150 years ago, in 1873-74, MIT opened its first mechanical engineering laboratory. Around then, we also swapped numbers with Civil Engineering and first became known as Course 2!
On May 14 and 15, 2024, MechE hosted a symposium to mark this anniversary, showcase the department’s history and impact, immerse guests into our research and education programs, and share our vision for the future. Thank you to all of the alumni, friends, industry guests, and MIT community members who joined us!
Event Photos
Since MIT’s founding, mechanical engineers have led the charge in tackling the engineering challenges of the day – inventing new technologies, creating new fields of study, and educating generations of leaders in industry, government, and academia. Some of our earliest labs brought life to ideas and technologies that still influence the world, and our work, today. Here are some of the people, spaces, and ideas, that have shaped our department through the years.
Grace C. Young ’14, Research Engineer and Lead Scientist at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory (formerly GoogleX), delivered the 2024 R.B. Wallace Lecture of Ocean Engineering: Don’t Let Robots Have All the Fun: From Living Underwater to Building Enterprise AI for the Ocean.
Distinguished MIT MechE alumni and innovators share perspectives on building technologies and companies at the frontiers of the physical world. Joe Petrzelka PhD’12, VP Starship Engineering, SpaceX; Alice Brooks ‘10, Partner at Khosla Ventures and Co-founder of Roominate; and Asegun Henry PhD’09, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Co-founder and CTO, Fourth Power each spoke about their professional experiences after MIT and participated in a lively panel discussion.
