March 30, 2019
Greetings! Here’s the latest roundup from the MIT community.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Averting Electrical Fires
MIT engineers have devised a system to monitor all electric devices within a building, ship, or factory for signs of failure. When tested on a Coast Guard cutter, the system pinpointed a burnt-out motor that could have caused a serious fire.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Top Headlines
Exceptional individuals receive 2019 MIT Excellence Awards and Collier Medal
Honors recognize extraordinary dedication to MIT’s goals, values, mission, and community.
MIT Heat Island
Women in mathematics aim for an equals sign
Female graduate students in the Department of Mathematics unite to encourage community and to extend an invitation to prospective MIT students.
MIT Heat Island
New 3-D printing approach makes cell-scale lattice structures
System could provide fine-scale meshes for growing highly uniform cultures of cells with desired properties.
MIT Heat Island
Facebook is free, but should it count toward GDP anyway?
Study measures how much free online goods are worth to consumers.
MIT Heat Island
Solving for fun (and sometimes prizes)
Senior Danielle Wang, a two-time Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize winner, is well on her way to becoming a career mathematician.
MIT Heat Island
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
#ThisIsMIT
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the Media
Scientists figure out why worms regenerate 🐛 // The New York Times
A study co-authored by Professor Peter Reddien details the master gene responsible for enabling worms to regenerate.
David Autor, the academic voice of the American worker // The Economist
Professor David Autor’s research has become “enormously influential, in large part because of his groundbreaking work on the effects on American workers of China’s extraordinary rise.”
Ending our data dilemma with cryptography’s holy grail // Fast Company
Duality, an MIT startup, “could provide an actual solution to the data privacy problem by allowing companies to keep their data fully encrypted and still find patterns in it.”
Warnings of a dark side to AI in health care // The New York Times
MIT and Harvard University researchers have found that artificial intelligence medical systems could exacerbate the threat of “stakeholders bilking the system by subtly changing billing codes and other data in computer systems that track health care visits.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Watch This
Senior Audrey Pillsbury has many different identities on campus: She is a musician and composer, she rows for the women's openweight crew, and she studies chemistry. Now she is exploring her identity as a second-generation Asian-American through her first collaborative musical, “The Jade Bracelet.” “Being at MIT has given me access to a lot of resources,” Pillsbury says. “We have so many creative people here.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digit
72
Percentage of students in the Class of 2018 who graduated with no student loan debt
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Look Back
Lois Howe was one of the first women to study architecture at MIT. In 1888 she was the only woman in her incoming class of 66 architecture students, and she completed a two-year course in 1890. After the turn of the century, Howe established the first all-female architecture practice in Boston — and the second in the U.S. — eventually recruiting MIT alumnae Eleanor Manning (Class of 1906) and Mary Almy (Class of 1920) as partners. In 1901, Howe became the second woman elected to the American Institute of Architects. By her retirement in 1937, her firm had completed 426 commissions, mostly renovations and other single-family projects.
This edition of the MIT Weekly was brought to you by smart procrastination. ⏰

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your week!

—Kathy, MIT News Office
Forward This Email Subscribe