Aviva Brecher '68, SM '68
Transportation Expert Studies Magnetic Levitation Solutions
Aviva Brecher '68, SM '68 researches Japan's maglev rail system.
Aviva Brecher '68, SM '68 and MIT share a certain magnetism. The national technical expert in safety, health, and environment (SHE) at the U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center first learned of magnetic levitation (maglev) technology at MIT. Today, Brecher and the SHE team study maglev railroad transportation technology for government agencies including the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration. She hopes the team's plentiful data on the safety, lifecycle costs, energy savings, and environmental benefits of maglev systems will inspire the government to invest in them.
"I find this contact-less, high-speed transportation technology exciting," says Brecher, who has traveled to Japan, China, and Germany to hurtle along maglev tracks at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour. "It emits no pollution and has low maintenance costs. There is much greater efficiency and less wear and tear on the system, compared to traditional transportation modes."
After graduation, Brecher earned a PhD in applied physics at the University of California, San Diego, then returned to MIT in 1972 as a postdoctoral scientist in earth and planetary sciences. Brecher also worked in the lab of physics professor Ben Lax PhD '49, measuring meteoritic and moon rock magnetism on samples returned by NASA's Apollo Moon missions. Brecher lectured at MIT until 1979.
"Always in my career, there has been this productive contact and continuity with MIT," Brecher says. Since 1986, when she joined the Volpe Center, Brecher has regularly consulted MIT colleagues on a multitude of transportation-safety and environmental issues. Her projects include analyzing and recommending civilian applications for unmanned aerial vehicles and developing recovery and cleanup procedures for a bioterror attack on transportation facilities.
Brecher met her husband, Kenneth Brecher '65, PhD '69 when he traveled to her homeland in Israel while an MIT graduate student in physics. Kenneth, who taught astrophysics at MIT for several years, now teaches physics and astronomy at Boston University. The couple's two children, Karen, 31, and Daniel, 29, work in film and investment management, respectively. "Both our children very graciously put up with scientist parents who overexposed them to physics from day one," says Brecher with a laugh.
By Eileen McCluskey
(First published in Technology Review, May/June 2006)
