MIT Scientists Named Popular Science "Brilliant 10"

Popular Science magazine has named MIT associate professor Michael Strano and Whitehead Fellow Kate Rubins to its annual "Brilliant 10" list of top young scientists.

Strano, 33, the Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, was honored for his work with confined quantum materials (such as graphene). His work "has the power to transform cancer medicine, solar power, electronics and more," according to the magazine.

Rubins, 31, a fellow at the Whitehead Institute, recently pioneered a new, superfast method of isolating and sequencing the genetic material of the monkeypox virus, and is now training at NASA to become an astronaut on the shuttle's successor craft, Orion.