Seven MIT affiliates named 2026 Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Fellows

What AI2050 asks of its fellows

Schmidt Sciences is the philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt, and it aims to accelerate scientific innovation. AI2050 was conceived and co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and James Manyika. It is aimed at helping to solve hard problems in artificial intelligence.

Each fellow will address the central motivating question of the program: "It's 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we realized to ensure this outcome?" (AI2050, as quoted by MIT News).

All five MIT faculty honorees are principal investigators at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.

The senior fellow: Sendhil Mullainathan

Sendhil Mullainathan is named an AI2050 Senior Fellow. He is the Peter de Florez Professor at MIT, with appointments in the departments of Economics and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

His current research sits at the intersection of algorithms and people. A central focus is launching The Bike Shop@MIT, a new research center working toward more human-centered AI. MIT News describes its approach as "scalable bicycles for the mind, and innovative new gears for machine learning algorithms."

Mullainathan co-founded ideas42, MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and Dandelion Health. His AI2050 project focuses on translating patterns that AI can detect into testable theories.

The early career fellows

Four MIT faculty members were named AI2050 Early Career Fellows, each with a distinct project:

• Alex Damian, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics with a shared position with EECS through the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. His research covers the mathematical foundations of deep learning, including optimization dynamics and representation learning. His project focuses on effective AI model training.
• Bailey Flanigan, the Theodore T. Miller (1922) Career Development Assistant Professor, with a shared position across EECS and Political Science. Her work combines social choice theory, game theory, algorithms, statistics and survey methods to strengthen public participation in democracy. Her project focuses on gathering structured public input that lawmakers can use when making complex decisions.
• Yunha Hwang, the Samuel A. Goldblitch Career Development Assistant Professor, with a shared position across EECS and Biology. She is co-founder and chief scientist at Tatta Bio, a scientific nonprofit focused on genomic AI for biological discovery. Her project focuses on determining biological enzyme functions.
• Manish Raghavan, the Drew Houston (2005) Career Development Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, with a shared position with EECS. His research applies computational techniques to areas of social concern, including algorithmic fairness and behavioral economics, with a focus on algorithmic tools in hiring. His project focuses on mitigating negative effects, and strengthening positive aspects, of widespread AI reliance.

Alumni also recognized

Three people with MIT ties were also named AI2050 Early Career Fellows: alumni Irene Chen PhD '22 and Allison Z. Koenecke '14, and former postdoc Juan Carlos Perdomo. The source does not describe their projects.

The 2026 group follows earlier cohorts of MIT affiliates named in 2024 and 2025. The projects announced this year range from the technical side of AI, such as model training and enzyme function, to its social effects, including hiring, public input in lawmaking and reliance on AI.