MIT alum awarded Nobel Prize for work on DNA repair
Paul L. Modrich ’86, who earned his bachelor’s in biology from MIT, was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for his work on DNA mismatch repair.
Solve conference gathers ‘change agents,’ takes on global problems
Leaders from academia and business alike gathered this week for the Solve conference, hosted by MIT to address key challenges in four fundamental areas: education, healthcare, energy, and infrastructure.
New MIT master's program will be half online, half on campus
MIT introduced a pilot program Wednesday in which professionals can receive a master’s degree in supply chain management (SCM) by taking the online equivalent of a semester’s worth of classes and following it up with a semester on campus.
MIT Connect uses algorithm to pair grad students for lunch
MIT Connect is a new initiative aimed at strengthening the sense of community among graduate students. Each week, the program pairs graduate students for one-on-one platonic lunches and provides each student with a $10 TechCash deposit they can redeem at local restaurants or on-campus dining halls.
Climate rally unfurls banner near MIT board meeting
The MIT Climate Countdown ended Oct. 2 with a rally attended by more than 100 MIT students, staff, faculty, alumni, and local community members.
Random will seek new housemaster
Nina Davis-Millis, Random Hall’s housemaster, announced Monday that she and her husband, Chris Millis, will be leaving the dorm at the end of this academic year. Davis-Millis, who has been housemaster at Random for more than two decades, is also Director of Community Support and Staff Development at MIT Libraries. In an email to the dorm, she called her experience at Random “amazing” and “transformative.”
Hurricane Joaquin developing but not likely to affect MA this weekend
Mild temperatures and a chance of rain will be the norm through the end of the weekend. It will be noticeably cooler than the beginning of the week was, with rain likely at some point over the weekend.
Two MIT affiliates named MacArthur fellows
An MIT alumnus and an MIT economics professor have been selected as 2015 MacArthur Fellows, and both will receive a no-strings-attached reward of $625,000.
More students pass chem & bio ASEs this year
During freshman orientation this year, over 39 percent of the incoming freshman class sat for Advanced Standing Exams to receive credit for a variety of classes. The overall passing rate for ASEs was 59 percent, which is slightly higher than the past two years’ average of 55 percent.
Random Hall eschews Family Weekend security policies
Random Hall will not be compelled to comply with the DSL’s dorm security policy for Family Weekend — parents will not be granted automatic access to the building.
Maker pioneers from Iraq visit MIT campus
Three Iraqi technologists who founded the first makerspace in Basra, Iraq visited MIT on Monday and Tuesday to meet with various labs and student groups as part of a tour hosted by the Media Lab and the Undergraduate Association Innovation Committee.
MIT hackers show support for Ahmed Mohamed
Four days after high school student Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for building a clock that his teachers mistook for a bomb, hackers at MIT showed their support for the 14-year-old by constructing their own digital clock display and hanging it over a banister in Lobby 7 last Friday.
Pilot program will recruit spouses of grad students as child care providers
A new program led by the MIT Family Childcare Network will support the training, licensing, and operations of child care providers caring for children of graduate students in Eastgate and Westgate residences. In the first phase of the pilot program, spouses and partners of MIT graduate students will be recruited as caregivers.
Random Hall’s express guest list experiment continues this year
Random Hall’s express guest list system, implemented this past spring, is continuing into its second year. A similar program at Maseeh, implemented in fall 2014, will also continue.
3Q: Prof. Karen Gleason on the Metro Storage Warehouse
MIT is advancing a proposal to create a new hub for undergraduate residential life that would include housing, dining, maker space, common and study space, and street-level public retail. The proposed development at 134 Massachusetts Ave. — which could house more than 400 students — would incorporate the unique historic nature of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse and provide needed flexibility as the Institute continues to enhance its undergraduate and graduate student housing stock. Associate Provost Karen Gleason, the Alexander and I. Michael Kasser Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, is leading the effort and spoke with MIT News about the project.
More grads choose industry over PhDs
As students flock to Career Fair today to speak with recruiters from tech companies, hedge funds, and startups, many will be seeking full-time jobs and internships. If recent trends in GECD survey results are any indication, more MIT students than ever will enter the workforce upon graduating next semester.
Kendall development project poses traffic concerns
As MIT prepares to move forward with redevelopment plans for the east campus and Kendall Square area, Cambridge officials have expressed concerns that the project will draw increased traffic to an already-congested area.
Picturesque fall weather to continue
This week’s pattern of sunny, seasonable weather will continue through the weekend, with a strong high pressure system forecast to move in from the northwest. High pressure systems, or anticyclones, tend to be associated with calm, sunny weather, since their clockwise motion (in the Northern Hemisphere) induces large-scale subsidence, or downward motion of air from the upper troposphere. The air warms as it descends due to the increase in atmospheric pressure, and it remains dry, since air in the upper troposphere cannot retain much water vapor.