February 20, 2021
Greetings! Here’s a roundup of the latest from the MIT community.
 
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In Mission Control
 
After years of planning and more than six months in space, the Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars Thursday. The rover is slated to explore Mars’ Jezero crater and look for evidence of the Red Planet’s warmer, wetter history. Many at MIT, as well as 69 alumni, have worked on the mission, including 12 alumni who were on mission control for the landing. Five of these — Swati Mohan SM ’07, PhD ’10; Matthew Smith SM ’10, PhD ’14; Allen Chen ’00, SM ’02; Chloe Sackier ’18; and Erisa (Hines) Stilley SM ’05 — are featured in this video previewing the challenge at hand. Congratulations to all involved!
Watch the video via NASA→
Top Headlines
With Perseverance, MIT teams prepare for Mars rover landing
Following touchdown, MOXIE will brew up oxygen while geologists comb for sediments to sample.
Full story via MIT News→
 MIT Heat Island
Space for all is this student’s goal
Maya Nasr’s work on the Mars 2020 mission has led her to become an advocate for expanding international cooperation in space.
Full story via MIT News →
 MIT Heat Island
New surgery may enable better control of prosthetic limbs
Reconnecting muscle pairs during amputation gives patients more sensory feedback from the limb.
Full story via MIT News →
 MIT Heat Island
Ijeoma Oluo: “What we are fighting for is Black joy”
Keynote speaker at MIT’s annual MLK Celebration says fighting white supremacy requires far more than just reducing its harm.
Full story via MIT News →
 MIT Heat Island
Institute Professor Emeritus Isadore Singer, renowned mathematician who united math and physics, dies at 96
Longtime MIT professor who laid the foundations for the development of index theory was a recipient of both the National Medal of Science and the Abel Prize.
Full story via MIT News →
 MIT Heat Island
#ThisisMIT
Follow @MIT on Twitter →
In the Media
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Nigerian powerhouse to head the WTO // Financial Times
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81, a former Nigerian finance minister, has been named the new director-general of the World Trade Organization. “Okonjo-Iweala sees an opportunity for the organization to rediscover some of its original purpose of raising living standards across the board and to bring its outdated rule book up to date at a time of accelerating change.”
Full story via The Financial Times→
Opinion: Boston: The Silicon Valley of longevity? // The Boston Globe
AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin and Research Associate Luke Yoquinto explore how Greater Boston could serve as an innovation hub for aging populations.
Full story via The Boston Globe →
Isadore Singer, who bridged a gulf from math to physics, dies at 96 // The New York Times
Institute Professor Emeritus Isadore Singer “created a bridge between two seemingly unrelated areas of mathematics and then used it to build a further bridge, into theoretical physics. The achievement created the foundation for a blossoming of mathematical physics unseen since the time of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.”
Full story via The New York Times→
With her innovation, this engineer wants to restore an amputee’s sense of touch // The Boston Globe
Postdoc Shriya Srinivasan devised a way to perform amputation surgery that would reconnect dangling nerves to the skin and help restore a patient’s sense of touch.
Full story via The Boston Globe →
Remember This
In a recent episode of the Sloanies Talking With Sloanies podcast, Monica Lee Foley MBA ’19 chats with host Christopher Reichert SM ’04 to discuss her career at NASA, where she currently serves as chief of staff at the Johnson Space Center; the importance of mentoring and encouraging diverse young people to pursue STEM careers; and her time in the MIT Sloan School of Management Executive MBA program.
Listen to the episode →
“
Touchdown confirmed!
—Swati Mohan SM ’07, PhD ’10, Mars 2020 guidance, navigation, and control operations lead and voice of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mission Control for Thursday's successful rover landing
Full story via USA Today→
Scene at MIT
Hello from afar: This photo of the Red Planet over MIT was captured by aeronautics and astronautics graduate student Evan Kramer on the eve of Thursday's landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars. More than 150 AeroAstro community members took part in a watch party over Zoom — professors, students, colleagues, and friends watching the live NASA feed as 12 MIT alumni served as engineers and specialists in Mission Control. In the chat following touchdown, jubilation, and this from Senior Administrative Assistant Joyce Light: “And so many of you will be the next crew in Mission Control... You’re just amazing!”
 
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