News In Brief
December 20, 2013
Roughly a billion people worldwide live without safe drinking water and each year millions are sickened by waterborne diseases, a condition CEE Senior Lecturer Susan Murcott hopes to improve through dissemination of household drinking water treatment and safe storage systems, a cluster of innovative technologies she has helped invent and promote: one used by about 800,000 people in Guatemala; another that removes pathogens and clarifies turbidity in Ghanaian drinking water used by over 100,000 people; and a third, a filter sold in Nepal to screen out arsenic and bacteria, which has so far reached 350,000 people. All three projects make use of locally available materials and the local workforce to create jobs in manufacturing and sales. Many CEE Masters of Engineering students, School of Engineering, DUSP and Sloan students have worked with Murcott on these projects, which were showcased at the Expo Bid Symposium in October in Dubai and will be honored during the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. Read a related story. Visit Global Water to learn more about Murcott's work.
December 19, 2013
Professor Jesse Kroll of CEE and chemical engineering was awarded the Macelwane Medal by the American Geophysical Union at its annual meeting held Dec. 9-13 in San Francisco. Established in 1961, the Macelwane Medal is awarded annually to young scientists for significant contributions to the geophysical sciences. Kroll’s research focuses on experimental studies of the properties and chemical transformations of organic molecules in Earth’s atmosphere emitted by both anthropogenic activities and biogenic processes. This work is particularly important because atmospheric organic species form a large fraction of the airborne submicron particles responsible for most of the adverse human health effects attributed to poor air quality.
Hidden risk in supply chains: Analytical study finds no link between expenditures and supply-chain risk
December 17, 2013
A new study by CEE Professor David Simchi-Levi helps explain why risk in a complex supply-chain network often remains hidden. There’s no correlation between the total amount a manufacturer spends with a supplier and the profit loss it would incur if that supply were suddenly interrupted. This counterintuitive finding defies a basic business tenet that equates the greatest supply-chain risk with suppliers of highest annual expenditure. When applied to Ford Motor Company’s supply chain, the quantitative analysis shows that the supply firms whose disruption would inflict the greatest blow to Ford’s profits are those that provide the manufacturer with relatively low-cost components. Read a news release.
December 17, 2013
The MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), a research center devoted to concrete and infrastructure science, engineering and economics, has received $10 million in funding from its industry partners to support research by interdisciplinary investigators from several MIT departments. The funding enables the CSHub, which is housed in CEE and overseen by faculty director Professor Franz-Josef Ulm, to continue its work addressing the sustainability and environmental implications of the production and use of concrete. CSHub research aims to fine-tune the composition of concrete, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its production, and quantify its environmental impact and cost during the entire lifespan of an infrastructure or building project. Read a news story.
December 12, 2013
Coral reefs, the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world’s oceans, are declining because of bleaching and disease. But little is known about the microscale interactions between the pathogens that cause disease and the weakened coral. Now CEE’s Professor Roman Stocker, postdoc Melissa Garren and grad student Kwangmin Son have identified one mechanism by which pathogenic bacteria identify their prey: The stressed coral produce up to five times more of a sulfurous compound called DMSP. The abundant DMSP appears to serve as a clarion call, inciting the pathogen cells, which sense the amplified chemical and charge in for attack, changing their swimming direction and speed as they home in on the weakened coral. Read a news release.
December 5, 2013
Could the path to a more sustainable future be paved in concrete? Researchers at MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) certainly think so. By investigating cement and concrete from the nanoscale up and considering its full life cycle, they are working to reduce the energy footprint of the world’s most common building material. “The per-unit weight impact of concrete on CO2 levels is low; but since each person on the planet consumes 1 cubic yard of concrete each year, the aggregate impact is substantial,” said Franz-Josef Ulm, faculty director of the CSHub and the George Macomber Professor of civil and environmental engineering. Indeed, the production of cement powder, the primary ingredient of concrete, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of global CO2 production annually. Read a story.
December 4, 2013
Motivated by aquatic flowers, Professors Pedro Reis (CEE and MechE) and John Bush (Mathematics) recently designed an upside-down floral pipette whose petals grab liquid as they close. This mechanism was inspired by the behavior of water lilies, which float at the surface of ponds or lakes while anchored to the floor. As water rises, hydrostatic and surface tension forces act to bend and eventually close the lily’s petals, thereby preventing water from flooding in. Reis's upside-down flower pipette does the opposite, grabbing water as it’s pulled up, thereby reversing the role of gravity. (This work was published in Soft Matter online Oct. 14, 2010.) The researchers calculated the optimal petal size for capturing a small sip of liquid and then fabricated synthetic flowers through casting, each of which is about 35 millimeters wide — about the size of a small dandelion. This liquid grabber design is now being used by Spanish José Andrés, one of the world’s leading chefs, as a means of serving a palate-cleansing liquid between courses. View a video of the petal grabber. Read a news story.
December 3, 2013
Professor Andrew Whittle delivered the 21st Buchanan Lecture at Texas A&M University on Nov. 22. Whittle, the Edmund K. Turner Professor in CEE, spoke on "The Importance of Undrained Behavior in the Analysis of Soil-Structure Interactions.” The Buchanan Lecture was established in 1993 to honor Buchanan, who graduated from Texas A&M in 1926, and later founded the Soil Mechanics Division of the Texas A&M Zachry Department of Civil Engineering. The list of previous Buchanan lecturers includes many of the leading figures in geotechnical engineering.
November 26, 2013
The November issue of the On Balance newsletter describes a study led by Professor David Simchi-Levi that provides a new quantitative model for analyzing a corporation’s supply chain risk. Surprisingly, the study shows no correlation between the total amount a manufacturer spends with a supplier and the profit loss it would incur if that supply were suddenly interrupted. This finding goes against traditional business thinking, which equates the greatest supply chain risk with suppliers of highest annual expenditure. When applied to Ford Motor Company’s supply chain, the analysis shows that the supply firms whose disruption would inflict the greatest blow to Ford’s profits are those that provide the manufacturer with relatively low-cost components.
November 21, 2013
Doctoral student Zhandos Orazalin won the Geotechnical Master Thesis Competition sponsored by Plaxis software and presented his work at the European Plaxis Users Meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany earlier this month. Orazalin’s presentation, "3D Finite Element Analysis of the Stata Center Excavation," simulated ground deformations, pore pressures and diaphragm wall deflections of the building site of MIT’s Stata Center. The presentation is based on his master’s thesis and research, done with Professor Andrew Whittle.
November 19, 2013
“The Wonders of Thin Structures From Failure to Functionality” — In this short video, Assistant Professor Pedro Reis of CEE and mechanical engineering discusses his research on the mechanics of thin structures, work that lies at the crossroads of science and engineering.
November 15, 2013
A Bloomberg News piece published in Automotive News Nov. 12 describes problems with the North American auto industry’s supply chain, saying companies are facing an “almost 40 percent bottleneck in the ability to make vehicles.” Professor David Simchi-Levi, who was interviewed for the story, says that even CEOs and corporate boards should be concerned with planning ahead to prevent supply chain crises. Read the story.
November 12, 2013
The MIT chapter of Chi Epsilon, the honor society for CEE, is holding a Civil and Environmental Engineering Industry Panel Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. in Room 1-131. Speakers will talk about their work, followed by a Q-and-A to give interested freshmen, CEE graduate and undergraduate students a chance to learn about career opportunities in civil and environmental engineering. The event includes dinner.
November 8, 2013
Emphasizing the need to think outside disciplinary boundaries in research and education, to build and invent, and to foster an entrepreneurial spirit among students and faculty, CEE head Professor Markus Buehler laid out his vision for the department in a presentation to alumni at the first CEE New Research Breakfast held Oct. 17 in the Bush Room. Colette Heald spoke on “How Air Pollution and Climate Impact Global Food Security”; Pedro Reis on “Smorphs: Turn Mechanical Failure into Functionality”; Marta González on “Mining Cellphone Data to Improve Urban Livability”; and Philip Gschwend on “Benign Design of Materials Now Can Avoid Problems in the Future.” See the video and story.
Transportation students Krishna Kumar Selvam and Setareh Borjian awarded 2nd place in INFORMS Railway Applications competition
November 1, 2013
Master of Transportation students Krishna Kumar Selvam (who works with Professor Carolina Osorio) and Setareh Borjian (who works with Associate Dean Cynthia Barnhart and Professor Patrick Jaillet) were jointly awarded the second-place prize in the recent INFORMS Railway Applications Section Competition. Their proposal for optimizing the operations of a railroad yard was selected from 42 submissions in the annual competition held during the INFORMS conference. "We built a rule-based discrete time simulator to model the operations of the classification yard, and applied simulation-based optimization techniques to optimize the rules on which the yard operated," said Selvam. INFORMS, the largest worldwide society for professionals in operations research, management science and analytics, held its 2013 meeting Oct. 6 in Minneapolis.
October 31, 2013
Once again, the annual Parsons Lab Halloween party and pumpkin carving contest was a shrieking success, attended by 125 CEE students, staff, faculty, friends and families, who used knives and other sharp instruments to stab, carve and otherwise mutilate about 65 pumpkins — some of which emerged as works of art. The jack-o-lanterns were judged by graduate students Fatima Hussain and Kyle Peet, and technical assistant Becky Schilling. Graduate student Jennifer Wehof won first prize for her carving of a scary tree; second prize went to graduate student Mason Stahl for a hot air balloon. Five pumpkins with faces inspired by Pablo Picasso’s cubist work tied for third place, the creations of postdoctoral associate Gabriel Juarez and graduate students Jane Chui, Alison Hoyt, Thomas Petersen and David Whittleston. CEE gives a special thanks to Sheila Frankel, associate director of Parsons Lab, and James Long, administrative assistant, who planned and organized the Oct. 25 party, and to graduate student Ruby Fu for photographing the event. Photos are posted on Facebook.
October 29, 2013
Doctoral student Anna Tarakanova, who works in Professor Markus Buehler's Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, received a poster award at the Gordon Research Conference on Elastin and Elastic Fibers held at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, in August. The paper and poster were titled "Elastic Network Model of Tropoelastin Implicates Bridge Region in Assembly and Cell-Binding."
October 24, 2013
The October issue of the On Balance Newsletter describes a study led by Professor Elfatih Eltahir that combines his epidemiological and hydrological model of malaria transmission with global forecasts for temperature and rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa to predict malaria incidence with climate change. It is the first model to incorporate local-scale rainfall events and breeding pool formation with climate change predictions at the regional scale. Use of this methodology could make projections of future malaria incidence far more accurate, which would help public-health officials with long-term planning.
October 22, 2013
John Germaine, senior lecturer and senior research associate, has been elected the next chairman of ASTM International’s Committee D18 on Soil and Rock, beginning Jan. 1. ASTM International develops voluntary technical consensus standards for many materials, products, systems and services used in industry. The Committee on Soil and Rock is concerned with standards associated with the geotechnical and geoenvironmental industry. This includes test methods, practices and guides that are used routinely by the profession to provide uniformity in methodology and quality control in data collection. D18 was formed in 1937, has about 1,200 members and meets twice annually, in January and June, for four days of technical meetings followed by a symposium. The committee has jurisdiction over more than 380 standards and has 21 technical subcommittees. For the past year, Germaine was head of D18’s Subcommittee D18.26 on Hydraulic Fracturing.
October 18, 2013
Professor Pedro Reis's recent blog post on iMechanica describes how “the intrinsic natural curvature of elastic filaments … can dramatically, quantitatively and qualitatively change the behavior of the system." Reis, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, studies the mechanics of slender structures, with a particular focus on devising new ways of turning mechanical failure into functionality. His research group, the Elastic, Geometry & Statistics Laboratory (EGS.Lab), uses experimental, numerical and theoretical methods. Read the blog and join the discussion.
October 17, 2013
A recent story in New Scientist featured an interview with Professor Markus Buehler about his research using 3-D printing to recreate the properties of bone with polymers. "3-D printing allows us to control the structure on the scale of micrometers," says Buehler. "It's a very different technique to that used in nature, but it essentially captures the features of bone." Read the article.
October 10, 2013
On Oct. 8 Professor Marta González's HumNet research group and CEE's Materials, Infrastructure and Systems Group hosted Yu Zheng, lead researcher for Microsoft Research Asia and professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, who was in town to receive the 2013 Top Innovators Under 35 award (TR35) from Technology Review. In his CEE talk on “Urban Computing: Using Big Data to Solve Urban Challenges,” Zheng presented his recent work in urban computing, which consists of acquiring, integrating and analyzing big data generated by sources like sensors, devices, vehicles, buildings and humans to tackle the major issues that cities face, such as air pollution and traffic congestion. Read the MIT Technology Review article.
October 3, 2013
Professor Markus Buehler, head of CEE, recently announced three leadership appointments in the department. Effective Sept. 1, Professor Elfatih Eltahir is associate department head; Philip Gschwend, the Ford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is director of the Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering; and Professor Daniele Veneziano heads CEE’s Materials, Infrastructure and Systems Group, also known as Pierce Laboratory. “I am grateful for the leadership of Professors Eltahir, Gschwend and Veneziano to build an environment of excellence that offers superb opportunities for our students, and one that is well connected across MIT,” said Buehler. Read a news story.
September 25, 2013
Graduate student Yingxiang Yang, a member of Professor Marta González's research group, shared the best paper award with graduate students Gaston Fiore of aeronautics and astronautics and Shan Jiang of urban studies and planning at the International Workshop on Urban Computing (UrbComp 2013). The paper, “A Review of Urban Computing for Mobile Phone Traces: Current Methods, Challenges and Opportunities,” is based on a collaborative project of González, Professor Joseph Ferreira of urban studies and Professor Emilio Frazzoli of aeronautics and astronautics. The workshop was held in Chicago on Aug. 11.
September 24, 2013
The Concrete Sustainability Hub will hold its annual showcase Sept. 26 at the MIT Media Lab. “Building for Life: MIT CSHub Showcase 2013” begins at 9 a.m. with keynote speaker Ray LaHood, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and runs until 3 p.m. Talks will focus on the latest developments in concrete science, and life-cycle cost and environmental research, with afternoon workshops on pavements, buildings and concrete science. Registration is required.
September 19, 2013
Transportation graduate students Linsen Chong and Franco Chingcuanco of Professor Carolina Osorio's research group have been awarded 2013 Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowships. The Eisenhower Fellowship is a competitive fellowship administered by the Federal Highway Administration for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Chong will continue his doctoral research work on dynamic simulation-based optimization algorithms for urban traffic control problems, and M.S.T. student Chingcuanco will contiue with his research on real-time simulation-based optimization.
September 18, 2013
With the help of postdocs and senior grad students, the CEE faculty team (actually faculty/postdocs/senior grad student team) was victorious, beating the junior grad student team 14 to 10 in the annual CEE registration day softball game, held Sept. 3 at Briggs Field. Organized by the student CEE Graduate Student Committee with the help of academic programs administrator Kris Kipp, the softball game had traditional baseball park fare — namely hot dogs — and cheering spectators. The afternoon game was preceded by a short practice and instruction period for members of the teams who were new to the game. Photos (for those who dare to look) have been posted on Facebook.
September 16, 2013
As public-health officials continue to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers are trying to predict how climate change will impact the disease, which infected an estimated 219 million people in 2010. But projections have been hampered by wide variation in rainfall predictions for the region and lack of a malaria-transmission model that adequately describes the effects of local rainfall on mosquitos. A new study by Professor Elfatih Eltahir and graduate student Teresa Yamana solves this problem by combining a model of malaria transmission with global forecasts for temperature and rainfall. They found that although the capacity for malaria transmission will change in some areas of West Africa, overall infection rates are not likely to increase. Climate change by itself is not likely to make the situation worse. Read a news release.
September 16, 2013
Popular Science magazine has named Pedro Reis to its 2013 Brilliant 10 list of young stars in science and technology. The list will appear in the magazine’s October issue. Reis, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, studies the mechanics of slender structures, with a particular focus on devising new ways of turning mechanical failure into functionality. Over the past few years, he has published a number of eclectic and impactful papers in prominent journals. Feng Zhang of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences is also on the list. Read a news story.
September 16, 2013
Professor Ruben Juanes, the ARCO Associate Professor of Energy Studies in CEE, studies the flow of underground fluids, especially combinations of fluids like oil, water and natural gas through porous rock. After starting out with mathematical simulations of these multiphase flows, his work now also incorporates laboratory experiments replicating the complex dynamics of such flows. A feature story on MIT News describes Juanes' work and the motivation behind his research. Read the story on MIT News.
Public discussion and private sector involvement on Hyperloop could speed up the usual design process, writes Saurabh Amin
August 14, 2013
In an opinion piece for CNN, Professor Saurabh Amin likens Elon Musk's request for public comment on the design of the Hyperloop — an ambitious high-speed transportation system — to open source web programming, saying that collective design could speed up the process. "But just as today's open source product designs on the web have benefited and improved from the collective effort of programmers, so has Musk decided to confront the design bottleneck by opening up the design process to the general public — anyone and everyone who cares." Read the Op-Ed.
July 31, 2013
In an epidemic or a bioterrorist attack, the response of government officials could range from a drastic restriction of mobility to simple suggestions that people remain at home. Deciding to institute any measure would require officials to weigh the costs and benefits of action, but at present there’s little data to guide them. However, a new study by Professor Ruben Juanes, graduate student Christos Nicolaides and research associate Luis Cueto-Felgueroso shows that even moderate measures of mobility restriction would be effective in controlling contagion in densely populated areas with highly interconnected road and transit networks. The researchers called the difference between infection rates in the two scenarios the “price of anarchy,” a concept from game theory that’s frequently used as a metric in studies of transportation networks. Read a news story.
July 30, 2013
The government of Catalonia, an autonomous community in Spain, announced last week that Sallie (Penny) Chisholm has been selected to receive this year’s Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology. The prize, named for a distinguished Catalonian scientist and founding father of modern ecology, is one of the most prestigious scientific awards dedicated exclusively to ecological and environmental sciences. Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Biology, will receive the $100,000 prize from Artur Mas, president of Catalonia, at a ceremony in Barcelona in October. Read a news release.
Understanding the strength of a mussel’s underwater attachments could enable better glues and biomedical interfaces
July 29, 2013
Unlike barnacles, which cement themselves tightly to surfaces, the bivalves called mussels dangle more loosely, attached by a collection of fine filaments known as byssus threads. This approach lets the creatures drift further out into the water, where they can absorb nutrients. Despite the outwardly thin and fragile appearance of these threads, it turns out that in the dynamic, sloshing environment of waves and currents they can withstand impact forces that are nine times greater than the forces exerted by stretching in only one direction. The secret to these tiny natural bungee cords has now been unraveled by research scientist Zhao Qin and professor of civil and environmental engineering Markus Buehler. Their findings appeared last week in the journal Nature Communications. Read a news story.
July 19, 2013
After the 9/11 attack in New York City, structural engineer and architect Guy Nordenson ’77 helped determine the structural integrity of more than 400 city buildings. For several years he has also advocated preparing the area for future natural disasters such as storm surges. Now he’s a co-author of a new study, “A Stronger, More Resilient New York,” commissioned by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The document’s recommendations for more than $20 billion in improvements include constructed barriers such as floodwalls and levees, plus natural measures such as restoring beaches and marshes. The Alumni Association’s Slice of MIT blog recently posted about Nordenson, who is a professor of architecture at Princeton University.
July 17, 2013
Graduate students from the MIT Transit Lab spent June 22 really getting to know the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s subway system, commonly known as “The T.” M.S.T. students William Chow, Raphael Dumas, Michael Gordon (incoming) and Katie Pincus traveled on each of the four subway lines — red, blue, green and orange — and a few buses during their 12-hour tour, which also included some sightseeing. Dumas said the students rode through 119 stations and green line stops, clocking 109 miles according to Chow's GPS. Dumas tweeted as they rode, catching the attention of a Boston Magazine blogger who picked up the story. The MIT Alumni Association followed suit, posting its own entry on the Slice of MIT blog. The Transit Lab’s research focuses on transit policy, service and operations planning and management, and transportation modeling. Read the Boston Magazine Blog.
July 15, 2013
Tiny ocean plants, or phytoplankton, were long thought to be passive drifters in the sea — unable to defy even the weakest currents, or travel by their own volition. In recent decades, research has shown that many species of these unicellular microorganisms can swim, and do so to optimize light exposure, avoid predators or move closer to others of their kind. Now Professor Roman Stocker, William Durham Ph.D. ’12 and grad student Michael Barry have shown that the motility of phytoplankton also helps them determine their fate in ocean turbulence. Rather than acting to distribute them evenly — as physics would demand of small particles mixed into a fluid — the individual vortices that make up ocean turbulence are like social mixers for phytoplankton, bringing similar cells into close proximity, potentially enhancing sexual reproduction and other ecologically desirable activities. Read a news release.
July 10, 2013
Professor Jesse Kroll, postdoctoral associate Eben Cross and graduate student Jon Franklin are doing fieldwork this summer at a site in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama as part of the National Science Foundation’s Southeast Atmosphere Study (SAS), an umbrella study comprising five projects undertaken by scientists from 30 research institutions. The goal of the SAS is to learn more about the processes that control biosphere-atmosphere interactions affecting regional climate and air quality in the southeastern United States, one of the few places in the world that has cooled during the last century. At the field site Kroll’s team is looking at the chemical reactions between anthropogenic air pollution and the organic compounds emitted by trees. Read a news release.
July 9, 2013
Bacteria swim by rotating the helical, hairlike flagella that extend from their unicellular bodies. Some bacteria have multiple flagella that rotate as a bundle to move the cell forward. These cells turn somewhat acrobatically by unbundling their flagella, causing the cell to tumble, reorient and strike out in another direction. But 90 percent of motile marine bacteria have only a single rigid flagellum. These microbes change direction with a sideways “flick” of their flagellum — a unique swimming stroke first documented in 2011 whose mechanism has been a mystery. Now, using high-speed video to record individual swimming bacteria at up to 1,000 frames per second, Professor Roman Stocker, Kwangmin Son and Jeffrey Guasto show that the flick occurs when the so-called “hook,” a flexible rod connecting the flagellum to the cell’s internal motor, buckles during forward swims. The drag on the cell head caused by the water’s resistance combines with the opposing thrust force from the rotating flagellum to compress the hook, causing it to buckle and flick the cell into a 90-degree reorientation. Read a news release.
July 2, 2013
Jeremy Gregory, an engineer who studies the economic and environmental implications of materials, their recycling and end-of-life recovery, has been named executive director of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, effective July 1. Gregory replaces Professor Hamlin Jennings, who is widely known for developing the first fully quantitative model of the nanostructure of the major component of hydrated cement. Concrete is the most widely used building material on Earth. The production of cement — its basic building block at the nanoscale — accounts for about 5 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions. The Concrete Sustainability Hub was established in 2009 with the goal of accelerating emerging breakthroughs in concrete science and swiftly transferring those research advances into industry. Read a news release.
July 1, 2013
June 27, 2013
Professors Richard de Neufville and Amedeo Odoni and research scientists Peter Belobaba of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Tom Reynolds of Lincoln Lab wrote a revised second edition of the textbook, Airport Systems Planning, Design and Management published in April by McGraw Hill Educational. The first edition, written by de Neufville and Odoni, was published in 2003.
June 26, 2013
A poster by Gabriel Juarez, postdoctoral associate in Professor Roman Stocker's Environmental Microfluidics Group, won first prize in the MIT “Postdocs Share Their Science” event held June 18 in Morss Hall. Juarez’s poster, “Biophysics of Microbial Oil Degradation,” which Stocker describes as "elegant and insightful" was selected from 44 entries, netting Juarez a new iPad. The abstract said: “Many species of oil-degrading bacteria are equipped with flagella that enable the cells to swim and actively pursue nutrient gradients in their local surroundings. We are interested in understanding the role of motility on the encounter rate and attachment dynamics of microbes with oil droplets. We are investigating the swimming behavior and attachment dynamics at the microbe level using dedicated microfluidic devices and observing with phase contrast and epifluorescent microscopy.”
June 25, 2013
We have uploaded photo albums from the CEE 2013 Hooding Luncheon and the 2013 Commencement Party to the department's Facebook page. Congratulations to all CEE 2013 graduates!
June 21, 2013
At the June 6 doctoral Hooding celebration, Professor Herbert Einstein received the School of Engineering's 2013 Samuel M. Seegal Prize in recognition of his exceptional teaching, mentoring and advising. Einstein was lead teacher of the senior capstone subject, 1.013 Civil and Environmental Engineering Design, from 2000 to 2013, and taught Introductory Design for sophomores from 1998 to 2005 and 2007 to 2012. He also teaches graduate subjects Engineering Geology, Rock Mechanics, and Underground Construction, in addition to his thesis supervision and student advising.
June 17, 2013
Researchers working to design new materials that are durable, lightweight and environmentally sustainable are increasingly looking to natural composites, like bone, for inspiration. Bone is strong and tough because its two constituent materials, soft collagen protein and stiff hydroxyapatite mineral, are arranged in complex hierarchical patterns that change at every scale of the composite, from the micro up to the macro. While researchers have come up with hierarchical structures in the design of new materials, going from a computer model to the production of physical artifacts has been a persistent challenge. Now Markus Buehler and team have developed an approach that allows them to turn their designs into reality. In just a few hours, they can move directly from a multiscale computer model of a synthetic material to the creation of physical samples. Read a news story.
June 13, 2013
Professor Moshe Ben-Akiva is co-editor of a new book with Hilde Meersman and Eddy van de Voorde of the University of Antwerp, Belgium. "Freight Transport Modeling" (Emerald Books, May 2013) is a reference book for experienced researchers and doctoral students that looks at transportation modeling at the local, regional and global scales. The book also includes discussion of transport policy for transportation decision-makers in government and industry. Ben-Akiva is also a contributor to the book.
June 12, 2013
Professor Markus Buehler, novelist Barbara Kingsolver and ecologist David Goulson were guests on a recent episode of The Forum, a BBC radio program that features ideas and discussion with some of the worlds "most eminent minds." "Fragility: What is it That Makes Materials and Ecosystems Prone to Fracture?" aired June 9. Buehler studies the fracture behavior of natural materials like bone and spider silk. Kingsolver's latest novel, "Flight Behavior," explores climate change and the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Goulson studies the ecology, behavior and conservation of wild and commercially bred bumblebees. Listen to the podcast (available through the first week of July).
June 11, 2013
First-year Master of Science in Transportation student Krishna Kumar Selvam has been awarded a 2013 Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship, a competitive fellowship for transportation-related studies administered by the Federal Highway Administration for the U.S. Department of Transportation. With the fellowship, Selvam will continue his work on multi-model simulation-based optimization algorithms to solve traffic control problems, as a member of Professor Carolina Osorio's research group.
June 11, 2013
As part of the "broader impacts" component of a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant, two 1C undergrads and an alumna — junior Linda Seymour, sophomore Shante Stowell and Elise Hens '12 — are working with CEE lecturer Ari Epstein to make a series of three podcasts about the research of Professors Martin Polz and Scott Manalis (biological engineering) covered by the grant. Episode 1: World’s Tiniest Diving Board (8.5 minutes) tells how the researchers are using microfluidics technology and a miniature diving board to measure the mass of microbes to learn how much a microbe grows before it splits apart to replicate. Episode 2 will focus on the recent findings that microbes exhibit social cooperation, episode 3 on the ways scientists communicate their research findings — formally and informally — within the scientific community and to the public, and the final episode will summarize the research supported by the grant. Epstein said he hopes that other CEE principal investigators will want to incorporate similar projects in their NSF proposals. "It's a relatively low-cost and interesting opportunity for outreach that provides a nice educational experience for the undergraduates," said Epstein. The podcast series, “Measuring Marine Microbes,” is available on Soundcloud.
June 10, 2013
Carolyn Jundzilo-Comer, an administrative assistant who has worked in CEE since 1977, is winner of a School of Engineering Infinite Mile Award for Excellence. When presenting the award at the ceremony May 22, Donna Savicki, assistant dean for administration, said that Jundzilo-Comer "over the years has shown exemplary commitment along with consistently superior work performance. Carolyn, a talented and successful painter is also described as a bright, gifted and delightful woman." One nominator of Jundzilo-Comer wrote, “Carolyn is not only a tireless and hard-working assistant, she is also a friend who cares about everyone in the CEE department, especially the students. She is always available when (we) need some material to finish a presentation or prepare a report, even if it means staying until later in her office. Above all, she is a wonderful human being with a sweet and warm heart!” Jundzilo-Comer works with Professor Herbert Einstein and his research group.
June 6, 2013
On Friday, June 7 CEE graduates will gather with families, friends and faculty, staff and alumni for an afternoon party following MIT¹s 147th Commencement exercises. During the 2012-13 academic year, the department awarded 145 degrees: 13 doctorates; 34 Master of Science in Transportation degrees; 24 Master of Science degrees; 47 Master of Engineering degrees; and 27 Bachelor of Science degrees (14 in civil engineering, 10 in environmental engineering science, and three undesignated). This year's Commencement speaker is Drew Houston '05, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. More information about Commencement.
June 5, 2013
Whether they’re headed to graduate school or taking jobs in industry, government agencies or nonprofit organizations, the members of Course 1 Class of 2013 leave MIT this week well prepared to meet the challenges of the field — thanks in part to their impressive work in 1.013 Senior Civil and Environmental Engineering Design. A required subject in CEE, this class gives students a chance to integrate all they’ve learned through their years in CEE to address practical, real-world challenges — ranging from soil contamination and natural disasters to sustainable building design. Read a news release.
Roman Stocker gets grant in first cycle of DOE Joint Genome Institute’s Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program
June 4, 2013
CEE Professor Roman Stocker and Michael Wagner of the University of Vienna will receive one of six grants in the inaugural cycle of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute’s new Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program. Stocker and Wagner will develop a method for the high-throughput sorting of microbial cells with specific functional traits using microspectroscopy, microfluidics and flow cytometry. This technology could accelerate the functional characterization of genes from metagenomic sequencing experiments, one of the Joint Genome Institute’s (JGI) highest priorities. Through the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program, the DOE JGI hopes to make the most current technology and expertise available to users of its genomics facility to help address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges. Read a news release.
June 4, 2013
The MIT Steel Bridge team won first place in economy and second place overall at the national competition held May 31-June 1 at the University of Washington in Seattle. Each team was required to develop an original design for an approximately 20-foot bridge created for a hypothetical site. Teams are judged on a combination of elements, including bridge design and weight, its ability to withstand a 2,500-pound load without sagging, number of builders and team construction speed. MIT's build time was 5:32 minutes. This is the second year the MIT team has placed second. The University of California at Berkeley won first place this year and last.
June 3, 2013
Professor Nigel Wilson gave a talk on “Improving Transit Performance with Automated Data Collection Systems” at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center March 6, as part of Volpe’s Straight From the Source speaker series. Wilson uses data from transit fare cards to research and improve transit services in London, Boston and Hong Kong, among other cities. Professor Joseph Sussman was speaker at the April 17 event, talking about his ideas for “Considering Transportation as a Complex Sociotechnical System.” Read a news story about and watch a video on Nigel Wilson's talk.
May 30, 2013
Professor Markus Buehler has been named head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, effective July 1, 2013. The announcement was made in a May 30 email from Ian Waitz, dean of the School of Engineering. “The department is at an important juncture with exciting new directions to pursue,” Waitz wrote. “I welcome the energy and ideas that Markus will bring to leading CEE. … He will be an excellent leader for CEE and I very much look forward to working with him.” A member of the MIT faculty since 2006, Buehler succeeds Andrew Whittle, the Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who has served as department head since 2009. Read a news story.
May 23, 2013
The 2013 Terrascope radio story, “Digging Deeper: Miner Details of a Major Industry,” explores the mining industry in Nevada and southern California. The 20-minute radio story provides a “look into the lesser-known people and processes that make up the heart of the operation,” say the freshman who made the radiocast, which can be heard online. Terrascope is a freshmen-year program with a spring subject (1.016 Communicating Complex Environmental Issues: Building Solutions and Communicating Ideas) co-directed by CEE and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and a radio subject (SP.360 Terrascope Radio) taught by CEE lecturer Ari Epstein.
May 22, 2013
Ruben Juanes, the ARCO Associate Professor in Energy Studies, and John Germaine, senior lecturer and senior research associate (known as Dr. G. to his students), were recognized with the Maseeh Award for Excellence in Teaching. In nominating Germaine one student said, “He was extremely helpful in terms of making sure we understood the material — especially taking note of when we were entering into more complex subjects that he knew we'd need more help with. He was also very aware of the workload and worked with us to make sure that we weren't too overburdened at any given time. This was particularly helpful after the hurricane … Overall, an amazing explainer.” Nominators said of Juanes, “Professor Juanes truly embodies the finest combination of qualities: he is a remarkable mentor, an inspiring professor and an innovative scientist.” “Professor Juanes was an amazing teacher. His lectures were extremely organized and clear. His ability to effectively communicate key topics contributed to my increased interest in the subject material. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of his class.”
May 22, 2013
Senior Tara Soni received the Paul L. Busch (1958) Prize, which is presented to an undergraduate student in environmental engineering science for academic achievement and contributions to the CEE community. Soni led a number of initiatives as president of the MIT student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers including the newly formatted open house. Department head Professor Andrew Whittle said, “She involved her peers, energizing them and crafting a creative and well-designed program. She's a true team player, excellent academically, and brings passion, drive and momentum to CEE.”
May 22, 2013
Linda Seymour, a civil engineering junior, received the Leo (Class of 1924) and Mary Grossman Award for her excellent academic record and strong interest in transportation. Seymour had a choice of summer internships, including one with the Maryland Department of Transportation, but selected an opportunity with the Smithsonian Institution.
May 22, 2013
M.Eng. student Zahraa Nasim Saiyed receives Tucker-Voss Award, established in memory of Professor Ross F. Tucker and Professor Walter C. Voss, the first two heads of the Department of Building Construction (Course 17), which merged with the Department of Civil Engineering in the 1950s. The award is given to a student who shows particular promise in the field of building construction. The title of Saiyed’s thesis is “Performance Based Structural Design Optimization for Residential Housing in San Francisco, Calif.”
May 22, 2013
The Trond Kaalstad (Class of 1957) Fellowship was awarded to M.Eng. students Leonidia Garbis and Matthew Pires. The award is named for a long-time administrative officer of CEE and recognizes graduate students who display leadership and/or contribute significantly to the well being of the CEE community. Garbis and Pires organized the regional steel bridge competition, which was held at MIT April 20, the day following the Boston-area lockdown. CEE department head Professor Andrew Whittle said, “They refused to give up on the competition. Coordination was key, and they did a brilliant job of pulling the whole event together under extraordinary circumstances. Their work … shows the outstanding dedication our students bring to each and every challenge.”
May 22, 2013
The Maseeh Award for Excellence as a Teaching Assistant went to graduate student Pierre Ghisbain. Over the years, Ghisbain has been teaching assistant for graduate subjects 1.571 Structural Analysis and Control and 1.561 Motion Based-Design, and for 1.562 High-Performance Structures Master of Engineering Project. He also was teaching assistant for 1.00 Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving for four semesters, and served as the head TA for three of them. Nominators said of Ghisbain, “Fantastic TA. Was available every day of the week if needed. Always went out of his/her way to help you.” “Thanks for everything: your availability, your answers to our questions, and for correcting our homework on time! … You have an excellent way of presenting things.” Ghisbain will receive his doctoral degree in June.
May 21, 2013
CEE graduate student Leon Dimas helped organize Math Day Treasure Hunt, an event for elementary school children presented by MITxplore, an outreach program co-founded by Dimas and graduate students Narges Kaynia and Debbie Nguyen of mechanical engineering. On Sunday, May 12, about 90 fourth, fifth and sixth graders and their parents from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island participated in the Math Day Treasure Hunt in the Media Lab Complex. The MIT student organizers divided the sixth floor of the building into three mathematical islands where ‘xplorers, as the participants were called, engaged in activities in three categories: probability; geometry and topology; and numbers and limits. Participants gathered coins in reward for creative thinking and logical reasoning and, at the end of the day, received MITxplore t-shirts. MIT Professors Rodolfo Rosales and Lawrence Guth of mathematics also gave presentations. Visit the MITxplore facebook page.
David Simchi-Levi named Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society
May 17, 2013
Professor David Simchi-Levi has been elected a 2013 Fellow of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. The MSOM Distinguished Fellow Award recognizes outstanding research and scholarship in operations management.
May 16, 2013
Professor Oral Buyukozturk of CEE and Professor William Freeman of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are principal investigators (PIs) on an $8 million, five-year collaborative research project funded by Shell. The project builds on the concept of previous research on MIT’s Green Building, which has been instrumented with a sensor network that monitors the building’s response to disturbances and allowed researchers to determine its fundamental frequencies and ambient vibrations. With the new grant, through representative laboratory models and implementation studies on the real structure, the PIs will create a wireless version of the monitoring system, develop pattern recognition/motion magnification algorithms and build 3-D computational models that can predict a building’s response to disturbances and detect anomalies and damage. Co-PIs on the project are Professor Eduardo Kausel of CEE, Professor Edward Adelson and senior research scientist John Fisher of CSAIL, and Professor Fredo Durand of EECS and CSAIL. Draper Laboratory participates as a subcontractor. Read more about Green Building monitoring.
May 15, 2013
Using innovative design and materials that don't require a lot of energy to produce and ship, Professor John Ochsendorf of CEE and architecture hopes to change the way buildings are made. The National Science Foundation recently made a four-minute video, "Our Built Environment: It Takes Energy," describing some of Ochsendorf's ideas and showing a few of the buildings he's designed.
May 14, 2013
A study by first-year M.S.T. student Mike Wittman and aeronautics/astronatics researcher Bill Swelbar was cited in a Wall Street Journal article and on National Public Radio May 8. The study shows that the health of the airline industry has improved since 2007 in part because large airlines are consolidating flights to larger airports and eliminating flights to midsize and small airports. The overall effect has been to help the industry, but decrease options and increase fares somewhat for air passengers flying to or from smaller airports. Read more about Wittman's research. Read the NPR blog.
May 13, 2013
Juhee Bae, a junior with a double major in civil engineering and city planning, won an Alva Emerging Fellowship, which includes a $13,500 seed grant for OpenIR (Open Infrared). OpenIR is Bae’s project to democratize infrared satellite data, and by doing so, increase awareness of environmental risks from flooding, volcanic activity and other such events. OpenIR does this by making infrared satellite data available in an easy-to-use, web-based map format. “Currently, there is no system that easily allows us to examine these linkages through different kinds of spectral satellite image analysis,” Bae said. Graduate students Arlene Ducao of the MIT Media Lab and Barry Beagen of architecture, Course 6 undergraduate Wendy Cheang and Ilias Koen are working with Bae on OpenIR.
May 8, 2013
Studies of human mobility usually focus on either the small scale — individuals’ daily commutes — or the very large scale, such as using air-travel patterns to track the spread of epidemics over time. The large-scale studies, now made possible by vast data generated and collected by technologies like sensors and cellphones, are very good at describing the big picture, but don’t provide detail at the individual level. Smaller-scale studies have the opposite characteristic: their findings generally can’t be scaled up from the individual to populations. But a new study by CEE Professor Marta González and postdoctoral associate Christian Schneider bridges that gap. It uses big data and the methodologies of statistical physics and network theory to describe the daily travel behavior of individuals, behavior that holds true at the larger scale of the entire population of two cities on different continents. Read a news story.
May 8, 2013
CEE seniors will test the bridges they designed and built in 1.013 Senior Civil and Environmental Engineering Design today, May 8, on the Student Center steps (or Lobby 7 if it rains) from about 1-3 p.m. Please stop by to watch! And they'll present their major projects next Wednesday, May 15 at 2:30 p.m. in Room 3-270.
May 7, 2013
The MIT chapter of Chi Epsilon, the national civil engineering honor society, welcomed seven new members during its annual initiation banquet held April 25 at the MIT Faculty Club. The initiates are seniors Zara L’Heureux, Andrew Sang, Marisa Simmons, Nicole Wang and Jaclyn Wilson; and juniors Catherine Cheng, Linda Seymour and Sharone Small. Chi Epsilon membership recognizes scholarship, character, practicality and sociability, which Chi Epsilon calls the "four primary traits of a successful engineer." Student members are in the top third of their junior or senior class.
May 6, 2013
Professor Saurabh Amin of CEE is the chief scientist and lead MIT principal investigator on a multi-institutional grant announced last week by the National Science Foundation. The goal of the project is to improve the operational resilience of civil and environmental structures and systems that have electronic networking components. Amin, Professor Hamsa Balakrishnan of aeronautics and astronautics and Professor Asuman Ozdaglar of electrical engineering and computer science will work to make infrastructure systems more resistant to failure. Their specific focus is to develop methods for coupling technologies for monitoring and controlling networked systems with economic incentives that will persuade operators to invest in these improvements. Read a news release.
May 6, 2013
Eric Adams, senior lecturer, senior research engineer and director of the CEE M.Eng.program, is the subject of a news story on the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) website. The article describes how Adams’ research in environmental fluid mechanics has helped engineers better understand oil spills. Specifically, his studies of multi-phase pollutants — fluid set in motion by the buoyancy of bubbles, droplets and particles — have provided important insights into what happens during a deep ocean oil spill. He has shown that most oil from an oil spill will mix with water instead of rising directly to the surface, disproving the adage that oil and water don’t mix. Adams is also working on ways to reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide by releasing carbon dioxide hydrates directly into the ocean. Read the news story and watch a video on the ILP website.
May 2, 2013
CEE seniors Di Jin, Andrew Sang and Jibo Wen are among 85 MIT students invited to join the MIT chapter (Xi Chapter) of Phi Beta Kappa. Membership in the society recognizes excellent academic work and commitment to the objectives of a liberal education. Only about 10 percent of colleges have Phi Beta Kappa chapters, and only about 10 percent of students at those colleges are elected to the society. The Phi Beta Kappa lecture and initiation ceremony will be held Thursday, June 6, at 3 p.m. in Room 32-123. The lecturer is Professor David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science.
May 1, 2013
At the MIT Awards Convocation held Thursday, April 25 in Room 10-250, CEE Professor Heidi Nepf received the Earll M. Murman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. The Murman Award honors a faculty member who has had significant impact on the personal life and academic success of her undergraduate advisees. Professor Martin Polz was awarded the Frank E. Perkins Award, honoring his excellence in advising and mentoring graduate students.
April 30, 2013
The Oceans at MIT website has a new feature story on Professor Sallie (Penny) Chisholm’s lab, which studies Prochlorococcus, the world’s smallest and most abundant photosynthetic marine organism. Chisholm, who in January received the National Medal of Science, led a team of scientists in the mid-1980s that discovered this tiny ocean microbe. The Oceans’ feature story describes how researchers in the Chisholm lab are now using information from individually sequenced Prochlorococcus genomes to identify Prochlorococcus genes in the rapidly growing common metagenomic database — a library of genes from millions of different organisms. This new approach is yielding very precise ecological information about the microbe and its relationship to its environment.
April 26, 2013
Transportation graduate student Franco Chingcuanco, who works with Professor Carolina Osorio has been awarded the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship for his ongoing M.S.T./Technology and Policy Program thesis project, "A Parallelized Simulation-Based Optimization Framework For Traffic-Responsive Control." Raphael Dumas, a dual M.S.T. and master's of city planning student, received the same fellowship last fall. Both are Canadian nationals. Dumas works with Professor Nigel Wilson on software that uses automatic vehicle location and fare collection data from transit systems to infer passenger origins and destinations.
April 25, 2013
The CEE-sponsored MIT Steel Bridge Team won first place at the New England regional steel bridge competition held on campus Saturday, April 20. Université Laval placed second, followed by the University of Massachusetts, Lowell in third place. The competition, which was hosted by CEE, was scheduled to begin early Saturday morning, but was delayed by the lockdown in the Boston area that followed the shooting death of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier and the Boston marathon bombings. But the event organizers — M.Eng. students Leonidia Garbis ’12 and Matthew Pires ’10 and administrative officer Patricia Dixon — refused to give up on the possibility that the competition could take place as planned. Read a news release.
April 23, 2013
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) magazine Geo-Strata ran an article about Professor Emeritus Charles C. Ladd '55, S.M. '57, Sc.D. '61. The article, which appeared in the January/February issue of the magazine, is the fifth in a series called "Lessons Learned From Geo-Legends." ASCE members can read the article online.
April 23, 2013
M.S.T. students Naomi Stein and Allison (Sunny) Vanderboll have been selected as the MIT Graduate Women of Excellence by the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education. A reception April 23 at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge will celebrate the graduate students’ achievements with poster presentations prepared by the honorees. Stein works in Professor Joseph Sussman's High-Speed Rail/Regions group doing research on the interactions between different geographic scales of transportation planning and the relationship between transportation systems and urban and regional development patterns. She will graduate with a master's of city planning as well as an M.S.T. in June. Vanderboll is a member of Professor Cynthia Barnhart's research group, which applies operations research methodology to problems in air transportation networks. Her research focuses on the evaluation of the impacts of various air transportation policies on passenger delays, with the aim of providing insight into how passengers may be impacted by airline regulations.
M.Eng. students Fidele Bingwa, Francesca Cecinati and Yan Ma win poster competition at water symposium
April 22, 2013
A poster by three M.Eng. students — Fidele Bingwa, Francesca Cecinati and Yan Ma — won first place in a competition at the annual interdisciplinary water symposium held April 5 at Tufts University. The winning poster, "Precipitation-Based Flood Early Warning System in the Manafwa River Basin for the Uganda Red Cross Society," is based on fieldwork that Bingwa, Cecinati and Ma performed in Uganda in January, and on their earlier and subsequent research on the project, which is supervised by senior lecturer Richard Schuhmann. Read Francesca Cecinati's blog.
April 18, 2013
Doctoral student Zeid Alghareeb, who works with Professor John Williams in the MIT Geospatial Data Center, has been awarded a seed fund grant of $150,000 from the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) for his research proposal, "Optimum Decision-Making in Reservoir Management Using Reduced-Order Models." Alghareeb is a former researcher at Aramco, the Saudia Arabian oil company. His research for this grant focuses on broadening the application of oil reservoir simulation for decision-making in light of geological and financial uncertainties using fast physics-based, reduced-order models. The news of Alghareeb's grant reached over 3 million Twitter users after being picked up by the Arab press. This generated a high volume of traffic to the Geospatial website, placing it second in a Google search for "geospatial." Read a news story.
April 18, 2013
CEE and the Environmental and Water Resources Group of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section will present the 2013 John R. Freeman Lecture on April 18 in the Tang Center. Lawrence J. Murphy, P.E. CDM Smith, New York, NY, and Michael Bachand, P.E., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will talk about Hurricane Storm Barrier Design and Operation. The reception begins at 6 p.m., followed by the lecture at 7 p.m. The public is invited.
April 17, 2013
The bones that support our bodies are made of remarkably complex arrangements of materials — so much so that decoding the precise structure responsible for their great strength and resilience has eluded scientists’ best efforts for decades. But now, a team of researchers led by Professor Markus Buehler has finally unraveled the structure of bone with almost atom-by-atom precision, after many years of analysis by some of the world’s most powerful computers and comparison with laboratory experiments to confirm the computed results. A paper on this work by Buehler, postdoctoral associate Arun Nair and former postdoctoral fellow Alfonso Gautieri appears this week in the journal Nature Communications. Read a news story.
April 16, 2013
The Production and Operations Management Society honored Professor David Simchi-Levi for his contributions to the field with an article about his professional achievements published in the January-February issue of Production and Operations Management. The article cites Simchi-Levi’s contributions to both the theoretical and practical aspects of supply-chain management as demonstrated by the quality and reach of his published research; the application of this research in corporate practice; the popularity of his second book as a graduate business education text; and his seven years as editor in chief of Operations Research. Read a news release.
April 12, 2013
Senior lecturer Susan Murcott served on a panel and gave a talk at the 2013 Environmental Protection Agency Federal Women’s Program Retreat held March 12 at the EPA regional office in Boston. The retreat’s theme was women in science, technology, engineering and math. Murcott spoke on “Women, Water, Environment: Our Misguided Financial Priorities and the Urgency of Women’s Equal Representation in Government, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.”
April 11, 2013
Postdoctoral associate Melissa Garren, who works in Professor Roman Stocker’s lab, won the award for best talk by a junior scientist at the symposium on “Microscale Interactions in Aquatic Microenvironments,” held at the School of Physics in Les Houches, France, March 10-15. The title of Garren’s talk was “A Coral Pathogen Uses Chemotaxis and Chemokinesis to Target the Mucus of its Host.” The journal Limnology and Oceanography: Fluids and Environments sponsors the award.
April 10, 2013
MIT and Accenture announced March 13 that they have formed a five-year collaboration to help close the gap between development of business analytics technologies and their successful application in industry and government. The collaboration, called the Accenture and MIT Alliance in Business Analytics, will be led by CEE Professor David Simchi-Levi and Narendra Mulani, senior managing director for Accenture Analytics. Read a press release.
April 9, 2013
Assistant Professor Pedro Reis of CEE and Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Assistant Professor Ken Kamrin of ME developed a new online version of 2.002 (Mechanics and Materials II), a core requirement in mechanical engineering. The online course, i2.002, features videotaped lectures from 2.002, as well as recitations and a discussion forum. One element that sets i2.002 apart from other MOOCs is its ease of searching: Search a key word or concept, and a video will start at exactly the moment in a lecture when that concept is introduced. Reis and Kamrin developed the online course for MIT students who have a scheduling conflict with 2.002's lecture period, allowing these students to watch lectures on their own time, but requiring them to attend regular lab sections and take in-class exams. The semi-online course is sponsored by MIT’s Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT), the Office of Digital Learning, ME and the School of Engineering. Kamrin and Reis are now collaborating with OEIT to incorporate new technologies into their project. Read a news story.
April 8, 2013
Professor Markus Buehler will receive the 2013 Robert Lansing Hardy Award from TMS (The Mineral, Metals & Materials Society), the oldest and second largest materials research society in the country. This prestigious honor, given to researchers under age 35, recognizes the impact of Buehler’s work in the field of materials science and engineering. The award cited his “innovative work in computational materials science of biological, bio-inspired and synthetic materials, focused on mechanical properties and in particular deformation and failure.” Buehler has been promoted to full professor, effective July 1. Read a news release.
April 8, 2013
Frederick J. McGarry, professor emeritus of polymer engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering died March 27 after a long illness. He was 86. In addition to his research and education roles, McGarry served as secretary of the faculty, director of the Program in Polymer Science and Technology, chair of the ROTC program, and director of the Summer Session (now the Professional Education Program). Over the course of his career, he participated in multiple international programs, including in the 1960s the MIT Inter-American Program in Civil Engineering, which examined a collaborative initiative to solve engineering problems common to the United States and Latin American countries. Read his obituary.
April 5, 2013
About 200 people attended the MIT Water Club’s inaugural MIT Water Night, which was held in Walker Memorial on March 21 to coincide with the United Nations World Water Day. The event’s organizers — four CEE graduate students — hoped to enhance collaboration among people at MIT and in industry who conduct water-related research. Areas of research represented in the 34 poster presentations included desalination, water resource management, climate change, nanotechnologies, wastewater treatment and environmental microbiology. The CEE graduate student organizers were Hamed Alemohammad, director; Jennifer Apell, operations director; John Kondziolka, marketing director; and Xin Xu, content director.
April 4, 2013
As part of the MIT SDM Systems Thinking Webinar Series, CEE Professor Joseph Sussman will deliver a presentation titled "Understanding and Designing Complex Sociotechnical Systems" on April 8 from noon to 1 p.m. Drawing examples from different fields, Sussman will define sociotechnical systems, their components and characteristics, and describe how to devise design solutions that focus on advanced technologies and the relationship of the technologies to the organizations and institutions through which they function. The webinar is free and open to all.
April 3, 2013
Doctoral student Jameson Toole, a member of Professor Marta González's research group, is the subject of a feature article on MIT News, "Making Sense of Big Data." Toole works with large data sets, often collected from cellphones, to create models of transportation and online community networks. For instance, he and González recently modeled the contagion process of Twitter in its early years, showing that the early growth of the online social networking site relied on traditional social networks of geographic proximity and socioeconomic similarity.
April 2, 2013
Engineering News Record, a weekly magazine for the construction industry, has named Franz-Josef Ulm, the George Macomber Professor in CEE, to its list of 25 Top Newsmakers for his work establishing the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH). The hub, which is headquartered in CEE, was established October 2009 with the objective of reducing the environmental footprint of concrete — the manufacturing of which is responsible for about 5 percent of global atmospheric carbon dioxide. Two 2012 articles about CSH research in Engineering News Record prompted the editors to include Ulm and the CSH on the list. Read a news release.
March 28, 2013
Professor Oral Buyukozturk is principal investigator on a new research project focused on sustainable development in Kuwait’s built environment. The $3.76 million project is funded through the Kuwait-MIT Center for Natural Resources and the Environment by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences. It involves a team of researchers spanning four MIT departments — architecture; civil and environmental engineering; earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences; and nuclear science and engineering. Research will address innovation in design for sustainability in buildings and neighborhoods in three interrelated areas: materials, systems and energy efficiency. Read a news story.
March 21, 2013
CEE lecturer Paul Kassabian has developed an iPhone/iPad app based on MIT CEE subjects. Unlike the courses, the application uses little text and no equations but instead teaches the behavior of structures through visuals: diagrams, animations and comparisons. Structures: A Visual Exploration explores cables, arches, domes, columns, trusses, beams, frames and prestressed beams. It can be purchased for $1.99 from iTunes. Kassabian teaches graduate course 1.572 Structural Systems. View and purchase the app.
March 20, 2013
A feature story on MIT News about senior Marisa Simmons (1C) describes her personal and professional interests, which include her annual tradition of baking a 10-layer cake for her housemates in iHouse (International Development House); her work with the MIT chapter of Engineers Without Borders encouraging the use of solar water disinfection (SODIS) and designing a rainwater storage system for a Ugandan village; and her research on alternative concretes in the Building Technology Lab at MIT. After graduation, Simmons plans to get a master’s degree in construction project management, then use her engineering and management skills to improve the lives of others through infrastructure development and sustainable design. Read the news story.
March 20, 2013
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) announced recently that Professor Martin Polz of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is recipient of the Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award, ASM's oldest and most prestigious prize. Polz, a microbiologist whose research explores the relationships between structure and function in microbial communities in the wild, is the first ecologist to be selected in the 77-year history of the award, which rewards fundamental research in microbiology or immunology by a scientist not yet 45 years old. Polz will receive the award and give the Eli Lilly Award Lecture during the ASM’s 113th General Meeting to be held in Denver in May. Read a news release.
March 19, 2013
A news release from ASTM International describes the progress made at the first meeting of the recently formed ASTM Subcommittee D18.26 on Hydraulic Fracturing, which is chaired by CEE senior researcher and senior lecturer John Germaine. The more than 100 attendees at the Jacksonville, Fla., meeting held Jan. 29 determined categories for which consensus standards could be developed that would "guide best practices within the oil and gas industry while also addressing environmental concerns regarding water, land and air resources." Attendees also appointed task forces to begin that work. The next meeting is scheduled for early June in Indianapolis.
March 18, 2013
Prompted by an article in Forbes magazine, the blog Supply Chain Simplified has compiled a list of the top 10 thought leaders in supply chain management and included two MIT faculty members: Professors David Simchi-Levi and Yossi Sheffi. The study selected the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review as data sources because of their "sound editorial guidelines and usefulness to practitioners," and used author article count as its primary metric.
March 15, 2013
The Blue Lobster Bowl, Massachusetts' regional marine science quiz bowl, is one of 25 regional competitions leading up to the National Ocean Sciences Bowl. As part of this year's competition, held in the Kirsch Auditorium March 3, CEE postdoctoral fellow Steven Smriga and graduate student Jessica Thompson offered outreach activities focused on marine microbiology. The activities, which are part of an education module designed by the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, included microscopy to view planktonic organisms and experiments that demonstrated the link between carbon dioxide and ocean acidification. The competition, now in its 16th year, included students from 13 Massachusetts high schools.
March 14, 2013
Professor Markus Buehler, co-director of the MIT Computation for Design and Optimization Program (CDO), invites the CEE faculty and students to attend an event today, March 14, sponsored by the CDO and the the Center for Computational Engineering (CCE). The CDO/CCE Symposium begins at 5:30 p.m. in Room 34-401. The keynote speakers are Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research and creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha Computational Engine, and Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland of the MIT Media Lab. The event is a platform for showcasing the application and development of computational methods in areas ranging from engineering to social sciences.
Paper by grad student Amer Deirieh and Professor Franz-Josef Ulm wins Best Paper Prize from Acta Geotechnica
March 13, 2013
A paper based on work by graduate student (and first author) Amer Deirieh S.M. '12 and former postdoctoral associate J. Alberto Ortega S.M. '06, Ph.D. '10, Professor Franz-Josef Ulm and Younane Abousleiman of the University of Oklahoma received the Best Paper Prize for 2012 from Acta Geotechnica. "Nanochemomechanical Assessment of Shale: a Coupled WDS-Indentation Analysis," appeared in the Dec. 2012 issue of the journal. Deirieh is now a doctoral student working with senior lecturer and senior researcher John Germaine.
March 12, 2013
Graduate student Anna Tarakanova and Professor Markus Buehler were selected as recipients of the 2012 Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) Structural Materials Division JOM Best Paper Award. The paper, “A Materiomics Approach to Spider Silk: Protein Molecules to Webs,” was published in February 2012. Tarakanova was also a co-author with Buehler of an article that appeared on the cover of Nature Feb. 2, 2012. She continues to incorporate spider silk research but has now expanded to looking into the challenging problem of identifying the structure and mechanics of elastin.
March 8, 2013
The MIT International Development Initiative selected M.S.T. student Andrés Felipe Archila won a 2013 Carroll L. Wilson Award for his project to develop a framework for transportation planning in Colombia, his native country. Archila, who works with Professor Joseph Sussman in the Regional Transportation Planning and High-Speed Rail Research Group at MIT, will also provide feedback on Colombia's current rail infrastructure plans while he works with the Colombian National Infrastructure Agency this summer. "The framework will have a special focus on improved project evaluation guidelines, on increased attention to multi-modal system performance, and on recognition of uncertainty in large infrastructure projects," said Archila. "I'll work closely with the leadership team of the National Infrastructure Agency and other stakeholders to have a more participatory planning process. We'll develop this framework together and I'll train them in the application to subsequent planning efforts."
Professor Saurabh Amin to discuss resilient infrastructures at the energy-focused MIT-Stanford Game-Changers Workshop
March 7, 2013
Professor Saurabh Amin will appear on a panel at the MIT-Stanford Game-Changers Workshop, "Energy on the Move," on Thursday, March 7 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Amin will discuss resilient infrastructures during the panel discussion on Infrastructure/Supply Chains: 21st Century Efficient and Resilient Energy Infrastructures. The workshop is jointly sponsored by Stanford's Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy and the MIT Energy Initiative. Other speakers include former Secretary of State George Shultz Ph.D. '49 (Economics) and MIT Professor Robert Armstrong, deputy director of the MIT Energy Initiative. MIT President Rafael Reif will give opening and concluding remarks.
March 6, 2013
An article about the work of MIT's Concrete Sustainability Hub appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of Nature. Writer Ivan Amato describes the CSHub's research initiative to gain an understanding of cement at the atomic scale as part of its larger goal to create a more environmentally friendly product. (The manufacture of this ubiquitous building material is responsible for 5 percent of the world's human-caused greenhouse gases.) The story includes interviews with Professor Hamlin Jennings, director of the CSHub, and senior research scientist Roland Pellenq.
February 27, 2013
Research by Professor Marta González and former postdoctoral associate Pu Wang was the topic of an article in the Feb. 17 issue of the Boston Sunday Globe Ideas section. Gonzalez's work using cellphone data to map traffic congestion showed that canceling or delaying the trips of 1 percent of drivers from carefully selected neighborhoods in five Boston-area cities would reduce the extra travel time for all other drivers in Greater Boston by 18 percent. The article was accompanied by a graphic showing which neighborhoods serve as the source of traffic leading to the worst traffic tie-ups.
February 26, 2013
Shengkun Yang, an M.Eng. student in the environmental and water quality engineering track, is participating in the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition at his alma mater, the University of Washington. Yang's team, Aquafiltro, has designed a drinking-water ceramic-filtering system for use in Ghanaian households. The team was selected from a pool of 91 to compete in the week-long semi-finals and finals this week, Feb. 25 to March 1. The final rounds can be viewed online Feb. 28 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Eastern time).
February 22, 2013
CEE students used Legos, straws and leaves to inspire youngsters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Family Science Days last weekend. A book co-authored by Professor Penny Chisholm also played a role, winning the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Two exhibit booths were organized by juniors Tara Soni and Therese Santiano-McHatton of CEESA, and one booth by postdoctoral associate Eben Cross of Professor Jesse Kroll's research group. Read a news story.
February 21, 2013
CEE graduate Daniel Jimenez S.B. ’10, M.Eng. ’11 has been named a Gates Cambridge Scholar for 2013. Jimenez will go to the University of Cambridge next fall to study for a master of philosophy in engineering for sustainable development. His graduate studies will build on his MIT education and the work he has been doing in the Philippines as a Fulbright Scholar developing cost-effective, environmentally friendly, disaster-resistant construction technologies and methods. Read a news story.
February 20, 2013
CEE doctoral student Hamed Alemohammad is director of the MIT Water Club’s upcoming Water Night, a research showcase for MIT research groups (students, faculty, researchers and alumni) to present posters of their water-related work. The event will also include presentations of state-of-the-art research by companies working in this field. People who wish to share their work in the poster session are encouraged to submit an abstract online at http://goo.gl/szIzc no later than Monday, Feb. 25. MIT Water Night will be held in Morss Hall, Walker Memorial from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m on March 21. Alemohammad says the event is a great opportunity for CEE community members to network with other MIT affiliates and representatives of companies engaged in water-related research. The public is invited.
February 14, 2013
At the AAAS Family Science Days this weekend, Professor Jesse Kroll's research group, working with the MIT Center for Environmental Health Science, will present "Understanding Air: Climate Change & Air Pollution." In this activity booth, visitors will first use LEGO bricks to model the composition and relative quantity of molecules in air, and then model complete and incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel. In the process, visitors will learn about the chemistry of the air and the origin of certain air pollutants (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter). Kroll's group also will demonstrate how particulate matter sensors work. In addition to planners Kroll and postdoctoral associate Eben Cross, CEE participants include graduate student Kelsey Boulanger, postdoctoral associate Ellie Browne, and undergraduates Teri Oehmke, Sid Pai and Alex Severt. Family Science Days will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Hynes Convention Center on Feb. 16 and 17.
February 13, 2013
MIT closed last Friday because of winter storm Nemo, so the CEE Research Speed Dating Event has been rescheduled to this Friday, Feb. 15, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and relocated to the Skyline Room of the New Media Lab building (E14, 6th floor). Twenty-four faculty members and postdoctoral associates will talk about their research in four-minute soundbites followed by two-minute Q&As moderated by undergraduates. All members of the CEE community are invited to attend part or all of the event, which will be followed by a reception with a jazz band. If you plan to attend the reception, please let Amy McGuire know.
February 7, 2013
The Concrete Sustainability Hub will hold a two-day "Meet the CSHub" event on Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 26 and 27. Tuesday's schedule will be primarily industry task group meetings, but all members of the CEE community are invited to attend Wednesday, when researchers will make presentations about their work. Wednesday's presentations will be held in E14-674 beginning at 9 a.m. Members of the MIT CEE community planning to attend can do so at no fee, but are encouraged to register in advance by writing to Donna Hudson and Randa Ghattas.
February 6, 2013
Students in CEESA, the MIT chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will participate in Family Science Days during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting at the Hynes Convention Center. Family Science Days are Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 16 and 17 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Juniors Tara Soni and Theresa Santiano-McHatton, the former and current presidents of CEESA, respectively, have organized CEE's participation, which will include a demonstration of photosynthesis and an exhibit about the properties of materials' at different scales. The event is open to the public.
February 5, 2013
This Friday, Feb. 8, CEE will hold its third annual Research Speed Dating Event from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Killian Hall (14W-111). Twenty-four faculty members and postdoctoral associates will talk about their research in four-minute soundbites followed by two-minute Q&As. CEE undergraduates will chair the sessions. The Research Speed Dating Event is a great way to learn more about the breadth and depth of research in CEE. All members of the CEE community are invited to attend part or all of the event, which will be followed by a reception.
January 31, 2013
January 30, 2013
A Nov. 26 article on Live Science describes Professor Roman Stocker's research on "interactions between the tiniest marine organisms, their fluid dynamical environment and their food sources" and includea Q & A about Stocker's background and influences, including his favorite songwriters. Read the interview.
January 30, 2013
On Jan. 14, the trade publication The Concrete Producer named the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH) to its 2012 Industry Influencer list in recognition of the hub's "ongoing and painstaking" research in concrete science and engineering. "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Concrete Sustainability Hub has taken its research results to the streets only three years since starting its important work," wrote Tom Bagsarian. The CSH, which is headquartered in CEE, was established in October 2009 in collaboration with the Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) Research and Education Foundation and the Portland Cement Association to accelerate breakthroughs in concrete science and engineering and transfer the science into practice. Professor Hamlin Jennings is executive director and Macomber Professor Franz-Josef Ulm is director.
January 29, 2013
A story about research by Professor Franz-Josef Ulm and doctoral student Mehdi Akbarian on pavement deflection appeared in a recent issue of Southwest Airline's Spirit magazine. The article, "Using Firmer Pavement Could Save us $15.6 Billion Per Year in Fuel Costs," can also be read in the online magazine.
Article about Ben-Akiva's study encouraging drivers to switch to public transit appears in Atlantic Cities magazine
January 29, 2013
A story about work by Professor Moshe Ben-Akiva and Maya Abou-Zeid S.M. '03, Ph.D. '09 appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of Atlantic Cities. The article, "Even American Drivers Like Mass Transit More Than They Think," focuses on a study run by Ben-Akiva and Abou-Zeid in 2008 encouraging MIT employees with full-time parking permits to commute by transit for a one-week trial period. The study found that nearly 30 percent of participants had switched to public transit after the trial ended, and 25 percent continued to use public transit six months later.
January 28, 2013
CEE undergraduates participating in Trex 2013 gave a presentation of their findings at the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park in North Kona, Hawaii, Jan. 24, as part of the ReefTalk series hosted by the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant program. TREXer Jessica Parker says in her blog that 58 people attended the 40-minute presentation, which was followed by 40 minutes of questions and answers. An article about the presentation appeared in the newspaper West Hawaii Today. Read the blog.
January 25, 2013
Collaborative work by Professor Markus Buehler and postdoctoral associate Seunghwa Ryu and researchers at Duke University demonstrates the use of mechanical instabilities in graphene to reversibly control its surface properties. The researchers showed that substances like water droplets have a distinct way of interacting with graphene's surface by applying mechanical strain to the system, which in turn changes the nanoscale structure of the graphene film. Harnessing a nanoscale crumpling (or buckling) instability in graphene allowed the researchers to make the graphene's surface at the macroscale highly water repellent, creating a reversible “Lotus effect” that causes a water droplet to form a spherical shape and roll along the surface. Buehler and Ryu, now an assistant professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, worked on simulations and theory and the Duke researchers ran the lab experiments. Applications for this type of mechanical instability in graphene include superhydrophobic and on-demand self-cleaning surfaces, as well as electrodes that make use of graphene's electronic properties. The work was published online Jan. 20 in Nature Materials.
January 24, 2013
ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials) recently announced the formation of a subcommittee within committee D18 to develop industry standards for the rapid-growth area of hydraulic fracturing. CEE's John Germaine, senior research associate and senior lecturer, headed the task group that recommended the formation of the subcommittee, and will chair the new Subcommittee D18.26 on Hydraulic Fracturing. The subcommittee has about 160 members representing industry and government agencies, who will meet later this month in Jacksonville, Fla. Read a news article.
January 23, 2013
Museum-goers around the country will gain new insight into the work of visionary designer Rafael Guastavino thanks in part to the work of three undergraduates from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering — senior Nicky Soane, sophomore Simon Okaine and junior Carmen Castaños — who worked on the exhibit as a UROP project. Known for the extraordinarily beautiful vaulted ceilings he created in such landmark buildings as the Boston Public Library, Ellis Island’s Registry Hall and Grand Central Terminal in New York, N.Y., Guastavino is the focus of “Palaces for the People: Guastavino and America’s Great Public Spaces,” an exhibit by Professor John Ochsendorf that is on view now through Feb. 24 at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. The exhibit will then travel to the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., (March 16-Sept. 2) and to the Museum of the City of New York in early 2014. Read a news release. Watch a video.
Scientists track ocean microbe populations in their natural habitat to create a ‘day in the life’ montage
January 22, 2013
Microbiologists who study wild marine microbes face enormous challenges in getting a clear picture of the daily activities of their subjects. But a team of scientists led by Professor Edward DeLong recently figured out how to make the equivalent of a nature film, showing the simultaneous activities of many coexisting species in their native habitat over time. Instead of making a movie, the scientists used a robotic device that drifted in the water gathering samples of one billion microbes every four hours. Similar to fast photography that stops action, the robotic device “fixed” each sample so that whatever genes the microbes were expressing at the moment of capture were preserved for later study in the lab, where the scientists created a time-lapse montage of the daily labors of microbes. Read a news release.
January 17, 2013
Undergrads are doing fieldwork on Hawaii, chasing the volcanic smog emitted by Kilauea to determine its chemical composition and how that changes as it is blown around the island. 1C sophomore Jessica Parker is blogging. Read and subscribe to Parker's blog.
January 15, 2013
Two M.Eng students will study the Sparta aquifer in Arkansas to see if surface water can be added to the groundwater to augment water table levels without lowering water quality. Rob Sowby and Joyce Zhu are blogging. Read and subscribe to the Sparta aquifer blog.
January 14, 2013
Hundreds of MIT students, faculty and alumni attend the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting (TRB) in Washington, D.C. to present research, learn what’s new in transportation, and network. M.S.T. student Ryan Westrom is blogging. Read and subscribe to Ryan Westrom’s blog.
January 9, 2013
Zara L'Heureux, a senior in 1C, presented a poster at the American Association of Aerosol Research's (AAAR) annual meeting in October 2012 based on fieldwork research performed by civil and environmental engineering undergraduates in CEE's Traveling Research Environmental Experiences (TREX) January 2012 program. The poster, "Online, Mobile Measurements of the Chemical Composition of Volcanic Smog (Vog)," described the study, which aimed to characterize the evolving composition of vog from Kilauea, an active volcano on the island of Hawaii. The TREX 2012 team of 14 undergraduates used an SUV carrying a suite of real-time aerosol and gas phase monitors to intercept and sample vog at multiple locations downwind of the volcano. These are the first known real-time measurements of the composition of volcanic aerosol.
Vog has become a severe environmental problem on Hawaii since a new vent opened in Kilauea in 2008. Sulfur dioxide gas and particulate sulfate in the plume are blown south-southwest by tradewinds, greatly impacting the southern portion of the island, particularly the town of Pahola. On some days, the plume is then picked up by offshore winds and blown northward along the western shore, impacting Hilo, the largest city on the island. Students will continue the work this month during TREX 2013. Co-authors of the poster are Eben Cross, L'Heureux, Lisa Wallace, Anna Kelly, Kelly Daumit, Philip Croteau, John Jayne, Douglas Worsnop and Professor Jesse Kroll. Read more in the TREX 2012 blog. Read the TREX 2013 blog.
January 7, 2013
Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas (Blue Sky Press, May 2012), a book co-authored by Molly Bang and CEE Professor Penny Chisholm and illustrated by Bang, will be honored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at its annual meeting in Boston, Feb. 14-18. The book will receive the AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Excellence in Science Books, which celebrates outstanding science writing and illustration for children and young adults. The book is the second in a series by Bang and Chisholm. It follows Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life (The Blue Sky Press, 2009), which won the Subaru Prize the year it was published. The third book in the series will be on fossil fuel.
January 4, 2013
The blog, Supply Chain Management (SCM) Operations, recently named the 10 Greatest Supply Chain Management Books of All Time, based on the number of citations for books found by Google Scholar. Books by two CEE faculty members — David Simchi-Levi and Yossi Sheffi — and a third MIT faculty member appear on the list. The MIT books are Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies 3rd Edition (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007) by David Simchi-Levi, professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering systems, and Philip Kaminsky and Edith Simchi-Levi; The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage (MIT Press, 2007) by Yossi Sheffi, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems and a professor of civil and environmental engineering; and Clockspe