The tenured engineers of 2022

The School of Engineering has announced that MIT has granted tenure to 14 members of its faculty in the departments of Biological Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (which reports jointly to the School of Engineering and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing), Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering.

“I am truly amazed by our newest cohort of tenured faculty,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “They are a diverse group of educators and scholars whose research and commitment to teaching has had a tremendous impact on our community, in the classroom, as well as in the lab.”

This year’s newly tenured associate professors are:

Guy Bresler, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, conducts research at the interface of information theory, statistics, theoretical computer science, and probability. His work aims to understand the fundamental interplay between information properties, computational complexity, and combinatorial structure in modern statistical inference problems.

Otto Cordero, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, studies the ecology and evolution of natural microbial collectives. His lab is interested in understanding how social and ecological interactions at microscales impact the global productivity, stability, and evolutionary dynamics of microbial ecosystems.

Michael Carbin, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, investigates the design, semantics, and implementation of language-driven systems. His focus is on systems that operate in the presence of uncertainty in their environment, implementation, or execution.

Ming Guo, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, works at the interface of mechanics, physics, and cell biology, seeking to understand how physical properties and biological function affect each other in cellular and multicellular systems, and how physical and material laws govern the behavior of living cells and their abilities to deform, move, remodel, and function.

Stefanie Jegelka, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, focuses her research on algorithmic machine learning, which spans modeling, optimization algorithms, theory, and applications. In particular, she has been working on exploiting mathematical structure for discrete and combinatorial machine-learning problems, robustness, and the scaling of machine-learning algorithms.

Jeehwan Kim, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, researches topics ranging from basic material physics/mechanics to electronic/photonic devices and systems for next generation electronics. His group focuses on innovation in nanotechnology for next generation computing and electronics

Angela Koehler, an associate professor of biological engineering, focuses on building chemical tools and methods for studying temporal aspects of transcriptional regulation in development and disease with a focus on cancer. Her lab pursues these goals by discovering and developing direct small-molecule probes of proteins involved in transcriptional regulation such as transcription factors and chromatin modifying enzymes.

Mathias Kolle, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, leverages insights into biological light manipulation strategies to design and realize multifunctional bioinspired optical materials for 21st century technology applications, using cost-efficient, scalable microfabrication, self-assembly based techniques, and biomimetic morphogenesis processes.

Tim Kraska, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is co-director of the Data System and AI LAB in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), co-founder of Instancio (acquired), and co-founder of Einblick Analytics (einblick.ai). Currently, his research focuses on building systems for machine learning, increasing the efficiency of data-intensive systems, and democratizing data science through machine learning.

James LeBeau, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, focuses on applying and developing revolutionary (scanning) transmission electron microscopy techniques to connect the atomic structure and chemistry of defects/interfaces with material properties for quantum computing, energy storage, power electronics, dielectrics, and optical applications.

Luqiao Liu, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, focuses on fabricating nanoscale spintronic devices to achieve efficient control over magnetic dynamics. He also explores new material and physics mechanisms to improve the performance of spintronic devices for memory, logic, and neuromorphic applications.

Robert Macfarlane, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, is focused on developing a set of design principles for synthesizing new inorganic/organic composite materials, where nanoscale structure can be manipulated to tune the emergent physical properties of a bulk material.

Desirée Plata, an associate professor of in civil and environmental engineering, focuses her research on novel material and industrial process design; carbon-based transformations; global carbon management and response strategies; resource management utilization and efficiency; and environmental sustainability.

C. Cem Tasan, the Thomas B. King Professor of Metallurgy and associate professor of materials science and engineering, explores the boundaries of physical metallurgy, solid mechanics, and in-situ microscopy to design new alloys with exceptional damage-resistance.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/0Qgd48t

Doubling down on sustainability innovation in Kendall Square

From its new headquarters in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, The Engine is investing in a number of “tough tech” startups seeking to transform the world’s energy systems. A few blocks away, the startup Inari is using gene editing to improve seeds’ resilience to climate change. On the MIT campus nearby, researchers are working on groundbreaking innovations to meet the urgent challenges our planet faces.

Kendall Square is known as the biotech capital of the world, but as the latest annual meeting of the Kendal Square Association (KSA) made clear, it’s also a thriving hub of sustainability-related innovation.

The Oct. 20 event, which began at MIT’s Welcome Center before moving to the MIT Museum for a panel discussion, brought together professionals from across Cambridge’s prolific innovation ecosystem — not just entrepreneurs working at startups, but also students, restaurant and retail shop owners, and people from local nonprofits.

Titled “[Re] Imagining a Sustainable Future,” the meeting highlighted advances in climate change technologies that are afoot in Kendall Square, to help inspire and connect the community as it works toward common sustainability goals.

“Our focus is on building a better future together — and together is the most important word there,” KSA Executive Director Beth O’Neill Maloney said in her opening remarks. “This is an incredibly innovative ecosystem and community that’s making changes that affect us here in Kendall Square and far, far beyond.”

The pace of change

The main event of the evening was a panel discussion moderated by Lee McGuire, the chief communications officer of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The panel featured Stuart Brown, chief financial officer at Inari; Emily Knight, chief operating officer at The Engine; and Joe Higgins, vice president for campus services and stewardship at MIT.

“Sustainability is obviously one of the most important — if not the most important — challenge facing us as a society today,” said McGuire, opening the discussion. “Kendall Square is known for its work in biotech, life sciences, AI, and climate, and the more we dug into it the more we realized how interconnected all of those things are. The talent in Kendall Square wants to work on problems relevant for humanity, and the tools and skills you need for that can be very similar depending on the problem you’re working on.”

Higgins, who oversees the creation of programs to reduce MIT’s environmental impact and improve the resilience of campus operations, focused on the enormity of the problem humanity is facing. He showed the audience a map of the U.S. power grid, with power plants and transmission lines illuminated in a complex web across the country, to underscore the scale of electrification that will be needed to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

“The U.S. power grid is the largest machine ever made by mankind,” Higgins said. “It’s been developed over 100 years; it has 7,000 generating plants that feed into it every day; it has 7 million miles of cable and wires; there are transformers and substations; and it lives in every single one of your walls. But people don’t think about it that much.”

Many cities, states, and organizations like MIT have made commitments to shift to 100 percent clean energy in coming decades. Higgins wanted the audience to try to grasp what that’s going to take.

“Hundreds of millions of devices and equipment across the planet are going to have to be swapped from fossil fuel to electric-based,” Higgins said. “Our cars, appliances, processes in industry, like making steel and concrete, are going to need to come from this grid. It’ll need to undergo a major modernization and transformation. The good news is it’s already changing.”

Multiple panelists pointed to developments like the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act to show there was progress being made in reaching urgent sustainability goals.

“There is a tide change coming, and it’s not only being driven by private capital,” Knight said. “There’s a huge opportunity here, and it’s a really important part of this [Kendall Square] ecosystem.”

Chief among the topics of discussion was technology development. Even as leaders implement today’s technologies to decarbonize, people in Kendall Square keep a close eye on the new tech being developed and commercialized nearby.

“I was trying to think about where we are with gene editing,” Brown said. “CRISPR’s been around for 10 years. Compare that to video games. Pong was the first video game when it came out in 1972. Today you have Chess.com using artificial intelligence to power chess games. On gene editing and a lot of these other technologies, we’re much closer to Pong than we are to where it’s going to be. We just can’t imagine today the technology changes we’re going to see over the next five to 10 years."

In that regard, Knight discussed some of the promising portfolio companies of The Engine, which invests in early stage, technologically innovative companies. In particular, she highlighted two companies seeking to transform the world’s energy systems with entirely new, 100 percent clean energy sources. MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems is working on nuclear fusion reactors that could provide abundant, safe, and constant streams of clean energy to our grids, while fellow MIT spinout Quaise Energy is seeking to harvest a new kind of deep geothermal energy using millimeter wave drilling technology.

“All of our portfolio companies have a focus on sustainability in one way or another,” Knight said. “People who are working on these very hard technologies will change the world.”

Knight says the kind of collaboration championed by the KSA is important for startups The Engine invests in.

“We know these companies need a lot of people around them, whether from government, academia, advisors, corporate partners, anyone who can help them on their path, because for a lot of them this is a new path and a new market,” Knight said.

Reasons for hope

The KSA is made up of over 150 organizations across Kendall Square. From major employers like Sanofi, Pfizer, MIT, and the Broad Institute to local nonprofit organizations, startups, and independent shops and restaurants, the KSA represents the entire Kendall ecosystem.

O’Neill Maloney celebrated a visible example of sustainability in Kendall Square early on by the Charles River Conservancy, which has built a floating wetland designed to naturally remove harmful algae blooms from Charles River.

Other examples of sustainability work in the neighborhood can be found at MIT. Under its “Fast Forward” climate action plan, the Institute has set a goal of eliminating direct emissions from its campus by 2050, including a near-term milestone of achieving net-zero emissions by 2026. Since 2014, when MIT launched a five-year plan for action on climate change, net campus emissions have already been cut by 20 percent by making its campus buildings more energy efficient, transitioning to electric vehicles, and enabling large-scale renewable energy projects, among other strategies.

In the face of a daunting global challenge, such milestones are reason for optimism.

“If anybody’s going to be able to do this [shift to 100 percent clean energy] and show how it can be done at an urban, city scale, it’s probably MIT and the city of Cambridge,” McGuire said. “We have a lot of good ingredients to figure this out.”

Throughout the night, many speakers, attendees, and panelists echoed that sentiment. They said they see plenty of reasons for hope.

“I’m absolutely optimistic,” Higgins said. “I’m seeing utility companies working with businesses working with regulators — people are coming together on this topic. And one of these new technologies being commercialized is going to change things before 2030, whether its fusion, deep geothermal, small modular nuclear reactors, the technology is just moving so quickly.”

de MIT News https://ift.tt/xcyt0oV

Math enthusiasts take aim at STEM glass ceiling

A good math problem is like a walled, secret garden, according to Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) head and MIT Professor Asu Ozdaglar, who was addressing an audience of middle and high school female-identifying mathematics contestants at the 14th annual Math Prize for Girls (MP4G) event.

“Many people walking around the outside never attempt to glimpse at the other side of what seems to be a high brick wall,” she says. “Worst of all, many students are told that the garden of math is not for them — that they are not the right kind of person to succeed at math. We know that more girls are given this message than boys.”

The 240 girls in the audience were able to find the keys to open the gate to that garden, in part thanks to the growing sisterhood of the math equation that gathers annually at MIT. It’s not just a math contest. MP4G alumnae have formed an expanding network to debunk gender stereotypes within STEM fields, and to help pass the keys to that garden along to a whole new generation of girls from the United States and Canada.

The contest

The female “mathletes” who had qualified to take the exam by scoring well on the recent American Mathematics Competition exam began the MP4G weekend on a Saturday attending social events. There was a campus tour, dinner, and a game night, and on Sunday they enjoyed breakfast before the contest, and lunch together before the awards ceremony.

As they took a 2.5-hour exam with 20 multistage problems in in geometry, algebra, and trigonometry, their parents attended a panel by Math Prize alumnae that included MIT PhD candidates Velina Kozareva and Rachel Zhang ’21.  

The awards ceremony in Kresge Auditorium featured a performance by the MIT Logarhythms a cappella group, a keynote lecture from Boston College Professor Eli Grigsby on "Geometry and Neural Networks," and presentation of awards to the top 35 contestants.

Florida Virtual School junior Jessica Wan received the top $50,000 prize with a score of 17 out of 20. She also won it in the last contest, in 2019, as an eighth grader. (The MP4G event was on hiatus for two years due to the pandemic.)

“The contest problems were challenging and very interesting, and the opportunity to meet fellow mathletes from around the country was phenomenal!" says Wan.

The next four winners were Isabella Zhu, a 12th grader from Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia, whose score of 15 earned her $20,000; California 10th graders Ishani Agarwal of Saratoga High School in New York and home-schooled Angela Liu each scored of 12, to earn $7,000 each; and 10th grader Emily Yu of Mendon High School in New York, whose score of 11 earned $4,000. The next four winners won $2,000 each, and winners in 10th through 17th places got $300. The winners are posted on the foundation’s Art of Problem Solving website.

The 35 top scorers will be invited to compete next month in the 2022 Math Prize Olympiad, a four-hour exam with four proof-oriented problems taken at their schools.  

Alumni network

Sponsored by the Advantage Testing Foundation and global trading firm Jane Street, MP4G is the largest contest of its kind in North America and has also served as an unofficial pipeline to MIT. Many high school participants apply to MIT, and seven of the 12 MP4G winners have since matriculated to MIT: mathematics graduate student Danielle Wang ’21, in 2010 and 2013; Victoria Xia ’18, who won in 2011 and 2012; Rachel Zhang '21, in 2015; Qi Qi ’21 and Catherine (Katie) Wu ’22, who both won in 2016; Megan Joshi  '22 in 2017; and third-year mathematics major Yuxuan Zheng in 2018. 

“This competition encourages more girls to be passionate about mathematics and interested in STEM careers, and this is certainly much-needed,” says MIT Department of Mathematics head Michel Goemans, the RSA Professor of Mathematics. “We can certainly feel the impact of this competition, as we often cross paths with some of the participants in college or graduate school.”

Former contestants have gone on to earn graduate degrees in such fields as engineering, computer science, biomedical sciences, and mathematics, and work in tech-driven industries such as aviation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, as well as financial services. Many of them thank this MP4G network for their career trajectories.

At the event, MP4G alumni and MIT volunteers helped the girls collaborate on scientific problems, talked about pursuing STEM careers, and discussed gender equality in mathematical achievement and STEM fields in order to provide a diverse and driven STEM workforce.

Several attendees said that they appreciated the unique feeling of being in a room full of female math enthusiasts.

“I have loved all my competition math experiences thus far, but this was definitely my favorite,” says Garima Rastogi, an 11th grader at the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School in New Hampshire. “The energy of a room full of girls who are passionate about math — it's so different and so empowering.”

Olivia Xu, an 11th grader at the Harker School in California who finished in 11th place this year, said that participating in MP4G “opened my eyes to the numerous pathways I can embark on in college and beyond.”

Allison Koenecke ’14, who participated in MP4G’s inaugural contest, and is now an information science assistant professor at Cornell University, says she was drawn to the contest because her high school experience had been missing a certain support system for women interested in STEM.

“I hope that these young women have more opportunities to not feel so ‘othered’ when pursuing kind of their intellectual passions,” she noted in a video shown at the event.

Former MP4G panelist and 2013 and 2014 MP4G alum Cameron Krulewski, who is currently pursuing her PhD in mathematics at MIT, calls the event an invaluable experience for girls to “compete, make friends, find mentors, and be inspired, all in an environment in which they are not a minority: “I know that it's an experience I have carried forward in my mathematical career. When I return to volunteer, I'm always inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of the young women I interact with at Math Prize.”

More money

Thanks to Jane Street’s endowment of $15 million, this year saw the cash prize doubled to a total of $100,000.

“Our partnership will ensure the long-term sustainability of the contest as well as creating opportunities for expanding its scope and accessibility,” says Jane Street Managing Director Sandor Lehoczky, who is on the board of trustees for Advantage Testing Foundation and  MP4G. “Programs like this foster gender equity in STEM fields today and into the future.”

Lehoczky is a Math Olympiad alum and co-author of “The Art of Problem Solving,” a book that launched the Art of Problem Solving math community.

Many MP4G alumnae have gone on to work at Jane Street, including Sophie Mori ’19, who studied computer science, linguistics, and philosophy, and Sophia Xia ’21, who studied math and computer science.

For the love of math-y daughters

The contest was founded by two men who were inspired by their mathematically talented daughters. MP4G Director Ravi Boppana PhD ’86, who is also a research affiliate at MIT's math department, has one daughter, and Advantage Testing President Arun Alagappan has three.

Boppana and his wife, panel moderator Ranu Boppana ’87, are the parents of Meena Boppana, a math and computer science teacher at the Commonwealth School in Boston who proctored the exams on Sunday.

“She was one of our inspirations for starting the Math Prize in 2009, since she was a math-y girl while participating in math contests and math teams that were mostly male,” says Ravi Boppana.   

Meena couldn’t participate in MP4G because of her family’s conflict of interest. “She qualified for the first three Math Prizes from 2009 to 2011, but only took the MP4G exams unofficially,” says Ravi.

To run this event, other MIT community members helping out also included members from the Admissions Office and the Department of Mathematics, about 50 students who hosted contestants in their dorm rooms, and 60 student volunteers. 

MP4G Program Administrator Sulochana Devadas and her husband, EECS professor and PRIMES Computer Science Section Coordinator Srini Devadas, have two MP4G alumnae, Sheela and EECS graduate student Lalita (Lali) Devadas; Lali had helped organize the games night.

MP4G board members include Gigliola Staffilani, the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Mathematics; Donner Professor of Mathematics Michael Sipser; University of California at San Diego Professor Ioana Dumitriu PhD ’03; and Harvard University Professor Lauren K. Williams PhD ’05.

Nitya Mani, who had worked as a trader at Jane Street before deciding to pursue her doctorate at MIT to study discrete probability and graph theory, was a five-year MP4G contestant who finished ninth in 2014. This year, she served as MP4G’s emcee.

MP4G “was one of the things that kept me in math, because I was having such a negative experience doing math contests,” recalls Mani.

“I think that the ability to form that community is what has kept all of us collectively not just in math, but in STEM as a whole, because we’ve kind of formed a support system and a support network for each other that kind of can extend, you know, beyond high school.”

de MIT News https://ift.tt/SrjdJWT

Celebrating the life of undergraduate Mohamed Magdi Taha

Mohamed Magdi Taha, an undergraduate student in Course 6-9 (Computation and Cognition) passed away in August. A native of California and Khartoum, Sudan, the rising junior and New Vassar resident was passionate about social justice issues, had deep love for his home country and family, and had a penchant for writing and studying poetry.

Writing on an Instagram thread for members of the MIT class of 2024, he described himself with wit and humor: “I was born in California but I'm from Khartoum, Sudan, a country in North Africa with rich Nubian origins (we have more pyramids than Egypt js). Last year we as a people overthrew a 30-year-long dictatorship so it goes without saying that I'm proud of where I come from. 🇸🇩 ❤️ Some quick facts bout me: my music taste is as diverse as it gets and I'm always blasting something lmao … My favorite sport is soccer (we call it football in Sudan) I'm always ready to have a quick game.”

Taha was, indeed, proud of his origins and brought his whole self to campus. “While at MIT, he formed close ties to Boston's Sudanese community, speaking at rallies for freedom, peace, and justice at a time of political and social turmoil in Sudan,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif wrote in a letter to the MIT community.

Reem Agil, a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who knew Taha as a student at Khartoum International Community School, posted, “I can't express how brilliant he was,” and expressed that she would miss his unflappable spirit: “I'll miss your hearty laugh, your unrelenting faith that things will work out in the end, your love for your country, your kindness and respect for others.”

He was also deeply committed to his family, and they all recalled his sense of joy and devotion to lifting up everyone he encountered. His father, Magdi, says his son “was a deep thinker and he loved a good challenge.” He calls him “courageous” and “kind” and noted his dedication for helping others in both big and small ways. “He didn’t see himself in the equation. All he saw was how he could help.”

His sister Leena says her brother was “her pillar,” and his sister Sara says he “was such a pure soul” and that “he held such a grand space, everywhere he went.” His sister Summer offered her reflections in the form of a poem: “You enlightened us with the never ending light within you / and I hope the angels hold you as tight as I wish to / I hope they shower you with love / Love that I couldn’t give you / Who would’ve known that your future / Would be as bright as paradise?”

His mother, Rihab, echoes that sentiment, saying he was “filled with compassion, love, and joy” and was “generous” and always eager to share “everything he had: his words, his smile, his laughter.”

On and around campus, Taha made a difference with his fellow classmates, helping with homework and with the simple act of picking out the best gifts for others. Classmate Zoe Kuhlken says that she and Taha were kindred spirits. She credits him for getting her through her first few years at MIT. “Some of my favorite moments with Mohamed, believe it or not, were when we were studying the night before exams” and in his encouragement when a test didn’t go as well as either of them hoped. “He always knew how to comfort people,” she adds, and to understand what they needed. “​​Mohamed was such a good gift-giver because he always knew what would make people happy.”

Academically, he was multifaceted and had a particular passion for poetry. Professor Mary Fuller of the MIT Literature Section shared a series of emails from Taha in which he was asking to get into her filled literature class. While she didn’t let him in (as it was too late into the semester), she did provide some mentorship and feedback on a poem he shared, a spin on Shakespeare’s famed Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 

“Shall I compare thee to a starry night / Thou art more entrancing and unmoor’d / Heat and light elope in hand to excite / Sit in their absence, a love condemn’d … A truth all but known, one tongues must confess: / The Moon’s realm is thine alone to contest.”

Taha said of his poem that it “started off as a sonnet but it was really kind of infuriating to write. I couldn’t really fit all my ideas into 14 lines so I added another four lines so the overall poem would flow better.” In a similar way, he led a life that was hard to contain in a structured, limited form.

Friend and fellow classmate Kuhlken shares another one of his poems, a meditation that beautifully captured his vivacious spirit in his own words: “Do not misunderstand me love / I do not wish to live forever / I simply want to live in your company / long for you, Love, like summer in the winter / I will never get used to you love / The same way leaves insist on dying come fall, I will never get used to you love / I do not wish to live forever / But I will not breathe unless you tell me to.”

In late September, a Khatma (prayer service), memorial event, and poetry night were all held on campus to honor the life of Taha. A mural dedicated to his life will also be placed on campus. Taha’s family and close friends created a scholarship to honor his legacy of helping others and building community. The scholarship aims to support students who wish to study STEM and/ or the arts in the United States. Anyone may donate to the scholarship fund.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/ICGwpam

Toward compassion and equity

Ice hockey may not be the first hobby that jumps to mind when it comes to economists, but MIT professor of economics David Autor has proudly captained his department’s intramural hockey team for several years. Autor readily admits that the team he leads is downright terrible (and that he brings down the average!), but that’s part of the charm — anyone can join and have fun getting to know the other members of their department.

Autor is the Ford Professor of Economics within the Department of Economics at MIT and holds affiliations with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, the Institute for the Study of Labor, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research is centered on assessing the impacts of globalization and technological change on labor markets, including the impacts on skill demands and earning inequality. He was recently honored as Committed to Caring, an MIT recognition of faculty members who go above and beyond in their mentorship of graduate students.

Advocating for students and diversity initiatives

Just as he encourages students out on the ice, Autor has been an outspoken advocate for student rights and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the Department of Economics, all leading to his recognition as Committed to Caring.

His nominators wrote at length about the various ways in which Autor has supported these two important issues. One nominator wrote that Autor “has been an advocate and champion for all of his advisees and for the cause of making our department a kinder, more compassionate, and more equitable place.”

His support for these issues isn’t passive; rather, Autor has become both a leader and an active participant within the Department of Economics’ various efforts on these issues.

Autor sits on the department’s Antiracism Committee, and one student wrote that “he has gone above and beyond to urge our department to reckon with the historical legacy of racism in the economy and our profession.” In addition, Autor helped design and implement a new graduate economics course focused on racism and racial disparities.

Although Autor is passionate about the efforts he leads within the Department of Economics, he also makes sure to hear feedback and opinions from other stakeholders, including the students themselves. As one nominator wrote, “David cares deeply about getting it right, acknowledges mistakes if they do occur, and is appreciative of feedback from me and other students.”

Helping students achieve success

As he oversees his students’ progress through graduate school, Autor strives to mentor them in ways that set them up for success. One clear tenet of Autor’s approach is treating his students as peers, not as subordinates.

Autor sees himself as somebody who can complement graduate students and help them achieve all they can be; as Autor writes, “I'm happiest when I see students powering through the challenges to realize the potential of great ideas. They always have [great ideas], and I'm there to help them realize that potential.” Autor’s students echoed his supportive ways, highlighting in their nomination letters how often they turned to Autor for “advice, reassurance, and support.”

Autor also emphasizes honesty and humility when mentoring his graduate students. In a field as broad and varied as economics, even Autor admits that he often does not possess all of the specific knowledge that he needs to effectively guide his students.

When this happens, Autor says that he refers his students to the literature, and to knowledgeable faculty members both within and outside of the economics department, in order to help “fill in the puzzle pieces that are missing.” In this way, Autor hopes to ensure that the students receive the input, expertise, and inspiration they need to be successful.

Autor goes on further to describe how he likes to conduct himself with his students, writing that “graduate students deserve respect, they need encouragement, they appreciate humor and camaraderie, and they benefit from high expectations.”

Sometimes, that may be an additional dose of encouragement. Other times, it might be an invitation to join the department’s intramural hockey team. Regardless of the method, it is clear that Autor prides himself on lifting up his students so they can achieve their academic and career goals.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/usZ6c72

Finding community in high-energy-density physics

Skylar Dannhoff knew one thing: She did not want to be working alone.

As an undergraduate at Case Western Reserve University, she had committed to a senior project that often felt like solitary lab work, a feeling heightened by the pandemic. Though it was an enriching experience, she was determined to find a graduate school environment that would foster community, one “with lots of people, lots of collaboration; where it’s impossible to work until 3 a.m. without anyone noticing.” A unique group at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) looked promising: the High-Energy-Density Physics (HEDP) division, a lead partner in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Center for Excellence at MIT.

“It was a shot in the dark, just more of a whim than anything,” she says of her request to join HEDP on her application to MIT’s Department of Physics. “And then, somehow, they reached out to me. I told them I'm willing to learn about plasma. I didn't know anything about it.”

What she did know was that the HEDP group collaborates with other U.S. laboratories on an approach to creating fusion energy known as inertial confinement fusion (ICF). One version of the technique, known as direct-drive ICF, aims multiple laser beams symmetrically onto a spherical capsule filled with nuclear fuel. The other, indirect-drive ICF, instead aims multiple lasers beams into a gold cylindrical cavity called a hohlraum, within which the spherical fuel capsule is positioned. The laser beams are configured to hit the inner hohlraum wall, generating a “bath” of X-rays, which in turn compress the fuel capsule.

Imploding the capsule generates intense fusion energy within a tiny fraction of a second (an order of tens of picoseconds). In August 2021, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) used this method to produce an historic fusion yield of 1.3 megajoules, putting researchers within reach of “ignition,” the point where the self-sustained fusion burn spreads into the surrounding fuel, leading to a high fusion-energy gain.  

Joining the group just a month before this long-sought success, Dannhoff was impressed more with the response of her new teammates and the ICF community than with the scientific milestone. “I got a better appreciation for people who had spent their entire careers working on this project, just chugging along doing their best, ignoring the naysayers. I was excited for the people.”

Dannhoff is now working toward extending the success of NIF and other ICF experiments, like the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Under the supervision of Senior Research Scientist Chikang Li, she is studying what happens to the flow of plasma within the hohlraum cavity during indirect ICF experiments, particularly for hohlraums with inner-wall aerogel foam linings. Experiments, over the last decade, have shown just how excruciatingly precise the symmetry in ICF targets must be. The more symmetric the X-ray drive, the more effective the implosion, and it is possible that these foam linings will improve the X-ray symmetry and drive efficiency.

Dannhoff is specifically interested in studying the behavior of silicon and tantalum-based foam liners. She is as concerned with the challenges of the people at General Atomics (GA) and LLNL who are creating these targets as she is with the scientific outcome.

“I just had a meeting with GA yesterday,” she notes. “And it's a really tricky process. It's kind of pushing the boundaries of what is doable at the moment. I got a much better sense of how demanding this project is for them, how much we're asking of them.”

What excites Dannhoff is the teamwork she observes, both at MIT and between ICF institutions around the United States. With roughly 10 graduate students and postdocs down the hall, each with an assigned lead role in lab management, she knows she can consult an expert on almost any question. And collaborators across the country are just an email away. “Any information that people can give you, they will give you, and usually very freely,” she notes. “Everyone just wants to see this work.”

That Dannhoff is a natural team player is also evidenced in her hobbies. A hockey goalie, she prioritizes playing with MIT’s intramural teams, “because goalies are a little hard to come by. I just play with whoever needs a goalie on that night, and it’s a lot of fun.”

She is also a member of the radio community, a fellowship she first embraced at Case Western — a moment she describes as a turning point in her life. “I literally don't know who I would be today if I hadn't figured out radio is something I'm interested in,” she admits. The MIT Radio Society provided the perfect landing pad for her arrival in Cambridge, full of the kinds of supportive, interesting, knowledgeable students she had befriended as an undergraduate. She credits radio with helping her realize that she could make her greatest contributions to science by focusing on engineering.

Danhoff gets philosophical as she marvels at the invisible waves that surround us.

“Not just radio waves: every wave,” she asserts. “The voice is the everywhere. Music, signal, space phenomena: it's always around. And all we have to do is make the right little device and have the right circuit elements put in the right order to unmix and mix the signals and amplify them. And bada-bing, bada-boom, we're talking with the universe."

“Maybe that epitomizes physics to me," she adds. "We're trying to listen to the universe, and it's talking to us. We just have to come up with the right tools and hear what it's trying to say.”

de MIT News https://ift.tt/j1AgSIP

School of Engineering third quarter 2022 awards

Members of the MIT engineering faculty receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes their achievements by highlighting the honors, prizes, and medals won by faculty working in our academic departments, labs, and centers. The following faculty received awards in the 3rd quarter of 2022:

• Faez Ahmed of the Department of Mechanical Engineering received the 2022 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award on Aug. 29.
   
• Markus Buehler of the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering received the 2022 IACM Fellows Award on Aug. 1.
   
• Domitilla Del Vecchio of the Department of Mechanical Engineering was named a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control on Aug. 17.
   
• Betar Gallant of the Department of Mechanical Engineering received the 2022–2023 ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship on Aug. 22.
   
• Zach Hartwig of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering received the 2022 FPA Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award on Aug. 1.
   
• Robert Langer of the Department of Chemical Engineering received the 2022 Balzan Prize on Sept. 12.
   
• Jelena Notaros of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science received 2022 Advanced Photonics Congress best paper award on Aug. 11.
   
• Daniela Rus of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award on July 13.
   
• Koroush Shirvan of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering received the Reactor Technology Award on Sept. 1.
   
• Michael Short of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering received the 2022 Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching on July 13.
   
• Giovanni Traverso of the Department of Mechanical Engineering was named a National Academy of Medicine 2022 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholar on Sept. 1.
   
• Mengjia Yan of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science received the Intel Rising Star Faculty Award 2022 on Sept. 28.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/GzcCaud