Author: Ms. R.

This year’s Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching has been presented to MIT Class of ‘42 Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering Michael Short. Short is adept at making complex engineering subjects experiential and personal, while also encouraging students to apply their engineering skills to problems with real-world impact. He was recognized in 2017 with the Junior Bose Teaching Award. “Professor Short’s ability to engage students in complex subjects — even virtually, amid a pandemic — is extraordinary,” says Anantha P. Chandrakasan,……

Read More

The 21st century is the century of longevity. For the first time in history, it is reasonable for many of us to expect to live to over 100. But with the boon of longer lifespans also comes new challenges, including complex new situations and life roles. One complexity that has grown along with the aging population is the role of family caregiving. According to AARP, as of 2020, over 50 million Americans are unpaid caregivers for relatives or friends…….

Read More

For many graduate students, the first time they enter MIT’s campus as a student is a momentous occasion. Standing among the pillars and domes for the first time as an MIT student elicited a moment of quiet reflection for recent graduate Hilary Johnson SM ’18, PhD ’22. “It was this moment of awe and kind of reverence for the temple of learning that the architecture suggests,” Johnson says. “I paused in silence for a moment to absorb the aura……

Read More

The MIT Libraries celebrated the exceptional contributions of its employees in June with its 2022 Infinite Mile Awards ceremony. Cleverly orchestrated around a mystery theme, the virtual ceremony featured video skits, a riddle contest, and performances by the libraries’ band, The Dust Jackets.  Awards were presented to individuals and teams in the categories listed below; recipients are listed along with excerpts from the award presentations. Unsung Hero With the shift to hybrid work and an emphasis on digital processing……

Read More

In Florida, June typically marks the beginning of hurricane season. Preparation for a storm may appear as otherworldly as it is routine: businesses and homes board up windows and doors, bottled water is quick to sell out, and public buildings cease operations to serve as emergency shelters. What happens next may be unpredictable. If things take a turn for the worse, myriad homes may be leveled. A 2019 Congressional Budget Office report estimated that hurricane-related wind damage causes $14……

Read More

Moore’s Law needs a hug. The days of stuffing transistors on little silicon computer chips are numbered, and their life rafts — hardware accelerators — come with a price.  When programming an accelerator — a process where applications offload certain tasks to system hardware especially to accelerate that task — you have to build a whole new software support. Hardware accelerators can run certain tasks orders of magnitude faster than CPUs, but they cannot be used out of the box…….

Read More

Last fall, a team of five senior undergraduate nuclear engineering students met once a week for dinners where they took turns cooking and debated how to tackle a particularly daunting challenge set forth in their program’s capstone course, 22.033 (Nuclear Systems Design Project). In past semesters, students had free reign to identify any real-world problem that interested them to solve through team-driven prototyping and design. This past fall worked a little differently. The team continued the trend of tackling……

Read More

Using the latest technologies currently available, it takes over 25,000 tons of rocket hardware and propellant to land 50 tons of anything on the planet Mars. So, for NASA’s first crewed mission to Mars, it will be critical to learn how to harvest the red planet’s local resources in order to “live off the land” sustainably. On June 24, NASA announced that an MIT team received first place in the annual Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL)……

Read More