Global development and prosperity are increasingly dependent on minerals and metals, drawing attention to the mining industry and exposing economic and security vulnerabilities in supply chains. As demand rises, expanding capacity hinges on creating scalable pathways for production, use, and stewardship.\n\nIn an interview hosted by the MIT Minerals Stewardship Consortium (MSC), Professor Elsa Olivetti explains that MIT’s renewed interest in mining stems from both historical roots and current needs. Six of MIT’s first fourteen graduates in 1868 earned degrees in geology and mining, and early curricula linked metallurgy to mining engineering to support railroads, industrial machinery, and electrification. Today, the energy transition, defense, and data centers drive demand for vast amounts of steel, aluminum, copper, and trace elements such as gallium. Each element has its own “personality”; for example, gallium is a by‑product of aluminum production, so increasing its supply requires coordination beyond traditional mining.\n\nMining and mineral processing are environmentally intensive and becoming more so. Ore bodies are deeper, lower‑grade, and often located in socially and environmentally sensitive regions. Projects face shifting water availability, extreme climate events, community concerns, cost volatility, and digital technologies that change how ore is monitored, extracted, and processed over a mine’s life. These pressures motivate MIT to focus on the system‑level impact, complex science, and entrepreneurial opportunities of mining.\n\nFundamental research is essential for tackling these challenges. Rare‑earth elements have very similar chemical properties, making separation difficult. Researchers are engineering microbes that selectively bind specific metals and survive harsh conditions, leveraging advances in engineered proteins and computational binding models. Other teams explore electrochemical extraction and study ion behavior in oxides and sulfides to improve separation. Cross‑disciplinary collaborations involve earth, atmospheric and planetary scientists working with aerospace experts on remote sensing, automation specialists maintaining tight temperature control for sensitive separations, and mechanical engineers addressing fluid dynamics for deep‑sea mining.\n\nMIT’s Office of the Vice President for Energy and Climate, the MIT Energy Initiative, and related programs seed early‑stage work, with some projects receiving follow‑on support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission. MIT startups such as Lithios, RockZero, SiTration, Nth Cycle, and Found Industries are translating lab discoveries into commercial lithium extraction and metal recovery technologies.\n\nRegarding calls to reshore critical mineral production, MIT stresses that opening mines alone does not build resilience. Extraction, separation, refining, and manufacturing are technically demanding and economically challenging; trade restrictions can disrupt any point in the chain. A domestic magnet industry, for instance, needs reliable access to separated rare‑earth oxides—otherwise it merely swaps dependence on imported magnets for dependence on imported raw materials. Full‑chain capability requires collaboration among industry, government, and research institutions.\n\nMIT can act as a convener through the MSC, which launched in September 2025 with BHP, Vale, and Rio Tinto as inaugural members. The consortium gathers stakeholders across the supply chain to identify technology adoption barriers, curate research questions, and define collaborative next steps, drawing on faculty expertise in operations, urban planning, aerospace engineering, materials science, and economics.\n\nBy linking industry, government, startups, and researchers, MIT helps set shared priorities and move research toward practical impact, supporting the construction of competitive, resilient critical‑mineral supply chains.\n\nReview: MIT leverages interdisciplinary collaboration and industry platforms to turn basic science into supply‑chain resilience technologies, illustrating the unique role academic institutions can play in global mineral security.