In the final 2022 Division III LEARFIELD Directors’Cup standings,MIT finished in fourth place overall as the Engineers ended the 2021-22 academic year with 936.75 points.This marks the second-highest finish in MIT history as the Engineers climbed two spots following atremendous performance in the spring season.Fall highlights Men’s cross country finished as the NCAA National Runner-Up as the Engineers registered aprogram-best five All-Americans at the NCAA Championship.Women’s cross country captured the NEWMAC title and had two All-American performers at the National Championship in Louisville,Kentucky.Women’s soccer hosted the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever,advancing to the NCAA Quarterfinals after capturing the NEWMAC Championship.Women’s volleyball earned an NCAA Quarterfinal berth as well,winning the regional at home in Rockwell Cage after an NEWMAC Tournament victory that landed the Engineers in the NCAAs.Winter highlights The men’s swimming and diving team finished in sixth place as ateam at the NCAA Championship with apair of relay national championships and anational title in the 100 free by sophomore Tobe Obochi of Highland Park,Illinois.Women’s swimming and diving landed an eighth-place finish at the NCAAs as junior Edenna Chen(Colorado Springs,Colorado)captured the national title in the 100 breast.In addition,her time was just.02 seconds away from the D3 national record.The men’s track and field team finished in sixth place at the NCAA Championship as junior Kenneth Wei(Mt.Sinai,New York)captured the long jump title and senior Ryan Wilson(Redwood City,California)earned awire-to-wire victory in the 800 meters.Women’s track and field had five student-athletes advance to the NCAA Championship,including senior Izzi Gengaro(Boonton Township,New Jersey),who finished as an All-American in the 5,000 meters.Fencing first-year Patrick Xinyi Liu(Brookline,Massachusetts)finished in eighth place in the final foil standings at the NCAA National Collegiate Fencing Championship.Spring highlights Men’s lacrosse posted the best season in program history as the Engineers went undefeated in the regular season,won their first-ever NEWMAC Championship,and advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time.Graduate student Ryan Gebhardt(Baldwinsville,New York)was named as the NEWMAC Athlete of the Year as he became the all-time,all-divisions NCAA goal scoring leader.The softball team earned an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament and advanced all the way to the NCAA regional final.The Engineers had six All-Region performers,one All-American,and apair of First Team Academic All-Americans.The women’s tennis team capped off atremendous 2021-22 season as the Engineers hosted the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the program’s fourth overall Elite Eight.Junior Sarah Pertsemlidis(Coppell,Texas)made history as she advanced to the semifinals of the NCAA Singles Championship,and three Engineers earned All-American accolades overall.Men’s tennis avenged aregular-season loss to the U.S.Coast Guard Academy and earned athrilling 5-3 victory over the Bears as the Engineers advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championship.Outdoor track and field had ahistoric showing at the NCAA Championship,capturing four individual national championships as both Wei and Wilson swept the indoor and outdoor titles in the long jump and 800 meters,respectively.Wei added the 110-meter hurdle championship,while first-year Luka Srsic(Worthington,Ohio)took the pole vault championship.The women’s track and field team finished in 18th place at the NCAAs,led by ahigh jump national championship from junior Kimmy McPherson(San Diego,California).First-year Alexis Boykin(Clayton,Ohio)posted an All-American showing in the shot put,along with aseventh-place All-American performance by the 4x400 relay team,to cap off the final day of the competition.The LEARFIELD Directors’Cup was developed as ajoint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics(NACDA)and USA Today.Points are awarded based on each institution‘s finish in NCAA Championships. 查看详细>>

The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab(J-WAFS)recently announced the selection of its 2022-23 cohort of graduate fellows.Two students were named Rasikbhai L.Meswani Fellows for Water Solutions and three students were named J-WAFS Graduate Student Fellows.All five fellows will receive full tuition and astipend for one semester,and J-WAFS will support the students throughout the 2022-23 academic year by providing networking,mentorship,and opportunities to showcase their research.New this year,fellowship nominations were open not only to students pursuing water research,but food-related research as well.The five students selected were chosen for their commitment to solutions-based research that aims to alleviate problems such as water supply or purification,food security,or agriculture.Their projects exemplify the wide range of research that J-WAFS supports,from enhancing nutrition through improved methods to deliver micronutrients to developing high-performance drip irrigation technology.The strong applicant pool reflects the passion MIT students have to address the water and food crises currently facing the planet.“This year’s fellows are drawn from adynamic and engaged community across the Institute whose creativity and ingenuity are pushing forward transformational water and food solutions,”says J-WAFS executive director Renee J.Robins.“We congratulate these students as we recognize their outstanding achievements and their promise as up-and-coming leaders in global water and food sectors.”2022-23 Rasikbhai L.Meswani Fellows for Water Solutions The Rasikbhai L.Meswani Fellowship for Water Solutions is afellowship for students pursuing water-related research at MIT.The Rasikbhai L.Meswani Fellowship for Water Solutions was made possible by agenerous gift from Elina and Nikhil Meswani and family.Aditya Ghodgaonkar is aPhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT,where he works in the Global Engineering and Research(GEAR)Lab under Professor Amos Winter.Ghodgaonkar received abachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the RV College of Engineering in India.He then moved to the United States and received amaster’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.Ghodgaonkar is currently designing hydraulic components for drip irrigation that could support the development of water-efficient irrigation systems that are off-grid,inexpensive,and low-maintenance.He has focused on designing drip irrigation emitters that are resistant to clogging,seeking inspiration about flow regulation from marine fauna such as manta rays,as well as turbomachinery concepts.Ghodgaonkar notes that clogging is currently an expensive technical challenge to diagnose,mitigate,and resolve.With an eye on hundreds of millions of farms in developing countries,he aims to bring the benefits of irrigation technology to even the poorest farmers.Outside of his research,Ghodgaonkar is amentor in MIT Makerworks and has been ateaching assistant for classes such as 2.007(Design and Manufacturing I).He also helped organize the annual MIT Water Summit last fall.Devashish Gokhale is aPhD candidate advised by Professor Patrick Doyle in the Department of Chemical Engineering.He received abachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras,where he researched fluid flow in energy-efficient pumps.Gokhale’s commitment to global water security stemmed from his experience growing up in India,where water sources are threatened by population growth,industrialization,and climate change.As aresearcher in the Doyle group,Devashish is developing sustainable and reusable materials for water treatment,with afocus on the elimination of emerging contaminants and other micropollutants from water through cost-effective processes.Many of these contaminants are carcinogens or endocrine disruptors,posing significant threats to both humans and animals.His advisor notes that Devashish was the first researcher in the Doyle group to work on water purification,bringing his passion for the topic to the lab.Gokhale’s research won an award for potential scalability in last year’s J-WAFS World Water Day competition.He also serves as the lecture series chair in the MIT Water Club. 查看详细>>

“I catch myself startling people in public.”Zoe Fisher’s animated hands carry part of the conversation as she describes how her naturally loud and expressive laughter turned heads in the streets of Yerevan.There during MIT’s Independent Activities period(IAP),she was helping teach nuclear science at the American University of Armenia,before returning to MIT to pursue fusion research at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center(PSFC).Startling people may simply be in Fisher’s DNA.She admits that when she first arrived at MIT,knowing nothing about nuclear science and engineering(NSE),she chose to join that department’s Freshman Pre-Orientation Program(FPOP)“for the shock value.”It was achoice unexpected by family,friends,and mostly herself.Now in her senior year,a 2021 recipient of NSE’s Irving Kaplan Award for academic achievements by ajunior and entering afifth-year master of science program in nuclear fusion,Fisher credits that original spontaneous impulse for introducing her to asubject she found so compelling that,after exploring multiple possibilities,she had to return to it.Fisher’s venture to Armenia,under the guidance of NSE associate professor Areg Danagoulian,is not the only time she has taught oversees with MISTI’s Global Teaching Labs,though it is the first time she has taught nuclear science,not to mention thermodynamics and materials science.During IAP 2020 she was astudent teacher at aGerman high school,teaching life sciences,mathematics,and even English to grades five through 12.And after her first year she explored the transportation industry with amechanical engineering internship in Tuscany,Italy.By the time she was ready to declare her NSE major she had sampled the alternatives both overseas and at home,taking advantage of MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program(UROP).Drawn to fusion’s potential as an endless source of carbon-free energy on earth,she decided to try research at the PSFC,to see if the study was agood fit.Much fusion research at MIT has favored heating hydrogen fuel inside adonut-shaped device called atokamak,creating plasma that is hot and dense enough for fusion to occur.Because plasma will follow magnetic field lines,these devices are wrapped with magnets to keep the hot fuel from damaging the chamber walls.Fisher was assigned to SPARC,the PSFC’s new tokamak collaboration with MIT startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems(CSF),which uses agame-changing high-temperature superconducting(HTS)tape to create fusion magnets that minimize tokamak size and maximize performance.Working on adatabase reference book for SPARC materials,she was finding purpose even in the most repetitive tasks.“Which is how Iknew Iwanted to stay in fusion,”she laughs.Fisher’s latest UROP assignment takes her—literally—deeper into SPARC research.She works in abasement laboratory in building NW13 nicknamed“The Vault,”on aproton accelerator whose name conjures an underworld:DANTE.Supervised by PSFC Director Dennis Whyte and postdoc David Fischer,she is exploring the effects of radiation damage on the thin HTS tape that is key to SPARC’s design,and ultimately to the success of ARC,a prototype working fusion power plant. 查看详细>>

Now ajunior at University of Maryland Baltimore County majoring in chemical engineering,Myers is one of seven undergraduates from around the United States to participate in the new Materials Initiative for Comprehensive Research Opportunity(MICRO)program,a fully remote,online research internship from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering(DMSE).Myers’research interests are focused on using nanoparticles as drug delivery therapeutics for breast cancer and other chronic diseases,and the MICRO program offered an unprecedented opportunity to access expertise,mentorship,and approaches to biomedicine that might otherwise have stayed out of reach for undergraduates.The MICRO internship program launched this past September,funded by aHigher Education Innovation grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab(J-WEL)and orchestrated by DMSE graduate students Cécile Chazot and Max L’Etoile,Digital Learning Lab scientist Jessica Sandland,and professors Alfredo Alexander-Katz and Christine Ortiz.MICRO aims to provide opportunities to abroader,more diverse population of talented undergraduate students at non-MIT institutions who are considering graduate school or acareer in aresearch-related field.Designed from the ground up as an online program,MICRO drew on expertise from the MITx Digital Learning Lab as well as the most important lessons from the shift to remote learning during the pandemic.“The remote nature of the program removes one potential barrier to access—students can participate even if they are unable to spend asemester at MIT.A remote program also allows students to participate for consecutive semesters,giving them greater continuity in their research,”says Jessica Sandland PhD’05,who is alecturer in DMSE and works with faculty to create courses for MITx and incorporate blended and digital technologies into the classroom.One semester into her internship,Myers has found the online program both rigorous and uniquely rewarding.The internship has two components:research—working directly with MIT faculty,and education—general assignments to give the students asolid understanding of materials science as afield.Myers is working with Joelle Straehla in Professor Paula Hammond’s lab to use nanoPRISM to identify the genomic determinants of nanoparticle trafficking in cells.“The biggest challenge comes down to learning new techniques in my lab,being exposed to new coding languages Ihaven’t learned before.Because Idon’t have amaterials science program at home,thinking like amaterials scientist has been anew challenge for me,”she says.“Rachel has exceeded my expectations and having her as aremote mentee has been apositive experience for us both,”says Straehla.“I am looking forward to continuing to support Rachel on her journey as she applies to graduate schools.”The interns are limited to participating in research that they can do remotely,such as simulations,data analysis,and computational modeling.The program team put alot of effort into designing assignments,workflows,and experiences that capitalized on the online format,rather than working around it. 查看详细>>

When most students are 17,they’re preparing college applications and planning for prom.When Sihao Huang was 17,he was meeting with officials from the U.S.Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration.For two years before arriving at MIT,Huang started and ran acompany,designing small,customizable satellite modules.Huang,now acollege senior double majoring in physics and electrical engineering and computer science,is as enterprising and curious as ever,and he still spends his time thinking about complex physics models and how to engineer better systems.But these days,what interests him isn’t satellite systems,but political ones.During his childhood in China and Singapore,Huang taught himself electrical engineering and coding and started building circuit boards in his bedroom.At 14,when his family moved to the United States,he set off on apersonal mission to launch something into space.Huang co-founded acompany,Aphelion Orbitals,which he ran for three years.During that time,he recruited engineers from aerospace companies to design modular launch vehicles and propulsion systems to help make sending satellites into space accessible to more people.Huang realized,though,that the real challenge for him in owning the company wasn’t the engineering;it was the people and business side of things.“I think Ineeded to grow more as aperson before Icould grow the company more,”he says of his decision to attend college.“It was so much more than just assembling parts.”That early exposure to business,and its inherent challenges,remained in his mind as Huang arrived at MIT and began studying physics and engineering.It didn’t take long to realize that,for him,the most intriguing systems weren’t found in the natural sciences,but in the social sciences. 查看详细>>

Deep neural networks excel at finding patterns in datasets too vast for the human brain to pick apart.That ability has made deep learning indispensable to just about anyone who deals with data.This year,the MIT Quest for Intelligence and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab sponsored 17 undergraduates to work with faculty on yearlong research projects through MIT’s Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program(SuperUROP).Students got to explore AI applications in climate science,finance,cybersecurity,and natural language processing,among other fields.And faculty got to work with students from outside their departments,an experience they describe in glowing terms.“Adeline is ashining testament of the value of the UROP program,”says Raffaele Ferrari,a professor in MIT’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences,of his advisee.“Without UROP,an oceanography professor might have never had the opportunity to collaborate with astudent in computer science.”Highlighted below are four SuperUROP projects from this past year.A faster algorithm to manage cloud-computing jobs The shift from desktop computing to far-flung data centers in the“cloud”has created bottlenecks for companies selling computing services.Faced with aconstant flux of orders and cancellations,their profits depend heavily on efficiently pairing machines with customers.Approximation algorithms are used to carry out this feat of optimization.Among all the possible ways of assigning machines to customers by price and other criteria,they find aschedule that achieves near-optimal profit.?For the last year,junior Spencer Compton worked on avirtual whiteboard with MIT Professor Ronitt Rubinfeld and postdoc Slobodan Mitrovi?to find afaster scheduling method. 查看详细>>

Jeff Toney would like you to think differently about who’s doing the teaching at MIT.The visiting professor in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy piloted an ambitious Independent Activities Period(IAP)project,bringing together students from MIT and Wellesley College to explore the rich trove of knowledge each student already possesses as acultural inheritance.“STEM education is rooted in atradition of students mentored by masters and icons of their field,”says Toney,who is also the provost and vice president of research and faculty at Kean University.“Student success is often determined by learning how to think like ascientist or engineer,and by astudent’s ability to adapt to and model the behavior and culture of their mentor and the campus environment.”This top-down model of education may help create excellent engineers,but it creates asomewhat hierarchical learning dynamic.Toney’s IAP aimed to overturn that dynamic.“I challenged four culturally and linguistically diverse undergraduate students to complete aremote research project on atopic well outside of their comfort zone:to examine how their culture,gender identity,or language could enrich the Institute.” 查看详细>>

MIT’s graduate student orientation is historically ameasured,months-long affair,ramping up in the summer with informational webinars and gatherings hosted by alumni around the world,and continuing in the fall with dozens of on-campus events.This is anything but atypical year,of course.For example,many of the nearly 1,700 incoming graduate students have never set foot on campus;the annual spring visiting week,which allows them to get to know MIT—and particularly their department—was canceled when the Institute closed in mid-March,in response to Covid-19.Fortunately,incoming students are in good hands.The Graduate Student Council(GSC)Orientation Committee(OC)has been diligently adapting 2020 Grad Orientation ever since then,to welcome,inform,and connect students,wherever they are.As OC committee co-chair Shashank Agarwal wrote in arecent grad blog,“the responsibility of the orientation team towards incoming students is higher than ever.”Building avirtual community 查看详细>>

In 2015,the world began to realize astark reality—the unprecedented wealth and prosperity ushered in by the digital age was not being shared equally across society.Research indicated that income inequality was rising,and the headlines reflected agrowing public fear of unemployment driven by automation.MIT Sloan School of Management‘s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee,co-directors of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy(IDE)and co-authors of“The Second Machine Age,”recognized this reality as achallenge that could be solved if the right resources were brought to bear.IDE’s response was the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge(IIC),a global tournament for entrepreneurs harnessing technology to ensure amore equitable future.Since the IIC was launched at the first MIT Solve in 2015,IDE has identified 160 organizations from around the world,awarding atotal of$5 million in prizes to accelerate their missions.In three years,those IIC winners have collectively generated over$170 million in revenue,raised over$1 billion in capital,created more than 7,000 jobs,and served 350 million people. 查看详细>>

Startups working to broaden economic opportunities around the world were awarded$1.6 million in prizes at the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge(IIC)yesterday.The$250,000 grand prize winners were JobGet,a mobile platform that matches low-income job seekers with employers;Agros,a company using remote sensing and precision agriculture to assist small farmers in Latin America;Reaktor Education,which uses online courses to teach people about artificial intelligence;and TiendaPago,an online lender giving small,mom-and-pop stores in Latin America short-term loans.“The conversation about technology,we feel,has been too pessimistic,too focused on the possible downsides,too focused on automation taking everyone’s jobs away,”said Andrew McAfee,a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management who co-founded the IIC with Erik Brynjolfsson,an MIT Sloan professor.“We think that’s wrong,so we try to shift the conversation and recognize the people and groups doing exactly the opposite—using technology to bring economic opportunity to people.”The winners were chosen from apool of 20 finalists from around the world.Each of the finalists had been vetted and selected by judges at five regional events hosted by the IIC and its partner organizations,who considered more than 1,500 registrants this year. 查看详细>>