In the News

Press coverage and updates related to me and my research group. Last updated: April 27, 2024

Press Information News Archive

Recent News Articles

Press coverage in the past 24 months:

Recent Papers

All Papers by Year All Papers by Topic

Papers posted to the arXiv from the past 12 months:

Recent/Upcoming Events

All Presentations

Talks and panels from the past 12 months:

• upcoming “Deep Learning + Deep Thinking = Deeper Understanding”, MIT School of Science Event, IET London, May 2024
• upcoming “Interpretable Machine Learning”, DPF-Pheno 2024, U. Pittsburg & Carnegie Mellon, May 2024
• upcoming “The Hidden Geometry of Particle Collisions”, Physics Colloquium, UMass Amherst, May 2024
• “What Observables are Safe to Calculate?”, Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar, Harvard CMSA, April 2024
• “Cosmic Explorer Connections to DOE Science” panel , Second Cosmic Explorer Symposium, CE Collaboration, April 2024 virtual
• “Deep Learning + Deep Thinking = Deeper Understanding”, Faculty Lunch, MIT Physics, April 2024
• “Physics, AI, and the Future of Discovery” panel video , AIP Foundation Live Event, American Institute of Physics, April 2024
• “What is Needed for Generative AI to Fulfill its Promise in Physics?” panel , Symposium on the Impact of Generative AI in the Physical Sciences, IAIFI, MIT, March 2024
• “Predictably Uncertain: A Physicist’s Perspective on AI Policy”, Off the Record Foreign Policy Association Lecture, New York City Bar Association, March 2024
• “Deep Learning + Deep Thinking = Deeper Understanding”, MIT Physics Breakfast, Palo Alto, March 2024
• “The Coming Decade(s) of Nuclear and Particle Physics”, Physics Colloquium (with Lindley Winslow), MIT, February 2024
• “Perspectives on AI + Physics”, Panel on Public Affairs, American Physical Society, February 2024 virtual
• “Experiences and Centers: IAIFI”, AI 4 Science, Harvard, February 2024
• “Supporting Learners through Technology and Course Iteration” panel , Festival of Learning, MIT, January 2024
• “What Discoveries and New Techniques will be Enabled by AI?” panel , AI Winter Workshop, Brown, January 2024
• “Institutional Support and Funding for ML+PS” panel , Workshop on Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences, NeurIPS, December 2023
• “NSF Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions”, Lunch Seminar, MIT EECS, December 2023
• “Reinventing the Learner Experience” panel , Generative AI + Education Symposium, MIT, November 2023
• “Quarks and Gluons through the Lens of Machine Learning”, IPNS Physics and Theory Joint Seminar, KEK, November 2023
• “The Hidden Geometry of Particle Collisions”, International Conference on Machine Learning Physics, YITP, Kyoto, November 2023
• “The Hidden Geometry of Particle Collisions”, Computer Science Colloquium, Tufts, November 2023
• “The Hidden Geometry of Particle Collisions”, 2023 Mathematics and Physical Sciences Annual Meeting, Simons Foundation, October 2023

News Archive

Profiles and Highlights

• “Jesse Thaler: Then and Now / 2011 Early Career Award Winner ”
  DOE News, December 2021

• “Using AI to Drill Down in Physics”
  ACM News, July 2021

• “Can a Computer Devise a Theory of Everything?”
  New York Times, November 2020

• “NSF advances artificial intelligence research with new nationwide institutes”
  NSF News, August 2020

• “National Science Foundation awards $20M to launch artificial-intelligence institute”
  Harvard Gazette, August 2020

• “National Science Foundation announces MIT-led Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions”
  MIT News, August 2020

• “A new metric to capture the similarity between collider events”
  Phys.org, August 2019

• “MIT physicists: Social networks could hold the key to finding new particles”
  Ars Technica, July 2019

• “Seeking new physics, scientists borrow from social networks”
  MIT News, July 2019

• “Miracles when you use the right metric”
  Collider Blog, February 2019

• “Center for Theoretical Physics celebrates 50 years”
  MIT News, March 2018

• “Jesse Thaler: Seeking the fundamental nature of matter”
  MIT News, November 2017

• “Chalkboard theorist”
  MIT Spotlight, November 2017

• “First open-access data from large collider confirm subatomic particle patterns”
  MIT Newsletter, September 2017

• “Team simulates a magnetar to seek dark matter particle”
  MIT Newsletter, October 2016

• “Miller Fellow Focus: Jesse Thaler”
  Miller Institute Newsletter, September 2007

Awards and Honors

• APS Fellow: “Seven from MIT named American Physical Society Fellows for 2022”
  MIT News, October 2022

• Simons Investigator: “Three MIT faculty members named 2022 Simons Investigators”
  MIT News, June 2022

• DOE QuantISED: “Center for Theoretical Physics professors earn DOE Quantum Information Science Awards”
  MIT News, October 2018

• Promotion: “School of Science professors granted tenure”
  MIT News, June 2017

• Edgerton Award: “Biobarrier explorer and dark matter theorist win MIT’s prestigious junior faculty award”
  MIT News, April 2016

• Sloan Fellowship: “Six MIT researchers win Sloan Research Fellowships”
  MIT News, February 2013

• PECASE Award: “Five MIT researchers win presidential early career honors”
  MIT News, July 2012

• DOE Early Career Award: “Five from MIT receive DoE early career research grants”
  MIT News, June 2011

Quotations and Perspectives

• “Scientists design program for the future of US particle physics research”
  Symmetry Magazine, December 2023

  Particle physics is global science. No matter what, there is no country that can afford the next collider by themselves.

• “From physics to generative AI: An AI model for advanced pattern generation”
  MIT News, September 2023

  I’m thrilled to see the myriad of ways ‘physics intelligence’ is transforming the field of artificial intelligence.

• “Will artificial intelligence ever discover new laws of physics?”
  New Scientist, November 2022

  I was trained to think about what are the laws of nature in our universe. Now it’s ‘what is the space of all possible rules?’

• “Machine Learning Shaking Up Hard Sciences, Too”
  IEEE Spectrum, October 2022

  We’d like to have a machine learn to think more like a physicist, but we also just need to learn how to think a little bit more like a machine.

• “A Hint of Dark Matter Sends Physicists Looking to the Skies”
  Quanta Magazine, October 2021

• “Advancing AI theory with a first-principles understanding of deep neural networks”
  Facebook AI, June 2021

• “Quantum computer captures physics of high-energy particles”
  Physics World, February 2021

  While some aspects of particle scattering can be described in a classical language, nature is fundamentally quantum mechanical.

• “Faculty discuss Flexible P/NR policy”
  The Tech, March 2020

  Our goal was to come up with a grading policy that was simple, flexible, and discipline agnostic, with mechanisms to ensure that students would always be incentivized to engage in all of their classes.

• “The plot thickens for a hypothetical X17 particle”
  Phys.org, November 2019

• “With open data, scientists share their work”
  Symmetry Magazine, August 2019

• “CMS releases open data for Machine Learning”
  CERN News, July 2019

• “Scientists meet at Fermilab to discuss machine learning for jet physics”
  Fermilab News, November 2018

• “Lighting the way for dark matter”
  PNAS, October 2017

• “In the Dark about Dark Matter”
  Scientific American, October 2016

  Do we live in a universe where each discovery leads to deeper, more fundamental insights, or do we live in one where some parts have rhyme and reason, but others don’t?

• “Has a Hungarian physics lab found a fifth force of nature?”
  Nature, May 2016

• “What Physicists Are Looking for Now That They’ve Found the Higgs Boson”
  Bloomberg, April 2015

• “How Three Guys With $10K and Decades-Old Data Almost Found the Higgs Boson First”
  Wired Magazine, January 2015

  Figuring out what happened in a collider is like trying to figure out what your dog ate at the park yesterday. You can find out, but you have to sort through a lot of shit to do it.

• ”‘Particle Fever’ documentary follows mystery of Higgs boson”
  Portsmouth Herald, May 2014

• “Connecting the visible universe with dark matter”
  Symmetry Magazine, November 2013

• “MIT’s Jesse Thaler Visits MHS”
  Mustang News, October 2012

  Here’s the universe, here’s pencil and paper, now go and find something new.

Group Members in the News

• Cari Cesarotti: “Science 30 Under 30 (2024)”
  Forbes, November 2023

• Cari Cesarotti: “Particle Physicists Dream of a Muon Collider”
  Scientific American, August 2023

• Akshunna S. Dogra and Rikab Gambhir: “Can you hear the shape of physics?”
  Imperial College News, July 2023

• Lina Necib: “Astroparticle Physicist Wins 2023 Valley Prize for Work on Dark Matter”
  APS News, October 2022

• Cari Cesarotti: “With open data, scientists share their work”
  Symmetry Magazine, August 2019

• Radha Mastandrea: “A passionate advocate for open data”
  MIT News, October 2018

• Radha Mastandrea: “Paying it forward: Fellowship boosts women in physics”
  MIT News, August 2018

• Kevin Zhou: “Seeking new stories about the physical world”
  MIT News, April 2017

• Kevin Zhou: “Four MIT students named 2017 Marshall Scholars”
  MIT News, November 2016