Anna Russo likes puzzles. They require patience, organization, and a view of the big picture. She brings an investigator’s eye to big institutional and societal challenges whose solutions can have wide-ranging, long-term impacts. Russo’s path to MIT began with questions. She didn’t have the whole picture yet. “I had no idea what I wanted to […]
Read More
Growing up in Colorado Springs, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Mikayla Britsch was encouraged to care deeply about the area’s natural resources and the people who lived there. She followed the news from a young age, as did her parents, who were vocal about current events and worked in “people-centric” positions that served […]
Read More
Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The basic physics of running involves someone applying a force to the ground in the opposite direction of their sprint. For senior Olivia Rosenstein, her cross-country participation provides momentum to her studies as an experimental physicist working with […]
Read More
A quick scan of Emma Bullock’s CV reads like those of many other MIT graduate students: She has served as a teaching assistant, written several papers, garnered grants from prestigious organizations, and acquired extensive lab and programming skills. But one skill sets her apart: “fieldwork experience and survival training for Arctic research.” That’s because Bullock, […]
Read More
Mark Harnett, an associate professor at MIT, still remembers the first time he saw electrical activity spiking from a living neuron. He was a senior at Reed College and had spent weeks building a patch clamp rig — an experimental setup with an electrode that can be used to gently probe a neuron and measure […]
Read More
Watching her uncle play a video game when she was a small child started Shaniel Bowen on her path to becoming a biomedical engineer. The game, “Metal Gear Solid 2,” introduced her to exoskeletons, wearable devices that enhance physical abilities. “The game piqued my interest when it started showing and discussing exoskeletons,” Bowen says. “I […]
Read More
For those in need of one, an organ transplant is a matter of life and death. Every year, the medical procedure gives thousands of people with advanced or end-stage diseases extended life. This “second chance” is heavily dependent on the availability, compatibility, and proximity of a precious resource that can’t be simply bought, grown, or […]
Read More
As Netta Engelhardt sees it, secrets never die. Not even in a black hole. Engelhardt is a theoretical physicist at MIT who is teasing out the convoluted physics in and around black holes, in search of the fundamental ingredients that shape our universe. In the process, she’s upending popular ideas in the fields of quantum […]
Read More
For Julie E. Greenberg SM ’89, PhD ’94, what began with a middle-of-the-night phone call from overseas became a gratifying career of study, research, mentoring, advocacy, and guiding of the office of a unique program with a mission to educate the next generation of clinician-scientists and engineers. In 1987, Greenberg was a computer engineering graduate […]
Read More
Encouraged by her family, Lavender Tessmer explored various creative pursuits from a young age, particularly textiles, including knitting and crocheting. When she came to MIT, she figured that working with textiles would remain just a hobby; she never expected them to become integral to her career path. However, when she interviewed for a research assistant […]
Read More
When Rafael Jaramillo talks about his favorite accomplishments, it quickly becomes clear that he has the right temperament for a researcher — he is energized by a challenge and the prospect of hard work. “I am proudest of things that required risky strategic thinking, followed by years of technical slog, followed by validation,” says Jaramillo, […]
Read More
In early 2022, economist Catherine Wolfram was at her desk in the U.S. Treasury building. She could see the east wing of the White House, just steps away. Russia had just invaded Ukraine, and Wolfram was thinking about Russia, oil, and sanctions. She and her colleagues had been tasked with figuring out how to restrict […]
Read More
In 2010, when Ericmoore Jossou was attending college in northern Nigeria, the lights would flicker in and out all day, sometimes lasting only for a couple of hours at a time. The frustrating experience reaffirmed Jossou’s realization that the country’s sporadic energy supply was a problem. It was the beginning of his path toward nuclear engineering. Because […]
Read More
Undergrads, take note: The lessons you learn in those intro classes could be the key to making your next big discovery. At least, that’s been the case for MIT’s Jeehwan Kim. A recently tenured faculty member in MIT’s departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, Kim has made numerous discoveries about the nanostructure […]
Read More
The mathematician and computer scientist Richard Hamming once gave a talk about doing great research. “He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important,” Hamming said, emphasizing the importance of open-mindedness and scientific development. William […]
Read More