MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics | June 2024 | |
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Welcome new faculty
On July 1, AeroAstro will welcome two new faculty members:
- Prof. Andreea Bobu’s research focuses on human-centered robotics, algorithmic human-robot interaction, robot learning from human feedback, personalization, and human-aligned representation learning.
- Prof. Masha Folk is an expert in turbomachinery, heat transfer, and combustion technology for sustainable aviation. She conducts leading research to improve the efficiency of aircraft engines while reducing their emissions.
2024 Faculty Promotions
Effective July 1:
- Luca Carlone has been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.
- Zachary Cordero, Chuchu Fan, Carmen Guerra Garcia, Adrián Lozano-Durán, Lonnie Petersen, and Danielle Wood have been promoted to Associate Professor without Tenure.
This is our last issue of the Roundup for the spring semester – we’ll be back in September! Of course, please keep submitting your news over the summer. Past issues of the Roundup are available in the Communications Toolkit.
The Roundup is a monthly newsletter to keep the AeroAstro community up-to-date on research, community news, and important happenings across the department and MIT.
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AeroAstro wrapped up the spring semester with a celebratory Ice Cream social and the 2024 Tech Reunions. Alumni, family, and friends had the opportunity to tour the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel. Special thanks to Anthony Zolnik for leading the tours throughout the day. | |
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AeroAfro, the department's Black graduate student group, had a monumental year by graduating the most members in a school year since its inception. On behalf of the AeroAfro community, we would like to congratulate (left to right in image) Dr. Chelsea Onyeador (SM, PhD), Dr. Cadence Payne (SM, PhD), Dr. Stewart Isaacs (SM, PhD), and (bottom right) Olivier Kigotho (SM). This year, two of our graduates made history with Cadence Payne becoming the first black woman to graduate from the department with an SM and PhD and (to our knowledge) Stewart Isaacs becoming the first PhD student with an all Black committee of MIT professors in the School of Engineering, consisting of Prof. Wesley Harris, Prof. Danielle Wood, and Prof. Asegun Henry (MechE Dept.).
We would also like to recognize AeroAstro undergraduate alum (top right) Dr. Marlyse Reeves (SB) who received her PhD from the MIT EECS department and wish luck to AeroAfro members Ufuoma Ovienmhada and Ferrous Ward defending their PhDs next month.
Congratulations to our newest grads - your community is immensely proud of you!
- AeroAfro Leadership
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On June 24, the School of Engineering recognized Suxin Hu with a 2024 Infinite Mile Award, and Carol Niemi with a 2024 Ellen J. Mandigo Award for Outstanding Service. Watch the webcast if you missed the ceremony!
Prof. Sara Seager, with Harvard Professor David Charbonneau, won the 2024 Kavli Prize Prize in Astrophysics for discoveries of exoplanets and the characterization of their atmospheres. Prof. Seager is one of three MIT faculty recognized with the Kavli Prize this year.
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Prof. Wesley Harris was presented with a Distinguished Educator Award from the Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) Society International. | |
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Spot Awards: Congratulations to Bryt Bradley, Pam Fradkin, Anthony Zolnik, Beata Shuster, and Janine Liberty on being recognized this month – your colleagues appreciate the work you do!
Staff are invited to attend "Palettes and Peers" on Wednesday, June 12 – a summer community building event at Muse Paint Bar in Somerville, with lunch at The Smoke Shop! Contact Kaylie Knowlton with any questions.
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This year’s Unified Engineering Flight Competition took place in early May, with ten teams applying Unified concepts to design and build an RC airplane that could achieve a balance between payload and speed. Congratulations to this year’s winners on team eight – Suchitha Channapatna, Dashiell DeStefano, Sammy Krem, and Annika Vaidyanathan! | |
Unified participants also took part in Unified Engineering Flying Day, where students were flown through a number of maneuvers with pilots Prof. Hansman and Grayson Bertaina ‘25. Check out photos from the flight. | |
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The new course MAS.S66/4.154/16.89 Space Architecture asked students to collaborate across disciplines to design what humans might need to comfortably work in and inhabit space. The impressive array of final projects were profiled in an MIT News article and video about the course.
A new student group has launched: Doctors Without Gravity is a joint chapter between Harvard and MIT under the Aerospace Medicine Association (ASMA), exploring opportunities in aerospace medicine, spaceflight biology, and human space exploration. Join their mailing list for the latest news and updates!
Prof. Paulo Lozano shared his journey from observing the night sky Mexico to becoming an MIT professor in MIT Global’s “The World at MIT” video series.
Andrew Fishberg (ACL) and Marie Floryan (MechE) organized the MIT Science Policy Initiative’s Congressional Visit Days this April. The group met with congressional offices to discuss increasing investment in science in fiscal year 2025.
Prof. Daniel Hastings was officially inaugurated as AIAA President for 2024-2026 this May. Writing for Aerospace America, he says, “Our community is serving society on a global scale.”
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ARCLab had the opportunity to meet with Karl Ziemelis, the Physical Sciences Editor of Nature, to discuss their latest research and learn more about their publication process.
The first in-person STAMP industry workshop, led by Prof. Nancy Leveson, was a huge success, with over 250 attendees from multiple industries. STAMP is a new accident causality model based on systems theory and systems thinking that addresses critical challenges in system engineering, safety, and cybersecurity.
Aneesa Sonawalla (ACL) shared her list of questions and strategy for interviewing potential PhD advisors on the MIT GradBlog.
Prof. Richard Linares and William Parker (ARCLab) discussed how satellites fare during geomagnetic storms, like the one that caused the aurora earlier this spring, with Discover Magazine.
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Summer is the perfect time to catch up on updating your resume, portfolio, website, and more. The AeroAstro Comm Lab is here to help with 1-1 peer coaching sessions for all forms of technical communication. Make an appointment today!
New Workshops and Resources
Getting Started on Your Paper: The Skills Nobody Taught You
Video Abstract Competition!
Have you ever wanted use video to showcase your research? Now is your chance! The AeroAstro Comm Lab is excited to announce its first video abstract competition. Enter for a chance to win one of two first prizes (up to $100 worth of items from the MIT COOP) and two second prizes (up to $50 in items from the MIT COOP).
Videos must be submitted by August 16th, 2024. Learn more and submit your videos here.
The CommLab also just hit 100 coaching appointments for this academic year!
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Computational Turbulence Group | |
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A technique for more effective multipurpose robots | In an effort to train better multipurpose robots, Prof. Russ Tedrake and a team of MIT researchers developed a technique to combine multiple sources of data across domains, modalities, and tasks using a type of generative AI known as diffusion models.
Helping robots grasp the unpredictable | Prof. Nicholas Roy and his team of researchers designed the Grasping Neural Process, a predictive physics model capable of inferring hidden traits in real time for more intelligent robotic grasping.
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