Using the latest technologies currently available, it takes over 25,000 tons of rocket hardware and propellant to land 50 tons of anything on the planet Mars. So, for NASA’s first crewed mission to Mars, it will be critical to learn how to harvest the red planet’s local resources in order to “live off the land” […]
It is summertime once again, which means that many of us will find ourselves with new opportunities to dive into books. The following titles represent a selection of offerings published in the past year from MIT faculty and staff. Links are provided to each book from its publisher, and the MIT Libraries has compiled a […]
Five current graduate students and recent alumni have been awarded 2022 Hertz Fellowships in applied science, engineering, and mathematics. They are among 13 doctoral-level scholars chosen by the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation who demonstrate “deep, interconnecting knowledge and the extraordinary creativity to tackle problems that others can’t solve,” according to the foundation’s announcement. This […]
Norman Magnuson’s MIT career — culminating in his role as manager of grounds services in the Department of Facilities for the past 20 years — started in 1974 with a summer job. Fresh out of high school and unsure of his next step, Magnuson’s father, Norman Sr., a housing manager at MIT, encouraged him to […]
This July 4 marks 10 years since the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought particle that imparts mass to all elementary particles. The elusive particle was the last missing piece in the Standard Model of particle physics, which is our most complete model of the universe. In early summer of 2012, signs of the […]
Kerry Emanuel once joked that whenever he retired, he would start a “hurricane safari” so other people could experience what it’s like to fly into the eye of a hurricane. “All of a sudden, the turbulence stops, the sun comes out, bright sunshine, and it’s amazingly calm. And you’re in this grand stadium [of clouds […]
Members of the public sector, private sector, and academia convened for the second AI Policy Forum Symposium last month to explore critical directions and questions posed by artificial intelligence in our economies and societies. The virtual event, hosted by the AI Policy Forum (AIPF) — an undertaking by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing to […]
After 13 years as director of the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, Ed Boyle, professor of ocean geochemistry in the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), is stepping down at the end of June. Professor Mick Follows, who holds joint appointments in EAPS and […]
Chelsi Cocking is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the human body with the help of computers. For her work, she develops sophisticated software to use as her artistic tools, including facial detection techniques, body tracking software, and machine learning algorithms. Cocking’s interest in the human body stems from her childhood training in modern dance. Growing […]
For Erin Walk, who has loved school since she was a little girl, pursuing a graduate degree always seemed like a given. As a mechanical engineering major at Harvard University with a minor in government, she figured that going to graduate school in engineering would be the next logical step. However, during her senior year, […]
