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Acoustic-gravity waves — a special type of sound wave that can cut through the deep ocean at the speed of sound — can be generated by underwater earthquakes, explosions, and landslides, as well as by...
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As a grape slowly dries and shrivels, its surface creases, ultimately taking on the wrinkled form of a raisin. Similar patterns can be found on the surfaces of other dried materials, as well as in...
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Ever notice an earthy smell in the air after a light rain? Now scientists at MIT believe they may have identified the mechanism that releases this aroma, as well as other aerosols, into the...
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Grace Young ’14 had been scuba diving in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for more than three hours when the weight of her gear began taking its toll. Young was resting her head on the...
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One day in the 1990s, as he was riding home from high school in São Paulo, Tonio Buonassisi looked out the bus window at the Brazilian city’s long lines of traffic, and its smoggy haze. In that...
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Back in 2009, alumna Jodie Wu ’09 launched Global Cycle Solutions (GCS) in Tanzania to bring small-scale farmers an innovative product she designed in MIT’s D-Lab: a bike-mounted maize sheller....
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In 2007, Google unleashed a fleet of cars with roof-mounted cameras to provide street-level images of roads around the world. Now MIT spinout Essess is bringing similar “drive-by” innovations to...
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Professor Steven Dubowsky
Professor Steven Dubowsky received his bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his MS and ScD degrees from Columbia University. He is currently in...
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Elliot Avila (SB ’14) is a recent graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering who has a particular interest in the developing world. As an undergraduate student in D-Lab, he traveled to...
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Alumna Megan Smith, CTO of the United States. Courtesy of White House.
Megan Smith received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and 1988, respectively....
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MechE faculty members are engineering for global change through their research, but that’s not the only way to make the world a better place.
Several are also collaborating with international...
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Assistant Professor Alberto Rodriguez
Alberto Rodriguez graduated from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona in 2005 with a degree in mathematics and again in 2006 (with...
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When PhD candidate John Lewandowski started working on a low-cost device for the rapid diagnosis of malaria as a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), it was already a fairly...
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Designing products for the developing world can be a hit-or-miss endeavor: While there may be a dire need for products addressing problems such as access to clean water, sanitation, and electricity,...
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You’ve probably heard of MechE alum and Associate Professor Hugh Herr (SM ’93), head of the Biomechatronics group at MIT Media Lab.
The TED Talk he gave earlier this year sparked a flurry of media...
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Among the 20 students selected by Aviation Week magazine as "Tomorrow's Engineering Leaders: The Twenty20s" are Michael Stern, a Lincoln Scholar assigned to MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Rapid Prototyping...
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Researchers have made great progress in recent years in the design and creation of biological circuits — systems that, like electronic circuits, can take a number of different inputs and deliver a...
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Global Research Innovation and Technology (GRIT), an MIT MechE spinoff started by Tish Scolnik ’10, Mario Bollini ’09 SM ’12, Benjamin Judge ’11 MEng ’12, and Assistant Professor Amos Winter SM ’05...
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From a mechanical perspective, granular materials are stuck between a rock and a fluid place, with behavior resembling neither a solid nor a liquid. Think of sand through an hourglass: As grains...
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"Michelangelo didn’t attend a semester of lectures,” says Sanjay Sarma, “he learned in the studio with a master looking over his shoulder.” And the future of higher education, Sarma says, will carry...