MIT Spectrum

Winter 2019

For undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members, the financial support that provides entrance to MIT, or to a new avenue in their work, can be life-changing. Scholarships, fellowships, and professorships unlock one door to reveal many more.

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Stephen Berenson '82 (left) and Matisse Peppet. Photo: M. Scott Brauer

To Be Continued

Each MIT story is different—but those who give and receive scholarships share a sense of the possibilities

MIT Reshapes Itself to Shape the Future

The MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing

Left: Genia with Acoustic Tipi (2018). Photo: Nicolás Kisic Aguirre; Top Right: A glazed clay vessel made by Genia in 2016, inspired by Standing Rock’s Sacred Stone Camp, depicts the spirit of a water protector. Photo: courtesy of the artist; Bottom Right: Eclipse (2017), Genia’s expression of the morning star created with a CNC cutting machine for the class How to Make (Almost) Anything. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Transforming Traditions

Erin Genia infuses new technologies into the techniques of indigenous art

Ranganathan spent a week in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, in 2016 as an undergraduate studying environmental science. Photo: Courtesy of Meghana Ranganathan

Tuning the Model

Meghana Ranganathan uses math and machine learning to improve how climate predictions are made

Latest stories

Photo of MIT President L. Rafael Reif

President’s Letter: Supporting Smartness

Clean Start

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Popular stories

García-Abril and his partner, Débora Mesa (pictured far left), live with their children in Brookline, Massachusetts, in a prefabricated home of their own design. Photo: Artemio Fochs Navarro

Stones and Beams

Ensamble Studio’s Antón García-Abril challenges basic notions about how (and where) buildings can be made

Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity

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Discovery Science

An artist’s illustration of the possible surface appearances of some of the Earth-size planets of TRAPPIST-1, based on properties calculated as of February 2018. IMAGE: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, T. Pyle (IPAC)

Like This World of Ours

An MIT science writer traces the hunt for extrasolar planets

Julien de Wit. Photo: David Silverman

The Search Continues

TRAPPIST team member joins MIT faculty

In the 1960s, MIT professor Marvin Minsky and his group created this arm as part of their early machine vision research, which stimulated Minsky’s famous “Society of the Mind” theory of AI. Photo: MIT Museum collections

A Vision for Human and Machine Intelligence

Advancing the science and engineering of intelligence for the benefit of society

On view through December 31, 2018, at the MIT Museum, The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal juxtaposes drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience with a collection of contemporary brain imagery, such as this one from a 3-D interactive visualization by researchers from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the MIT Media Lab’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group.

Why the Focus on Human Intelligence?

MIT’s head of brain and cognitive sciences explains the neuroscience/AI connection

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Health of the Planet

Patrick White (photographed in the Plasma Science and Fusion Center) is focused on the policy questions that will arise from the new SPARC technology. Photo: Bryce Vickmark

Looking Forward to Fusion

Technical policy scholar Patrick White joins the SPARC project to ask: what comes after success?

Wood was a panelist at 2017 (pictured) and 2018 MIT Media Lab events titled “Beyond the Cradle: Envisioning a New Space Age.” Photo: David Silverman

Down to Earth

How can technologies invented for space advance sustainable development goals?

Leila Pirhaji PhD ’16 spoke at the MIT Intelligence Quest launch about her startup, ReviveMed, which uses AI technology developed at MIT to leverage data from metabolomics (the study of small molecules) to expedite drug discovery. Pirhaji created the company with support from MIT programs including delta v, iTeams, StartMIT, StartIAP, the $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, and the Sandbox Innovation Fund. Photo: Gretchen Ertl.

Implications, Discoveries, Applications

A sampling of MIT research underway in the realm of human and machine intelligence

Heidi Nepf, left, and Judy Qingjun Yang SM ’15. Photo: Sarah Bastille

Shore Lines

The Nepf lab is helping to restore wetlands by modeling how and why they are so beneficial

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Human Health

Urgent Care

Ari Bronsoler’s economic analysis helps to identify best practices in a struggling health system

Stefani Spranger. Photo: Ken Richardson

A Wide Net to Trap Cancer

Stefani Spranger is exploring multiple avenues for the next immunotherapy breakthrough

Ronit Langer ’20, left, and Dorothy Szymkiewicz ’20 are part of NEET’s first Living Machines cohort. Photo: Ken Richardson

Following the Thread

Three years of project work yield NEET students an experimental model of the human gut—and preparation for their postgraduation goals

A view over Kendall Square and the Charles River, toward Boston (2011). Photo: Les Vants

Founders Forward

What’s driving the new generation of biotech spinouts in Kendall Square?

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Adjacent to the new MIT Museum and graduate residence, as shown in this artist's rendering, open spaces for gathering will be programmed by MIT and open to all. Image: byencore

Welcome to Kendall Square

The flourishing innovation district takes its place as a destination and a gateway

The fabled F&T Restaurant—which attracted a diverse mix of Cambridge locals and MIT students and faculty—was a Kendall Square landmark from the 1920s to the 1980s, when it was demolished. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Kendall’s Key Ingredient

Throughout their time at MIT, students are encouraged to team up and pursue innovative ideas. Jessica Shi ’17 (left) and Charlene Xia ’17 work during their senior year on a prototype for Tactile, a portable realtime text-to-Braille converter. With four fellow cofounders from the Class of 2017, they are now beta testing their device in Boston. Photo: Lillie Paquette/School of Engineering

Running Start

Students who hatch their companies at MIT are well-positioned for impact

The leaders of MIT’s new Task Force on the Work of the Future, from left: David Mindell, Elisabeth Reynolds, and David Autor. Photo: Melanie Gonick.

Automation and the Future of Work

An Institute-wide task force examines how innovation is reshaping the job market

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Teaching Learning and Living

Classes began in the new Chemistry Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories in the MIT.nano building this past fall. Photo: Ken Richardson

Do It Yourself

By recreating a chemistry professor’s research, students build the foundations for future discoveries

Students participate in a URIECA class

Why New Undergraduate Chemistry Labs?

Leading to Green

More efficient or more sustainable? Janelle Heslop helps businesses achieve both

A 1948 illustration by György Kepes of the Department of Architecture’s curriculum. Image: Courtesy of MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections

Turning Points: 150 Years of Architecture at MIT

Celebrating the oldest architectural course of study in the United States

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