Data, Systems, and Society: Harness AI for Societal Good
By Munther A. Dahleh, professor of EECS and founding director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2025, $27.99

So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs
—and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease
By Thomas Levenson, professor of science writing
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, 2025, $35

Perspectives in Antenna Technology: Recent Advances and Systems Applications 
By Jeffrey S. Herd, group leader of the RF Technology Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Alan J. Fenn and M. David Conway, both senior staff in the RF Technology Group
MIT PRESS, 2025, $125

Misery Beneath the Miracle in East Asia 
By Arvid J. Lukauskas and Yumiko T. Shimabukuro, PhD ’12
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2024, $34.95

Send book news to MITAlumniNews@technologyreview.com or MIT Technology Review, 196 Broadway, 3rd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139

Anantha Chandrakasan became the Institute’s new provost on July 1, succeeding Cynthia Barnhart, SM ’86, PhD ’88, who announced her decision to step down in February.

Chandrakasan, who earned his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, joined MIT in 1994. Head of the Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, he has been dean of the School of Engineering since 2017 and MIT’s inaugural chief innovation and strategy officer, playing a key role in launching multiple new initiatives, since 2024. He headed the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT’s largest academic department, for six years.

As MIT’s senior academic and budget officer, Chandrakasan will focus on understanding institutional needs and strategic financial planning, attracting and retaining top talent, and supporting cross-cutting research, education, and entrepreneurship programming. On all these fronts, he plans to seek frequent input from across the Institute. He also plans to establish a provost faculty advisory group, as well as student/postdoc advisory groups and an external provost advisory council.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for MIT to be at the center of the innovations in areas where the United States wants to lead,” Chandrakasan says. “It’s about AI. It’s about semiconductors. It’s about quantum, the bio­security and biomanufacturing space—but not only that. We need students who can do more than just code or design or build. We really need students who understand the human perspective and human insights.” 

In the researchers’ prototype device, a half-square-meter panel of the hydrogel is enclosed in a glass chamber coated with a cooling polymer film. When the vapor captured by the textured material evaporates, the bubbles shrink down in an origami-­like transformation. The vapor then condenses on the glass, where it can flow out through a tube.

The system runs entirely on its own, unlike other designs that require batteries, solar panels, or electricity from the grid. The team ran it for over a week in Death Valley, California—the driest place in North America. Even in those conditions, it squeezed clean water from the air at rates of up to 160 milliliters (about two-thirds of a cup) per day.

“We have built a meter-scale device that we hope to deploy in resource-limited regions, where even a solar cell is not very accessible,” says Professor Xuanhe Zhao, the senior author of a paper on the work. The team estimates that a small array of the panels could passively supply a household with drinking water even in a desert, with greater production in temperate and tropical climates.