Celebrating the impact of IDSS
The “interdisciplinary approach” is something that has been lauded for decades for its ability to break down silos and create new integrated approaches to research.For Munther Dahleh, founding director...
View ArticleQ&A: Are far-reaching fires the new normal?
Where there’s smoke, there is fire. But with climate change, larger and longer-burning wildfires are sending smoke farther from their source, often to places that are unaccustomed to the exposure....
View ArticleMIT engineers develop a soft, printable, metal-free electrode
Do an image search for “electronic implants,” and you’ll draw up a wide assortment of devices, from traditional pacemakers and cochlear implants to more futuristic brain and retinal microchips aimed at...
View ArticleQS ranks MIT the world’s No. 1 university for 2023-24
MIT has again been named the world’s top university by the QS World University Rankings, which were announced today. This is the 12th year in a row MIT has received this distinction.The full 2024...
View ArticleAndrea Lo ’21 draws on ecological lessons for life, work, and education
Growing up in Los Angeles about 10 minutes away from the Ballona Wetlands, Andrea Lo ’21 has long been interested in ecology. She witnessed, in real-time, the effects of urbanization and the impacts...
View ArticleHelping the transportation sector adapt to a changing world
After graduating from college, Nick Caros took a job as an engineer with a construction company, helping to manage the building of a new highway bridge right near where he grew up outside of Vancouver,...
View Article3 Questions: What’s it like winning the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition?
Solar power plays a major role in nearly every roadmap for global decarbonization. But solar panels are large, heavy, and expensive, which limits their deployment. But what if solar panels looked more...
View ArticleSchool of Engineering second quarter 2023 awards
Faculty and researchers across MIT’s School of Engineering receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes...
View ArticleMIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials
Two of humanity's most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new...
View ArticleThe curse of variety in transportation systems
Cathy Wu has always delighted in systems that run smoothly. In high school, she designed a project to optimize the best route for getting to class on time. Her research interests and career track are...
View Article3 Questions: Boosting concrete’s ability to serve as a natural “carbon sink”
Damian Stefaniuk is a postdoc at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub). He works with MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm and Admir Masic of the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering...
View ArticleTables and figures: Why are graphics taken for granted in research writing?
Writing a scientific paper is as complex as it is gratifying. To take one on, researchers have to complete literature reviews and orchestrate tests — which they have to design, conduct, and debug....
View ArticleThe tenured engineers of 2023
In 2023, MIT granted tenure to nine faculty members across the School of Engineering. This year’s tenured engineers hold appointments in the departments of Biological Engineering, Civil and...
View ArticleExplained: The 1.5 C climate benchmark
The summer of 2023 has been a season of weather extremes.In June, uncontrolled wildfires ripped through parts of Canada, sending smoke into the U.S. and setting off air quality alerts in dozens of...
View ArticleSchool of Engineering awards for 2023
Each year, the MIT School of Engineering honors outstanding faculty, students, and staff across its departments, labs, centers, and institutes with a number of awards. Recently, the school announced...
View ArticleUncovering how biomes respond to climate change
Before Leila Mirzagholi arrived at MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) to begin her postdoc appointment, she had spent most of her time in academia building cosmological...
View ArticleTechnologies for water conservation and treatment move closer to...
The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) provides Solutions Grants to help MIT researchers launch startup companies or products to commercialize breakthrough technologies in water and...
View ArticleJackson Jewett wants to design buildings that use less concrete
After three years leading biking tours through U.S. National Parks, Jackson Jewett decided it was time for a change.“It was a lot of fun, but I realized I missed buildings,” says Jewett. “I really...
View ArticleDesirée Plata appointed co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability...
Desirée Plata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, has been named co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), effective Sept. 1. Plata will serve...
View Article2023-2024 Accenture Fellows advance technology at the crossroads of business...
The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology has announced five new research fellows for 2023-24. Now in its third year, the initiative underscores the ways in which...
View Article3 Questions: A new PhD program from the Center for Computational Science and...
This fall, the Center for Computational Science and Engineering (CCSE), an academic unit in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, is introducing a new standalone PhD degree program that will enable...
View ArticleCleaning up one of the world’s most commonly used substances
This past July, in the dusty basement of a building in Seattle, Washington, about 60 tons of concrete were poured as part of the renovation of a historic building. To an outsider, it looked like just...
View ArticleJesse Kroll recognized for excellence in postdoctoral mentoring
The MIT Postdoctoral Association (PDA) has dedicated its second annual Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring to Jesse Kroll. Professor of civil and environmental engineering, professor of...
View ArticleGermicidal UV lights could be producing indoor air pollutants, study finds
Many efforts to reduce transmission of diseases like Covid-19 and the flu have focused on measures such as masking and isolation, but another useful approach is reducing the load of airborne pathogens...
View Article3 Questions: What should scientists and the public know about nuclear waste?
Many researchers see an expansion of nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions from its power generation, as an essential component of strategies to combat global climate change. Yet...
View ArticleBringing the environment to the forefront of engineering
In a recent podcast interview with MIT President Sally Kornbluth, Associate Professor Desirée Plata described her childhood pastime of roaming the backyards and businesses of her grandmother’s hometown...
View ArticleForging climate connections across the Institute
Climate change is the ultimate cross-cutting issue: Not limited to any one discipline, it ranges across science, technology, policy, culture, human behavior, and well beyond. The response to it...
View Article2023-24 Takeda Fellows: Advancing research at the intersection of AI and health
The School of Engineering has selected 13 new Takeda Fellows for the 2023-24 academic year. With support from Takeda, the graduate students will conduct pathbreaking research ranging from remote health...
View ArticleRewarding excellence in open data
The second annual MIT Prize for Open Data, which included a $2,500 cash prize, was recently awarded to 10 individual and group research projects. Presented jointly by the School of Science and the MIT...
View ArticleUnlocking the secrets of natural materials
Growing up in Milan, Benedetto Marelli liked figuring out how things worked. He repaired broken devices simply to have the opportunity to take them apart and put them together again. Also, from a young...
View ArticleAI accelerates problem-solving in complex scenarios
While Santa Claus may have a magical sleigh and nine plucky reindeer to help him deliver presents, for companies like FedEx, the optimization problem of efficiently routing holiday packages is so...
View ArticleMIT Generative AI Week fosters dialogue across disciplines
In late November, faculty, staff, and students from across MIT participated in MIT Generative AI Week. The programming included a flagship full-day symposium as well as four subject-specific symposia,...
View ArticleSatellite-based method measures carbon in peat bogs
Peat bogs in the tropics store vast amounts of carbon, but logging, plantations, road building, and other activities have destroyed large swaths of these ecosystems in places like Indonesia and...
View ArticleTurning history of science into a comic adventure
The Covid-19 pandemic taught us how complex the science and management of infectious disease can be, as the public grappled with rapidly evolving science, shifting and contentious policies, and mixed...
View ArticleSchool of Engineering fourth quarter 2023 awards
Faculty and researchers across MIT’s School of Engineering receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes...
View Article2023-25 MIT Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence cohort...
The School of Engineering welcomed 13 fellows to the MIT Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence for the 2023-25 academic year. Through the program, they will deepen their training...
View ArticleNew AI model could streamline operations in a robotic warehouse
Hundreds of robots zip back and forth across the floor of a colossal robotic warehouse, grabbing items and delivering them to human workers for packing and shipping. Such warehouses are increasingly...
View ArticleExplained: Carbon credits
One of the most contentious issues faced at the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) on climate change last December was a proposal for a U.N.-sanctioned market for trading carbon credits. Such a...
View ArticleFirst-year MIT students gain hands-on research experience in supportive peer...
During MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP) this January, first-year students interested in civil and environmental engineering (CEE) participated in a four-week undergraduate research...
View ArticleStudy finds lands used for grazing can worsen or help climate change
When it comes to global climate change, livestock grazing can be either a blessing or a curse, according to a new study, which offers clues on how to tell the difference.If managed properly, the study...
View ArticleLessons from Fukushima: Prepare for the unlikely
When a devastating earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the protective systems at the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant complex in Japan in March 2011, it triggered a sequence of events leading to...
View ArticleA new way to quantify climate change impacts: “Outdoor days”
For most people, reading about the difference between a global average temperature rise of 1.5 C versus 2 C doesn’t conjure up a clear image of how their daily lives will actually be affected. So,...
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With a new experimental technique, MIT engineers probe the mechanisms of...
Granular materials, those made up of individual pieces, whether grains of sand or coffee beans or pebbles, are the most abundant form of solid matter on Earth. The way these materials move and react to...
View ArticleCharacterizing social networks
People tend to connect with others who are like them. Alumni from the same alma mater are more likely to collaborate over a research project together, or individuals with the same political beliefs are...
View ArticleQS World University Rankings rates MIT No. 1 in 11 subjects for 2024
QS World University Rankings has placed MIT in the No. 1 spot in 11 subject areas for 2024, the organization announced today.The Institute received a No. 1 ranking in the following QS subject areas:...
View ArticleNew major crosses disciplines to address climate change
Lauren Aguilar knew she wanted to study energy systems at MIT, but before Course 1-12 (Climate System Science and Engineering) became a new undergraduate major, she didn't see an obvious path to study...
View ArticleAdvancing technology for aquaculture
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, aquaculture in the United States represents a $1.5 billion industry annually. Like land-based farming, shellfish aquaculture requires...
View ArticleFeatured 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...
View Article“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...
View Article3 Questions: A shared vocabulary for how infectious diseases spread
On April 18, the World Health Organization (WHO) released new guidance on airborne disease transmission that seeks to create a consensus around the terminology used to describe the transmission of...
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