News

The MIT Bike Lab: A place for community, hands-on learning

May 15, 2024

Bianca Champenois SM ’22 learned to ride a bike when she was 5 years old. She can still hear her sister yelling “equal elbows!” as she pushed her off into the street. Although she started young, her love of bikes really materialized when she was in college. Champenois studied mechanical engineering (MechE) at the University […]

Robotic “SuperLimbs” could help moonwalkers recover from falls

May 15, 2024

Need a moment of levity? Try watching videos of astronauts falling on the moon. NASA’s outtakes of Apollo astronauts tripping and stumbling as they bounce in slow motion are delightfully relatable. For MIT engineers, the lunar bloopers also highlight an opportunity to innovate. “Astronauts are physically very capable, but they can struggle on the moon, […]

3 Questions: Technology roadmapping in teaching and industry

May 14, 2024

Innovation is rarely accidental. Behind every new invention and product, including the device you are using to read this story, is years of research, investment, and planning. Organizations that want to reach these milestones in the fastest and most efficient way possible use technology roadmaps.   Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and […]

Five MIT faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences for 2024

May 14, 2024

The National Academy of Sciences has elected 120 members and 24 international members, including five faculty members from MIT. Guoping Feng, Piotr Indyk, Daniel J. Kleitman, Daniela Rus, and Senthil Todadri were elected in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Membership to the National Academy of Sciences is one of the […]

Professor Emeritus Jerome Connor, pioneer in structural mechanics, dies at 91

May 14, 2024

Jerome J. Connor ’53, SM ’54, ScD ’59, professor emeritus in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a member of the MIT faculty since 1959, died on March 31. He was 91 years old. Over a remarkable career spanning nearly six decades at the Institute, Connor was a prolific scholar and highly respected […]

MIT’s Master of Applied Science in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy program adds a public policy track

May 14, 2024

MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Department of Economics have announced an expansion of their jointly administered Master of Applied Science in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP) program. This expansion adds a new public policy track to complement the existing international development track, opening up new avenues for student learning […]

Four from MIT named 2024 Knight-Hennessy Scholars

May 13, 2024

MIT senior Owen Dugan, graduate student Vittorio Colicci ’22, predoctoral research fellow Carine You ’22, and recent alumna Carina Letong Hong ’22 are recipients of this year’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarships. The competitive fellowship, now in its seventh year, funds up to three years of graduate studies in any field at Stanford University. To date, 22 MIT […]

The power of App Inventor: Democratizing possibilities for mobile applications

May 10, 2024

In June 2007, Apple unveiled the first iPhone. But the company made a strategic decision about iPhone software: its new App Store would be a walled garden. An iPhone user wouldn’t be able to install applications that Apple itself hadn’t vetted, at least not without breaking Apple’s terms of service. That business decision, however, left […]

From steel engineering to ovarian tumor research

May 10, 2024

Ashutosh Kumar is a classically trained materials engineer. Having grown up with a passion for making things, he has explored steel design and studied stress fractures in alloys. Throughout Kumar’s education, however, he was also drawn to biology and medicine. When he was accepted into an undergraduate metallurgical engineering and materials science program at Indian […]

Professor Emeritus David Lanning, nuclear engineer and key contributor to the MIT Reactor, dies at 96

May 9, 2024

David Lanning, MIT professor emeritus of nuclear science and engineering and a key contributor to the MIT Reactor project, passed away on April 26 at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, at the age of 96. Born in Baker, Oregon, on March 30, 1928, Lanning graduated in 1951 from the University of Oregon with a […]