Summer Reading: MIT Alumni Close-Ups

Slice of MIT publishes more than 250 stories every year. But’s that only a small breadth of the MIT alumni-related activities that take place throughout the world.

In every issue of the MIT alumni version of MIT Technology Review, the magazine spotlights a half-dozen MIT alumni. Some recent Alumni Close-Ups, which are available on the Alumni Association’s website, include a meme-inspiring engineer, a physicist teaching science to Buddhist monks and nuns, and the only female coach to lead a Division I men’s boat to a collegiate national championship.

A sample of Alumni Close-Ups are below. For more, visit the MIT alumni profile archive to peruse and learn the stories of nearly 400 diverse alumni.

• Mary Ann Beyster SM ’90:Beyster’s documentary, We the Owners: Employees Expanding the American Dream, follows three employee-owned businesses through their decisions about expansion, succession, recruitment, and layoffs, and won Best Documentary Short at the 2013 California Independent Film Festival.
• Bobak Ferdowsi SM ’03: NASA’s “Mohawk Guy” was part of the 30-person team and nine-year effort to develop, launch, and land the Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover vehicle.
• Cammy Abernathy ’80: As dean of the University of Florida’s School of Engineering, Abernathy is emphasizing entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary education, and leadership training for 6,000 undergraduates and 2,700 graduate students.
• Philip Freelon MArch ’77: Freelon’s architecture firm is known for its public projects, including the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, and the Tenley- Friendship Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C.
• Erica Fuchs ’99, SM ’03, PhD ’06: Fuchs was named a “Top 40 under 40 Young Scientist” and was part of early discussions that led to the creation of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a national effort to bring more high-tech manufacturing jobs to the United States.

Visit the MIT section of the MIT Technology Review website to read more Institute stories, including a remembrance of MIT President Charles M. Vest, one professor’s mission to find the most ancient stars in the universe, and an alumni who is testing the boundaries of 4-D printing. (The online MIT content from Technology Review is available to all MIT alumni.)