Skip to Content
Seen on campus

Barbie meets Dr. Who

First-years embrace Mens et Manus in a project that reimagines the Barbie stereotype.

October 24, 2023

On the first day of fall class registration, a Barbie-themed TARDIS, the time-traveling spaceship from Doctor Who, appeared in the president’s office, courtesy of incoming first-years in Interphase EDGE/x, a scholar enrichment program run by the Office of Minority Education. Inside the “Barbis,” President Kornbluth found a web of mirrors and lights representing infinite space travel.

Sally Kornbluth in the Barbis with students standing to the left and right
ELLEN PATTON

Barbis was constructed over the summer during an eight-week Interphase EDGE/x course at the MIT Edgerton Center. In the class, students form project teams and envision and complete a project, gaining hands-on engineering skills as they get to know other first-years. Read more about the Barbis project here.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

The Biggest Questions: What is death?

New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

How to fix the internet

If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.