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 MIT's Engineers Explore New Fields, Access Innovative Learning ToolsThe flying car may soon be added to the School of Engineering innovations influencing the modern world—a list that includes contributions to the Internet, advanced technologies for artificial limbs, and equipment and processes for gasoline production. The 2006 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize winner, aeronautics and astronautics doctoral student Carl Dietrich, will begin building a full-scale mock-up of his air and land vehicle with his $30,000 winnings. Indeed, an entrepreneurial spirit pervades the School of Engineering. The Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation aims to bring new technologies to the marketplace by providing grant money and connecting faculty innovators with venture capitalists and other business resources. Senior Forrest Liau of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering won three contracts with the US Army to develop an electronic glove that will allow soldiers to interface with electronic equipment without removing their hands from weapons or steering wheels. Liau's design evolved from a second-place-winning entry in the Solider Design Competition sponsored by the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), an interdepartmental research center established in 2002 that involves faculty from the Schools of Engineering, Science, and Architecture and Planning. Career development programs such as the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), a mentoring, internship, and skill-building training for sophomores, add to the development of well-rounded engineers. Often, practical training involves altruistic endeavors. Students in departments throughout the Institute, including mechanical engineering, apply classroom learning to community service projects as part of MIT's service learning initiative. In Product Engineering Processes, for example, students visited Habitat for Humanity sites and invented an electronic scaffold and drywall lift and installation system to make volunteers' work easier and safer. The School of Engineering is the largest at MIT, housing more than one-third of the Institute's total faculty, nearly 60 percent of all undergraduates with declared majors, and over 45 percent of all graduate students. Faculty and research staff make up almost 5 percent of the National Academy of Engineering membership. Three current and emeritus faculty have won the National Medal of Science, and five members of the school are MacArthur Fellows, including electrical engineering and computer science Associate Professor Erik Demaine, whose research interests involve algorithms, from data structures for improving Web searches to understanding how proteins fold. Nationwide, MIT’s undergraduate and graduate engineering programs are the best, according to U.S. News and World Report. Educational innovation helps the School of Engineering distinguish itself from peer institutions. "For our students to become global leaders, they clearly must be poised at the forefront of emerging areas of engineering," says Dean Thomas L. Magnanti. In fall 2005, MIT became the nation's first school to offer an undergraduate biological engineering degree, which applies engineering principals and approaches at the molecular and cellular level. In the last two years alone, six new degree programs have been established, including an SB in chemical-biological engineering and a PhD in computational and systems biology. The latter, an interdisciplinary program at the interface of biology, engineering, and computer science, is also the first of its kind in the country and prepares students to become independent and interdisciplinary researchers who analyze complex biological phenomena. The Engineering Systems Division (ESD), created in 1999 to study complex technological systems and their societal impact, launched the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals (CESF) in fall 2005 to aid the long-term intellectual development of this new field. CESF develops seminars and facilitates discussions, sponsors a book series and biannual international symposium, and collaborates with faculty to shape its relationships with ESD's other research centers, which include the Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development and the Center for Transportation and Logistics. No doubt, MIT engineers significantly impact the world. Astronaut Janice Voss EE '77, the Institute's first female graduate launched into space, leads the Kepler project, which seeks Earth-like planets in the galaxy. Professors from civil and environmental engineering shared knowledge in the wake of hurricane Katrina about planning safe and sustainable regions and improving disaster response at the symposia Big Questions after Big Hurricanes. And eradicating the world’s energy crisis occupies faculty and researchers from several departments in the School of Engineering, including the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), bolstered recently with a new $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The research will be done through MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, which was established as an interdisciplinary research center by NSE and the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (formerly the Energy Laboratory) in 2000 to help develop technologies for nuclear energy plants and fuel facilities. Energy research is an important initiative championed by President Susan Hockfield, who created the MIT Energy Research Council to determine how the Institute can make significant strides in the field. Read on to learn more about School of Engineering innovations in this edition of openDOOR.
Photo above: UPOP students practice the networking skill of shaking hands at a professional development event. Photo by Dimitri Bertsekas.
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Copyright ©2006 Massachusetts
Institute of Technology