Professor Emeritus Bernhardt Wuensch, crystallographer and esteemed educator, dies at 90

MIT Professor Emeritus Bernhardt Wuensch, a crystallographer and beloved teacher whose warmth and dedication to ensuring his students mastered the complexities of a precise science matched the analytical rigor he applied to the study of crystals, died this month in Concord, Massachusetts. He was 90.

Remembered fondly for his fastidious attention to detail and his office stuffed with potted orchids and towers of papers, Wuensch was an expert in X-ray crystallography, which involves shooting X-ray beams at crystalline materials to determine their underlying structure. He did pioneering work in solid-state ionics, investigating the movement of charged particles in solids that underpins technologies critical for batteries, fuel cells, and sensors. In education, he carried out a major overhaul of the curriculum in what is today MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

Despite his wide-ranging research and teaching interests, colleagues and students said, he was a perfectionist who favored quality over quantity.

“All the work he did, he wasn’t in a hurry to get a lot of stuff done,” says DMSE’s Professor Harry Tuller. “But what he did, he wanted to ensure was correct and proper, and that was characteristic of his research.”

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1933, Wuensch first arrived at MIT as a first-year undergraduate in the 1950s. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics before switching to crystallography and earning a PhD from what was then the Department of Geology (now Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences). He joined the faculty of the Department of Metallurgy in 1964 and saw its name change twice over his 46 years, retiring from DMSE in 2011.

As a professor of ceramics, Wuensch was a part of the 20th-century shift from a traditional focus on metals and mining to a broader class of materials that included polymers, ceramics, semiconductors, and biomaterials. In a 1973 letter supporting his promotion to full professor, then-department head Walter Owen credits Wuensch for contributing to “a completely new approach to the teaching of the structure of materials.”

His research led to major advancements in understanding how atomic-level structures affect magnetic and electrical properties of materials. For example, Tuller says, he was one of the first to detail how the arrangement of atoms in fast-ion conductors — materials used in batteries, fuel cells, and other devices — influences their ability to swiftly conduct ions.

Wuensch was a leading light in other areas, including diffusion, the movement of ions in materials such as liquids or gases, and neutron diffraction, aiming neutrons at materials to collect information about their atomic and magnetic structure.

Tuller, a DMSE faculty member for 49 years, tapped Wuensch’s expertise to study zinc oxide, a material used to make varistors, semiconducting components that protect circuits from high-voltage surges of electricity. Together, Tuller and Wuensch found that in such materials ions move much more rapidly along the grain boundaries — the interfaces between the crystallites that make up these polycrystalline ceramic materials.

“It’s what happens at those grain boundaries that actually limits the power that would go through your computer during a voltage surge by instead short-circuiting the current through these devices,” Tuller says. He credited the partnership with Wuensch for the knowledge. “He was instrumental in helping us confirm that we could engineer those grain boundaries by taking advantage of the very rapid diffusivity of impurity elements along those boundaries.”

In recognition of his accomplishments, Wuensch was elected a fellow of the American Ceramics Society and the Mineralogical Society of America and belonged to other professional associations, including The Electrochemical Society and Materials Research Society. In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from South Korea’s Hanyang University for his work in crystallography and diffusion-related phenomena in ceramic materials.

“A great, great teacher”

Known as “Bernie” to friends and colleagues, Wuensch was equally at home in the laboratory and the classroom. “He instilled in several generations of young scientists this ability to think deeply, be very careful about their research, and be able to stand behind it,” Tuller says.

One of those scientists is Sossina Haile ’86, PhD ’92, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University, a researcher of solid-state ionic materials who develops new types of fuel cells, devices that convert fuel into electricity.

Her introduction to Wuensch, in the 1980s, was his class 3.13 (Symmetry Theory). Haile was at first puzzled by the subject, the study of the symmetrical properties of crystals and their effects on material properties. The arrangements of atoms and molecules in a material is crucial for predicting how materials behave in different situations — whether they will be strong enough for certain uses, for example, or can conduct electricity — but to an undergraduate it was “a little esoteric.”

“I certainly remember thinking to myself, ‘What is this good for?’” Haile says with a laugh. She would later return to MIT as a PhD student working alongside Wuensch in his laboratory with a renewed perspective.

“He just made seemingly esoteric topics really interesting and was very astute in knowing whether or not a student understood.” Haile describes Wuensch’s articulate speech, “immaculate” handwriting, and detailed drawings of three-dimensional objects on the chalkboard. Haile notes that his sketches were so skillful that students felt disappointed when they looked at a figure they tried to copy in their notebooks.

“They couldn’t tell what it was,” Haile says. “It felt really clear during lecture, and it wasn’t clear afterwards because no one had a drawing as good as his.”

Carl Thompson, the Stavros V. Salapatas Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at DMSE, was another student of Wuensch’s who came away with a broadened outlook. In 3.13, Thompson recalls Wuensch asking students to look for symmetry outside of class, patterns in a brick wall or in subway station tiles. “He said, ‘This course will change the way you see the world,’ and it did. He was a great, great teacher.”

In a 2005 videorecorded session of 3.60 (Symmetry, Structure, and Tensor Properties of Materials), a graduate class that he taught for three decades, Wuensch writes his name on the board along with his telephone extension number, 6889, pointing out its rotational symmetry.

“You can pick it up, turn it head-over-heels by 180 degrees, and it’s mapped into coincidence with itself,” Wuensch said. “You might think I would have had to have fought for years to get it, an extension number like that, but no. It just happened to come my way.”

(The class can be watched in its entirety on MIT OpenCourseWare.)

Wuensch also had a whimsical sense of humor, which he often exercised in the margins of his students’ papers, Haile says. In a LinkedIn tribute to him, she recalled a time she sent him a research manuscript with figures that was missing Figure 5 but referred to it in the text, writing that it plotted conductivity versus temperature.

“Bernie noted that figures don’t plot; people do, and evidently Figure 5 was missing because ‘it was off plotting somewhere,’” Haile wrote.

Reflecting on Wuensch’s legacy in materials science and engineering, Haile says his knowledge of crystallography and the manual analysis and interpretation he did in his time was critical. Today, materials science students use crystallographic software that automates the algorithms and calculations.

“The current students don’t know that analysis but benefit from it because people like Bernie made sure it got into the common vernacular at the time when code was being put together,” Haile said.

A multifaceted tenure

Wuensch served DMSE and MIT in innumerable other ways, serving on departmental committees on curriculum development, graduate students, and policy, and on School of Engineering and Institute-level committees on education and foreign scholarships, among others. “He was always involved in any committee work he was asked to do,” Thompson says.

He was acting department head for six months starting in 1980, and in 1988-93 he was the director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering, an earlier iteration of today’s Materials Research Center.

For all his contributions, there are few things Wuensch was better known for at MIT than his office in Building 13, which had shelves lined with multicolored crystal lattice models, representing the arrangements of atoms in materials, and orchids he took meticulous care of. And then there was the cityscape of papers, piled in heaps on the floor, on his desk, on pullout extensions. Thompson says walking into his office was like navigating a canyon.

“He had so many stacks of paper that he had no place to actually work at his desk, so he would put things on his lap — he would start writing on his lap,” Haile says. “I remember calling him at one point in time and talking to him, and I said, ‘Bernie, you’re writing this down on your lap, aren’t you?’ And he said, ‘In fact, yes, I am.’”

Wuensch was also known for his kindness and decency. Angelita Mireles, graduate academic administrator at DMSE, says he was a popular pick for graduate students assembling committees for their thesis area examinations, which test how prepared students are to conduct doctoral research, “because he was so nice.”

That said, he had exacting standards. “He expected near perfection from his students, and that made them a lot deeper,” Tuller says.

Outside of MIT, Wuensch enjoyed tending his garden; collecting minerals, gemstones, and rare coins; and reading spy novels. Other pastimes included fishing and clamming in Maine, splitting his own firewood, and traveling with his wife, Mary Jane.

Wuensch is survived by his wife; son Stefan Wuensch and wife Wendy Joseph; daughter Katrina Wuensch and partner Jason Staly; and grandchildren Noemi and Jack.

Friends and family are invited to a memorial service Sunday, April 28, at 1:30 p.m. at Duvall Chapel at 80 Deaconess Road in Concord, Massachusetts. Memories or condolences can be posted at obits.concordfuneral.com/bernhardt-wuensch.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/HAf75bg

How light can vaporize water without the need for heat

It’s the most fundamental of processes — the evaporation of water from the surfaces of oceans and lakes, the burning off of fog in the morning sun, and the drying of briny ponds that leaves solid salt behind. Evaporation is all around us, and humans have been observing it and making use of it for as long as we have existed.

And yet, it turns out, we’ve been missing a major part of the picture all along.

In a series of painstakingly precise experiments, a team of researchers at MIT has demonstrated that heat isn’t alone in causing water to evaporate. Light, striking the water’s surface where air and water meet, can break water molecules away and float them into the air, causing evaporation in the absence of any source of heat.

The astonishing new discovery could have a wide range of significant implications. It could help explain mysterious measurements over the years of how sunlight affects clouds, and therefore affect calculations of the effects of climate change on cloud cover and precipitation. It could also lead to new ways of designing industrial processes such as solar-powered desalination or drying of materials.

The findings, and the many different lines of evidence that demonstrate the reality of the phenomenon and the details of how it works, are described today in the journal PNAS, in a paper by Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering Gang Chen, postdocs Guangxin Lv and Yaodong Tu, and graduate student James Zhang.

The authors say their study suggests that the effect should happen widely in nature— everywhere from clouds to fogs to the surfaces of oceans, soils, and plants — and that it could also lead to new practical applications, including in energy and clean water production. “I think this has a lot of applications,” Chen says. “We’re exploring all these different directions. And of course, it also affects the basic science, like the effects of clouds on climate, because clouds are the most uncertain aspect of climate models.”

A newfound phenomenon

The new work builds on research reported last year, which described this new “photomolecular effect” but only under very specialized conditions: on the surface of specially prepared hydrogels soaked with water. In the new study, the researchers demonstrate that the hydrogel is not necessary for the process; it occurs at any water surface exposed to light, whether it’s a flat surface like a body of water or a curved surface like a droplet of cloud vapor.

Because the effect was so unexpected, the team worked to prove its existence with as many different lines of evidence as possible. In this study, they report 14 different kinds of tests and measurements they carried out to establish that water was indeed evaporating — that is, molecules of water were being knocked loose from the water’s surface and wafted into the air — due to the light alone, not by heat, which was long assumed to be the only mechanism involved.

One key indicator, which showed up consistently in four different kinds of experiments under different conditions, was that as the water began to evaporate from a test container under visible light, the air temperature measured above the water’s surface cooled down and then leveled off, showing that thermal energy was not the driving force behind the effect.

Other key indicators that showed up included the way the evaporation effect varied depending on the angle of the light, the exact color of the light, and its polarization. None of these varying characteristics should happen because at these wavelengths, water hardly absorbs light at all — and yet the researchers observed them.

The effect is strongest when light hits the water surface at an angle of 45 degrees. It is also strongest with a certain type of polarization, called transverse magnetic polarization. And it peaks in green light — which, oddly, is the color for which water is most transparent and thus interacts the least.

Chen and his co-researchers have proposed a physical mechanism that can explain the angle and polarization dependence of the effect, showing that the photons of light can impart a net force on water molecules at the water surface that is sufficient to knock them loose from the body of water. But they cannot yet account for the color dependence, which they say will require further study.

They have named this the photomolecular effect, by analogy with the photoelectric effect that was discovered by Heinrich Hertz in 1887 and finally explained by Albert Einstein in 1905. That effect was one of the first demonstrations that light also has particle characteristics, which had major implications in physics and led to a wide variety of applications, including LEDs. Just as the photoelectric effect liberates electrons from atoms in a material in response to being hit by a photon of light, the photomolecular effect shows that photons can liberate entire molecules from a liquid surface, the researchers say.

“The finding of evaporation caused by light instead of heat provides new disruptive knowledge of light-water interaction,” says Xiulin Ruan, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who was not involved in the study. “It could help us gain new understanding of how sunlight interacts with cloud, fog, oceans, and other natural water bodies to affect weather and climate. It has significant potential practical applications such as high-performance water desalination driven by solar energy. This research is among the rare group of truly revolutionary discoveries which are not widely accepted by the community right away but take time, sometimes a long time, to be confirmed.”

Solving a cloud conundrum

The finding may solve an 80-year-old mystery in climate science. Measurements of how clouds absorb sunlight have often shown that they are absorbing more sunlight than conventional physics dictates possible. The additional evaporation caused by this effect could account for the longstanding discrepancy, which has been a subject of dispute since such measurements are difficult to make.

“Those experiments are based on satellite data and flight data,“ Chen explains. “They fly an airplane on top of and below the clouds, and there are also data based on the ocean temperature and radiation balance. And they all conclude that there is more absorption by clouds than theory could calculate. However, due to the complexity of clouds and the difficulties of making such measurements, researchers have been debating whether such discrepancies are real or not. And what we discovered suggests that hey, there’s another mechanism for cloud absorption, which was not accounted for, and this mechanism might explain the discrepancies.”

Chen says he recently spoke about the phenomenon at an American Physical Society conference, and one physicist there who studies clouds and climate said they had never thought about this possibility, which could affect calculations of the complex effects of clouds on climate. The team conducted experiments using LEDs shining on an artificial cloud chamber, and they observed heating of the fog, which was not supposed to happen since water does not absorb in the visible spectrum. “Such heating can be explained based on the photomolecular effect more easily,” he says.

Lv says that of the many lines of evidence, “the flat region in the air-side temperature distribution above hot water will be the easiest for people to reproduce.” That temperature profile “is a signature” that demonstrates the effect clearly, he says.

Zhang adds: “It is quite hard to explain how this kind of flat temperature profile comes about without invoking some other mechanism” beyond the accepted theories of thermal evaporation. “It ties together what a whole lot of people are reporting in their solar desalination devices,” which again show evaporation rates that cannot be explained by the thermal input.

The effect can be substantial. Under the optimum conditions of color, angle, and polarization, Lv says, “the evaporation rate is four times the thermal limit.”

Already, since publication of the first paper, the team has been approached by companies that hope to harness the effect, Chen says, including for evaporating syrup and drying paper in a paper mill. The likeliest first applications will come in the areas of solar desalinization systems or other industrial drying processes, he says. “Drying consumes 20 percent of all industrial energy usage,” he points out.

Because the effect is so new and unexpected, Chen says, “This phenomenon should be very general, and our experiment is really just the beginning.” The experiments needed to demonstrate and quantify the effect are very time-consuming. “There are many variables, from understanding water itself, to extending to other materials, other liquids and even solids,” he says.

“The observations in the manuscript points to a new physical mechanism that foundationally alters our thinking on the kinetics of evaporation,” says Shannon Yee, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, who was not associated with this work. He adds, “Who would have thought that we are still learning about something as quotidian as water evaporating?”

“I think this work is very significant scientifically because it presents a new mechanism,” says University of Alberta Distinguished Professor Janet A.W. Elliott, who also was not associated with this work. “It may also turn out to be practically important for technology and our understanding of nature, because evaporation of water is ubiquitous and the effect appears to deliver significantly higher evaporation rates than the known thermal mechanism. …  My overall impression is this work is outstanding. It appears to be carefully done with many precise experiments lending support for one another.”

The work was partly supported by an MIT Bose Award.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/20ExM3s

“No one can work in civil engineering alone”

Growing up in Colorado Springs, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Mikayla Britsch was encouraged to care deeply about the area’s natural resources and the people who lived there. She followed the news from a young age, as did her parents, who were vocal about current events and worked in “people-centric” positions that served members of the public.

Britsch knew that she, too, wanted her work to be socially driven. Living in an extremely car-oriented city, she became interested in public transportation. At MIT, she decided to follow the path of her grandfather, a civil engineer, and majored in civil and environmental engineering, with a minor in Spanish.

“Being a civil engineer is a career but also a vocation, a calling to use math and science to solve societal problems and help or improve communities,” Britsch says. “It calls on you to be in constant dialogue with others. No one can work in civil engineering alone; you work with colleagues, transportation planners, architects, clients, and the public for even the most basic project.”

At MIT, Britsch has studied ways to improve transportation systems and engage with the public, through several research and extracurricular opportunities. She has worked in the Department of Urban Studies for two Undergraduate Research Opportunities, or UROPs, which involved researching different public transit agencies to study their responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Her capstone project looks at how to deliver packages more efficiently, something Britsch says will make structural systems better for individuals, our environment, and our society.

This research, along with tutoring jobs, teaching and researching abroad, and participating in the mock trial team, has given Britsch a sense of the work she hopes to do in the future. “It would be nice to work in a combination of transportation engineering and public policy, using what I’ve learned at MIT and from the people I’ve met to improve transportation,” she says.

After graduation, Britsch plans to work as a transportation engineer in Colorado before going to graduate school.

Thriving on social interaction

Britsch has an affinity for communication, and considers “talking a lot,” to be one of the most integral aspects of her identity.

Her interest in the Spanish language began in high school, and carried into college, “I fell in love with Spanish. It really clicked in my mind in a way, and I got invested in learning about it,” she says. Britsch is fluent in the language and continues to immerse her studies in the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries.

She values communication in her on-campus jobs as well. She works as a tutor and a tour guide and delights in engaging with new groups of people weekly. Britsch also enjoys socializing with the members of her living community, McCormick Hall, MIT’s all-female dormitory, “It’s very homey. There's also a lot of safety and community in this space,” she says.

Britsch cites her communities on campus — her close-knit civil engineering major, the mock trial team, and the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry — as other important social outlets. She says she has gained some of her closest friends from these groups, “When you spend so much time in practices and competitions, it becomes a community.”

Following her final mock trial competition last month, Britsch and her team came together for a movie night to celebrate their hard work. Britsch has an ongoing list of her favorite childhood movies she believes “are important for other people to watch,” that she is currently working through with her friends.

Travel, and motivating others

One of Britsch’s goals before starting MIT was to implement her language education abroad in South America, which she did through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). Her first MISTI experience was in the summer of 2022 when she traveled to Santiago, Chile, where she worked at the University of Chile researching optimal placements for public electric-vehicle charging stations in the city.

Although she had to overcome the challenges of a different culture, climate, and language dialect, Britsch says the experience was rewarding: “I learned a lot about Chile in my Spanish classes, and it’s a really interesting country.”

Britsch also lived in Mexico in January 2023 and Spain in January 2024 for MIT’s Global Teaching Labs program. She taught statistics, calculus, and algebra to students ranging from preschool to 12th grade. Working in multiple schools and grade levels was a “cool” way to learn about how education varies in other countries, as well as a nostalgic reminder of her time as a grade-school student, she says.

Britsch reflects on her MISTI experiences fondly and claims, “If I could have, I would’ve done it every year.” She hopes to continue visiting Spanish-speaking countries after college and is considering pursuing temporary teaching abroad opportunities in the future.

In her work as a tutor on campus, Britsch finds joy in motivating others in their academic pursuits. She has tutored friends and her dorm members and is employed through the Talented Scholars Resource Room. She is a teaching assistant for an aerospace computer science course as well.

About mentoring, Britsch reflects, “I always relied on myself to do things but when I came to MIT, I realized it’s impossible to rely on just yourself. You can't be successful without help from other people. A lot of the reason that I like tutoring is because I want to show people that asking for help isn't a bad thing.”

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

Researchers detect a new molecule in space

New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team's open-access paper, “Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-Methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I,” appears in April 12 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Zachary T.P. Fried, a graduate student in the McGuire group and the lead author of the publication, worked to assemble a puzzle comprised of pieces collected from across the globe, extending beyond MIT to France, Florida, Virginia, and Copenhagen, to achieve this exciting discovery. 

“Our group tries to understand what molecules are present in regions of space where stars and solar systems will eventually take shape,” explains Fried. “This allows us to piece together how chemistry evolves alongside the process of star and planet formation. We do this by looking at the rotational spectra of molecules, the unique patterns of light they give off as they tumble end-over-end in space. These patterns are fingerprints (barcodes) for molecules. To detect new molecules in space, we first must have an idea of what molecule we want to look for, then we can record its spectrum in the lab here on Earth, and then finally we look for that spectrum in space using telescopes.”

Searching for molecules in space

The McGuire Group has recently begun to utilize machine learning to suggest good target molecules to search for. In 2023, one of these machine learning models suggested the researchers target a molecule known as 2-methoxyethanol. 

“There are a number of 'methoxy' molecules in space, like dimethyl ether, methoxymethanol, ethyl methyl ether, and methyl formate, but 2-methoxyethanol would be the largest and most complex ever seen,” says Fried. To detect this molecule using radiotelescope observations, the group first needed to measure and analyze its rotational spectrum on Earth. The researchers combined experiments from the University of Lille (Lille, France), the New College of Florida (Sarasota, Florida), and the McGuire lab at MIT to measure this spectrum over a broadband region of frequencies ranging from the microwave to sub-millimeter wave regimes (approximately 8 to 500 gigahertz). 

The data gleaned from these measurements permitted a search for the molecule using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations toward two separate star-forming regions: NGC 6334I and IRAS 16293-2422B. Members of the McGuire group analyzed these telescope observations alongside researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Charlottesville, Virginia) and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 

“Ultimately, we observed 25 rotational lines of 2-methoxyethanol that lined up with the molecular signal observed toward NGC 6334I (the barcode matched!), thus resulting in a secure detection of 2-methoxyethanol in this source,” says Fried. “This allowed us to then derive physical parameters of the molecule toward NGC 6334I, such as its abundance and excitation temperature. It also enabled an investigation of the possible chemical formation pathways from known interstellar precursors.”

Looking forward

Molecular discoveries like this one help the researchers to better understand the development of molecular complexity in space during the star formation process. 2-methoxyethanol, which contains 13 atoms, is quite large for interstellar standards — as of 2021, only six species larger than 13 atoms were detected outside the solar system, many by McGuire’s group, and all of them existing as ringed structures.  

“Continued observations of large molecules and subsequent derivations of their abundances allows us to advance our knowledge of how efficiently large molecules can form and by which specific reactions they may be produced,” says Fried. “Additionally, since we detected this molecule in NGC 6334I but not in IRAS 16293-2422B, we were presented with a unique opportunity to look into how the differing physical conditions of these two sources may be affecting the chemistry that can occur.”

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

Erin Bahm, Steven Parks named 2024–25 UPS Fellows

The MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) has announced Erin Bahm and Steven Parks as recipients of the UPS Fellowship for the 2024–25 academic year.

Made possible by a grant from the UPS Foundation, the UPS Fellowship awards financial support to two outstanding students each year, one incoming MIT master’s student and one MIT doctoral student pursuing study relating to logistics, freight transportation, supply chain management, or a related topic.

The UPS Fellowship aims to recognize and reward excellence in these fields, and selections are awarded solely on the basis of merit. Fellows receive full tuition plus a monthly stipend.

"The UPS Fellowships exemplify MIT CTL's dedication to infusing innovation into real-world applications, upholding the highest standards of academic inquiry," says Chris Caplice, executive director of MIT CTL. "These fellowships, with the generous backing of the UPS Foundation, stand as indispensable assets in nurturing talents such as Erin and Steven. Their contributions will help to shape the future landscape of the supply chain industry."

Erin Bahm is an incoming student in the MIT Supply Chain Management master’s program who comes to CTL as a senior inventory operations analyst for Target in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she stepped into a role managing the end-to-end purchasing and positioning of multiple perishable food categories. Her strength in process improvement led to a promotion to inventory operations, where she was responsible for leading a cross-functional initiative to implement ordering optimization changes to over 300 vendors. In her role, she consulted with global supply chain partners on new process initiatives to ensure order volume accuracy and replenishment agility across networks.

Bahm earned her BS in applied engineering sciences from Michigan State University in 2020, where she also received an MIT Supply Chain Excellence Award. Since graduating, she has continued her studies with the completion of a women’s leadership course through the Yale School of Management’s Executive Education program, and she has earned a certificate through MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management. As a leader, Bahm has moderated a career development panel series, and has expanded Target's new hire mentorship program.

Steven Parks is a PhD candidate in transportation engineering at MIT, and he is also a research assistant in the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab at CTL. In the latter role, he led a 16-month research project with Amazon World-Wide Real Estate Operations, working to quantify the net traffic congestion effects of last-mile e-commerce activities at city scale. The project, for which Parks built a macroscopic traffic simulation model to estimate congestion caused by e-commerce for three major U.S. cities, led to recommendations to reduce congestion footprints published in a white paper in 2024.

"Steven's work was of critical importance for the success of the project and the reach and academic impact of the research challenge for us and our counterparts at Amazon," says Matthias Winkenbach, Parks's advisor and director of the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab. "Steven’s research is answering the question how we can best plan recurring vehicle routes for given demand patterns, road network properties, and other environmental or operational factors related to urban form. This is a highly relevant and timely question with many real-world implications for both freight logistics and passenger transportation systems."

Parks is a graduate of Santa Clara University, where he was recognized as a Johnson Scholar and earned his BS in mechanical engineering, and received his MS in transportation engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He has been awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Professor Joseph M. Sussman Best Paper Prize from the journal Frontiers in the Built Environment, and first place in the Santa Clara University Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Conference for his work on disaster relief communications.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/4EIxAR7

Twenty-three MIT faculty honored as "Committed to Caring" for 2023-25

In the halls of MIT, a distinctive thread of compassion weaves through the fabric of education. As students adjust to a postpandemic normal, many professors have played a pivotal role by helping them navigate the realities of hybrid learning and a rapidly changing postgraduation landscape. 

The Committed to Caring (C2C) program at MIT is a student-driven initiative that celebrates faculty members who have served as exceptional mentors to graduate students. Twenty-three MIT professors have been selected as recipients of the C2C award for 2023-25, marking the most extensive cohort of honorees to date. These individuals join the ranks of 75 previous C2C honorees. 

The actions of these MIT faculty members over the past two years underscore their profound commitment to the well-being, growth, and success of their students. These educators go above and beyond their roles, demonstrating an unwavering dedication to mentorship, inclusion, and a holistic approach to student development. They aim to create a nurturing environment where students not only thrive academically, but also flourish personally. 

The following faculty members are the 2023-25 Committed to Caring honorees:

• Hamsa Balakrishnan, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Cynthia Breazeal, Media Lab
• Roberto Fernandez, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Nuh Gedik, Department of Physics
• Mariya Grinberg, Department of Political Science
• Ming Guo, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Myriam Heiman, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Rohit Karnik, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Erik Lin-Greenberg, Department of Political Science
• Michael McDonald, Department of Physics
• Emery Neal Brown, Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology
• Wanda Orlikowski, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Kenneth Oye, Department of Political Science
• Kristala Prather, Department of Chemical Engineering
• Zachary Seth Hartwig, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
• Tracy Slatyer, Department of Physics
• Iain Stewart, Department of Physics
• Andrew Vanderburg, Department of Physics
• Rodrigo Verdi, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Xiao Wang, Department of Chemistry
• Ariel White, Department of Political Science
• Nathan Wilmers, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Maria Yang, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Since the founding of the C2C program in 2014 by the Office of Graduate Education, the nomination process for honorees has centered on student involvement. Graduate students from all departments are invited to submit nomination letters detailing professors’ outstanding mentorship practices. A committee of graduate students and staff members then selects individuals who have shown genuine contributions to MIT’s vibrant academic community through student mentorship.

The selection committee this year included: Maria Carreira (Biology), Rima Das (Mechanical Engineering), Ahmet Gulek (Economics), Bishal Thapa (Biological Engineering), Katie Rotman (Architecture), Dóra Takács (Linguistics), Dan Korsun (Nuclear Science and Engineering), Leslie Langston (Student Mental Health and Counseling), Patricia Nesti (MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Beth Marois (Office of Graduate Education [OGE]), Sara Lazo (OGE), and Chair Suraiya Baluch (OGE).  

This year’s nomination letters highlighted unique stories of how students felt supported by professors. Students noted their mentors’ commitment to frequent meetings despite their own busy personal lives, as well as their dedication to ensuring equal access to opportunities for underrepresented and underserved students.

Some wrote about their advisors’ careful consideration of students’ needs alongside their own when faced with professional advancement opportunities; others appreciated their active support for students in the LGBTQ+ community. Lastly, students reflected on their advisors’ encouragement for open and constructive discourse around the graduate unionization vote, showing a genuine desire to hear about graduate issues.

Baluch shared, “Working with the amazing selection committee was the highlight of my work year. I was so impressed by the thoughtful consideration each nomination received. Selecting the next round of C2C nominees is always a heartwarming experience.” 

“As someone who aspires to be a faculty member someday,” noted Das, “being on the selection committee … was a phenomenal opportunity in understanding the breadth and depth of possibility in how to be a caring mentor in academia.”

She continued, “It was so heartening to hear the different ways that these faculty members are going above and beyond their explicit research and teaching duties and the amazing impact that has made on so many students’ well-being and ability to be successful in graduate school.” 

The Committed to Caring program continues to reinforce MIT’s culture of mentorship, inclusion, and collaboration by recognizing the contributions of outstanding professors. In the coming months, news articles will feature pairs of honorees, and a reception will be held in May.

de MIT News https://ift.tt/UW2HBAm

Featured video: Moooving the needle on methane

Methane traps much more heat per pound than carbon dioxide, making it a powerful contributor to climate change. “In fact, methane emission removal is the fastest way that we can ensure immediate results for reduced global warming,” says Audrey Parker, a graduate student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Parker and other researchers in the Methane Emission Removal Project are developing a catalyst that can convert methane to carbon dioxide. They are working to set up systems that would reduce methane in the air at dairy farms, which are major emitters of the gas. Overall, agricultural practices and waste generation are responsible for about 28 percent of the world’s methane emissions.

“If we do our job really well, within the next five years, we will be able to reduce the operating temperature of this catalyst in a way that is net beneficial to the climate and potentially even economically incentivized for the farmer and for society,” says Desirée Plata, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering who leads the Methane Emission Removal Project.

Video by Melanie Gonick/MIT News | 4 minutes, 35 seconds

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