MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
July 26, 2017
MIT News: around campus
A weekly digest of the Institute’s community news

Krishna Rajagopal named dean for digital learning

New position expands leadership roles for faculty in the Office of the Vice President for Open Learning.

Maryann Gong earns second-straight Division III Academic All-America of the Year Award

Computer science major is the first Division III student-athlete to earn the honor in back-to-back years and just the second overall in the NCAA.

Lessons from pre-industrial climate control

Graduate student Alpha Yacob Arsano wants to bring natural ventilation to the forefront of modern architecture.

Featured video: A self-driving wheelchair

Autonomous wheelchair developed by researchers at MIT and in Singapore promises improved independence for the disabled.

Spreading kindness far and wide

Senior Bettina Arkhurst, founder of Random Acts of Kindness Week, is making a better world at MIT.

In the Media

FOX 25 reporter Bob Dumas features a dance-party lamp developed by MIT researchers aimed at getting girls interested in STEM fields. “There’s research that shows girls, around middle school age, their participation in STEM classes and curriculum starts to drop off," explains Prof. Maria Yang. She adds that she wants to, "get girls back on the STEM train by engaging their interests.”

In this Bloomberg TV video aired during the July 4^th Spectacular, Profs. Sangeeta Bhatia and Robert Langer discuss the Greater Boston area’s prowess in medical research. Langer explains that for his research, which is focused on inventing, “new things in chemical engineering that can change people’s lives in medicine, there is no better place.”

Mercury News reporter Jasmine Leyva highlights how students in Campbell, California are participating in the Zero Robotics program, which “aims to take students’ work to the moon and beyond, all while teaching students about space exploration, computer science and coding.” The Zero Robotics program is led by the MIT Space Systems Lab, Innovation Learning Center and Aurora Flight Sciences.