions with wireless signals

Image: Jose-Luis Olivares
Algorithms & Theory AI & ML Systems & Networking Big Data Energy

What better wind-speed prediction can do for the energy industry

When a power company wants to build a new wind farm, it generally hires a consultant to make wind speed measurements at the proposed site for eight to 12 months. Those measurements are correlated with historical data and used to assess the site’s power-generation capacity.This month CSAIL researchers will present a new statistical technique that yields better wind-speed predictions than existing techniques do — even when it uses only three months’ worth of data. That could save power companies time and money, particularly in the evaluation of sites for offshore wind farms, where maintaining measurement stations is particularly costly.

What better wind-speed prediction can do for the energy industry

Systems & Networking Wireless

Dina Katabi named Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of EECS

CSAIL researcher Dina Katabi has been selected for the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.

In his announcement, EECS Department Head Anantha Chandraksan said that Katabi 'is an ideal candidate for this professorship, given her outstanding technical contributions and leadership in wired and wireless networks.'

Dina Katabi named Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of EECS