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.”
Genuine Enthusiasm for AI
On an afternoon in early April, Tommi Jaakkola is pacing at the front of the vast auditorium that is 26-100. The chalkboards behind him are covered with equations. Jaakkola looks relaxed in a short-sleeved black shirt and jeans, and gestures to the board. “What is the answer here?” he asks the 500 MIT students before him. “If you answer, you get a chocolate. If nobody answers, I get one — because I knew the answer and you didn’t.” The room erupts in laugher.
Having a Ball
Each spring, the MIT Ballroom Dance Team hosts the MIT Open Ballroom Competition — the largest collegiate competition in the country. Nearly 1,000 dancers from dozens of universities pack Rockwell Cage and strive to deliver, according to MIT team captain Corey Cleveland, something truly individual.
The Warmup
With graduation on the horizon, MIT students Gabe Alba and Victoria Gregory have work to do. They have a promising idea, a series of prototypes, and if all goes according to plan, a trendy product that will satisfy a coffee drinker’s desire.
The Sanity of the Long-Distance Runner
Polina Anikeeva is ready for Patriots Day. Like the thousands of other runners who make their way from Hopkington, Massachusetts, all the way to that last turn onto Boylston Street in the heart of Beantown, she has her own reasons for running the Boston Marathon; among them: the desire for a balanced life within academe.
Putting Data in the Hands of Doctors
Regina Barzilay is working with MIT students and medical doctors in an ambitious bid to revolutionize cancer care. She is relying on a tool largely unrecognized in the oncology world but deeply familiar to hers: machine learning.