Susan Hockfield

From the very creation of this great institution, the MIT motto, as well as the focus of an MIT education, has been Mens et Manus — mind and hand.

Project-based learning complements classroom learning by offering students an opportunity for real-world educational experiences. With hundreds of hands-on projects now under way across the Institute, students are busy applying their knowledge to solve today’s global challenges. There are hands-on learning projects in every school and nearly every department at MIT.

Real-world experience gives students a chance to travel, opening their minds to various people, cultures, and points of view. It helps them to develop leadership skills and often is a way for young people to discover their life’s work. Hands-on learning makes it possible for students to turn ideas and prototypes into real products and not only helps them to learn better but also gives them the confidence to go out and change the world.

Among our major hands-on initiatives is the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), which prepares students to live and work around the globe by offering internships in Japan, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Singapore, Israel, and Africa. After two years of intense instruction in the language and culture of a country, students spend three to 12 months working in labs and offices across the globe. This year MISTI sent 315 students abroad.

Another major experiential learning project is the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP, pronounced yer-op), which pairs students and faculty in research partnerships. This 39-year-old program is exceedingly popular and has been a model for other universities both in the United States and abroad. Not only does UROP allow students to participate in world-changing research, it also allows faculty to get research help from vibrant, creative undergraduates. Students learn teamwork and are treated as professionals; they learn by doing and also receive academic credit or pay.

Another remarkable program recently started at MIT is the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, which is expected to become a national model for educating engineering leaders. Launched through a $20 million gift to the MIT School of Engineering by the Gordon Foundation, the program will enhance MIT’s core education program centering on developing new products, materials, processes, and systems; it will incorporate a hands-on learning program in which students, mentored by alumni in industry, will develop leadership skills; and it will spread best practices to other universities.

Now under way at MIT Sloan School of Management is a new initiative called S-Lab (Sloan Laboratory for Sustainable Business). This one-semester class brings student teams together with organizations from the business, nonprofit, and government sectors to create business approaches to social and environmental issues. Teams work on projects with organizations to help create a world that is sustainable ecologically, economically, socially, politically, and personally.

Other MIT programs that offer students real-world and service learning opportunities include the IDEAS Competition, an invention and entrepreneurship competition that benefits people around the world and was created by the MIT Edgerton Center and Public Service Center; the D-Lab, an MIT design class that trains students to deliver technology to the Third World; the Public Service Fellowships, which provide stipends that make it possible for students to work around the world in the summer or on vacations; and the departments, labs, and centers at MIT that run more than 30 K-12 educational outreach programs, including the Edgerton Center, the Center for Environmental Health Sciences, and the MIT Museum.

Also on campus, there are now 20 Student Clubs and Teams that engage students in real-world design projects. Students lead the entire project — from running the group to managing finances to creating project designs. Past teams have built autonomous robots, flown crewless airplanes, and raced solar-powered vehicles.

The students on these pages say that experiential learning complements what they glean from a book and adds a whole new dimension to their experiences inside the classroom. By solving real problems, students are not only motivated to learn but also filled with self-assurance.

Reid Allen, an MIT junior who studies mechanical engineering and interned for a year at BMW Motorsport in Germany, is quoted on these pages as saying, “Going to Munich was enormously confidence-building. I designed 100 parts on BMW racecars that are some of the most successful racecars in the world. I know now that I am a successful engineer.”

In addition to learning biology, math, or engineering from a book, having the chance to actually develop a fuel-efficient vehicle in Cambridge, assist tuberculosis patients in India, or help guard against a tsunami in Chile makes the experience much more memorable.

When students complement their class work with actual worldwide experiences, they may travel, giving them a chance to build a network of colleagues across the globe. It also teaches them a remarkable amount of self-confidence, and it’s an invaluable way to get a job later on.

After Reid Allen, an MIT junior, spent a year designing racecars at BMW Motorsport in Munich, he says: “I’m already getting job offers.”

Rodrigo Zeledon, who studies aeronautics and astronautics, adds: “When you’re doing problem sets in class you’re applying formulas to limited situations. When you deal with real-world issues, you realize there’s no such thing as a formula. There’s no one way to solve all problems.”

Senior Rany Woo, who traveled to five cities in India and later developed CellCentives, a plan to create incentives for TB patients there to take their medication, says that before the trip she thought of the patients,”You have the medication, why don’t you just take it?”

Now, after meeting them, she knows why they don’t — because they forget, because they develop uncomfortable side effects, or because after a while they feel better and stop taking the pills.

“When you’re in a country actually working with the people, you have a much better understanding of where they’re coming from,” she says.

The students on these pages all say that class work is important but when real-world experience is added, learning is amplified. It’s like learning in stereo.

Anna Jaffe launched a project to build a new fuel-efficient vehicle. Photo: Len Rubenstein

“We tell people, ‘We’re going to change the world,’” says Anna Jaffe. “And maybe it’s because we’re young, but people rarely say, ‘You’re going to do what?’”

Jaffe hasn’t changed the world yet, but the 22-year-old student may well be on her way.

Two years ago, she, along with Robyn Allen and Nii Armar, launched the Vehicle Design Summit, a collaboration that included 25 college teams from across the globe to build within three years a plug-in electric hybrid car. More than 50 students from 21 universities came to MIT to create the first Design Summit, run entirely by students. For the second Summit, more than 250 students, now working globally, met in China, India, Belgium, Italy, and the U.S. Their global slogan was: “We are the people we have been waiting for.”

“We’re hoping the vehicle will show a 95 percent reduction in embodied energy, materials, and toxicity,” Jaffe says, adding that she hopes it also will also provide 200 miles per gallon energy equivalency or better.”

During the first Summit in 2006, students designed and built four vehicles run by solar, biofuels, and human power. Soon after, the driving prototypes achieved efficiencies between 60 and 300 mile per gallon energy equivalency.

Jaffe says that in addition to creating a high-mileage vehicle, the team also plans to design the seats, drive train, steering, and engine. And she expects that the $9,000 vehicle will be fully tested, validated, and ready for production in India by the end of 2009.

Jaffe, a civil and environmental engineering major who travels around Cambridge by subway, says her career goal is to work with others to create a green sustainable future.

“When you talk with people, they say, ‘Oh, there are a million great ideas, but none of them ever happen.’ This one is happening.

“It has a little to do with our work, but it has a lot to do with being at MIT, where the people expect you to do great things. When you’re expected to do great things, you do.

“This is probably the most incredible learning opportunity of my life. I’ve learned how to advocate my ideas, talk to CEOs and gain their respect. I learned how to find people around the world who care about a green future, how to reach them, and how to balance traveling around the world and raising money, with doing my schoolwork.

“Our biggest goal is to inspire other people with big ideas. If the Vehicle Design Summit were to fail, but lots of other groups were to spring up around the world, that would still be a success. We really cannot fail.”

Tai DaCosta worked in New Orleans through an MIT course centering on cities at risk. Photo: Len Rubenstein

Tai DaCosta last spring traveled to New Orleans, where he heard firsthand the heartbreaking stories of people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

“Their stories were very touching and left a huge imprint on me,” he says. “I learned a lot more than I bargained for.”

DaCosta was one of 15 MIT students who recently participated in CityScope, a new one-semester, undergraduate course that focuses on cities at risk. The cities’ problems result from natural disasters, like hurricanes or earthquakes, or from other disasters, such as urban renewal failures. The class, offered by the School of Architecture and Planning, gives students the opportunity to develop computation, calculation, and analytic techniques for identifying major urban problems. The course also includes a trip to work in a troubled city. Some at-risk cities include Detroit, St. Louis, Mexico City, San Diego, and Johannesburg.

“All we learned in New Orleans was much better than just sitting in a classroom. I mean, what we learned in a day, we wouldn’t have learned all semester,” he says.

“It’s not until you actually go to another city, talk to people, and hear what they actually went through, do you realize, ‘Oh, man, what I am proposing may look good on paper, but in real life, there is no way it could work.’ If you’re just in a classroom, you miss all the nuances, which are so important.”

DaCosta, who was raised in Jamaica, says he felt saddened that in one of the poorest areas of the city two years after Katrina, “literally the only thing that’s been done is part of the rubble has been cleared. There are still falling-down houses that I couldn’t even go into because it was too dangerous. You hear about all the recovery work of the federal agencies, but it’s shocking that there’s still so much work left to be done.”

DaCosta says the hands-on nature of the course opened his eyes to poverty in the U.S.

“People definitely need a broad education where they aren’t taught strictly from a book. I believe if people saw true poverty firsthand, we wouldn’t have the level of poverty we do in the world,” says this young man, who plans to launch an architecture and engineering firm that focuses on sustainable development and designs low-income housing.

“If you actually go into a community and see a child who hasn’t eaten in two days, and who is so thirsty they are willing to drink dirty rainwater, unless your heart is made of stone, you will do something to help.”

Elizabeth Leshen is developing a device that may help HIV positive patients. Photo: Len Rubenstein

“As a freshman, I sat through a class on electricity and magnetism and thought, ‘Why am I learning this? I’m never going to use it.’ Now I use it all the time,” says Elizabeth Leshen, adding that the material is more relevant now that she is doing work outside the classroom.

Leshen participates in UROP, MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, which matches students and faculty in research partnerships, and where students have a chance to participate in cutting-edge research that actually can change the world.

Leshen, who majors in biological engineering, is now working on a microfluidic technology project. The goal is to develop a device and to test prototypes for a coulter counter, an invention that can lead to improvements in monitoring blood cell counts in patients who are HIV positive.

“The long-term benefit is that this device is a way to make blood cell counts faster, cheaper, and portable,” Leshen says. “It will help patients and is useful for doctors. Because physicians could do the test faster, patients could get the results and be treated more quickly.”

Leshen, who works on the project with a team of six, says she has learned not only how to work well as a team, but also has learned how rewarding it is to work with experimental data that repeatedly doesn’t work, and then suddenly it does. “It gives you this amazing sense of accomplishment,” she says.

Leshen adds that class work and hands-on learning complement each other. “It’s hard to understand in class why you’re learning a mathematical theorem, but when you apply it in a lab, you realize how important it is.

“Hands-on work also makes you realize how interconnected all the disciplines are. In this project, we use biological engineering, mechanical engineering, biology, and math. I’ve learned to mesh together every discipline and come up with something new,” says Leshen, adding that she also learned how to frame an experiment, how to set realistic research goals, and how to plan a calendar to continually see progress.

Leshen’s long-term dream for the future is that all governments become stable and help their citizens gain access to quality medical care and education. When she leaves MIT, she says, “I’ll do whatever I can to have international impact — whether it’s research or public policy work. But I don’t want to just target a small group. I want to work on something that will help people worldwide.”

Reid Allen designed racecars for BMW in Munich. Photo: Len Rubenstein

Reid Allen always wanted to sit beside his Dad at the dinner table.

Allen was inspired by his father, with whom he often worked on cars and raced go-karts on the weekends.

At 13, Allen began dreaming of a career in Munich, designing racecars for BMW Motorsport. At MIT, he studied German, just in case his dream came true.

Then, as a sophomore, he landed an internship in Munich through MIT’s International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). After learning the language, culture, history, and politics of a country for two years, MISTI students work for up to one year in labs and offices around the world.

Allen spent the next year at BMW Motorsport in Munich.

“I always dreamed about working there someday, but I never thought it would happen so soon,” says Allen, who worked in a group of 10 engineers.

The team designed BMW racecars — the suspension pieces, aerodynamic parts, the chassis parts, and Allen was even put in charge of designing the entire cooling system on one of the newer cars.

Later that year, he and his teammates drove 155 miles per hour on the Autobahn (”The sensation of speed is incredible. You just hope you don’t hit a pothole,”) and they also drove together in BMW wagons to watch a race at the Nürburgring in Nürburg, Germany, the toughest, most demanding race track in the world, a 14-mile track with hundreds of twists and turns. “To be there with the contingent from BMW Motorsport was awesome.”

Hands-on experience, he says, is invaluable. “Going to Munich was enormously confidence-building. I designed 100 parts on BMW racecars that are some of the most successful racecars in the world. I know now that I am a successful engineer.

“Now if I am in class learning thermodynamics, I think, this is exactly what I did at BMW. I know how the equations apply. I’ve experienced it first-hand.”

The peak of the BMW experience, though, he says, was when he first met his boss, who turned out to be an industry star that he used to watch on TV. Once the man sat at his lunch table, and Allen nearly gasped. “It was amazing,” he says.

“I never expected to establish myself in the racing industry this early,” he says, adding, “I’m already getting job offers. Hands-on experience opens an enormous amount of doors.”

Rany Woo developed a cell phone incentive plan to inspire tuberculosis patients in India to take their medication. Photo: Len Rubenstein

Rany Woo recently visited five cities in India, where she surveyed tuberculosis patients and their doctors to learn why patients don’t take their medication.

“Before I left, I knew in the classroom that compliance to TB medication was a problem, but I had a superior attitude. I thought, ‘You have the medication, why don’t you just take it?’

“Then I met this guy in India who sits on a blanket for 10 hours a day, selling tomatoes. He doesn’t have the knowledge, the training, nor the education to know that it’s not okay to stop taking the pills.”

Rany Woo and two others recently won the MIT IDEAS Competition for developing CellCentives, a plan to create incentives for patients ages 15 to 34 to take their medication. This group comprises more than half the TB cases in the world.

The IDEAS Competition is an invention and entrepreneurship competition developed by MIT’s Edgerton Center and Public Service Center that helps young people change the world. Students work in teams to develop designs, materials, and strategies that benefit communities locally, nationally, or internationally. Woo’s team won $7,500 from the competition’s Yunus Innovation Challenge to implement the project. To recover, TB patients must take eight pills a day for nine months.

CellCentives is a mobile phone-based software. The patient is given a cell phone, and a text message is sent to the phone to remind them to take the pill. When the patient peels back the foil to pop the pill from the package, a code number is revealed. The patient punches the number into the cell phone to signal they’ve taken the pill, and if they comply with the regimen for several weeks, they get free wireless minutes on the phone. Another incentive may include a big prize if they stick to the program for months.

“Currently, nurses are paid to actually go to the homes of TB patients to watch them take their medication,” Woo says. “This is a cheaper alternative.”

Woo, who plans to become a doctor with an impact on global health, got the idea for the project from D-Lab, a hands-on MIT design class. Excited about providing a solution to the TB problem, she got a fellowship from MIT’s Public Service Center to travel to India to do the research.

“This project got me excited about expanding beyond my class work. This experience was so different from sitting in a classroom. When you’re in a country actually working with the people, you have a much better understanding of where they’re coming from.”

Working to solve complex real-world problems, Rodrigo Zeledon got a big lesson in collaboration. Photo: Len Rubenstein

The largest earthquake of the 20th century hit the southern coast of Chile in 1960, generating one of the most destructive tsunamis ever.

Recently, Rodrigo Zeledon and several classmates flew to Chile to develop an emergency response plan in case another tsunami should hit. The problem, he says, was enormously complex.

“We had to deal with scientists who wanted change, and governments that didn’t. Then there were budgetary constraints.

“Mangrove forests reduce the impact of a tsunami. But many people didn’t want mangroves on the beaches because they wanted the beaches for tourists. Other people didn’t want an unsightly tsunami wall on the coast.

“We learned as much from the scientists, students, professors, and people we met in Chile as they learned from us. The important thing was staying open to all points of view and not drawing conclusions too soon. We had to deal with so many personalities, avoid quarreling, and be productive. The hardest thing was to stay open and listen.”

Zeledon was one of 50 students who recently participated in Terrascope, a class for freshmen that focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex real-world problems — like reconstructing New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; sustainable development of the Amazon Rainforest; or guaranteeing the survival of the Galapagos Islands.

Students enroll in the same subjects as other freshmen, but also participate in two special subjects: Mission 200X and Communicating Complex Environmental Issues. The two classes focus on the earth as a giant laboratory, teaching students to deal with urgent problems that have no easy solution. In the spring, students take a trip to work in the field firsthand.

Zeledon says: “Other classes are just about problem sets. This one is about real world issues, and it’s much more relevant. It definitely changed my way of thinking.

“When you’re doing problem sets in class you’re applying formulas to limited situations. When you deal with real-world issues, you realize there’s no such thing as a formula. There’s no one way to solve all problems. You must take everyone’s opinion into account and make the best compromise. Terrascope taught me to consider all those opinions, synthesize them, and create a plan to actually solve the problem.”

Ricky Ramsaran landed an internship at Con Edison in New York. Photo: Len Rubenstein

Ricky Ramsaran says that when he was a boy whenever the power went out during a thunderstorm, he and his sister would chase each other around the house, shining a flashlight on each other.

He never thought that one day a power outage would be serious work.

Recently, Ramsaran landed an internship at Con Edison, New York’s major power company, where he and his team worked in the Bronx, analyzing why electrical cables fail.

“I loved how the job reflected what I was learning at MIT, and it gave me a heads up to what I would be learning in the future,” he says. “The best part of the job was getting industry experience.”

Ramsaran recently participated in MIT’s Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), an internship program for engineering sophomores that prepares students for jobs in industry and government and gives them a chance to gain leadership skills while actually working in the field. The one-year program, run by the School of Engineering, includes a 40-hour corporate training workshop, a series of job seminars taught by alumni, and a 10-week summer internship. “The program taught me how to network, find a job, and even dress for the interview,” he says.

The summer he worked at Con Edison, there was a 10-day blackout in Queens. Ramsaran’s workload tripled.

“An internship is so different from just sitting in class,” he says. “You could get an A on a problem set, but just knowing the math doesn’t always help when you’re doing actual work. Field work is much more challenging because you’ve got to come up with another solution.”

Another aspect of the job he appreciated, he says, was that in the lab he developed friendships and enjoyed the camaraderie of interns and engineers. “When you’re just sitting in a classroom, it’s not really an opportunity to connect with people in the same way.”

Blending an internship with class work is a necessary mix, he adds. “You can do hands-on work, but if you don’t know the theory, you’d be lost. It’s great to have both experiences.”

The job helped him to clarify his life’s work. “I learned that I am interested in energy, but not in the power failures. After this job, I became really interested in solar energy because there’s less chance of failing, and it’s not so dependent on power companies.

“Now, I want to pursue a career in solar energy, making it cheaper for people and more available.

Prof. Alan Lightman focuses on the natural vs. the supernatural. Photo: Ed Quinn

Miracles, mysteries and other visions from the beyond have been articles of faith for eminent scientific minds for millennia. Galileo, Newton, Max Plank and other scientific luminaries have comfortably embraced the co-existence of cause-and-effect and a world beyond.

Yet the science-vs.-religion relationship is often an intellectually fraught tug-of-war. Into the fray of natural vs. supernatural, certainty vs. uncertainty comes theoretical physicist-turned-novelist Alan Lightman, the former head of MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Sciences. Author of 12 books, including six non-fiction science works, the bestselling novel Einstein’s Dreams (1993) and National Book Award finalist The Diagnosis (2000), Lightman has long been captivated by the murky area between the knowable and unknowable.

Now an adjunct professor who divides his time between writing, teaching writing, and running the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Cambodia, Lightman continues his exploration of the two disparate realms in his most recent novel, Ghost (Pantheon, 2007). The story builds its argument through the voice of 42-year-old protagonist David Kurzweil, a divorced law school dropout. Kurzweil has devoted his entire professional life to a mid-level bank position when he gets laid off and takes a job at a mortuary. One evening in the funeral home’s “slumber room,” the place corpses are on view for families and friends, Kurzweil sees an unsettling image — “A vapor. But more than a vapor. It seemed alive. It had… intelligence.” Kurzweil, a man who believes that “without logic… the entire world might come apart piece by piece, like when you pull a stray thread on the sleeve of your jacket,” begins to “search for something” he can’t describe, but which haunts his once-staunch empirical worldview. His spectral sighting soon becomes fodder for the local media, then the pivot for a philosophical joust between an array of spiritualists and skeptics, including dogmatically high-minded academics, self-absorbed scientists and earnest believers spouting scientific-sounding catechisms.

FRICTION ENERGIZES

Though personally an atheist, Lightman is quick to point out that “I didn’t come down on either side [in Ghost]. I tried to take a balanced point of view, sympathetic to both sides. I tried to get inside the heads of diverse people and understand where they’re coming from.” The friction between the various groups is what energizes Lightman. “It’s a creative tension. It’s unresolvable, but thrashing around with it produces interesting results.”

The thrashing around in Ghost centers primarily on the reactions of the motley cast of characters to the ghost; the ghost itself barely gets a description. “I thought it would be more powerful that way,” explains Lightman. “In all fiction writing there’s a participatory creative act that goes on. When you tell the readers too much, you block their ability to create,” adding that “my main character had an experience that was totally off the map of his previous experiences, and he couldn’t find the words to describe it. He was caught in this nexus of certainty and uncertainty.”

As is Lightman himself. The theoretical physicist clearly sees the limitations of science, whose purview is to pursue questions subject to cause-and-effect relationships. “The issue of God is something science cannot really address. There’s no way science can answer what caused the universe to come into existence; it can have theories, but it can’t definitively prove them one way or another.” Also on the unanswerable side of the ledger are value judgments and ethical issues: Is a particular Rembrandt painting superior to one of DaVinci’s? Is it acceptable to kill in warfare but not in peace time?

CENTER STAGE

Lightman’s current work — a long, metered poem in two parts — puts the certainty/uncertainty nexus center stage. Part one, “Questions with Answers,” draws on his experience with the scientific way of looking at the world; part two, “Questions without Answers,” draws on “my experience with life, with humanities, with love affairs… everything that is important but doesn’t have an answer.”

This no-clear-answer territory is not only Lightman’s subject matter and muse, it drives his approach to writing as well. In his devotion to the uncertainty principle, Lightman works to surrender control to his characters. “I try to let the characters be real people and not to over-plot them. Once a character comes alive, which I struggle very hard to do, I try to listen to them instead of telling them what to say.” Creating plot-driven novels leads to wooden, unbelievable characters, he says, which amounts in his mind to squandering a great power — “the potential to get into the psyche of your reader, to affect the reader on a deep, visceral, emotional level.” At bottom, that’s the power Lightman yearns for — “the power to change people’s thinking, to give people new ideas they haven’t thought of before. I want people to be left haunted, vibrating, disturbed, and provoked about ideas.”

Irwin and Joan Jacobs never forgot their lean days as students. Photo: David Butow

Irwin Jacobs’s high school guidance counselor told him there was no future in science and engineering, so he enrolled at Cornell University and studied hotel administration.

By the time he was a sophomore, though, he doubted the advice and transferred into engineering. “I would never have been able to finish Cornell after a change like that without the help of a scholarship,” says Jacobs, who along with his wife, Joan — who also received state support at Cornell — never forgot those lean days. Irwin attended graduate school at MIT with support from a G.E. fellowship.

Recently, Irwin and Joan Jacobs gave MIT $30 million to support graduate fellowships in electrical engineering and computer science. “It was very important for us to have scholarship support. And if we benefited, we think there are many others who can benefit as well,” adds Irwin Jacobs, now founder and chairman of Qualcomm of San Diego, a world leader in digital wireless communication.

The gift will establish the Irwin Mark Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Presidential Fellowships, which will support at least 15 Jacobs Presidential Fellows each year. The first Fellows will be named in the fall of 2008.

“We’re very pleased that we are able to make this gift,” Joan Jacobs says, adding that the couple is pleased to have the opportunity for philanthropy. “Giving has been part of our lives even as young people. We have always wanted to participate in giving back on whatever level we were able.”

Irwin adds that their dream is to make it possible for students to attend grad school who otherwise would not be able to go. “We hope this gift will allow students to pursue a graduate career at MIT, then go on to become successful and help other students do the same thing.”

THE LAST THING

Irwin Jacobs’s parents owned a seafood restaurant in New Bedford, MA, where he was born. “The last thing I would have imagined growing up was that I’d be successful in business,” he says. “It was really beyond my thoughts.”

Jacobs earned a master’s in electrical engineering in 1957 and a Ph.D. in 1959. He was an assistant and associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT from 1959 to 1966. Then he got a call from a Cornell professor, who said they were beginning a department of electrical engineering at the University of California at San Diego, and would he join them?

Jacobs moved his family west. Two years later, he co-founded Linkabit, which virtually created the digital communications industry in San Diego with more than 35 spinoffs. He was floored by the success of the company.

He retired in 1985, but after three months was eager to work again. He co-founded Qualcomm, now a world leader in digital wireless technology with a $60 billion market cap and 10 consecutive years on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For, which ranked eighth in 2008.

Nearly three billion people now own cell phones, he says. And the market is growing, particularly in South America, Africa, India, and China. Cell phones serve as mobile computers, he says, and either now or soon will support DVD-quality camcorders, mobile TV, 3G graphics and games, GPS, financial services, voting and medical sensing technologies.

“Over time,” he says, “not only will everyone carry a cell phone, but they will rely on them for a broad variety of services.”

USEFUL TO MILLIONS

Jacobs says that the most exciting aspect of the work is to develop an idea that becomes useful to millions of people. “It’s just a great satisfaction going from an idea you weren’t sure would work to something that is helpful to many.”

Joan adds that her husband’s focus has always been on developing new ideas and whatever benefits came along with that. “His focus was never on earning money,” she says, adding that the wealth was simply a by-product of his good intentions. And yet, the money has given them the chance to be generous.

“There are so many rewards to giving back,” Joan says. “I think it is one of the real pleasures in life.”

For fun, the couple — who have four sons, who have all worked at Linkabit or Qualcomm — enjoy collecting contemporary art. They also love the symphony, theater, and classical music.

“I wish I had more time,” Irwin is saying. “Right now my greatest frustration is that my pile of unread books is continuing to grow.

“I wish I had more time for reading, more time for music, more time for art, more time for family. My work has been very successful, but time is my main limitation.”

Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp says MIT’s new cancer center will blend science and engineering to find new treatments for cancer. Photo: Ed Quinn

Hair loss, nausea, fatigue and bad aftertastes are chemotherapy’s slings and arrows. A nanotech “smart bomb” that targets only cancer cells — reducing or eliminating chemo’s side effects — is just one of the innovations expected to emerge from a new approach to cancer research at MIT.

The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research — made possible through a $100 million gift from MIT alumnus David H. Koch — “will blend the fabulous strengths of science and engineering to bring the best from both to the understanding and treatment of cancer,” said Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp, a member since 1974 of the MIT Center for Cancer Research and pioneer of a breakthrough gene-silencing method that may lead to innovative new treatments for cancer and other diseases.

“The new Koch Institute represents what some have coined the ‘third revolution’ in healthcare research,” Sharp wrote recently for a business and technology website. “The previous two revolutions are the development of molecular biology, beginning with the discovery by Watson and Crick of the structure of DNA and the genome revolution capped by the sequence of the human genome.”

In the three decades since Sharp entered the field, cell biology has undergone several revolutions, he said. “Thirty-three years ago, there was almost no interaction among cellular, molecular and genetic approaches and engineering activities at MIT. There was not enough known to engage engineering techniques at the level of specific cells,” he said.

“Today, there are enormous databases of information on how specific cells function, move and change in cancer and how cancer occurs within the context of tissues, blood cells, immune cells and micro-capillaries. The principles of engineering are giving us new tools and quantitative ways to intervene in the cancer process by delivering new and old therapies to cells better,” he said.

LEADING TO BREAKTHROUGHS

Integrating engineering and cancer biology could lead to breakthroughs in animal models for the disease; diagnostic techniques for early detection of precancerous cells, tumors and metastatic growths; new methods of drug delivery; diagnostic analysis of immune system responses to tumors; new ways of analyzing which of the hundreds of thousands of proteins within cells change in tumor cells; highly sensitive assays for genetic changes within cells that could lead to cancer; and new agents to direct therapy to cancer stem cells, the few cells within tumors capable of reproducing.

The nanotech “smart bomb” designed by MIT Institute Professor Robert S. Langer and colleagues is one example of what can emerge from the unique integration of engineering and cancer biology at MIT. Langer is a powerhouse in biomedical engineering whose contributions to medicine and biotechnology are recognized and respected around the world.

“In general, most cancer treatments are based on cytotoxics — chemicals that kill cancer cells more rapidly than others. The challenge is to direct those cytotoxic agents to cancer cells and spare normal cells, thus eliminating the side effects of chemotherapy,” Sharp said. “Directing treatment (straight to cancer cells) is something we all dream of, and it’s becoming more possible through methods of engineering and computation.”

NEW BUILDING

Sharp’s work at the Koch Institute will focus on fabricating small nanoparticles to carry bits of tumor-killing RNA directly into tumor cells. “This has never been done,” Sharp said. “We’re trying to do it for ovarian cancer and glioblastomas, which have no current treatment. It’s a big challenge, yet things are happening faster today than ever before. The period between discovery and treatment is collapsing.” Today’s laboratory breakthroughs could emerge in clinics in as little as one to two years, he said.

About a dozen members of the Center for Cancer Research will join an equal number of engineers, including Langer, in a new building that will house the Koch Institute, slated to open in 2010.

“MIT is a place of singular excellence in cell and molecular biology and engineering,” Sharp said. “We are the ideal place to take these two great traditions and form a community in which we can sustain ourselves over decades and train the next generation of people to take this philosophy and change the world.”

Jim and Pat Poitras say they hope their gift will help many in their lifetime. Photo: Chris Casler

Jim and Pat Poitras recently committed $20 million to the McGovern Institute for Brain Research to establish the James W. and Patricia T. Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Research.

“We think this is a superb investment,” says Jim, whose dream is “that within a generation there will be some definite, positive outcomes for those who suffer from these disorders.” The Center will support research on bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia and other severe psychiatric illnesses. It will also collaborate with MIT’s Broad Institute and will work with other Boston-based clinical research institutions.

Pat says that her hope is that MIT’s proximity to the world’s top hospitals, and the desire of those at the McGovern Institute to collaborate with those institutions, “will help solve the basic mysteries of major mental illness. While there is no magic bullet and success is not guaranteed, the Center has a great chance to accomplish these goals,” she says.

In 1980, the couple’s own daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and while the research they are supporting is unlikely to help her directly, Pat says, “hopefully it will help many, many others in our lifetime.”

An estimated 26 percent of Americans 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. But MIT experts predict that within 10 years, there will be big breakthroughs in the treatments of depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

Because of this, Pat says, now was the time to make this gift — to give this revolutionary work a push. “We have confidence in the people at MIT. They’re the best in the world, and to have a major neuroscience institute like the McGovern on board with this challenge is fantastic.”

GIVING, A WAY OF LIFE

Jim Poitras grew up in a family where philanthropy was a way of life.

His father, Edward J. Poitras, an electrical engineer and an inventor with dozens of patents, graduated from MIT in 1928.

As a young man, Jim’s Dad, who commuted to the Institute from Salem, MA, attended this school on a full scholarship. MIT even paid his train fare. He told Jim that without MIT’s support, he would not have been so successful and often credited his good fortune entirely to his alma mater.

Over the years, Jim watched his parents become quiet givers not only to MIT, but to many other charitable causes. He learned early that giving was its own reward.

Jim Poitras graduated from MIT in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He began his career at Harvard Medical School, then in 1964, joined Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, where he did research in the cardiovascular physiology laboratory. Soon he began working at the hospital on computer programming and implementation of the computer systems for patient care. In 1979, he left to join Highland Laboratories in Ashland, MA, the family’s manufacturing company that was launched by his father in 1953. When he joined the firm, Jim also took over responsibility for the family’s real estate investments, which he continues to manage.

Married nearly 46 years, Jim and Pat met on a blind date. Later, they raised three daughters: Christine, who teaches English as a second language; Laura, who makes documentary films; and Jennifer, who works in disaster response and planning. Pat, a registered nurse, earned a B.A. in philosophy from Wellesley College and a master’s in social work from Smith.

Now, for pleasure the couple plays duplicate bridge and travels across the country for tournaments. Both are Life Masters. In addition, they are avid bird watchers and often take nature trips with the Massachusetts Audubon Society to places like Costa Rica, Cuba, Morocco, and Alaska. Ardent Boston Red Sox fans, they attend about 15 games a year at Fenway Park.

NO STIGMA

Jim says it was important for the couple to make this gift now, “because we can hopefully see the results in our lifetime.”

Pat hopes that their gift will help to eliminate the stigma of mental illness. “I want it to give people hope that these misunderstood illnesses are being taken seriously in a scientific way — and not in a judgmental way.”

She adds that because of their personal experience with mental illness their giving is in part, a gift to themselves.

“We’re helping a lot of people with wonderful minds to do the work that we want to have done. It’s fulfilling a personal dream — the dream to actually have brilliant scientists working together to fight these disorders. We are very optimistic that they’ll be successful.”

Prof. Paola Rizzoli was inspired by the floods in her hometown to study how and why coastal waters ebb and flow. Photo: Ed Quinn

Paola Rizzoli will never forget the day the floodwaters submerged the ground-floor apartment of her family’s Venice home. A high school student during the November 1966 flood, Rizzoli, dry but trapped on the third floor, watched from her terrace — and waited for two days — for the salty lagoon water to recede.

The “acqua alta,” or high water, finally did go down. But it has come back time and again, bubbling up through the drains in Piazza San Marco so often that long wooden tables to walk on are now a permanent fixture.

Rizzoli, professor of physical oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), was inspired by the plight of her hometown to devote her professional life to understanding how and why coastal waters ebb and flow. The knowledge is not only critical for Venice, where Rizzoli is a member of a three-member team consulting on the design and construction of massive gates to hold storm surges at bay, but also for other regions from the Gulf of Maine to Singapore.

Her field is especially important in an age of climate change. “The climate problem is a prediction problem,” Rizzoli says. “We need to predict the different scenarios that may occur in 100 years, particularly the sea level rise in coastal regions. The ocean is critically important to make these predictions, being one of the least understood and observed components of the Earth’s system.”

Rizzoli has developed powerful models that use ocean data such as current, temperature and salinity — gathered from instruments mounted on moorings extending from the surface to the depths — plus weather and tide data. The models simulate, predict and verify the complex circulation patterns of the waters around bays and gulfs. In the case of Singapore bay, an artificial bay with a series of channels that interact with the open ocean and the South China Sea, these can be extremely complex, as well as extremely important for fishing fleets, port managers and others.

RECENTLY RECOGNIZED

Rizzoli, recognized recently by the Italian government for her work on the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore — also studies ocean systems in the tropical and equatorial oceans controlled by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where trade winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet. Modes of variability in these ocean systems are strongly coupled with the atmosphere and can cause intense droughts or excessive rainfall on the surrounding land masses, such as Africa and Brazil. The climate of these regions can contribute to debilitating tropical diseases such as malaria and meningitis, which are very sensitive to the rhythms of variability in rainfall, temperature and humidity.

In collaboration with Changseng Chen at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Rizzoli has adapted her data assimilation packages, which insert data into modeling software, to the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM). These packages combine predicted fields of velocity, temperature, salinity — among others — with observations available from the region being studied, thus providing patterns of ocean circulation consistent with the model’s dynamics and the data. The researchers use the models to evaluate the effects of local conditions on sediment transport and nutrient dispersal.

As part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance, Rizzoli will be the only School of Science member of an interdisciplinary team. She will spend a semester in residence in spring 2009, helping with modeling simulations to determine the placement of future data-collection instruments and the trajectories of autonomous underwater vehicles designed by MIT ocean engineers that will collect more fine-tuned data than ever before possible.

After earning a degree in physics, Rizzoli was drawn to oceanography when Italy’s National Research Council created a laboratory to explore the flooding and sinking in Venice. At the time, no one knew why the floods kept occurring, destroying priceless pieces stored in museum basements, shutting down schools and businesses and adversely affecting tourism. For the last five years, Venice has been under water 120 days a year. “People are sick and tired of it,” she said.

STORM SURGES

Rizzoli said researchers now know that Venice is the victim of storm surges. An elaborate, $5 billion system of gates to be built in the three inlets connecting the lagoon with the open sea are expected to safeguard Venice from high waters. Expected to be operational by 2012, the system consists of mobile barriers that temporarily separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Gates are being constructed at the lagoon inlets of Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia, the three openings in the barrier island through which tides propagate. In normal tidal conditions, the gates’ caissons (a type of pontoon) are completely invisible. During high waters, the caissons fill with air and are raised up like fans to prevent the tide from entering.

Rizzoli is looking forward to a time when Venice is no longer threatened by acqua alta. But, taking no chances, Rizzoli’s Venice apartment, which she visits periodically, is not in the low-lying neighborhood where she grew up. Her apartment, with its spectacular views of the lagoon, is near the Arsenal, one of the highest points in the city.

Prof. Gerbrand Ceder is doing his part to realize the promise of plug-ins. Photo: Ed Quinn

You get home from work, walk the dog, fix dinner, watch TV — but wait. Don’t forget to plug in the car before you go to bed.

This scenario could become a reality within a couple of years. Toyota plans to test-market a fleet of “plug-in” electric cars by late 2010. GM’s Chevy Volt, a rechargeable vehicle under development, will cover up to 40 miles — well within commuting range for many. These cars can then be recharged through a simple overnight plug-in.

If you drive more than the battery can handle in one charge, no sweat. That’s when the internal combustion engine kicks in. Or maybe you’ll be driving a battery-operated car with a generator on board for back-up power.

Gerbrand Ceder, MIT professor of materials science and engineering, is doing his part to realize the promise of plug-ins. “The plug-in concept is so important because driving patterns in the US support it. With even a 20-mile range, you can do 50 percent of all your driving,” he says. “This is not a pipe dream. The battery technology is there to make this happen. GM, Volvo, Mercedes, Nissan — they’re all working on it.”

Ceder is talking about lithium-ion battery technology. A research breakthrough by Ceder and colleagues at MIT is leading to high-capacity battery materials that could make a significant dent in fossil fuel consumption and help make renewable energy sources a reality. Ceder’s work is part of ongoing research at MIT seeking technological solutions to the energy crisis.

NEW BATTERY

Researchers at MIT have developed lithium nickel manganese oxide electrodes for a new type of battery that offers a charge-discharge rate considerably better than lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2), the current battery electrode material of choice. Scientists knew that lithium nickel manganese oxide could store a lot of energy, but the material took too long to charge to be commercially useful. The MIT researchers set out to modify the material’s structure to make it capable of charging and discharging more quickly.

Using a computer model, Ceder showed that under conditions of high power, disorder in the lithium nickel manganese material caused it to compress and trap the lithium ions that allow electricity to flow.

Ceder’s laboratory structured a new material with a very ordered crystalline structure, allowing lithium ions to flow freely between the metal layers of nickel and manganese. Besides one day replacing the batteries used in hybrid cars on the road today, the new material could advance plug-in hybrids that run completely from electricity stored from an overnight charge.

Ceder has created an even faster-charging material by modifying an existing lithium ion phosphate. In addition to being four or five times lighter than existing battery packs for plug-ins, the material can be fully discharged and recharged in less time than it takes to read this sentence. “We can take all the power in or out of our battery in 10 seconds,” Ceder says. “You put that in a Prius and it accelerates like a Ferrari.”

LESS EXPENSIVE

The lithium nickel manganese oxide batteries would be less expensive and more stable than lithium cobalt oxide cells. But before the material can be used commercially, the manufacturing process needs to be made less expensive, and a few other modifications will likely be necessary, Ceder says.

In research taking place outside MIT, nanotechnology is being exploited to make anodes reportedly capable of holding 10 times the charge of conventional versions. Ceder says this will require a cathode — the terminal where current flows out of the battery — that also holds 10 times the charge. However, he adds, materials science may once again come to the rescue. Advances in materials are allowing battery-makers to reduce the weight and volume of the anode, the terminal where current flows in, and add more cathode material in its place.

Meanwhile, Ceder is refining his computer model to help other researchers develop new materials for a wide variety of technological advances in the energy field, which will take a materials revolution to replace the high energy density of fossil fuels. His goal is to quickly and efficiently find unique new materials that could revolutionize next-generation solar cells, batteries and more.

Sound futuristic? “We’re at MIT,” Ceder says. “We want to be at the head of the curve.”

Lauren McClellan is an 18-year-old freshman, who has been an actress nearly 10 years. Photo: Len Rubenstein

At age nine, Lauren McClellan landed her first TV commercial for a Winnie-the-Pooh doll. Her job was simply to gush with emotion — first cry, then laugh.

“I just knew how to do it right off the bat,” she says, adding that she had so much fun, she begged her Mom to hire her an agent.

Soon after, McClellan landed a string of TV acting jobs and now has starred in nearly 30 television commercials. This Vancouver native has sold dozens of products including Easy-Bake Ovens for Hasbro, Barbie dolls for Mattel, jeans for Kohl’s department store, SUV’s for Mercedes Benz, and hams for Farmland Foods. The ads have aired in North America, the Middle East, Europe, and the Caribbean.

In third grade, McClellan, who one day plans to star in a movie, began socking away some of her acting checks in a retirement savings plan. “I started accumulating quite a bit of money,” she says.

Thousands.

By age 12, she was talking with her parents — a business owner and a real estate investor — about money management, and she began reading stacks of investment books. “It became so clear what I was going to do with this money.”

At 13, she bought a condo in central Vancouver. “It’s in a gorgeous building in a really good location,” says McClellan, adding that over the years, the value has doubled, and she’s had four different tenants.

With money left over, she and her four siblings later invested in another Vancouver condo. The 18-year-old freshman now rents both properties, while she lives in Simmons Hall, an undergraduate dorm at MIT.

TUTOR ON THE SET

McClellan says it takes about three 12-hour days to shoot a television ad. Often she had a tutor on the set.

“In the acting world, a lot of people I know dropped out of school. I’m just the other extreme. Education is my number one passion,” says this young woman, who plans to major in civil and environmental engineering at MIT and hopes to one day become a structural engineer. She dreams about building Olympic stadiums and high-rise towers in Beijing, Tokyo, and Dubai.

“I’ve always wanted to act in a movie. Right now, my life at MIT is so busy, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen anytime soon, but I’m taking an acting class at MIT just to stay in practice.”

She adds that she recently entered a fertile period for acting. “Under age 16, you do the toy ads. But once you’re over age 18, you can begin to play the university girls or do the ads for shampoos and cosmetics.

“Actually, I’ve never wanted to be an actress as my primary career. I always wanted it to be a side job,” she says, adding that she hopes that her career as a structural engineer will help her to bridge the gap between art and science. “I’d like to prove that you can not only be brainy but you can also have an artistic career.”

Mark Gorenberg makes a major gift to MIT. Photo by Marc Longwood

Mark Gorenberg grew up fascinated by technology.

At 14, he landed a position at the phone company, solving computer problems for the employees. “That’s when I really got the bug,” he says.

Gorenberg earned an MIT degree in electrical engineering in 1976, followed by a master’s from the University of Minnesota in 1979. After a stint at Boeing Computer Systems in Seattle, he headed for Stanford University, where he earned a master’s in engineering management in 1984. Eighteen years ago, he joined Hummer Winblad of San Francisco, the first venture capital firm to solely invest in software, where he is now a managing director.

Recently, Gorenberg, a longtime MIT volunteer, made a major gift to the Institute to support the Deshpande Center, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the Kennedy Scholars Program. The Deshpande Center helps make it possible for MIT faculty and students to bring innovative ideas to the marketplace.

“This is a unique center for entrepreneurship at MIT and for the world,” Gorenberg says. “It’s one of the best centers to convert research into commercial ventures. It is truly MIT moving forward its own technology.”

The McGovern Institute for Brain Research, launched in 2000 with a generous gift from Pat ‘59 and Lore McGovern, is committed to using neuroscience to help people with brain disorders and to ultimately benefit humankind by improving human communication and understanding.

“Understanding the brain is one of the most important scientific efforts for the 21st century,” says Gorenberg, a member of the McGovern leadership board, who is thankful to the McGoverns for starting the Center and whose wish is that others will also support it. “My hope is that long-term we can corral these debilitating brain disorders that many people suffer with today.”

The Kennedy Scholars Program, which supports British graduate students to study at Harvard and MIT, began in the United Kingdom 42 years ago to honor the memory of President John F. Kennedy. Since 1966, more than 400 students have received the scholarship, 93 attending MIT.

“My long-term hope is that others will join to expand this extremely successful program,” Gorenberg says. “The scholar’s program has done phenomenal work to bridge the U.S. and the U.K., and it’s a great way to help build the global economy.

“MIT had a huge influence on my life and my career. I felt that MIT deserved for me to return the gift.”

Susan Hockfield

A scholarship offers financial assistance that helps the best and the brightest students not only access a superior education but also fulfill their dreams.

And MIT students have big dreams.

Our students may one day protect the planet, find cures for diseases, explore the universe, and become educators, politicians, business leaders, computer experts, and designers of buildings around the world.

While coming from an amazing mix of economic, social, and geographic backgrounds, our students share intelligence, energy, ideas, and the highest standards. No matter what subjects they choose to study at MIT, their common goal is to be the best. A scholarship makes it possible for students to realize this goal.

MIT’s commitment to a need-blind admissions policy began in 1969, which includes a commitment that all students admitted to MIT will have the financial support they need. This makes it possible for the Institute to admit students based completely on merit without consideration of their ability to afford an MIT education.

Our need-blind admissions policy fosters an environment of academic excellence by rewarding students for their hard work and personal achievements. This policy affirms our commitment to MIT’s meritocracy by giving bright students from modest backgrounds the ability to study at a world-class institution. The role of financial assistance is vital, as the cost of an MIT education at the frontiers of knowledge continues to rise.

In return for a chance to study on this amazing campus, we ask outstanding students to become our partners. Their families contribute a reasonable portion of the costs based on their income and assets, and our students contribute through summer earnings, jobs during the school year, and modest loans. MIT offers the rest as a scholarship.

This year, 59 percent of all MIT undergraduates receive scholarships from MIT, averaging $25,200 a year. Seventy-six percent of all aid dollars for MIT undergraduates comes from the Institute, 15 percent comes from the federal government, and 9 percent comes from private sources. In all, MIT will contribute $67.5 million for undergraduate scholarships this year.

Our financial aid costs are extremely high, but MIT has committed unwaveringly to providing need-blind admissions and need-based aid because students in all financial circumstances have the brainpower, imagination, energy, and drive to succeed at MIT and use their education to serve the world.

MIT students know that they have the knowledge to translate what they learn into solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and MIT inspires them to invent, create, and explore. Our stellar students are drawn to MIT by their passion for action.

Undergraduates enter MIT with energy, vigor, intelligence, and talent, and there is no limit to what they can accomplish when they graduate. Our students have an ability to take action, along with a driving desire to change the world. All of the young people featured on these pages are making a difference in the world, but without financial aid, none of them would be at MIT. A scholarship for a student with great potential is an investment in the future, one that will bring immeasurable returns for all of us.

Susan Hockfield

It is a chance to learn and explore.

It can lead you on an amazing journey.

And it can help transform not only your life but the lives of others around the globe.

A scholarship makes it possible for a student to realize their dreams — whether it’s finding the cures for disease, helping to revitalize the economy, becoming a leader of business or government, or exploring the world beyond the earth. And yet, many MIT students do not wait until they graduate to make a difference in the world. Many are changing society while they still are students.

For example, Alia Whitney-Johnson — who receives one of the James E. Cunningham Memorial Scholarships — recently helped transform the lives of a group of young girls in Sri Lanka who had become mothers as a result of rape or incest. She taught the girls the craft of jewelry-making as a way to promote joy and self-worth. Next, she launched Emerge, a non-profit organization that sells their creations at craft fairs in the U.S., then invests the profits so the girls will have money. Now, she is working to create for them a learning and leadership community where they will have a safe place to live, an education program, and vocational training.

The students featured on these pages say they feel amazingly lucky, because without financial assistance, they wouldn’t be at MIT at all.

Nicole Koulisis says that if it weren’t for a scholarship, “I would be studying at a state school. Instead, I am at MIT — the hub of the intellectual world.

“… MIT welcomes people with dreams, and by offering financial help, allows them to make their dreams come true. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not astounded that I’m here. Being at MIT has taught me that every moment is a moment to give back to the world.”

Froylan Sifuentes feels compelled to improve the environment. Photo: Len Rubenstein

Froylan Sifuentes was raised in Huejutla, Mexico, a region suffering from lack of water.

“I can no longer go swimming as I once did, because the rivers are drying up. We have to buy water by the truckload, which is expensive — and the water is dirty. You can’t drink it. You have to treat it before cooking. Even the water we wash with is brown.”

Not only does the region have little water, but there are few trees, too. “The wood is just disappearing because of population growth and unplanned growth of the city. Also, people burn the wood for cooking or sell it to make money,” says Sifuentes, who is compelled to improve the environment and one day plans to produce alternative fuels that do not produce CO₂. “We’re destroying the life-supporting systems of our planet, and keep saying, ‘It’ll get better.’ How?”

Recently, the 21-year-old junior got a fellowship from MIT’s Public Service Center (PSC) to travel for three months to Tecpaco, Mexico. There, he implemented a reforestation and tree nursery plan that he hopes will lead to improved environmental sustainability and access to clean water.

Earlier, he and a classmate got another PSC grant to increase access to clean water in the Amazon rainforest town of Santa Ana in Ecuador, where the most serious health problem is lack of safe drinking water. There they helped the community build a five-meter dam, and trained community members to care for the water system.

“Without the dam, you can’t get water, not even dirty water,” says Sifuentes, who also led community meetings and wrote health booklets that were sent to each family. Now that a filtered water connection for the chlorinator is installed, the water flows from the reservoir into each family’s home.

This year, his latest effort is to create awareness of climate change on campus to motivate students to act. The idea is to focus the growing concern in the country about global warming and to create a national discussion about clean energy solutions, connecting students and citizens with political leaders.

Sifuentes, who is a Eugene and Margaret McDermott Scholar, says: “When I got into MIT, my mother said, ‘Don’t get too excited. If you don’t get financial aid, you can’t go.’

“I could never repay the McDermott family,” he says. “The only way I can begin to repay them is to get the most out of MIT and do good for society.

“With privilege comes responsibility,” he says. “It is completely my responsibility to extend my hand to other people.

“There are many people who don’t have the chance to continue with their education or go to MIT. I am lucky, but what about them?”