Neil Adam Gershenfeld was born on December 1, 1959. He is an American physicist who teaches at the MIT Program in Media Arts and Sciences. He also leads the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. His work focuses on areas that combine physics and computer science, including quantum computing, nanotechnology, and personal fabrication. He is known as the "intellectual father of the maker movement."
Early life and education
Gershenfeld was born on December 1, 1959, in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish family. His father, Walter Gershenfeld, was a labor arbitrator and mediator and a retired professor of management at Temple University. His mother, Gladys Gershenfeld, was also an arbitrator.
He attended Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Later, he enrolled at Swarthmore College, where he graduated in 1981 with a B.A. degree in physics with high honors. In 1990, he earned a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University. His doctoral thesis was titled Representation of Chaos.
In 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Strathclyde University.
Career
In 1998, Gershenfeld started a class at MIT called "How to make (almost) anything." He wanted to teach students about large, expensive machines used in industry. However, many students from different fields, such as art, design, and architecture, also joined the class. In an interview with CNN, Gershenfeld said the students were asking a question he had not planned to answer: "What is this useful for?" The answer, he said, was to create items that are not available in stores, but instead to make things that are needed but not yet available. Gershenfeld believes this marks the start of a new revolution: a digital revolution in making things on demand.
Gershenfeld taught his course at the Association of Professional Model Makers (APMM) 2010 Conference. In 2023, the course received the Irwin Sizer Award for the Most Significant Improvement to MIT education.
This class inspired Gershenfeld to create Fab Lab. He believes teaching children to use and build technology will help future generations become more independent and create tools that meet the needs of their communities. Fab Labs are now in over 150 countries. In an interview with Discover magazine, Gershenfeld said, "Many of the least developed places on Earth have urgent needs for new technologies. While some people’s needs are met, billions of others are not. Their problems require a complete change in technology, not small improvements."
Gershenfeld leads the Fab Foundation and the Fab Academy, which later became the "Academany" platform for hands-on learning.
In addition to "How to make (almost) anything," Gershenfeld has taught courses such as "How To Make Something That Makes (almost) Anything," "The Physics of Information Technology," and "The Nature of Mathematical Modeling."
He helped start the Interspecies Internet and is a Founding Trustee there.
Gershenfeld has spoken at TED conferences and presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In 1998, Gershenfeld and others built the first quantum computer with 2 qubits that could process data and produce results. Though not practical for everyday use, it showed the basics of quantum computing and was the first example of faster-than-classical quantum calculations.
In 2013, Gershenfeld and researchers at MIT developed materials made from cells that can be reassembled.
His work has been published in journals such as Science, Nature, IEEE, ACM, Cell, and The American Physical Society.
Gershenfeld wrote an early paper on the Internet of Things. His paper "Microfluidic bubble logic" described how digital logic can be used in microfluidics. Another paper, "Physical one-way functions," introduced the idea of physical one-way functions.
In 2008, Gershenfeld released the Great Invention Kit, a set of tools that people can use to build different objects.
Honors and recognition
Gershenfeld became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2007. In 2020, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2023, he was elected as a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.
In 2004, Scientific American recognized Gershenfeld as one of their "Scientific American 50." He was also named Communications Research Leader of the Year by the same organization. His work has been highlighted in publications such as The New York Times and The Economist, as well as on NPR. The Museum of Science and Industry Chicago named him as one of the 40 modern-day Leonardos. Prospect magazine listed him among the top 100 public intellectuals.
Jeffrey Epstein encounters
In July 2019, it was discovered that Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, had received large donations from Jeffrey Epstein. Ito resigned after the scandal that followed. A 2020 investigation by Goodwin Procter, conducted at the request of the MIT Corporation, found that Gershenfeld and other faculty members met Epstein three times during MIT Lab tours between June and October 2013. During one visit, Epstein showed interest in Gershenfeld's research on topics such as consciousness, how animals communicate, and how they trick others. After their first meeting at MIT, Gershenfeld agreed to attend a dinner at Epstein's home in New York City. Emails from Epstein's files confirmed that in 2013, Epstein asked Gershenfeld to invite artist Jeff Koons to his home for dinner.