Building 31 Powers Back Up
A $52 million renovation of the 90-year-old Building 31 on MIT’s campus has transformed the space into a gleaming home for research in autonomy, turbomachinery, energy storage, and transportation. The three-year project added nearly 7,000 square feet of new space and doubled Building 31's capacity for faculty, students, and researchers.
Summering in Kendall Square
While some students use the summer break to kick back and relax, Safa Jebri, a rising junior at MIT, is hard at work making wearable robotics at Myomo—a medical device company—in Kendall Square in Cambridge.
This is Engineering at MIT
The School of Engineering at MIT has a long and rich history with no shortage of success stories. These successes, however, are often preceded by failures, and countless trials and errors. Always, though, a sense of perseverance seems to permeate the culture of the school.
Taking The Engine for a Test Drive
Innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs worldwide are waiting on news of the first companies chosen to be part of The Engine. Founded by MIT, The Engine is a combination of long-term investment, resources, and services for founders working on “tough tech” that prioritizes high-impact solutions to big problems over early profits. This summer a group of MIT students got a taste of what it’s like to be inside The Engine’s space in Central Square, near the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They may not be members of The Engine’s first cohort of startups, but they still had a chance to warm up the space, so to speak, for those chosen.
Karate is for Everyone
Vazrik Chiloyan, an instructor for the MIT Shotokan Karate Club, developed a love for karate nearly a decade ago. Since then, Chiloyan, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, has earned a second-degree black belt. Shotokan karate, he says, is one of the most beautiful things he has ever studied.
After MIT, New Officers Will Serve Their Country
A few hours after they received their MIT diplomas on the Institute’s famed Killian Court, 12 young women and men stood on the deck of the USS Constitution to receive commissions in the U.S. military. “You embody the best of MIT,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif told the new crop of surface warfare officers, pilots, flight officers, reactor and developmental engineers, ordnance officers, aircraft maintenance officers, and medical physicians.
Apophis Is Coming!
Alissa Michelle Earle is rehearsing in front of her class. She stands before a presentation slide, and reads: “Mission Motivation: Apophis is coming!”
On Target
With hundreds of clubs and teams to join at MIT, students with varied interests will find that there is no shortage of activities to take part in on campus. Kelly Mathesius, a senior aerospace engineering major, is a prime example of a busy student whose involvement on campus really runs the gamut. When not in class or studying, Mathesius divides her time working on the rocket team, serving as captain of the riffle team, and solving a favorite retro puzzle as the co-founder of the Rubik’s Cube Club.
Entering the Animal World
On a field trip, Harriet Ritvo and her MIT students went to look at preserved animals on public display, or stored as lab specimens, in collections housed at Harvard University. They encountered hundreds of species, some up close: touching the wings of a pickled bat, the silky fur of a mink, and the sharp claws of a lynx and a lion.
The Creation of a Public Engineer
“In my lab, we bridge a gap,” says Hadley Sikes. “We try to figure out how to take established science and implement it in clinical practice in a reliable, easy and cost-effective way.”