| Forging Community | | | | A recent conference attended by a group of MIT students, pictured here, catalyzed new ideas for the Institute's First Generation Program. | | Students who are the first in their family to go to college comprise roughly one-fifth of MIT's undergraduate population. A suite of new programs and events aims to increase their visibility on campus and bolster a sense of belonging. Full story via MIT News → |
| Two-legged robot mimics human balance while running and jumping A new control system may enable humanoid robots to do heavy lifting and other physically demanding tasks. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| The lure of “so-so technology,” and how businesses can avoid it Professor Daron Acemoglu provides insights about self-checkout kiosks and other automated services that replace workers but don’t boost productivity. Full story via MIT Sloan → |
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| The technology of enchantment In a new anthropology and studio art course, MIT students investigate the human dimensions of interacting with technologies. Full story via MIT News → | |
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| The making of a mechanical engineer in seven UROPs Mechanical engineer Folkers Rojas ’09, SM ’11, PhD ’14 completed a whopping seven UROPs while studying at MIT. Full story via Slice of MIT → | |
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| Five reasons climate change is the worst environmental problem the world has ever faced // The Los Angeles Times In an op-ed, Professor Christopher Knittel notes one reason climate change is so tricky to deal with is that “pollutants causing it are tied directly to crucial aspects of people’s lives, including transportation, home electricity, and heating and air conditioning.” Full story via The Los Angeles Times → |
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| Voyager 2 makes an unexpectedly clean break from the solar system // Scientific American Astronomers have compared data from the journeys that Voyager 1 and 2 made into interstellar space and found that Voyager 1 entered a region where the movement of plasma around the spacecraft was almost non-existent. “Essentially the plasma was just sitting there,” explains John Richardson, a principal research scientist at the MIT Kavli Institute. Full story via Scientific American → |
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| Researchers make stand-up part of the routine // Chronicle of Higher Education |
Professor Charles Leiserson discusses how stand-up comedy can help early-career academics better express themselves and connect with audience members at research talks. Full story via Chronicle of Higher Education → |
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| A catch-22 thwarts rebound in the wake of California wildfires, natural disasters // Forbes |
Research affiliate Michael Windle discusses a new report from the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab. Full story via Forbes → |
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Name: Major Alicia Dimitruk
Affiliation: Air Force ROTC Detachment 365 operations officer and assistant professor of aerospace studies
Hometown: Harrogate, Tennessee
Years at MIT: 1
Favorite teacher: Linda Leach, my 9th grade English teacher and my speech and theater coach through high school. She is the gentlest soul I know and possibly the funniest, too.
Most recent phone pic: My husband kissing my baby
Secret superpower: My 11-year-old says I’m the world’s greatest cook.
Best thing about MIT: Walking down the Infinite Corridor. I can’t help but imagine what the backgrounds and different walks of life might be of all the people I pass. |
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| | | On Sunday night, Daniel Z. Freedman (left), professor emeritus in MIT’s departments of Mathematics and Physics, joined colleagues Sergio Ferrara (center) of CERN and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen of Stony Brook University at the awards ceremony for the 2020 Breakthrough Prizes. The trio shared a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for developing the theory of supergravity. Learn more via MIT News → |
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