Physicist, Computer Scientist Neil Gershenfeld leads a unique
laboratory, the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, that is
breaking down boundaries between digital and physical worlds.
Gershenfeld and his students have created computers that use
nuclear spins in molecules and bubbles in fluids, built
programmable materials and intelligent infrastructure, made
machines that make machines and computerized virtuosic musical
instruments. His work has been seen and used in the White House
and the Museum of Modern Art, in Las Vegas shows and rural
Indian villages. Named one of the top 100 public intellectuals
by Foreign Policy magazine, Gershenfeld is the founder of a
growing global network of more than 100 field fab labs that
provide widespread access to prototype tools for personal
fabrication in locations from Afghanistan to the Arctic Circle.
He has a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell, was a junior
fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and was a technician
at Bell Labs. He’s the author of numerous technica