News & Video

Congratulations to Katherine Eleanor Buckingham, Master in City Planning degree candidate in the department of Urban Studies and Planning, and Devin Helfrich, Master of Science in Technology and Policy graduate, who have both been named finalists in the Presidential Management Fellows Program (PMF).  The PMF Program is a flagship leadership development program at the entry level for advanced degree candidates, designed to develop a cadre of potential government leaders by providing sustenance during the first years of employment and encouraging development of leadership capabilities. Read more

Interested in helping women graduate students connect to faculty and alumni mentors?  Excited about applying your technical and organizing skills to creative projects?  Come and join the GWAMIT Mentoring Program Committee; apply by contacting either Ricarose (ria@mit.edu) or Xuwen (xwzhu@mit.edu).  The mentoring program is a yearlong program where GWAMIT matches mentors and mentees during the summer, and groups meet individually every month.  Events during the year include a kick-off dinner, February social, spring reception, and more informal events during the summer.  GWAMIT is also holding monthly dinner meetings, and all are welcome to join (committee members get to choose their own mentors).

The MIT Muslim Students Association and the MIT Arab Students Organization will be hosting a BBQ and Volleyball fundraiser on Saturday, May 11th, 2013, from 11:00am to 4:00pm at the MIT Kresge BBQ Pits.  Registration is $5 per person for the volleyball tournament.  All proceeds will go to UNICEF in Syria.  Contact msa-ec-current@mit.edu for more information.

Later in the day, there will be another BBQ from 6:00pm to 7:30pm at the Kresge BBQ Pits organized by Christians on Campus. Enjoy a relaxing time of singing, bible reading, games, food, and snacks.  Attendees will have the opportunity to share their experiences of Christ and encourage each other to pursue God together at MIT.  All are welcome to attend, regardless of faith; contact christiansoncampus-info@mit.edu for more information.

Light bulbs, paper clips and even tea bags are catching the attention of the media and the arts community.  Come to this new exhibition through September 1, 2013 at the MIT Museum which explores every day objects and shines a light on their inventors.  Learn more and view photos in this WBUR/NPR review. Admission to the MIT Museum is always free for MIT students.

MIT Concert Choir is going to be at Kresge Auditorium in MIT with Conductor William Cutter, Assistant Conductor and Pianist Joseph Turbessi, Soprano Kerry Deal, and Baritone Robert Honeysucker on Saturday, May 11th, 2013 beginning at 7:30pm.  Music includes Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region and Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem.  Free advanced tickets are available here, or they are $5 at the door.

Given reports that fewer recently minted life-sciences Ph.D.’s are landing full-time academic jobs while more are spending an increasing number of years as postdocs, it may be time to consider some alternatives. One alternative is to create your own job. If you are a graduate student or a postdoctoral fellow working on a project that has potential commercial value (i.e., it could result in a product that someone will buy), consider turning the project into your first job. How?

First, disclose your idea to your university’s technology-transfer office (Technology Licensing Office at MIT]. The personnel there can help you determine whether your idea has merit, and whether it can be protected by patents, trademarks, or copyright. If you are conducting your research at a university, the university probably has ownership rights; and if your idea is a good one, the university may file for intellectual-property protection on its own dime. Fortunately for you, it is obligated by U.S. law (under the Bayh-Dole Act, aka the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act) to share the proceeds with inventors, who typically receive 25 to 35 percent. To read more about these strategies, take a look at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s page on creating your own job here. Photo by Brian Taylor for The Chronicle.

Vikalp Sabhlok, MSMS ’13, grew up in a small city in India where the electricity supply was notoriously unreliable.  Now, as a student in MIT Sloan’s Master of Science in Management Studies (MSMS)  program, he is exploring ways to improve the energy distribution system for the next generation. “I have always had an interest in going back to India to make things better,” he said. “If you provide electricity, productivity levels go up, and incomes increase.” To read the rest of the article, visit the Sloan webpage.

Always popular, the D-Lab Second Fridays showcase provides visitors with the chance to see what the creative and compassionate students are working on in the labs upstairs.  The event will take place on Friday, May 10th, 2013 from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, with free admission.  Founded by MacArthur award winner Amy Smith (who once was the Regional Beekeeping Officer for the Okavango River Delta in Botswana) the D-Lab’s mission is to improve the quality of life of low-income households through the creation and implementation of low cost technologies.  Learn more about D-Lab.

Come to the Radius Ensemble concert on Saturday, May 11th, 2013 at 8:00pm in Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, 27 Garden Street in Harvard Square.  This concert features Mozart (String duo in B-flat major, K.424), Morrison (Lonesome Whistle for solo flute), and MIT’s own Harbison (Woodwind Quintet) and Southworth (JAMU for ensemble and Balinese Gamelan World Premiere).  When Michael Haydn, younger brother of Franz Joseph, found himself in hot water with the Archbishop of Salzburg for not completing a commission, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quickly stepped in as an ally for his friend.  He composed two duos for violin and viola, sent them to Haydn, and sanctioned plagiarism by instructing Haydn to include them in the collection as his own.  John Harbison’s Wind Quintet is embroidery in sound, “mixtures rather than counterpoints,” to quote the composer.  A single strand of melody winnows from a flute in John Howell Morrison’s Lonesome Whistle—exploring the intricate tie between performer and instrument.  The concert will close with a world premiere, Christine Southworth’s alchemic Jamu for ensemble and Balinese Gamelan.  Student admission is $10; general admission is $20.  Buy tickets here.

On Wednesday, February 6th, 2013, President L. Rafael Reif announced the creation of the Institute-Wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education and requested that its members work to “reinvent the residential campus model and perhaps redefine education altogether.”  Technology has changed very rapidly in the past decade, especially with the advent of the Internet and the omnipresent communication it entails.  However, the institution from which the Internet grew out of has failed to fully adopt the potential of these emerging technologies to change a model of education that has been relatively the same for hundreds of years.  In support of the initiative, MIT launched the website future.mit.edu in early April designed to engage the MIT community in a larger conversation about where education is headed.  It also serves as a resource for the Task Force’s three working groups: Education and Facilities for the Future, The Future Global Implications of edX and the Opportunity it Creates, and A New Financial Model for Education.

Composer and electronic music innovator James Dashow will give a special presentation (The Dyad System) about his musical compositions and theories on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 4:00pm in the MIT Media Lab (E14-244).  “The Dyad System” will focus on the integration of pitch structures into electronic sounds.  This system describes the basis and methods for embedding specific pitches into electronic sounds that are generated by the pitches themselves through various techniques that James Dashow will feature.  There will also be an excursion into the spatialization of sound, for which Dashow has a double approach: movement IN space, and movement OF space.  A variety of audio examples and a couple of pieces will be played.  For further information about this program, please contact Simone Ovsey at sovsey@media.mit.edu.

Come view The Rest I Make Up, a reading of “Fefu and her Friends” with original video footage of Michelle Memran, a homage to the work of Maria Irene Fornes, Cuban playwright, feminist, and activist.  This is directed by Anna Kohler, MIT Music and Theater Arts, and is presented as part of “It’s Alive.”  This event will take place on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 7:30pm in Killian Hall, MIT.

Like many Nigerians, MIT graduate student Chidube Ezeozue grew up frustrated by his nation’s erratic electrical grid. “Electrical outages are a huge problem in Nigeria,” says Ezeozue, who is pursuing dual master’s degrees in MIT’s Technology and Policy Program and in electrical engineering and computer science. “The outages really interrupt everyday life.”

Nigeria’s supply of electricity is severely limited, resulting in rolling outages: Power is cut off every few hours and redirected to neighborhoods that were previously in the dark. While Nigerians know to expect these power cuts, they rarely know when the outages will happen, or how long they will last. Read the rest of the article on MIT News.  photo by Allegra Boverman

Throughout decades of research on solar cells, one formula has been considered an absolute limit to the efficiency of such devices in converting sunlight into electricity: Called the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit, it posits that the ultimate conversion efficiency can never exceed 34 percent for a single optimized semiconductor junction.

Now, researchers at MIT have shown that there is a way to blow past that limit as easily as today’s jet fighters zoom through the sound barrier — which was also once seen as an ultimate limit.

Their work appears this week in a report in the journal Science, co-authored by graduate students including Daniel Congreve, Nicholas Thompson, Eric Hontz and Shane Yost, alumna Jiye Lee ’12, and professors Marc Baldo and Troy Van Voorhis.

Continue reading the article on MIT News.  illustration by Christine Daniloff

Osteoarthritis, which affects at least 20 percent of adults in the United States, leads to deterioration of cartilage, the rubbery tissue that prevents bones from rubbing together. By studying the molecular properties of cartilage, MIT engineers have now discovered how the earliest stages of arthritis make the tissue more susceptible to damage from physical activities such as running or jumping.  Hadi Tavakoli Nia, the lead author of the paper, and Iman Soltani Bozchalooi, both graduate students in mechanical engineering, are working to answer this question. Visit MIT News to continue reading the article.

In commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, several Greater Boston educational, historical, and cultural organizations are collaborating to present Freedom Rising: The 150th Anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation and African American Military Service in the Civil War from Thursday through Saturday, May 2nd through 4th, 2013.  RSVP here.  The sequence of events are as follows:

Read more

DNA’s unique structure is ideal for carrying genetic information, but scientists have recently found ways to exploit this versatile molecule for other purposes: By controlling DNA sequences, they can manipulate the molecule to form many different nanoscale shapes.

Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have now expanded this approach by using folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene. This could be an important step toward large-scale production of electronic chips made of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with unique electronic properties.

Peng Yin, an assistant professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and a member of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, is also a senior author of the paper, and MIT postdoc Zhong Jin is the lead author. Other authors are Harvard postdocs Wei Sun and Yonggang Ke, MIT graduate students Chih-Jen Shih and Geraldine Paulus, and MIT postdocs Qing Hua Wang and Bin Mu.

Continue reading the article on MIT News.

Come hear about how Boston Globe jounalists undertook a year-long effort to understand the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood of Dorchester at The Neighborhood Story event on Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 at 6:00pm in the Media Lab, MIT Room 15-525.  For decades, journalists have been reporting shootings and homicides there – rushing to crime scenes and then leaving to file their articles on time. The Globe wanted to tell a more complete story of the neighborhood. 

Two journalists – one of them originally from Dorchester – moved into an apartment in Bowdoin-Geneva in the Summer of 2012. With the help of videographers, photographers, data journalists, multimedia producers, editors, and fellow reporters, they spent a year learning this neighborhood.  If you cannot attend in person, follow the live blog.

The MIT Presidential Fellows/Sidney-Pacific Distinguished Lecture Series presents A Crisis in Civics? with Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media.  This lecture will take place on Wednesday, May 1st, in the Sydney-Pacific Graduate Residence Multipurpose Room at 6:30pm (light refreshments will be served at 6:00pm).  Is digital media changing what it means to be an engaged citizen?  Countless commentators have declared that America is experiencing a crisis in civics, with young people less engaged with civic life than their parents and grandparents.  But an intriguing possibility exists: the practice of civics may be changing shape, moving from offline to online spaces and focusing on new targets.  Ethan Zuckerman will examine the landscape of this new digital civics and consider whether we should have hope for civic engagement in a Facebook age, or a fear of disaffection and slactivism.  RSVP here.

Using exotic particles called quantum dots as the basis for a photovoltaic cell is not a new idea, but attempts to make such devices have not yet achieved sufficiently high efficiency in converting sunlight to power. A new wrinkle added by a team of researchers at MIT — embedding the quantum dots within a forest of nanowires — promises to provide a significant boost.

Photovoltaics (PVs) based on tiny colloidal quantum dots have several potential advantages over other approaches to making solar cells: They can be manufactured in a room-temperature process, saving energy and avoiding complications associated with high-temperature processing of silicon and other PV materials. They can be made from abundant, inexpensive materials that do not require extensive purification, as silicon does. And they can be applied to a variety of inexpensive and even flexible substrate materials, such as lightweight plastics.

The team, which also included postdoc Sehoon Chang and graduate students Patrick Brown, Jayce Cheng and Paul Rekemeyer, was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Read the rest of the article on MIT News.

Enrollment is now open for fall spaces in MIT’s five childcare centers, including a new facility expected to be completed late this summer that will nearly double the number of children that can be accommodated on campus.

The David H. Koch Childcare Center, named in honor of lead donor David H. Koch ’62, SM ’63, joins four other MIT facilities known collectively as the Technology Childcare Centers (TCC). TCC also includes Eastgate Childcare Center (with an infant classroom at North Court), Stata Childcare Center, Westgate Cooperative Preschool and Lincoln Childcare Center (near Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington). The latter four facilities are also open for summer enrollment.

Continue reading the article on MIT news.  photo courtesy of the Klopfer Martin Design Group

On March 12 and 13, a group of 17 MIT students and postdocs traveled to Washington to sound a warning about the future of science and engineering research in the United States in the wake of cuts to federal programs.

The visit followed an array of budget cuts (known as “sequestration”) that took effect on March 1, cutting funds for basic scientific research and development. In meetings with 34 members of Congress from 11 states, members of the MIT delegation argued that those cuts — following flat funding in most recent years’ budgets — would decrease America’s ability to maintain economic growth and remain globally competitive.

Sponsored by the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education. Visit this site to see a list of SPI members.  Continue reading this article here.  photo by Charles Haynes

The GSC has elected its new Officers for the 2013-2014 Academic Year:

President is Caleb Waugh, MSc student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering who previously completed a MSc at MIT in Technology and Policy.  Passionate about realizing a sustainable energy future that is informed by the best available science, economics, policy, and business strategies, his research at MIT has ranged from developing advanced integrated energy, economic, policy and environmental models to study energy and climate policy impacts, to plasma physics and inertial confinement fusion energy. Pictured top left.

Vice President is Alex Guo, third year PhD student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at MIT.  She is currently investigating the physics of breakdown voltage in GaN power electronics. Pictured top right. 

Treasurer is Parthsarathi Trivedi, first year S.M. candidate in the department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at MIT.  Parthsarathi assesses the most optimum use of scarce renewable resources with respect to environmental and economic trade-offs. Pictured bottom left.

Secretary is Chris Smith, first-year PhD Student in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  Chris’s research focus is energy policy and economic development. Pictured bottom right.

Congratulations to the new team!  For more information, visit the GSC website.

You’re invited to celebrate the best of MIT at the 2013 Institute Awards Convocation.  This event will take place on Thursday, April 25th, 2013 at 4:00pm in MIT Room 10-250.  The MIT Awards Convocation honors MIT students, faculty, staff, and community members who have made outstanding contributions to the shared life of the Institute.  The awards recognize many of the qualities MIT cherishes: excellence in academics and teaching, public service, community building, achievements in the arts and athletics, leadership, and entrepreneurship.  Visit the awards website to see past winners and the various awards given.

MIT staff, graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and retirees, as individuals or groups, are eligible to apply for CSF grants to support their personal public service initiatives, which include programs that they run or would like to start, or projects that they want to work on that enhance the public service work of an existing organization or school.  Apply now for summer/fall funding by Tuesday, April 30th, 2013.  Contact csf-staff@mit.edu for more information.

“In Between” is a semi-autobiographical one man show that portrays the complexities and contradictions inherent in Palestinian-Israeli identity.  On the precipice between two cultures stands Ibrahim Miari, son of a Palestinian Muslim father and Jewish Israeli mother.  During an interrogation by Israeli airport security, he recalls his childhood in Acco, memories of his Jewish and Palestinian grandmothers, of war. Questions surrounding his identity become even further complicated by his imminent marriage to a Jewish American woman. This fascinating intrsopective look into a unique culture will be shown at the Bartos Theatre, E15-070 at 7:30pm on Wednesday, April 24, and is free and open to the public! Presented by the Addir Fellows-MIT Interfaith Dialogue, MIT Hillel Foundation, MIT Muslim Student Association. Technology and Culture Forum at MIT, and Chaplain to the Institute Robert M. Randolh.

Jeffrey Daniel Martell, PhD candidate in Biological Chemistry, and Jian Cui, PhD candidate in Physical Chemistry, have been selected to attend the 63rd Annual Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Students in Lindau, Germany, June 30th through July 5th, 2013.  Since 1951, Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine convene annually in Lindau to have open and informal meetings with students and young researchers.  The Laureates lecture on the topic of their choice in the mornings and participate in less formal, small-group discussions with the students in the afternoons and some evenings.  Students and young researchers are nominated and selected by sponsoring agencies and organizations.

Martell’s most current research includes developing genetically-encoded reporter enzymes for electron microscopy, engineering split enzyme systems to enable fluorescence detection of protein-protein interactions, and designing enzyme-based sensors for biological analytes.  Cui’s research includes developing and implementing a new spectroscopic technique called photon‐correlation Fourier spectroscopy to study the emission spectra of single nanocrystals in solution.