MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June 13, 2017
MIT News: around campus
A weekly digest of the Institute’s community news

Tim Cook to MIT grads: “How will you serve humanity?”

Apple CEO urges graduating class to “work toward something greater than yourself.”

President L. Rafael Reif's charge to the Class of 2017

"One of today’s great challenges is how to help society navigate the unintended impact of technology itself," Reif tells more than 2,800 new graduates.

NASA selects three from MIT for astronaut training

Chari, Hoburg, and Moghbeli, all with ties to the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, represent a quarter of NASA's astronaut candidate Class of 2017.

Thomas McKrell, research scientist and mentor in nuclear science and engineering, dies at 47

Lauded director of the MIT Thermal Hydraulics and Materials in Extreme Environments Laboratory was a consummate experimentalist and passionate teacher.

MIT Corporation elects 10 term members, four life members

Term members will each serve two or five years on MIT’s board of trustees.

Hacking apparel becomes lucrative business for alumni

Clothing tinkerers innovate fashion with science-based performance dresswear and 3-D knitting.

In the Media

Alumna Jasmin Moghbeli speaks with NPR’s Emma Bowman about being selected for NASA astronaut training. Moghbeli, one of three trainees with MIT ties, explains that she hopes to inspire girls of color. “If they can see someone similar to them that they can relate to more, then it makes it all that much more possible…to imagine doing this.”

MIT has received an unrestricted $140 million gift from an anonymous alumnus, reports Melissa Korn for The Wall Street Journal. “An unrestricted gift of that size is rare in higher education, as donors often want a say in how their dollars are spent. Unrestricted donations can be used for things like facilities upkeep, as well as to pursue early-state scientific research.”

MIT’s 2017 Commencement exercises featured an address by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who urged graduates to use their skills to help people around the world, reports the AP. “Measure impact in humanity; not in the likes, but the lives you touch and the people you serve,” said Cook.

MIT was named the top university in the world for the sixth consecutive year in the QS World University Rankings, reports Kyle Scott Clauss for Boston Magazine.