MIT students gain a humanist lens on technical innovation in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Ten MIT undergraduates took part in the PKG Center for Social Impact's 2026 Code.Tulsa program, now in its second year, interning with the Muscogee and Cherokee nations and the local nonprofits Black Tech Street and Urban Coders Guild on AI, data science, and other technical projects. The program is supported by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and the George Kaiser Family Foundation, and students live at the University of Tulsa over the summer.

Mechanical engineering student Daphne Wang and Lucy Sun, who is majoring in artificial intelligence and decision making, spent the summer supporting development of the Muscogee Nation's first Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) survey to capture maternal health data specific to Muscogee women. Their work included literature reviews, dataset analysis, and drafting survey questions, while considering data sovereignty and governance structures specific to the Muscogee. Wang's supervisor, epidemiologist Breanna McNaughton-Long, said the interns were instrumental and completed work that otherwise would not have been done as quickly.

Code.Tulsa was proposed by sophomore Jack Carson, an electrical engineering and computer science student and Cherokee Nation member from Tulsa, who approached the PKG Center as an incoming first-year student. He proposed a weeklong STEM camp for members of federally recognized tribes at the University of Tulsa, with Code.Tulsa interns as instructors. The resulting Tulsa Advanced Sciences Camp selected 25 campers from 10 tribes out of 160 applications representing 25 Native nations. Carson enlisted Harvard University student Allie Zong to help develop the curriculum, which offers tracks in AI engineering, DNA technology, physics, and chemistry and energy, plus philosophical workshops.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. delivered remarks at TASC, telling students their generation has the opportunity to bend technology toward good and thanking Carson, a former secretary for the Cherokee Nation tribal youth council, for his leadership in organizing the effort.