Drawn to open-ended problems

Vilhelm Lee Andersen Woltz, who goes by Billy, sits by the outdoor track at MIT on a New England fall day. It’s cold, gray, and misty, but it’s nothing compared to the weather during his most cherished personal cross country memory last year.

“The weather was terrible. It was pouring rain and with massive puddles. My heels were numb by the end of the race,” he recalls. The plan was to start out slow then speed up and obliterate the other team. Once Woltz came down a hill, he saw that the field to the finish line was one massive puddle. 

“I couldn’t see the ground or any rocks and was so worried about falling,” he laughs. “I had put in all this work. Like, if I fall now, then first of all, I’d lose the race, so that would suck. But I would also just be cold.” But he plunged in and placed first. 

Woltz, an MIT senior majoring in physics and in electrical engineering and computer science, is a distance runner for the Institute’s varsity track and cross country team. He dedicates at least 20 hours a week to the sport, and he can recall all of his meets in college.

Woltz takes an analytical approach to his running: “I think, ‘I want to win this race, what do I need to do to get there?’ It’s kind of like an open-ended problem and involves research and conducting my own experiments. I really like that kind of tinkering approach to my training,” he says.

Drawn to open-ended scientific questions as well, Woltz works in the lab of Professor William Oliver in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, on research to advance the cutting-edge field of quantum computing. In principle, ultrapowerful quantum computers could solve problems that are intractably complex for classical computers, but the field is still in very early stages.

When he took his first class on the subject, he was fascinated by the theory but skeptical about whether quantum computing could work on a large scale. But then he took Oliver’s graduate applied physics class, and that sucked him in.

“I was convinced,” he says. “I thought, okay, this might work. And I knew I wanted to work on it.”

Science, not football

Even though physics wasn’t offered at his high school in Logan, Ohio, a tiny town in the southeastern part of the state, Woltz always knew he wanted to do something related to science. 

“My grandma was fond of reminding me that when she would ask me what I wanted to be when I was older, I’d say ‘a scientist.’ And she was like, ‘That’s not what little kids say. Why not a professional football player?’” he says. 

Woltz, whose parents were both helicopter pilots in the U.S. Army, went to the same high school his father went to 30 years ago, which is the same school his grandmother went to 30 years before that. Logan is a football town — kids grow up dreaming of being professional football players, Woltz says. The town has a population of around 7,000, and about 25 percent of his graduating class went to college. 

Woltz’s background has given him a clear-eyed view of what public education is like for many in America. He grew up on a 64-acre farm and before going to school, he would wake up early to go break the ice that had frozen over the horses’ drinking water during the night. He lived far from the town and only had limited options for internet — none of which had high-speed internet that could handle online gaming or even streaming movies. 

Bringing coding to rural schools

Even though he now studies computer science, Woltz didn’t learn any computer programing before college. It wasn’t offered at his high school, so he asked a friend to show him the ropes when he came to MIT. 

“Computer programming should be a basic skill for the American population. It’s so useful,” he says. “To not cover it at all, that seems outdated.”

Because he did not have the chance to learn programming in Logan, he wanted to create that opportunity for people in his hometown. After his sophomore year at MIT, Woltz decided to start a one-week summer camp for kids in Logan and the surrounding areas to learn how to program. His old high school gave him a classroom, and the first year 15 students joined the free program. By the end of the week, the students were able to program their own tic-tac-toe game using Python. 

After that pilot year, the program grew. This past summer, he taught four courses with increasing difficulty levels. He also got in touch with Fugees Family, a nonprofit organization devoted to working with child survivors of war, and he taught 25 middle-school-age refugees from Syria, Bengal, and Bosnia, in Columbus, Ohio.

In total, Woltz taught close to 70 students and hopes to keep the program growing. He wants to teach the teachers computer programming so it can be sustainable and implemented across the school system. 

After he graduates, he wants to get a PhD in Physics and continue working on quantum technologies. He’s currently in the process of obtaining a scuba diving license.

“I like going to places where humans don’t belong but where we build technology that lets us go there,” he says. “I’m just curious. I like to explore and figure out what is going on in the world around me, which is probably why I’m so interested in physics and science.”

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Homegrown help: Seeding a culture of innovation in Nigeria

Nigeria may not be known as a global hub for innovation, but officials there hope someday it will be. And they’ve recruited MIT Professional Education to help jump-start the process.

In September, more than 80 top federal civil service officials from across ministries, departments and government agencies in Nigeria gathered in the capital city of Abuja to attend Radical Innovation, a two-day intensive training course taught by Sanjay Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering and vice president of open learning at MIT.

From shareholders to stakeholders

Sarma has taught tailored versions of the Radical Innovation course nearly two dozen times all over the world, but his participants are typically corporate professionals. This was one of the few times he spoke to an audience of career civil servants. 

“These are people struggling with issues such as road construction, fisheries, and environmental impact — all in the same room,” says Sarma. “It actually brought me back to my own roots. My father was a civil servant in India. So, I was already familiar with some of the unique challenges civil servants face, having grown up in a developing country.”

Participants came to learn how the government can leverage innovation to deliver services more effectively to the public and promote economic diversity. According to Sarma, there was a universal openness to new ideas and willingness to embrace change. Everyone was looking to start some type of innovation, such as how data could be used to improve fisheries.   

“I was struck by how caring and open-minded these civil servants were. They were globally-minded, well-educated, and diverse as well. In fact, more than half of the enrollees were women, which I thought was remarkable,” says Sarma. What’s more, two of those women are mothers of students who are currently attending MIT. But the MIT connections don’t end there.

Ties that bind

The seed for bringing Radical Innovation to Africa was planted in 2012 when Gideon Adogbo, a civil servant, enrolled in Sarma’s Radical Innovation course on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This course is part of the Innovation and Technology Professional Certificate offered through MIT Professional Education, and Adogbo was among the first cohort of participants who received the certificate. Since then, he has taken numerous courses, such as Applied Cybersecurity and Additive Manufacturing: From 3D Printing to the Factory Floor, but Radical Innovation stood out for him. Adogbo became determined to bring the course to Nigeria. 

Adogbo is the special assistant (technical) to the head of the Civil Service of the Federation in Nigeria. Several years ago, government leaders there launched an ambitious initiative to boost innovation in technology and accelerate entrepreneurship. A key priority of the 2017-20 Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan was to drive innovation in service. To help realize that goal, Adogbo recommended the federal government seek the assistance of MIT Professional Education. The Nigerian Office of the President soon reached out — and, in keeping with MIT’s mission to advance knowledge that will best serve the world in the 21st century, Sarma and Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education, agreed to step in and help. 

“Nigeria, among the larger nations in Africa, is developing rapidly, and the federal government there is determined to break out of old bureaucratic ways. It wants to modernize and enable greater transparency and entrepreneurship within the country, to ultimately serve as a shining example of success for the rest of Africa. We feel honored to have been chosen to spur new innovative thinking among those in the country responsible to bring about change, via Sanjay Sarma’s globally popular MIT Professional Education course on innovation,” says Pant.

“This is indeed a time of change. Innovation is happening worldwide, and that creates both opportunities and challenges for governments and private companies alike,” says Sarma. “It makes sense that Nigeria would start with innovation training for civil servants. In my view, they are the unheralded champions of all the systems that make a country work. And I hope the knowledge we shared will help them succeed.”

A bright future ahead

It doesn’t end here. Pant says his unit hopes to engage with other governments and the private sector in Africa to help develop similar programs that promote innovative thinking and practices.

“I was born in southern Africa, so I have a particular affinity to help bring the best of MIT to Africa. With this first-ever MIT Professional Education course delivered in Africa, we have made a great beginning. Spreading knowledge for the greater good is at the heart of what MIT represents,” says Pant.

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Symposium explores challenges of adapting to climate change

In the second of six symposia on climate change to be held this academic year, seven experts from around the country tackled the topic of “challenges of climate policy.” The Oct. 29 event included three panel discussions held at MIT’s Wong Auditorium.

Moderated by Richard Schmallensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management and professor of economics emeritus at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the panelists discussed the social impacts caused by climate change; the kinds of adaptations that might help people cope with these impacts and limit their economic and physical harm; and possible solutions to the political, economic, and social factors affecting the world’s responses to this pressing issue.

Global climate change will have “huge impacts that will affect every sector” of society, and “its costs will be extremely high,” said Susanne Moser, a specialist in adaptation to climate change and director of Susanne Moser Research and Consulting. Although there are still uncertainties about the rate and extent of climate change, she said, “uncertainty is a reason to act, not to wait.”

Compared to the responses that experts say are required to forestall the worst effects of climate change, efforts around the world still fall far short, Moser said: “Most responses are just reactive. There’s no unifying vision, there’s no agreement on social equity priorities, and there is a surprising lack of urgency,” she said.

Even most universities, she noted, do not yet have clear and easy ways to find information on their efforts toward adaptation to climate change, or programs for students to specialize in that field. “You can barely find it on their websites,” she said.

Some people fear that an emphasis on adaptation could make people complacent because they see less need to to reduce greenhouse gases if plans are underway to adapt to a changed climate. But Moser disputed that claim. “We’ve studied that” and found the reverse to be true, she said. When people see just how difficult and expensive the processes of adaptation are, compared to measures to reduce emissions, “they realize reduction [of emissions] is a bargain,” and their motivation to deal with that issue actually increases.

Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, urged listeners: “Let’s get serious about climate change adaptation, as if our lives depended on it. Which it may.” He said people need to start looking seriously at ways to respond to five different key areas of global change: higher temperatures, rising seas, stronger storms, shifting rainfall patterns, and acidification of the oceans.

The impacts are likely to be extreme, he said. Just adapting to the changes directly affecting coastal cities could cost upward of a trillion dollars a year, he said. And yet, when governments and agencies allocate resources to dealing with climate change, so far only about 10 percent of that money goes toward adaptation, versus 90 percent toward mitigation, or efforts to slow or reverse the release of climate altering emissions. Both are crucial, he said, but adaptation should not be ignored since even with aggressive mitigation policies, a significant amount of climate change is already unavoidable.

“Adaptation is a moral imperative,” he said, and also “an ecological imperative, and a massive economic imperative.”

Adaptation need not be as expensive as people think, Steer added. Many of the measures that are needed to adapt to a warming world also have other benefits, he pointed out. As an example, drip irrigation was invented as a way to deal with drought conditions, but it is also an inherently more efficient system, greatly reducing the amount of water needed for crops and the need for power to operate pumps. That greater efficiency for farmers can lower their costs, and thus make food less expensive. “Done right, adaptation can have all kinds of dynamic benefits,” he said.

Much more research is needed to quantify the expected effects of a warming planet, said Max Auffhammer, a professor of international sustainable development at the University of California at Berkeley. To study and quantify the economic harm done by 1 ton of carbon dioxide (roughly the amount emitted by driving a car from Cambridge to Berkeley, he said) is a very difficult task. The best existing estimates were made back in the 1990s, and much has been learned since then. Models need to encompass global coverage, establish causal connections, and anticipate significant technological changes. Imagine, he said, trying to predict in the late 1800s the energy that would be used for cooling houses today.

Whereas some might say “we got this” in terms of the scientific answers about the effects of climate change, he said, “We don’t got this. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Kathleen Hicks, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the U.S. military forces, unlike many politicians, understand the problem of climate change and take it seriously. Partly that’s because it’s in their nature to always be assessing potential risks and planning how to respond to them, and they are highly trained in how to do so. In addition, they are already feeling the effects directly, with even inland bases such as one in Nebraska affected by severe flooding, likely exacerbated by climate change.

“Climate is a national security concern that is not debated in the security community,” she said.

But public opinion has also come a long way over the last several years, said Steven Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University. “The American public accepts that climate change is coming and is a concern,” he said, but “a majority also feel it’s distant,” with consequences beyond their lifetimes, whereas scientists studying the problem say its damaging effects are already being seen clearly in many parts of the world today. This discrepancy “is the heart of the problem, and it has implications for any policy we take,” he said.

But Ansolabehere said that there are already interesting differences in the responses of younger people compared to their elders. The difference in the degree of urgency seen in the issue of climate change between younger (“millennial”) Republicans and “boomer” generation Republicans is just as big as the difference between Democrats and Republicans overall, he said. And, he said, linking policies to tackle climate change to other benefits such as clear air and clean water — for example through the closing of coal-fired power plants — is a more effective strategy for gaining support than just emphasizing the climate benefits.

Henry Jacoby, the William F. Pounds Professor of Management Emeritus at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, said that the issue of climate change reflects the well-known “commons problem,” where a few bad actors can undermine a large group’s mutual dependence on common resources. He compared it to a shared refrigerator in a dorm, where there is little control over someone making off with someone else’s stored drink. Similarly, nations will almost always end up acting in their own self interest rather than for a more abstract common good.

The way nations deal with that is through international agreements and treaties, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. But that agreement is entirely voluntary, consisting of individual national pledges without any mechanism for enforcement. Just as with the dorm fridge, there’s no police officer to call about an infraction.

By 2030, projections show that about three-quarters of all greenhouse emissions will be coming from developing countries — the places that can least afford to spend money to address the problem. “There’s going to have to be some financial transfer” from the wealthier countries to help those developing countries reduce their emissions, Jacoby said.

Leah Stokes PhD ’15, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said that the three decades of climate denial efforts by major fossil fuel companies “has been extremely influential,” and will require significant efforts to reverse. But she also noted several reasons to expect that these attitudes are changing.

For one, the raging wildfires in California and other places provide a vivid reminder that a significant increase in such fires is one of the expected effects of a warmer planet with more frequent and deeper droughts. In addition, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report set a target of 2030 by which the world must significantly reduce emissions. That short timeline means that “it’s suddenly not about the distant future,” but a time when most people still expect to be alive, she said, making the problem seem much more urgent. And increasing public actions, such as the recent Climate Strike initiated by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, have also raised the public awareness of the issue’s seriousness.

Stokes pointed to significant areas of progress, such as the rapid growth of solar and wind power and electric vehicles, and state and local regulations that have continued to push for progress even as federal regulations have been cut back. But to continue this progress will require much more. “We must have solutions at the scale of the crisis,” she said. One approach that could help is to emphasize the potential for new, well-paying jobs in the renewable energy field. “It can’t just be about sticks,” she said, adding that there needs to be tangible carrots as well.

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Letter from President Reif: Learning from our community

The following email was sent today to the MIT community by President L. Rafael Reif.

To the members of the MIT community,

Over the past two months, in large public forums, in smaller private meetings and through hundreds of emails and comment cards, I have heard the unfiltered views of many students, staff, post-docs, faculty, trustees, parents and alumni.

Some of this feedback has been very difficult to hear – difficult, but necessary. Much of it must have taken great courage to deliver. All of it has been illuminating and helpful.

I will never forget the voices of students, staff and faculty who spoke about the painful impact on our community of MIT’s engagement with Epstein, including the intense effects on survivors of sexual assault. (If you would benefit from MIT’s resources for survivors, you can find them here.)

This MIT News story offers an update on steps directly related to the Epstein issue.

More broadly, many have also highlighted – with searing clarity – misalignments and fractures that go to the very foundation of our community and that demand our shared attention.

I have learned much more than I could convey here. But several themes stand out.

Disrespect for women

Since September, I have heard from or met with more than a third of MIT’s 265 women faculty. Many shared troubling accounts of persistent inequities for women at MIT, from belittlement to marginalization, experiences that echo the National Academies’ landmark report on how gender harassment harms women’s wellbeing and their careers.

Other recent evidence – including powerful personal statements at the student forum – only magnifies these concerns. For example, the AAU campus climate survey indicates that at MIT, of the 2,035 female students who completed the survey, 189 experienced sexual harassment severe enough that it “interfered with [their] academic or professional performance.” And 211 female MIT graduate students responding to the survey reported experiencing harassing behavior from a member of our faculty or other instructional staff. For 65 of them, the harassment came from their advisor.  

My recent conversations have centered on the treatment of women. Yet we also know, with extensive evidence, that other groups at MIT, from people of color to members of our LGBTQ community, confront similar obstacles and harms that also demand our empathy and attention.

When ­– on top of the hard work they came here to do – many in our community contend with disrespect, exclusion, stereotyping, harassment and a structural lack of representation, it is clear we still have a long way to go to achieve our ideal of “One MIT.”

Disrespect for staff

This section centers on staff, and its content is vital for those of us on the faculty.

At MIT, speaking freely on important subjects is a crucial way we get closer to the truth and make each other smarter and wiser. So it was sobering, at our forum for administrative and support staff, to hear so many members of our community report that they or their colleagues were afraid to speak – afraid in that setting, and afraid in their daily work.

Speaker after speaker expressed a profound sense that as staff at MIT, they feel invisible, dispensable, isolated and last in line. They feel their work is not valued, their judgment discounted or ignored. Many spoke about the challenges of working under sharp imbalances of power, especially with senior faculty. Some described their powerlessness to stop harsh, bullying or abusive behavior from faculty stars, both men and women. Others expressed admiration for whistleblowers in the Epstein case, former staff members who courageously spoke up.

In a separate forum for post-docs and research staff, they raised many of the same themes, especially around invisibility and imbalances of power. They also expressed feelings of isolation and their lack of any unifying home at MIT.

It was dismaying to hear of these ways that we do not treat each other as we should. We need to come together, attend to this frustration and pain, and optimize MIT so everyone here can feel respected, feel supported and thrive.

Charting a path forward

This is a time for confronting difficult truths. Yet, within these intense individual responses, I also heard passionate commitments to our community and many compelling ideas to create a better MIT – especially the need to include a much wider range of student, staff and faculty voices, and to increase transparency and accountability.

I have also heard very clearly that cultural change needs to be championed and supported by those in leadership, but that it cannot be dictated; to succeed, it requires that units across MIT define their own specific priorities and solutions. And there must be room for initiative, ideas, engagement and energy from the whole community.

A number of people have expressed the sense that MIT also needs to pause, to reconsider its values, its goals and its role in the world, and to correct any misalignment.

This moment presents an opportunity. It is a profound collective assignment.

As a start, I have asked MIT’s senior leaders to create a “library” of the most promising current efforts to improve our community climate and culture. We want to hear directly from you: If your school, department, lab, center, institute, office, sports team, residence hall, alumni group or any other unit has ideas you have not already shared that could inspire others, please let us know.

With help from experts inside and outside the Institute, we are also exploring how to engage the community to design a process for examining values and culture that is tuned for the people of MIT; we will keep you updated on progress. During this early research phase, if you have ideas for how we should structure it, or for topics and exercises it should include, please let us know that too. I am certain that the wisdom of our community will soon crystallize into the plan we need.

***

We all know that discrimination, marginalization and power imbalances exist throughout society and are rampant in academia and in tech. But that is no defense, and in fact at MIT we have never settled for being like others. We are leaders, charged with educating the next generation of leaders. If we expect our students to invent a better future, then we must focus deliberately together on ways to improve the present at MIT.

Fortunately, we are a community of thinkers and builders. We can examine these fractures together, reaffirm the best of our shared MIT values and rebuild with greater strength to make a better MIT. We need to work to get it right; persevering together through difficulty is something we understand at MIT.  We work hard here, and the fundamentals of how we treat one another, and how we model that for the next generation of leaders, are as important as any other work we do. Let's not rest until we create an MIT where every member of our community is treated with dignity and respect.  

Sincerely,

L. Rafael Reif

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MIT announces updates on fact-finding and reviews of external engagements

Members of MIT’s senior leadership have announced progress in a variety of areas related to ongoing reviews of the Institute’s funding and external engagements.

The new information comes as President L. Rafael Reif wrote to the MIT community today to share key learnings from recent community forums and meetings.

“Over the past two months, in large public forums, in smaller private meetings and through hundreds of emails and comment cards, I have heard the unfiltered views of many students, staff, postdocs, faculty, trustees, parents and alumni,” Reif wrote. “Some of this feedback has been very difficult to hear — difficult, but necessary. Much of it must have taken great courage to deliver. All of it has been illuminating and helpful.”

The forums were part of the Institute’s response to the emergence in recent months of information on Jeffrey Epstein’s links to MIT.

Additional developments include:

Fact-finding continues

Goodwin Procter, the law firm retained to conduct fact-finding on the Institute’s engagements with Epstein, has informed the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation that its work in conducting interviews and reviewing documents is nearly complete, and that it is preparing a report on its findings. Once the Executive Committee has had the opportunity to review and discuss the results of Goodwin Procter’s fact-finding, it will write to the full community.

Two committees launch

Faculty Chair Rick Danheiser and Provost Martin Schmidt recently launched two committees — one to define a set of values and principles to guide the assessment of outside engagements, and the other to review and recommend improvements to MIT’s processes on soliciting and accepting gifts.

The first of these, the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee on Guidelines for Outside Engagements, will be chaired by Tavneet Suri, an associate professor of applied economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Its members are listed here.

A second committee, the Ad Hoc Committee to Review MIT Gift Processes, will be chaired by Peter Fisher, professor of physics and head of the Department of Physics. The membership of this committee was announced today:

• Mariana Arcaya: Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
• Mahi Elango: Undergraduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; President, Undergraduate Association
• Heather Kispert Hagerty: Assistant Dean for Development, School of Engineering
• Daniel Hastings: Cecil and Ida Green Professor; Head, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Sarah Hendrick: Director of Records, MIT Alumni Association
• J. Chappell Lawson: Associate Professor of Political Science 
• Fiona Murray: William Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship; Associate Dean for Innovation, MIT Sloan School of Management; Co-Director, MIT Innovation Initiative
• Larry Sass: Associate Professor of Architecture
• Glen Shor: Vice President for Finance
• Janet Sonenberg: Professor of Theater Arts
• Peter Su: Graduate Student in Materials Science and Engineering; President, Graduate Student Council
• Tavneet Suri: Associate Professor of Applied Economics
• Julia Topalian: Director of Gift Administration and Recording Secretary
• Li-Huei Tsai: Picower Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Director, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Anne White: Professor and Head, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
• David Woodruff: Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, MIT Resource Development
• TBD: postdoc representative

Strengthened protection for whistleblowers

Vice President and General Counsel Mark DiVincenzo is assembling a team to strengthen MIT’s existing protections for whistleblowers, which include the Institute’s non-retaliation policy and its anonymous reporting hotline. This effort will also aim to ensure that these protections and policies are well-understood across MIT.

Community committee to advise on a charity

In an Aug. 22 letter, President Reif informed the community that MIT had received approximately $800,000 in Epstein funding and committed that the Institute would contribute an equal amount to a charity benefiting survivors of sexual abuse. 

MIT has now identified the mechanism by which that charity will be selected: Recommendations will come from MIT’s Committee on Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response (CSMPR), which has broad representation from across the community, including the Violence Prevention and Response office. Led by Leslie Kolodziejski, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, CSMPR is composed of 29 students, staff, and faculty. It will advise President Reif on MIT’s donation.

Outcomes from two staff forums

Several teams will follow up on ideas surfaced during two staff forums earlier this month. Vice President for Human Resources Ramona Allen will convene a group of staff from across campus to bring forward employees’ ideas and channel their commitment and perspectives. To capture as many voices as possible going forward, she and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz are also evaluating options such as office hours, facilitated group discussions, and mechanisms to submit comments anonymously.

In a forum for postdocs and research staff, those employees expressed feelings of isolation and the lack of any unifying home at MIT; Vice President for Research Maria Zuber is organizing a group now to begin to fill that need.

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Bryan Reimer receives human factors innovator award

MIT Research Engineer Bryan Reimer recently received the Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). Reimer directs a multidisciplinary team at MIT AgeLab that explores human-centered topics across a range of emerging technologies. His team studies in-vehicle automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and the mechanics of driver attention, among other topics. The team’s research develops theoretical and applied insight into driver behavior and aims to find solutions to the next generation of human-factors challenges associated with the automation of transportation. Reimer received this accolade partially because of the broad applicability of his research within the field of ergonomics and technology.

The Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award was established in 1970 by the HFES to recognize significant efforts to extend or diversify the application of human-factors principles and methods to new areas of endeavor. Reimer  accepted the award at the HFES annual meeting on Oct. 29 in Seattle, Washington.

“It’s quite an honor to receive a professional award of this magnitude and be recognized alongside human-factors leaders that I’ve revered, and who have shaped the profession,“ says Reimer. “I am grateful for the support of my colleagues, who for over two decades have collaborated with me on this work. This collaboration, in combination with the appetite for innovation at MIT, I believe has positioned me to receive this award.”

Serving as the basis for the honor is Reimer’s innovative work founding and managing three industry partnerships. The Advanced Human Factors Evaluator for Attentional Demand consortium aims to develop the next generation of driver-attention measurement tools. The Advanced Vehicle Technology consortium seeks to understand how drivers use emerging, commercially available vehicle technologies, including advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving systems. Finally, the Clear Information Presentation consortium explores the impact of typography and other design features on usability in glance-based environments such as while driving or while using smartphones.

Kermit Davis, president of the HFES, says “The Kraft Award is one of our society’s top awards and honors an individual who has made major innovation in human factors and ergonomics (HF/E). Dr. Reimer’s work in automated and operator-assisted driving stood out because of its broad scope, extensive collaboration across diverse disciplines, and highly influential impact. His focus on this new area for HF/E not only expands the reach of our profession, but also addresses an important individual and societal issue regarding the interaction between humans and technology.” 

The AgeLab at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics is a multidisciplinary research program that works with business, government, and non-governmental organizations to improve the quality of life of older people and those who care for them. The HFES is the world’s largest scientific association for human factors and ergonomics professionals, with over 4,500 members in 58 countries. Reimer’s work draws together traditional psychological methods with big-data analytics, deep learning, and predictive modeling. The receipt of this award illustrates how research across disciplines may yield significant results, both for the research community and society at large.

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J-WAFS zeroes in on food security as agricultural impacts of the climate crisis become more apparent

Early this August, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued yet another in a series of grave and disquieting reports outlining the extreme challenges placed on the Earth’s systems by the climate crisis. Most IPCC reports and accompanying media coverage tend to emphasize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy and transportation sectors, along with the weather and sea-level impacts of climate change and their direct impact on vulnerable human populations. However, this particular report, the "Special Report on Climate Change and Land," presents a sobering set of data and analyses addressing the substantial contributions of agriculture to climate change and the ways the climate crisis is projected to jeopardize global food security if urgent action is not taken at the individual, institutional, industry, and governmental levels.

There is an ever-increasing public awareness about climate’s effects on the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, threats to coastal cities, and the rapid decline in the biodiversity of the Earth’s ecosystems. However, the impact of climate change on land and food production — and the impact of our food systems on climate change — is just beginning to enter the wider public discourse. Food systems are responsible for up to 30 percent of global GHG emissions, with agricultural activities accounting for up to 86 percent of total food-system emissions. And agriculture is a sector that is put at significant risk by the direct and indirect effects of the Earth’s rising temperatures. In order to adapt to future climate uncertainty and to minimize agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, strategies addressing the sustainability and adaptive capacity of food systems must be developed and rapidly implemented.

With so much at stake, targeted research that reaches beyond disciplinary and institutional boundaries is needed. Since its 2014 launch at MIT, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) has promoted research and innovation across diverse disciplines that will help ensure the resilience of the world’s water and food systems even as they are increasingly pressured by the effects of climate change. Its newly released report, "Climate Change, Agriculture, Water, and Food Security: What We Know and Don’t Know," is part of this effort. The report collects the central findings of an expert workshop conducted by J-WAFS in May 2018. The workshop gathered 46 experts in agriculture, climate, engineering, and the physical and natural sciences from around the world — several of whom were also involved in writing the August 2019 IPCC report — to discuss current understanding of the complex relationship between climate change and agriculture. This report, based on the workshop deliberations, initiates a longer study that will directly engage stakeholders to address how research can be best targeted to the needs of policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers and stakeholders.

Central to the conclusions of the 2018 workshop was widespread agreement among participants of the need for convergence research that addresses the climate crisis in food systems. Convergence research is built around deep integration across disciplines in order to address complex problems focusing on societal need. By deploying transdisciplinary teams with expertise in plant, soil, and climate science, agricultural technologies, agribusiness, economics, behavior change and communication, marketing, nutrition, and public policy, convergence research promotes innovative approaches to formulating and evaluating adaptation and mitigation strategies for future food security.

A study that J-WAFS is now launching will take this approach. As part of the new study, J-WAFS is partnering with three internationally renowned institutions with complementary expertise in agriculture and food systems. Titled “Climate Change and Global Food Systems: Supporting Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies with Research,” the collaborative project will leverage the myriad disciplines and specialties of a cross-institutional group of researchers, along with stakeholders and decision-makers, in order to develop a prioritized, actionable, solutions-oriented research agenda. The project’s goal is to determine which research questions must be answered, and which innovations must be prioritized, in order to ensure that global food security can be met even while the climate crisis wreaks havoc on global food systems. The project will help develop stronger connections and collaborative partnerships across diverse research communities (in particular, MIT and the partner universities) and with the stakeholders and decision-makers who fund research, develop policy, and implement programs to support agriculture and food security.

The three collaborating universities who are joining MIT in this effort are: Wageningen University in the Netherlands — an institution which is at forefront of agriculture and food systems research; Tufts University — an international leader in interdisciplinary food and nutrition research, especially through its Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy; and the University of California at Davis, whose College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences ranks No. 1 in the United States for agriculture, plant sciences, animal science, forestry, and agricultural economics. Says Ermias Kebreab, associate dean for global engagement in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis, “the project will address several grand challenges that align very well with the mission and goals of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.  Collaborating with MIT and other project partners presents exciting opportunities to extend the reach and impact of the UC Davis research.”

With potential dire impacts of the climate crisis on our global food systems, opportunities for transformative change must be found. But there currently exist significant knowledge gaps on the best practices, technologies, policies, and development approaches for achieving food security with win-win solutions at the nexus of climate change and food systems. J-WAFS’ workshop report emphasized that more research is required to better characterize specific challenges and to develop, evaluate, and implement effective strategies. Specific areas where research presents significant opportunities include understanding and improving soil quality and fertility; the development of technologies such as advanced biotechnology, carbon sequestration, and geospatial tools; fundamental research questions about crop response to environmental stresses, such as high temperatures and drought; improvements to crop and climate models; approaches to manage risk in the face of uncertain risk; and the development of strategies to effect behavioral change, particularly around food choices.

It may yet be possible to sustainably produce enough nutritious food to feed the world while at the same time reversing the current trends in its production that damage the environment. As stated by John H. Lienhard V, J-WAFS director and MIT professor, “the next green revolution will be delivered using new farming practices, emerging scientific discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and insights from the social sciences, all combined to provide effective policies, equitable social programs, and much-needed changes in consumer behavior.”  

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Two-legged robot mimics human balance while running and jumping

Rescuing victims from a burning building, a chemical spill, or any disaster that is inaccessible to human responders could one day be a mission for resilient, adaptable robots. Imagine, for instance, rescue-bots that can bound through rubble on all fours, then rise up on two legs to push aside a heavy obstacle or break through a locked door.

Engineers are making strides on the design of four-legged robots and their ability to run, jump and even do backflips. But getting two-legged, humanoid robots to exert force or push against something without falling has been a significant stumbling block.

Now engineers at MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a method to control balance in a two-legged, teleoperated robot — an essential step toward enabling a humanoid to carry out high-impact tasks in challenging environments.

The team’s robot, physically resembling a machined torso and two legs, is controlled remotely by a human operator wearing a vest that transmits information about the human’s motion and ground reaction forces to the robot.

Through the vest, the human operator can both direct the robot’s locomotion and feel the robot’s motions. If the robot is starting to tip over, the human feels a corresponding pull on the vest and can adjust in a way to rebalance both herself and, synchronously, the robot.

In experiments with the robot to test this new “balance feedback” approach, the researchers were able to remotely maintain the robot’s balance as it jumped and walked in place in sync with its human operator.

“It’s like running with a heavy backpack — you can feel how the dynamics of the backpack move around you, and you can compensate properly,” says Joao Ramos, who developed the approach as an MIT postdoc. “Now if you want to open a heavy door, the human can command the robot to throw its body at the door and push it open, without losing balance.”

Ramos, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has detailed the approach in a study appearing today in Science Robotics. His co-author on the study is Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

More than motion

Previously, Kim and Ramos built the two-legged robot HERMES (for Highly Efficient Robotic Mechanisms and Electromechanical System) and developed methods for it to mimic the motions of an operator via teleoperation, an approach that the researchers say comes with certain humanistic advantages.

“Because you have a person who can learn and adapt on the fly, a robot can perform motions that it’s never practiced before [via teleoperation],” Ramos says.

In demonstrations, HERMES has poured coffee into a cup, wielded an ax to chop wood, and handled an extinguisher to put out a fire.

All these tasks have involved the robot’s upper body and algorithms to match the robot’s limb positioning with that of its operator’s. HERMES was able to carry out high-impact motions because the robot  was rooted in place. Balance, in these cases, was much simpler to maintain. If the robot were required to take any steps, however, it would have likely tipped over in attempting to mimic the operator’s motions.

“We realized in order to generate high forces or move heavy objects, just copying motions wouldn’t be enough, because the robot would fall easily,” Kim says. “We needed to copy the operator’s dynamic balance.”

Enter Little HERMES, a miniature version of HERMES that is about a third the size of an average human adult. The team engineered the robot as simply a torso and two legs, and designed the system specifically to test lower-body tasks, such as locomotion and balance. As with its full-body counterpart, Little HERMES is designed for teleoperation, with an operator suited up in a vest to control the robot’s actions.

For the robot to copy the operator’s balance rather than just their motions, the team had to first find a simple way to represent balance. Ramos eventually realized that balance could be stripped down to two main ingredients: a person’s center of mass and their center of pressure — basically, a point on the ground where a force equivalent to all supporting forces is exerted.

The location of the center of mass in relation to the center of pressure, Ramos found, relates directly to how balanced a person is at any given time. He also found that the position of these two ingredients could be physically represented as an inverted  pendulum. Imagine swaying from side to side while staying rooted to the same spot. The effect is similar to the swaying of an upside-down pendulum, the top end representing a human’s center of mass (usually in the torso) and the bottom representing their center of pressure on the ground. 

Heavy lifting

To define how center of mass relates to center of pressure, Ramos gathered human motion data, including measurements in the lab, where he swayed back and forth, walked in place, and jumped on a force plate that measured the forces he exerted on the ground, as the position of his feet and torso were recorded. He then condensed this data into measurements of the center of mass and the center of pressure, and developed a model to represent each in relation to the other, as an inverted pendulum.

He then developed a second model, similar to the model for human balance but scaled to the dimensions of the smaller, lighter robot, and he developed a control algorithm to link and enable feedback between the two models.

The researchers tested this balance feedback model, first on a simple inverted pendulum that they built in the lab, in the form of a beam about the same height as Little HERMES. They connected the beam to their teleoperation system, and it swayed back and forth along a track in response to an operator’s movements. As the operator swayed to one side, the beam did likewise — a movement that the operator could also feel through the vest. If the beam swayed too far, the operator, feeling the pull, could lean the other way to compensate, and keep the beam balanced.

The experiments showed that the new feedback model could work to maintain balance on the beam, so the researchers then tried the model on Little HERMES. They also developed an algorithm for the robot to automatically translate the simple model of balance to the forces that each of its feet would have to generate, to copy the operator’s feet.

In the lab, Ramos found that as he wore the vest, he could not only control the robot’s motions and balance, but he also could feel the robot’s movements. When the robot was struck with a hammer from various directions, Ramos felt the vest jerk in the direction the robot moved. Ramos instinctively resisted the tug, which the robot registered as a subtle shift in the center of mass in relation to center of pressure, which it in turn mimicked. The result was that the robot was able to keep from tipping over, even amidst repeated blows to its body.

Little HERMES also mimicked Ramos in other exercises, including running and jumping in place, and walking on uneven ground, all while maintaining its balance without the aid of tethers or supports.

“Balance feedback is a difficult thing to define because it’s something we do without thinking,” Kim says. “This is the first time balance feedback is properly defined for the dynamic actions. This will change how we control a teleoperated humanoid.”

Kim and Ramos will continue to work on developing a full-body humanoid with similar balance control, to one day be able to gallop through a disaster zone and rise up to push away barriers as part of rescue or salvage missions.

“Now we can do heavy door opening or lifting or throwing heavy objects, with proper balance communication,” Kim says.

This research was supported, in part, by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. and Naver Labs Corporation.

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System provides cooling with no electricity

Imagine a device that can sit outside under blazing sunlight on a clear day, and without using any power cool things down by more than 23 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). It almost sounds like magic, but a new system designed by researchers at MIT and in Chile can do exactly that.

The device, which has no moving parts, works by a process called radiative cooling. It blocks incoming sunlight to keep from heating it up, and at the same time efficiently radiates infrared light — which is essentially heat — that passes straight out into the sky and into space, cooling the device significantly below the ambient air temperature.

The key to the functioning of this simple, inexpensive system is a special kind of insulation, made of a polyethylene foam called an aerogel. This lightweight material, which looks and feels a bit like marshmallow, blocks and reflects the visible rays of sunlight so that they don’t penetrate through it. But it’s highly transparent to the infrared rays that carry heat, allowing them to pass freely outward.

The new system is described today in a paper in the journal Science Advances, by MIT graduate student Arny Leroy, professor of mechanical engineering and department head Evelyn Wang, and seven others at MIT and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Such a system could be used, for example, as a way to keep vegetables and fruit from spoiling, potentially doubling the time the produce could remain fresh, in remote places where reliable power for refrigeration is not available, Leroy explains.

Minimizing heat gain

Radiative cooling is simply the main process that most hot objects use to cool down. They emit midrange infrared radiation, which carries the heat energy from the object straight off into space because air is highly transparent to infrared light.

The new device is based on a concept that Wang and others demonstrated a year ago, which also used radiative cooling but employed a physical barrier, a narrow strip of metal, to shade the device from direct sunlight to prevent it from heating up. That device worked, but it provided less than half the amount of cooling power that the new system achieves because of its highly efficient insulating layer.

“The big problem was insulation,” Leroy explains. The biggest input of heat preventing the earlier device from achieving deeper cooling was from the heat of the surrounding air. “How do you keep the surface cold while still allowing it to radiate?” he wondered. The problem is that almost all insulating materials are also very good at blocking infrared light and so would interfere with the radiative cooling effect.

There has been a lot of research on ways to minimize heat loss, says Wang, who is the Gail E. Kendall Professor of Mechanical Engineering. But this is a different issue that has received much less attention: how to minimize heat gain. “It’s a very difficult problem,” she says.

The solution came through the development of a new kind of aerogel. Aerogels are lightweight materials that consist mostly of air and provide very good thermal insulation, with a structure made up of microscopic foam-like formations of some material. The team’s new insight was to make an aerogel out of polyethylene, the material used in many plastic bags. The result is a soft, squishy, white material that’s so lightweight that a given volume weighs just 1/50 as much as water.

The key to its success is that while it blocks more than 90 percent of incoming sunlight, thus protecting the surface below from heating, it is very transparent to infrared light, allowing about 80 percent of the heat rays to pass freely outward. “We were very excited when we saw this material,” Leroy says.

The result is that it can dramatically cool down a plate, made of a material such as metal or ceramic, placed below the insulating layer, which is referred to as an emitter. That plate could then cool a container connected to it, or cool liquid passing through coils in contact with it, to provide cooling for produce or air or water.

Putting the device to the test

To test their predictions of its effectiveness, the team along with their Chilean collaborators set up a proof-of-concept device in Chile’s Atacama desert, parts of which are the driest land on Earth. They receive virtually no rainfall, yet, being right on the equator, they receive blazing sunlight that could put the device to a real test. The device achieved a cooling of 13 degrees Celsius under full sunlight at solar noon. Similar tests on MIT’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, achieved just under 10 degrees cooling.

That’s enough cooling to make a significant difference in preserving produce in remote locations, the researchers say. In addition, it could be used to provide an initial cooling stage for electric refrigeration, thus minimizing the load on those systems to allow them to operate more efficiently with less power.

Theoretically, such a device could achieve a temperature reduction of as much as 50 C, the researchers say, so they are continuing to work on ways of further optimizing the system so that it could be expanded to other cooling applications such as building air conditioning without the need for any source of power. Radiative cooling has already been integrated with some existing air conditioning systems to improve their efficiency.

Already, though, they have achieved a greater amount of cooling under direct sunlight than any other passive, radiative system other than those that use a vacuum system for insulation — which is very effective but also heavy, expensive, and fragile.

This approach could also be a low-cost add-on to any other kind of cooling system, providing additional cooling to supplement a more conventional system. “Whatever system you have,” Leroy says, “put the aerogel on it, and you’ll get much better performance.”

Peter Bermel, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, who was not involved in this work, says, “The main potential benefit of the polyethylene aerogel presented here may be its relative compactness and simplicity, compared to a number of prior experiments.”

He adds, “It might be helpful to quantitatively compare and contrast this method with some alternatives, such as polyethylene films and angle-selective blocking in terms of performance (e.g., temperature change), cost, and weight per unit area. … The practical benefit could be significant if the comparison were performed and the cost/benefit tradeoff significantly favored these aerogels.”

The work was partly supported by an MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Chile Global Seed Fund grant, and by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Solid State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC).

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Double-sided tape for tissues could replace surgical sutures

Inspired by a sticky substance that spiders use to catch their prey, MIT engineers have designed a double-sided tape that can rapidly seal tissues together.

In tests in rats and pig tissues, the researchers showed that their new tape can tightly bind tissues such as the lungs and intestines within just five seconds. They hope that this tape could eventually be used in place of surgical sutures, which don’t work well in all tissues and can cause complications in some patients.

“There are over 230 million major surgeries all around the world per year, and many of them require sutures to close the wound, which can actually cause stress on the tissues and can cause infections, pain, and scars. We are proposing a fundamentally different approach to sealing tissue,” says Xuanhe Zhao, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.

The double-sided tape can also be used to attach implantable medical devices to tissues, including the heart, the researchers showed. In addition, it works much faster than tissue glues, which usually take several minutes to bind tightly and can drip onto other parts of the body.

Graduate students Hyunwoo Yuk and Claudia Varela are the lead authors of the study, which appears today in Nature. Other authors are MIT graduate student Xinyu Mao, MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering Ellen Roche, Mayo Clinic critical care physician Christoph Nabzdyk, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital pathologist Robert Padera.

A tight seal

Forming a tight seal between tissues is considered to be very difficult because water on the surface of the tissues interferes with adhesion. Existing tissue glues diffuse adhesive molecules through the water between two tissue surfaces to bind them together, but this process can take several minutes or even longer.

The MIT team wanted to come up with something that would work much faster. Zhao’s group had previously developed other novel adhesives, including a hydrogel superglue that provides tougher adhesion than the sticky materials that occur in nature, such as those that mussels and barnacles use to cling to ships and rocks.

To create a double-sided tape that could rapidly join two wet surfaces together, the team drew inspiration from the natural world — specifically, the sticky material that spiders use to capture their prey in wet conditions. This spider glue includes charged polysaccharides that can absorb water from the surface of an insect almost instantaneously, clearing off a small dry patch that the glue can adhere to.

To mimic this with an engineered adhesive, the researchers designed a material that first absorbs water from wet tissues and then rapidly binds two tissues together. For water absorption, they used polyacrylic acid, a very absorbent material that is used in diapers. As soon as the tape is applied, it sucks up water, allowing the polyacrylic acid to quickly form weak hydrogen bonds with both tissues.

These hydrogen bonds and other weak interactions temporarily hold the tape and tissues in place while chemical groups called NHS esters, which the researchers embedded in the polyacrylic acid, form much stronger bonds, called covalent bonds, with proteins in the tissue. This takes about five seconds.

To make their tape tough enough to last inside the body, the researchers incorporated either gelatin or chitosan (a hard polysaccharide found in insect shells). These polymers allow the adhesive to hold its shape for long periods of time. Depending on the application that the tape is being used for, the researchers can control how fast it breaks down inside the body by varying the ingredients that go into it. Gelatin tends to break down within a few days or weeks in the human body, while chitosan can last longer (a month or even up to a year).

“Combining two innovative concepts, the research team succeeded in adhering quickly and effectively to the wet and soft surface of a tissue, and in maintaining good adhesion and mechanical properties for several days without causing too much inflammatory response,” says Costantino Creton, a research director at ESPCI Paris, who was not involved in the research.

Rapid healing

This type of adhesive could have a major impact on surgeons’ ability to seal incisions and heal wounds, Yuk says. To explore possible applications for the new double-sided tape, the researchers tested it in a few different types of pig tissue, including skin, small intestine, stomach, and liver. They also performed tests in pig lungs and trachea, showing that they could rapidly repair damage to those organs.

“It’s very challenging to suture soft or fragile tissues such as the lung and trachea, but with our double-sided tape, within five seconds we can easily seal them,” Yuk says.

The tape also worked well to seal damage to the gastrointestinal tract, which could be very useful in preventing leakage that sometimes occurs following surgery. This leakage can cause sepsis and other potentially fatal complications.

“I anticipate tremendous translational potential of this elegant approach into various clinical practices, as well as basic engineering applications, in particular in situations where surgical operations, such as suturing, are not straightforward,” says Yu Shrike Zhang, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the research.

Implanting medical devices within the body is another application the MIT team is exploring. Working with Roche’s lab, the researchers showed that the tape could be used to firmly attach a small polyurethane patch to the hearts of living rats, which are about the size of a thumbnail. Normally this kind of procedure is extremely complicated and requires an experienced surgeon to perform, but the research team was able to simply stick the patch on with their tape by pressing for a few seconds, and it stayed in place for several days.

In addition to the polyurethane heart patch, the researchers found that the tape could successfully attach materials such as silicone rubber, titanium, and hydrogels to tissues.

“This provides a more elegant, more straightforward, and more universally applicable way of introducing an implantable monitor or drug delivery device, because we can adhere to many different sites without causing damage or secondary complications from puncturing tissue to affix the devices,” Yuk says.

The researchers are now working with doctors to identify additional applications for this kind of adhesive and to perform more tests in animal models.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.

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Self-transforming robot blocks jump, spin, flip, and identify each other

Swarms of simple, interacting robots have the potential to unlock stealthy abilities for accomplishing complex tasks. Getting these robots to achieve a true hive-like mind of coordination, though, has proved to be a hurdle.

In an effort to change this, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) came up with a surprisingly simple scheme: self-assembling robotic cubes that can climb over and around one another, leap through the air, and roll across the ground.

Six years after the project’s first iteration, the robots can now “communicate” with each other using a barcode-like system on each face of the block that allows the modules to identify each other. The autonomous fleet of 16 blocks can now accomplish simple tasks or behaviors, such as forming a line, following arrows, or tracking light.

Inside each modular “M-Block” is a flywheel that moves at 20,000 revolutions per minute, using angular momentum when the flywheel is braked. On each edge and every face are permanent magnets that let any two cubes attach to each other.

While the cubes can’t be manipulated quite as easily as, say, those from the video game "Minecraft," the team envisions strong applications in disaster response and relief. Imagine a burning building where a staircase has disappeared. In the future, you might simply throw M-Blocks on the ground and watch them build out a temporary staircase for climbing up to the roof or down to the basement to rescue victims.

“M stands for motion, magnet, and magic,” says MIT Professor and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus. “'Motion,' because the cubes can move by jumping. 'Magnet,' because the cubes can connect to other cubes using magnets, and once connected they can move together and connect to assemble structures. 'Magic,' because we don’t see any moving parts, and the cube appears to be driven by magic.”

Beyond disaster relief, the researchers imagine using the blocks for things like gaming, manufacturing, and health care.

“The unique thing about our approach is that it’s inexpensive, robust, and potentially easier to scale to a million modules,'' says CSAIL PhD student John Romanishin, lead author on a new paper about the system. “M-Blocks can move in a general way. Other robotic systems have much more complicated movement mechanisms that require many steps, but our system is more scalable and cost-effective.”

Romanishin wrote the paper alongside Rus and undergraduate student John Mamish of the University of Michigan. They will present the paper on M-blocks at IEEE’s International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in November in Macau.

Previous modular robot systems typically tackle movement using unit modules with small robotic arms known as external actuators. These systems require a lot of coordination for even the simplest movements, with multiple commands for one jump or hop.

On the communication side, other attempts have involved the use of infrared light or radio waves, which can quickly get clunky: If you have lots of robots in a small area and they're all trying to send each other signals, it opens up a messy channel of conflict and confusion.

When a system uses radio signals to communicate, the signals can interfere with each other when there are many radios in a small volume.

Back in 2013, the team built out their mechanism for M-Blocks. They created six-faced cubes that move about using something called “inertial forces.” This means that, instead of using moving arms that help connect the structures, the blocks have a mass inside of them which they “throw” against the side of the module, which causes the block to rotate and move.

Each module can move in four cardinal directions when placed on any one of the six faces, which results in 24 different movement directions. Without little arms and appendages sticking out of the blocks, it’s a lot easier for them to stay free of damage and avoid collisions.

Knowing that the team had tackled the physical hurdles, the critical challenge still persisted: How to make these cubes communicate and reliably identify the configuration of neighboring modules?

Romanishin came up with algorithms designed to help the robots accomplish simple tasks, or "behaviors,” which led them to the idea of a barcode-like system where the robots can sense the identity and face of what other blocks they’re connected to.

In one experiment, the team had the modules turn into a line from a random structure, and they watched if the modules could determine the specific way that they were connected to each other. If they weren’t, they’d have to pick a direction and roll that way until they ended up on the end of the line.

Essentially, the blocks used the configuration of how they're connected to each other in order to guide the motion that they choose to move — and 90 percent of the M-Blocks succeeded in getting into a line.

The team notes that building out the electronics was very challenging, especially when trying to fit intricate hardware inside such a small package. To make the M-Block swarms a larger reality, the team wants just that — more and more robots to make bigger swarms with stronger capabilities for various structures.

The project was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and Amazon Robotics.

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Practicing for a voyage to Mars

If you want to make the long voyage to Mars, you first have to train and rehearse, and MIT alumnus Barret Schlegelmilch SM ’18, MBA ’18 is doing just that. He recently commanded a 45-day practice mission living and working with three other would-be astronauts in a cramped simulated spaceship.

NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) analog mission “departed” last spring for a trip to Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars. It was the second of four planned missions to Phobos in the mock spacecraft located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The goal is to study the physiological and psychological effects of extended isolation and confinement, team dynamics, and conflict resolution.

While on the mission, Schlegelmilch and three other crew members spent their time just as they would on a real trip to Phobos. They performed experiments, tended plants and shrimp, collected data, maintained equipment, and even communicated with kids in a classroom back home. Once they “arrived” at Phobos, two crew members did a virtual-reality spacewalk, and Schlegelmilch and a flight engineer flew a simulated shuttle craft to the surface.

“That was probably one of the most fun and rewarding things we did,” Schlegelmilch says.

The crew also had to deal with emergencies including fire, loss of pressure, and solar flares, which release a deadly bombardment of radiation. In another scenario, Mission Control secretly told one of the crew to pretend to have a serious injury or heart attack. The others had to draw on their training and the supplies they had on board, along with some advice from a flight surgeon back on Earth (though messages took several minutes each way due to the distance).

The average distance to Mars is about 225 million kilometers, which means that there will be on the order of a 10-minute delay from when any communication is sent and received between ground control on Earth and a crew near Mars. Over the course of the mission, “I saw our crew actually becoming more autonomous and relying on Mission Control less, just because it was so difficult to communicate with them through the time delays,” Schlegelmilch says.

This wasn’t Schlegelmilch’s first experience with working conditions like this. His long-term personal goal has always been spaceflight, so he joined the U.S. Navy after college and served as a diver and officer on nuclear submarines. “I thought subs would be a good analog for the astronaut program. It’s kind of like a spaceship — it’s a self-contained vessel where you carry your own food and make your drinking water and air,” he says. “And you’re not able to just walk outside at the end of the work day; you’re out there for months at a time.”

After his Navy service, Schlegelmilch joined the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program, earning an MBA and SM in aeronautics and astronautics in 2018. “I wanted to get a more technical foundation and learn how to translate some of my leadership skills from the Navy into the private sector, and LGO is the perfect fit for doing both of those things,” he says.

The HERA mission was actually more demanding than a submarine voyage in some ways, Schlegelmilch says. Instead of being on a 300-foot-long ship with 150 people, there were just four people crowded into a space half the size of a semi-truck trailer. His crew mates were Ana Mosquera, an astrophysicist and artificial intelligence researcher; Christian Clark, an accomplished cave diver and marine researcher; and Julie Mason, a rocket propulsion engineer at Boeing. The main thing they have in common? “Everyone’s been bitten by the space bug in one way or another,” he says.

Before the mission, the crew underwent extensive psychological testing, and NASA gave them “tool sets” — similar to those taught in LGO for “storming and norming” group development exercises — to help them work more effectively as a team to solve problems. “As a crew, we got along surprisingly well, which I attribute partly to those toolsets,” Schlegelmilch says. “A lot of LGO, and MIT in general, is about how to work with small groups of people on very intense assignments.”

After graduating from MIT, Schlegelmilch went to Blue Origin, a private firm founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to develop technologies to enable private human access to space. After taking a leave for the HERA mission, he returned to Blue Origin and is now head of integrated supply chain for the fluids and mechanical systems of the company’s New Glenn vehicle, a two-piece orbital rocket whose bottom portion autonomously lands itself on a barge at sea for reuse.

As he works on the technology to make space travel more feasible, Schlegelmilch is also working to qualify for the next astronaut class at NASA. Though his first application in 2015 ultimately wasn’t successful, he remains hopeful he’ll have the opportunity to visit space himself.

“I’ll keep applying. I think that’s the goal of a lot of people in this industry,” he says. “There’s a real possibility in our lifetime that spaceflight is something that’s going to be affordable and achievable for average people.”

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Students present mechanical engineering projects that have global impact

One event has become a hallmark of nearly every academic conference: the poster session. Posters summarizing research are tacked onto endless rows of bulletin boards. Leaders in any given field meander through the posters, asking presenters questions about their work on the spot. For junior researchers participating in poster sessions for the first time, the events can be daunting.

The Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers (GAME) and MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering are working to remove the intimidation factor that surrounds poster sessions and presentations. For the sixth year in a row, they have organized the Mechanical Engineering Research Exhibition (MERE), which was held on Oct. 11 in MIT’s student center. Over 60 graduate students, postdocs, and Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) students presented their research projects to nearly 200 attendees in a poster session-style event. The event was organized by graduate students Crystal Owens and Maytee Chantharayukhonthorn.

“Providing students with a venue to practice presenting has been instrumental in boosting their confidence,” says Evelyn Wang, Gail E. Kendall Professor and department head in mechanical engineering. “Whether students pursue a career in academia, industry, or government, the ability to clearly communicate about their work will always be a crucial skill.”

Nicholas Fang, professor of mechanical engineering and GAME faculty advisor, has seen these skills of technical communication improve in students who participate in MERE year-to-year. He also sees the event as a great introduction to MIT for first-year graduate students and undergrads who are considering graduate study at MIT.

“Participation by first-year students is very important to this event,” he explains. “New students can’t take a seat in every single lab to learn about each other’s work, so MERE gives them the best opportunity to get to know the research in the department as a whole.”

Mechanical engineering research across MIT is incredibly diverse and touches upon a wide swath of disciplines, but one common theme united the research presented at MERE — every project offered solutions and insights that could one day have tangible impact on a global scale.

Solutions in human health

Two examples of projects that could impact human health took different approaches to improving our understanding of brain cancer. Cynthia Hajal is using microfluidic chips to grow blood vessels that mimic the human brain. A PhD candidate working with Roger Kamm, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering, Hajal is using microfluidics to learn more about how cancer metastasizes in the brain.

“The idea is to rebuild human organs outside of the body to track and test different diseases,” explains Hajal. To track and test brain cancer, Hajal and her team place cells taken from a human brain into microfluidic channels that are pumped with nutrients and serum. About seven days later, the cells self-assemble into brain capillaries. The research team then places tumor cells into the channels and tracks their progression over time.

“Our process helps us image metastasis in short intervals of time so we can really slow down and find out what exactly is happening at every stage of the process,” Hajal adds.

Ali Daher, meanwhile, uses mathematical modelling in the hopes of one day helping doctors determine the best course of treatment for glioblastoma multiforme brain tumors. “When a doctor is in the process of coming up with a treatment plan for the patient, they are faced with many challenges,” says Daher, a senior studying mechanical engineering.

To help inform a doctor’s treatment plan, Daher is utilizing mathematical models to predict how a tumor might react to treatment plans. Using a reduced-order scheme developed for fluid systems by Pierre Lermusiaux, professor of mechanical engineering, Daher worked on an algorithm that could help doctors determine what therapies would be most effective.

Improving access to food and water

In addition to human health, another pervasive theme at MERE this year was how humans interact with the environment. Two projects in particular honed in on how we can improve access to food and water, especially in developing countries.

Sonal Thengane, a postdoc working with Ahmed Ghoniem, the Ronald C. Crane (1972) Professor, is developing fertilizers made of carbon-rich biochar to improve soil quality and crop yield. Biochar is made by torrefying (drying with fire) waste from farms or forests. “When it is mixed into the soil, the biochar is very porous and retains the moisture and nutrients for a longer time,” says Thengane.

Thengane’s work has already been tested on a farm in Kenya and will soon be tested in the United States and India with support from the Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab (J-WAFS). He and his team have also explored the possibility of repurposing the debris from forest fires and logging residues, and using it in biochar-based soil. “We are also working in California, which has had so many forest fires recently,” he explains. “California has many farms that could benefit from this soil.”

While Thengane is working on improving crop yield and increasing access to safer food, Hannah Varner is hoping to improve access to fresh water in India. A graduate student in MIT’s GEAR Lab, Varner is in the process of building a prototype system that desalinates brackish water in India.

“Groundwater holds a lot of potential for solving the water crisis in places like India and the southwestern United States,” says Varner, who works with Associate Professor Amos Winter. The problem with groundwater is it often is brackish — containing too much salt to be potable. Utilizing modeling and an understanding of fluid dynamics and electrochemical processes, Varner was able to design a system for point-of-use desalination of brackish water in India.

“The really exciting thing is I was able to design a system and then bring it to Bangalore this summer,” she says.

Award winners

Throughout MERE, participants like Varner spoke with judges who assessed their presentation skills. Awards were given to the following students:

First-place presentations: Erin Looney for “Accelerating Cleantech Hardware System Development;” John San Soucie for “Gaussian dirichlet Random Fields For Inference Over High Dimensional Categorical Observations;” Nick Selby for “Teachbot : An Education System For Workforce;” and Meghan Huber for “Visual Perception Of Stiffness From Multijoint Motion”

Best first-time presenter: Kuangye Lu for “Remote Epitaxy Of Gaas On Cvd Graphene For Wafer Re Usability And Flexible Electronics”

Best UROP: Helen Read for “Fracture Toughness Of Polyacrylamide Hydrogels”

Second-place runners-up include: Chinmay Kulkarni, Cynthia Hajal, Jongwoo Lee, Francesco Sigorato and Matteo Alberghini, Kiarash Gordiz, Nisha Chandramoorthy, Noam Buckman, Emily Rogers, and Sydney Sroka.

The following presenters were given honorable mentions: James Hermus, Yeongin Kim, ZhiYi Liang, Lauren Chai, Sanghoon Bae, Antoine Blanchard, Rabab Haider, Scott Tan, and Jaewoo Shim.

Making your own luck

After the conclusion of the exhibition, Helen Greiner '89, SM '90 delivered a keynote speech. An innovator in the field of robotics, Greiner traced her career path in front of an audience filled with mechanical engineering students. Inspired by the Star Wars character R2D2, Greiner took an early interest in robotics. In 1990, she co-founded iRobot.

After a decade of trial and error, iRobot found success with products such as the Roomba and PackBot. While the Roomba has cemented its place in popular culture, thanks in large part to a Pepsi advertisement featuring Dave Chappelle, the PackBot has made a huge impact on how military operations are executed.

“These robots were credited with saving the lives of hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians,” Greiner recalls.

Greiner encouraged students to “make their own luck.” With luck and determination, the students and postdocs who presented earlier in the day could someday see their products, designs, and theories have the kind of impact Greiner’s robot innovations have had. 

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High school teams receive 2019-20 Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Grant for invention projects

The Lemelson-MIT Program has announced the 2019-20 InvenTeams, 14 teams of high school students from across the country who received up to $10,000 in grant funding to build a technological invention to solve problems of their own choosing. The problems stem from concerns the students recognized in their local communities, or from ones that they have a personal connection to, that exist in the world at large. This year’s proposed inventions include a wearable device to monitor symptoms of sepsis, an automated machine that cleans beach litter, a system to gauge the flow rate of maple sap, and a publicly accessible laundry machine for people experiencing homelessness. 

Now in its 16th year as a national grants initiative, InvenTeams inspire young people to invent technological solutions to real-world problems. The 2019-20 InvenTeams are comprised of students, teachers, and community mentors who will pursue year-long invention projects that involve creative thinking, problem-solving, and hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The students also gain knowledge of computer science while working on their projects, which is a critical skill for all young people, and especially helpful to their future work as inventors. InvenTeams apply their learnings and experiences to build an invention that will be showcased at a technical review within their home community in February 2020, and then again as a final prototype at EurekaFest — an invention celebration in June 2020 that will be held in Washington.

“I am impressed by this year’s InvenTeams and their commitment to solving important problems in society” says Stephanie Couch, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “By drawing on many different disciplines, the InvenTeam initiative helps shape well-rounded students who are better equipped to tackle the technological problems they will face in the modern workplace. Approximately 2,750 students have taken part in the InvenTeam experience, and 35 percent are girls, which is encouraging in a time when women represent only 10 percent of U.S. patent holders. The InvenTeam initiative fosters the ability to engage with others in order to develop understandings of problems and to envision solutions that take the views of end-users into account. The work supports students of all backgrounds in developing creative and inventive problem-solving skills that will be of benefit in their college and career endeavors, and in their personal lives.”

“This year’s projects demonstrate the dedication of young students to make a positive impact in the world through invention,” says Tony Perry, the Lemelson-MIT Program’s invention education coordinator, who will work with the teams throughout the year. “The InvenTeams will help solve major problems in areas such as environmental sustainability, regional food harvesting, and healthy living.” 

The InvenTeams hail from 12 different states, including South Dakota and Nevada, two states that have never had an InvenTeam prior to this year. The invention projects were selected by a respected panel from the Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, area, consisting of university professors, inventors, entrepreneurs, industry professionals, and college students who were on InvenTeams when they were in high school.

Solving problems in health and community

• Lower Brule High School (Lower Brule, S.D.): System to provide community entertainment at the outdoor basketball court
• Francis Tuttle Technology Center (Oklahoma City, Okla.): System to sanitize airport security bins
• Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative (Bronx, N.Y.): Wearable device to monitor physical surroundings and alert to danger
• Spanish River Community High School (Boca Raton, Fla.): Wearable device to monitor physiological symptoms of sepsis
• Baruch College Campus High School (New York, N.Y.): Publicly accessible laundry machine for people experiencing homelessness

Solving problems in environment and sustainability

• Greenon Local Schools (Springfield, Ohio): System to prevent humanmade debris from entering the sewer system
• Edward C. Reed High School (Sparks, Nev.): Device to remove cigarette butts from drain sewers
• Americas High School (El Paso, Texas): System to sort recycled plastics and create reusable PET flakes
• Williamston High School (Williamston, Mich.): Automated beach litter cleaning device
• Stockbridge Jr./Sr. High School (Stockbridge, Mich.): Device to remotely monitor aquatic life
• Colfax High School (Colfax, Calif.): Device to transform brush into biochar and electrical energy
• Billerica Memorial High School (Billerica, Mass.): System to monitor snow loads on commercial flat roofs

Solving problems in food and agriculture

• Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center (Middlebury, Vt.): System to monitor the flow rate of maple sap
• Gulfport High School (Gulfport, Miss.): Device to automatically flip oyster farm cages

The Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam application for the 2020-21 school year is now available. STEM teachers are encouraged to apply now through April 6, 2020.

K-12 teachers and school administrator who are not yet ready for a year-long invention experience with students may consider applying for an Excite Award to attend, free of charge, a three-day professional development workshop with other teachers on July 29-31, 2020, at MIT. Learn how others have implemented pathways for invention education in their schools and districts through classes, afterschool enrichment activities, and camps, as well as InvenTeams.

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J-PAL North America announces five new partnerships with state and local governments

J-PAL North America, a research center in MIT’s Department of Economics, announced new partnerships with five state and local governments across the United States.

The California Department of State Hospitals, Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, Minnesota State Court Administrator’s Office, Shasta County Superior Court, and Virginia Department of Social Services were selected to partner with J-PAL North America and its network of leading academic researchers through the J-PAL State and Local Innovation Initiative. These partnerships will develop randomized evaluations, also known as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which have the potential to yield rigorous evidence about which programs and policies are most effective. 

“We are thrilled to partner with these five state and local governments to address pressing policy problems across the country through rigorous evaluation,” says Mary Ann Bates, J-PAL North America executive director and co-chair of the State and Local Innovation Initiative. “We are particularly excited about how many of these projects will build on evidence from prior randomized evaluations to test if similar interventions can be effective in different settings.”

These proposals will examine a wide variety of topics and intervention methods, including reducing over-prescription of opioids, reducing failures to appear for arraignment, addressing homelessness and housing instability, and increasing the take-up of federal tax credits for low-income families.

In California, individuals with serious mental illness who face felony charges and are likely to be found incompetent to stand trial are directed to the Department of State Hospitals (DSH) to receive treatments to regain competency. DSH has launched a new Pre-trial Felony Mental Health Diversion program, through which approximately 20 counties will receive funding to divert individuals who are incompetent to stand trial out of the criminal justice system and into wrap-around community treatment services. DSH is partnering with J-PAL North America to evaluate the effects of the Pre-Trial Felony Mental Health Diversion program. This evaluation will contribute significant insight into how diverting those found to be incompetent to stand trial due to mental health reasons to community mental health services may impact their individual well-being, as well as broader outcomes in the criminal justice and behavioral health systems.

“The California Department of State Hospitals is pleased to partner with J-PAL to evaluate how Felony Mental Health Diversion impacts individuals living with serious mental illness in California,” says Stephanie Clendenin, director of the California Department of State Hospitals. “The Felony Mental Health Diversion program seeks to provide long-term community mental health treatment and other services for individuals with serious mental illness so that they avoid criminalization and institutionalization and receive the critical mental health care and supportive services they need.”

While the opioid prescribing rate among physicians has declined in recent years, the number of opioids prescribed per person remains three times higher than in 1999. Many states are testing interventions to reduce the overprescription of opioids among physicians. The Minnesota Board of Pharmacy and Minnesota Management and Budget will partner with J-PAL North America to identify ways to increase the use of Minnesota’s prescription monitoring program (PMP) and measure the impact of that increased use on prescribers’ rate of controlled-substance prescriptions. The PMP database maintains a secure record of all controlled-substance prescriptions, and more frequent use of the database may help avoid prescribing to individuals misusing opioids and, instead, allow prescribers to make referrals to treatment services.

"We are excited about this innovative partnership that will help Minnesota use data to increase the use of Prescription Monitoring Programs and reduce overprescribing of opioids,” says Myron Frans, commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget. “The opioid crisis has caused tremendous damage to our families and communities. To achieve better results, we will continue to collaborate and use evidence-based governing principles to combat this crisis.”

“The Minnesota Board of Pharmacy looks forward to working with Minnesota Management and Budget and J-PAL to evaluate our PMP, with the aim to increase use of the PMP and to analyze its impact on controlled substance prescription rates,” says Cody Wiberg, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy.

In 2017, Minnesota’s largest county piloted a text reminder program for individuals with court hearings; after promising results suggested the reminders increased court appearances, the Minnesota Judicial Branch decided to make these e-reminders available statewide. The Minnesota State Court Administrator’s Office is now working with Minnesota Management and Budget and J-PAL North America to test the content and timing of different messages to determine which behavioral strategies are most effective in reducing failures to appear for court hearings. Previous research suggests that behavioral nudges, like text messages and redesigned summons, can reduce failure-to-appears for criminal hearings. This evaluation will measure the effectiveness of different message content and whether these reminders can also be effective for increasing court appearances among tenants facing eviction proceedings.

“Hearing eReminders are about keeping the justice system, and those within it, from incurring additional costs. We are focused on keeping the court process moving efficiently, because we know that justice delayed is justice denied,” says Minnesota State Court Administrator Jeff Shorba. “We have already seen from the 18-month pilot that parties who received some form of Hearing eReminder were 35 percent more likely to appear for their hearing. Rigorous evaluation of Hearing eReminder messages and sequencing will ensure we are delivering the most effective messages on the most impactful schedule.”

Similarly, in Shasta County, California, individuals who commit low-level offenses receive court summonses that require offenders to appear in court. Failure to appear in court results in the issuance of an arrest warrant, which is costly for the criminal justice system and recipients. The Shasta County Superior Court will partner with J-PAL North America to evaluate behavioral interventions to reduce defendants’ failure to appear at arraignments. This evaluation will expand the previous literature on reducing failures to appear and provide insight into the effectiveness of these interventions in a different setting.

“The Shasta County Superior Court is excited to join with J-PAL to analyze strategies that could help reduce the incidence of homeless individuals failing to appear to in court,” says Melissa Fowler-Bradley, court executive officer of the Shasta County Superior Court. “In Shasta County, about one-third of the people who fail to appear for their court cases are homeless, and similar statistics exist throughout the country. Unfortunately, a failure to appear has an added impact on those who are economically challenged. The Shasta County Superior Court’s goal is to reduce those failures to appear among the homeless population as much as possible using strategies that are proven effective through the rigorous evaluation made possible by J-PAL. A successful project created under this state and local initiative could have nationwide impact, improve the plight of the impoverished, and increase the efficiency of the criminal justice system.”

Millions of dollars of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a federal tax credit for low-income households, go unclaimed every year. Previous research suggests that behavioral interventions, like messages and simplified materials, can increase the uptake of the EITC. The Virginia Department of Social Services will partner with J-PAL North America to develop an evaluation of a text-messaging intervention to generate higher rates of tax filing and EITC claims. This evaluation will add to the growing body of literature on behavioral interventions to increase EITC claims.

“This new partnership with J-PAL is an opportunity to transform how we pursue our mission of triumphing over poverty, abuse, and neglect,” says Duke Storen, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services. “We will gain valuable insight from the RCT about how to more effectively encourage eligible Virginians to claim the EITC, which has been found to be one of the most effective federal antipoverty programs. We anticipate the results of this work will not only improve how we communicate with our customers as it relates to the EITC and the full-spectrum of our programs and services, but will prove to benefit other states as well.” 

The California Department of State Hospitals, Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, Minnesota State Court Administrator’s Office, Shasta County Superior Court, and Virginia Department of Social Services join 13 state and local governments selected through previous rounds of the J-PAL State and Local Innovation Initiative: Baltimore, Maryland; King County, Washington; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; Santa Clara, California; and Washington; the states of California, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and South Carolina; and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. These state and local governments are part of a growing movement to use evidence to improve the effectiveness of policies and programs and ultimately the lives of people experiencing poverty.

Anyone wishing to learn more about the initiative or to receive updates about its progress is invited to visit online. The J-PAL contact for more information is Initiative Manager Rohit Naimpally.

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