MIT Technology Review
publishes an annual list of 35 innovators under the age of 35, and they recently released their list of innovators for 2020. The list features over 20 innovators who are solving problems related to or using computer science.
Some highlights from the list include:
- Leila Pirhaji, ReviveMed – Pirhaji built an AI-based tool for measuring tiny molecules in the body called metabolites, and her work could help us better detect and treat diseases. Measuring and identifying metabolites is expensive and time-consuming, and fewer than 5% of metabolites in a patient can be identified using common technologies. So Pirhaji developed a platform that uses machine learning to do it much more quickly. First, she built a huge database of all known information about existing metabolites and how they interact with various proteins and other molecules. Then her team collected tissue and blood samples from patients with known diseases and measured the metabolites.
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Rose Faghih, University of Houston and MIT – Faghih has developed an algorithm to analyze otherwise imperceptible changes in sweat activity—a key indicator of stress and stimulation. Using two small electrodes attached to the back of a smart watch, she can monitor changes in skin conductance caused by sweat. Signal-processing algorithms then allow Faghih to correlate those changes with specific events, such as a PTSD-related flashback or even just wandering attention, in order to pinpoint the person’s brain state.
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Zlatko Minev, IBM Quantum Research, TJ Watson –Minev’s experiment showed that when an atom is bombarded with energy in the form of light, it moves from one energy level to the next in a continuous, smooth way, not an instantaneous jump. What’s more, Minev was able to detect the change in an atom’s energy level quickly enough to control it so he could stop the jump midflight and reverse it before it was completed. Minev’s work could have major implications for quantum computing. Such systems are riddled with errors that occur when subatomic particles jump between energy levels, like the atoms in Minev’s experiment. The ability to detect and reverse such jumps before they finish should dramatically boost the power of quantum computers, allowing them to better crack encryption, model chemical reactions, and forecast weather.
Other computing-related projects include Anastasia Volkova’s Flurosat that uses imaging sensors on satellites, planes, and drones to detect when crops are in trouble long before their distress is discernible to the naked eye and Katharina Volz‘s OccamzRazor, that has successfully married machine learning with biomedical research and is pushing the search for a Parkinson’s cure.
Check out the rest of the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 here.
