Dear CEE Community and Friends,

In February's newsletter we congratulate Professors Saurabh Amin, Dave Des Marais, and Tami Lieberman on their promotions, highlight two climatetech startups with connections to CEE, and share a new report from the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance that identifies research priorities for “unhackable infrastructure.” We also celebrate five CEE faculty and alumni on being inducted to the National Academy of Engineering.

Also in this issue, we share new research from Prof. Markus Buehler that uses a deep learning methodology to discover notable relationships between disparate information domains. MEng student John Stark shares why he choose the MEng program in CEE, and MIT Energy Initiative profiles Assistant Professor Michael Howland. Lastly, we share details about the upcoming C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series with Professor Pradeep Sharma.

Sincerely,

Ali Jadbabaie

JR East Professor

Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering

Core Faculty, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is pleased to announce the promotions of Saurabh Amin to full Professor, Dave Des Marais to Associate Professor without Tenure, and Tami Lieberman to Associate Professor without Tenure effective July 1, 2023.

From PhD dissertations to startups, CEOs with connections to CEE spun their research into practice

Nyth Cycle and QuantAQ, two startups co-founded by members of the CEE community, are forging a path in the climatetech space based on research their CEO’s completed in graduate school.

ERVA report identifies research priorities for “unhackable infrastructure”

A new report from the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance identifies research priorities in five key areas to make “unhackable infrastructure.” The report was a result of a visioning event held at MIT with top researchers in the field including CEE Prof. Saurabh Amin, who served as the event’s Thematic Task Force co-chair.

Five CEE faculty and alumni inducted to the National Academy of Engineering

CEE Professors Markus Buehler, Elfatih Eltahir, David Simchi-Levi, and alumni Fariborz Maseeh SCD '90 and Eva Lerner-Lam SM ’78 are among the new members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2023. One of the highest professional distinctions for engineers, membership to the NAE is given to individuals for their outstanding contributions and advancements in the field of engineering.

New research from Prof. Markus Buehler connects art and science via a deep learning methodology to discover notable relationships between disparate information domains. This video depicts a self-assembled musical dialogue between note sequences generated by Bach and amino acid sequences encoded in a protein, leading to a form of counterpoint music.

John Stark: Graduate Spotlight

Growing up in Chicago, IL, MEng student John Stark became interested in civil and environmental engineering at a young age. Fascinated by the Chicago skyline and his father’s work in the water treatment industry, he chose the CEE MEng Structural Mechanics and Design program at MIT because of its unique and technologically advanced curriculum.

Prof. Michael Howland: Faculty Profile

Assistant Professor Michael Howland seeks to get more electricity out of renewable energy systems—and encourage young scientists and engineers to get involved in climate change mitigation.

C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series

Please join us on February 27 at 4pm in room 3-270 for the C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series with Professor Pradeep Sharma from University of Houston, who will discuss “Flexoelectricity & Electrets.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Civil 

and Environmental Engineering

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 1-290 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 

(617) 253-7101

CEE.MIT.EDU