Research

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

Helping people manage information

24 Group Results

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

Broderick Lab

We work in the areas of statistics and machine learning.

Tamara Broderick

Leads

Tamara Broderick

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Tamara Broderick

Research Center

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

The MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML) works towards creating AI systems that are robust, reliable and safe for real-world deployment.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aleksander Madry

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

Complexity Theory Group

Our interests span quantum complexity theory, barriers to solving P versus NP, theoretical computer science with a focus on probabilistically checkable proofs (PCP), pseudo-randomness, coding theory, and algorithms.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Computation and Biology

Our lab focuses on designing algorithms to gain biological insights from advances in automated data collection and the subsequent large data sets drawn from them.

Bonnie Berger

Leads

Bonnie Berger

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Bonnie Berger

Research Group

Computational Connectomics Group

Our group’s goal is to create, based on such microscopic connectivity and functional data, new mathematical models explaining how neural tissue computes.

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nir Shavit

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

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

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 Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

MIT App Inventor

MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets.

Hal Abelson

Leads

Hal Abelson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Lead

Hal Abelson

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

Quantum Information Science Group

Our research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

Peter Shor

Leads

Peter Shor

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Energy

Lead

Peter Shor

Research Group

Supertech Research Group

We investigate the technologies that support scalable high-performance computing, including hardware, software, and theory.

Charles E. Leiserson

Neil Thompson

Leads

Charles E. Leiserson

Neil Thompson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Charles E. Leiserson

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Neil Thompson

Research Group

Sussman Lab

We focus on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing educational methods.

Gerald Sussman

Leads

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Lead

Gerald Sussman

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

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

+21

Sam Madden

Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

The goal of the Theory of Computation CoR is to study the fundamental strengths and limits of computation as well as how these interact with mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines.

+20

Costis Daskalakis

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

+20

Costis Daskalakis

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

Research Group

Usable Programming Group

We design and study systems that improve the learnability, efficiency, and safety of software development.

Rob Miller

Leads

Rob Miller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Rob Miller

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

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

Research Group

World Wide Web Consortium

Led by Web inventor and Director, Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeff Jaffe, the W3C focus is on leading the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing standards, protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Wireless

Lead

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

26 Project Results

Project

Active Learning of Models for Planning

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

AdaptDB: Adaptive Partitioning for Distributed Joins

Our goal is to develop an adaptive storage manager for analytical database workloads in a distributed setting. It works by partitioning datasets across a cluster and incrementally refining data partitioning as queries are run.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Algorithmic Aspects of Performance Engineering

Supertech Research Group

The project concerns algorithmic solutions for writing fast codes.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Wireless

Project

Aurum: Large Scale Data Discovery

Aurum is a data discovery system that works at large scale, helping people find relevant data.

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Project

Bayesian Optimization for Global Optimization of Expensive Black-box Functions

Learning and Intelligent Systems

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

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

Traffic is not just a nuisance for drivers: It’s also a public health hazard and bad news for the economy.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computation Structures Group

Energy

Transportation

Project

BlueDBM: Distributed Flash Storage for Big Data Analytics

BlueDBM is an architecture of computer clusters consisting of fast distributed flash storage and in-storage accelerators, which often outperforms larger and more expensive clusters in applications such as graph analytics.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Bridging Theory and Practice in Shared-Memory Parallel Algorithm Design

This project aims to design parallel algorithms for shared-memory machines that are efficient both in theory and also in practice.

Julian Shun

Leads

Julian Shun

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Julian Shun

Project

Compression and Reordering for Parallel Graph Analytics

We plan to develop a suite of graph compression and reordering techniques as part of the Ligra parallel graph processing framework to reduce space usage and improve performance of graph algorithms.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

Our goal is to design novel data compression techniques to accelerate popular machine learning algorithms in Big Data and streaming settings.

Daniela Rus

Leads

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniela Rus

Project

Data Civilizer

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Data Warehouse Construction

Historically, DBMSs in the warehouse space partitioned their data across a shared nothing
cluster.

Michael Stonebraker

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Project

Database Design

The conventional wisdom described in all text books for performing database design is never followed in practice.

Michael Stonebraker

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

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

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

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

Diversity-inducing Probability Measures

We aim to understand theory and applications of diversity-inducing probabilities (and, more generally, "negative dependence") in machine learning, and develop fast algorithms based on their mathematical properties.

Stefanie Jegelka

Suvrit Sra

Leads

Stefanie Jegelka

Suvrit Sra

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Geometric Data Processing Group

Stefanie Jegelka

Suvrit Sra

Project

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

Computer Graphics Group

Developing state-of-the-art tools that process 3D surfaces and volumes

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Vertical AI Community of Research

Justin Solomon

Project

High-Performance Parallel Clustering

We are designing new parallel algorithms, optimizations, and frameworks for clustering large-scale graph and geometric data.

Julian Shun

Leads

Julian Shun

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Julian Shun

Project

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

We're developing a flexible, high-performance storage architecture for database-backed applications, based on a dynamic set of queries specified by the developer which Soup automatically optimizes.

Jon Gjengset

Malte Schwarzkopf

Leads

Jon Gjengset

Malte Schwarzkopf

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Geometric Data Processing Group

Jon Gjengset

Malte Schwarzkopf

Project

Optimal transport for statistics and machine learning

Linking probability with geometry to improve the theory and practice of machine learning

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Geometric Data Processing Group

Justin Solomon

Project

Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting

Gerrymandering is a direct threat to our democracy, undermining founding principles like equal protection under the law and eroding public confidence in elections.

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Justin Solomon

Project

Programming Abstractions for Dynamic Graph Analytics

We plan to develop a programming abstraction to enable programmers to write efficient parallel programs to process dynamic graphs.

Julian Shun

Leads

Julian Shun

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Julian Shun

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.

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Andrew Spielberg

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Project

Starling: Query Optimization for Cloud Services

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

Impact Areas

Natural Language Processing Group

Wireless

Sam Madden

Matthew Perron

35 People Results

PI
Core/Dual

Regina Barzilay

Professor

Natural language processing, machine learning

E regina@csail.mit.edu

T 258-5706

Lead

Aspect-Augmented Adversarial Networks for Domain Adaptation

Member

Vertical AI Community of Research

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Natural language processing, machine learning

Cenk Baykal

Graduate Student

E baykal@mit.edu

RM 32-376C

Member

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

Jonathan Behrens

Graduate Student

E behrensj@mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Laurent Bindschaedler

Postdoctoral Fellow

Systems for Big Data and ML. ML for Systems.

E bindscha@mit.edu

Member

Systems for Big Data and ML. ML for Systems.

PI
Core/Dual

Costis Daskalakis

Associate Professor

Algorithms, Economics, Game Theory, Statistics, Machine Learning

E costis@csail.mit.edu

T 253-9643

Lead

Is the Casino using a Riffle Shuffle?

Understanding Convergence of Iterative Algorithms

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Member

Algorithms, Economics, Game Theory, Statistics, Machine Learning

Barış Ekim

Graduate Student

E ekim@csail.mit.edu

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

Piotr Indyk

Professor

Algorithms, theory, computational geometry

E indyk@csail.mit.edu

T 452-3402

Lead

Sublinear/Streaming Algorithms for Covering Problem

Sublinear Algorithms for Massive Data Problems

Member

Algorithms, theory, computational geometry

PI
Core/Dual

Tommi Jaakkola

Professor

Machine learning, natural language processing, genomics

E tommi@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0440

Lead

Natural Language Processing Group

Aspect-Augmented Adversarial Networks for Domain Adaptation

Learning Strategic Games

Structured Prediction Through Randomization

Interpretability in complex machine learning models

Member

Learning Optimal Interventions

Vertical AI Community of Research

Machine learning, natural language processing, genomics

Siddhartha Jayanti

Graduate Student

E siddhartha@csail.mit.edu

PI
Core/Dual

Frans Kaashoek

Professor

Systems, networks, architectures

E kaashoek@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7149

Lead

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Scaling Filesystems To Many Cores

Perennial

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

Computation Structures Group

FSCQ: File-system verification

Decentralized Information Group

Systems, networks, architectures

PI
Core/Dual

Lalana Kagal

Principal Research Scientist

Privacy, web decentralization, distributed data

E lkagal@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5845

Lead

The Car Can Explain!

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Solid: Social Linked Data

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Member

Computing & Society Community of Research

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Privacy, web decentralization, distributed data

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

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

Helping people manage information

PI
Core/Dual

Tim Kraska

Associate Professor

Systems for ML, ML for Systems, Interactive Data Exploration

E kraska@mit.edu

Lead

Member

Systems for ML, ML for Systems, Interactive Data Exploration

PI
Core/Dual

Charles E. Leiserson

Professor

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

E cel@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5833

Lead

Supertech Research Group

Performance Engineering of Cache Profilers

CilkPride

A Simplified and Extensible Cilk Runtime for Research

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Tapir

Member

Safety Standards for Autonomous Vehicles

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

Lucas Liebenwein

Graduate Student

Student and Researcher | Robotics, AI | Advanced Autonomy

E lucasl@mit.edu

RM 32-376C

Lead

Member

Self-Driving Vehicles

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

Student and Researcher | Robotics, AI | Advanced Autonomy

PI
Core/Dual

Sam Madden

Professor

Systems for processing and manipulating data

E madden@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6643

Lead

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

Starling: Query Optimization for Cloud Services

Video Data Querying

Member

Aurum: Large Scale Data Discovery

Computation Structures Group

Systems for processing and manipulating data

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

Slobodan Mitrovic

Postdoctoral Associate

E slobo@mit.edu

PI
Core/Dual

Ankur Moitra

Associate Professor

Theory, algorithms, machine learning, complexity

E moitra@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5876

Lead

Efficient Robust Estimation in High Dimensions

Member

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Theory, algorithms, machine learning, complexity

Seo Jin Park

Postdoctoral Assoicate

E seojin@mit.edu

PI
Core/Dual

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Professor

Theory, algorithms

E ronitt@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0884

Lead

Sublinear/Streaming Algorithms for Covering Problem

Complexity Theory Group

Member

Theory, algorithms

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

Ibrahim Sabek

Postdoctoral Associate

E ibrahimsabek@csail.mit.edu

Member