Dear CEE Community and Friends,

I hope everyone had an enjoyable winter break and start to the new year.

This newsletter highlights two fall semester courses: Applied Category Theory for Engineering Design, where students learned to solve complex problems using compositionality, and Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering Design, where students worked collaboratively to turn ideas into prototypes for real-world impact. We also feature undergraduate Allison Anderson’s story map about her teaching experience in Alaska, as well as an episode of the Environmental Integrity Podcast where Prof. Charles Harvey discusses the effectiveness of carbon capture and storage. Also in this issue, we congratulate Professors Jinhua Zhao and Gioele Zardini on receiving a federal grant to enhance transit accessibility for underserved communities, and Professors David Des Marais, Tami Lieberman, and Darcy McRose for their J-WAFS Grand Challenge Grant to study microbes as sustainable alternatives to agrochemicals. 

We share a new AI framework from Prof. Markus Buehler and postdoc Alireza Ghafarollahi that could advance biologically inspired materials, new research from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) introduces sensors capable of detecting drought stress in plants up to 48 hours before visible symptoms appear, and Prof. Penny Chisholm and her team reveal the role of Prochlorococcus in marine carbon cycling. Additionally, PhD student Nicolette Bugher highlights the risks of VOC contamination in Appalachian groundwater, and graduate student Zane Schemmer develops designs to reduce the carbon footprint of bridges and structures. Lastly, we invite you to the C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series on March 5, featuring Dr. Trent Northen from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Sincerely,

Ali Jadbabaie

JR East Professor

Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering

Core Faculty, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

MIT students apply compositionality to real-world engineering design problems in Applied Category Theory for Engineering Design, a new fall semester subject taught by Prof. Gioele Zardini.

MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering students turn ideas into prototypes

In 1.101 Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering Design with Prof. Tal Cohen students tackle real-world challenges through creative problem solving, hands-on design, and collaboration.

Energy in Alaska

CEE undergraduate student Allison Anderson participated in a high school summer camp in Alaska as a student instructor, which was organized by the Teaching Through Technology (T3) program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She created a story map to illustrate what she learned about microgrids in Alaska and the interplay between energy and the environment.

Billions of Dollars in Taxpayer Subsidies Support Carbon Capture. Is it a Massive Waste?

Prof. Charles Harvey joins the Environmental Integrity Podcast to discuss the viability of carbon capture and storage to combat climate change.

MIT researchers awarded federal grant to enhance transit accessibility for underserved communities

Professors Jinhua Zhao and Gioele Zardini have been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to enhance transit accessibility for underserved communities. The grant will fund research and development of a Multi-level Connected and Automated Transit System (M-CATS) that uses connectivity and automation technologies to provide more adaptive and equitable mobility services.

J-WAFS project aims to replace harmful agrochemicals with microbes for sustainable agriculture

CEE Professors David Des Marais, Tami Lieberman, Darcy McRose, along with other collaborators across MIT, are recipients of the 2025 J-WAFS Grand Challenge Grant. The team will study the use of microbes to potentially replace synthetic agrochemicals used in agriculture.

Professor Markus Buehler and postdoc Alireza Ghafarollahi developed AI frameworks to identify evidence-driven hypotheses that could advance biologically inspired materials in new research study.

A new method to detect dehydration in plants

Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) researchers have developed sensors capable of detecting pH changes in plant xylem enable farmers to detect drought stress up to 48 hours before visible physical symptoms manifest.

An abundant phytoplankton feeds a global network of marine microbes

New findings from Rogier Braakman, a research scientist in MIT EAPS, Prof. Penny Chisholm, and other MIT researchers illuminate how Prochlorococcus’ nightly “cross-feeding” plays a role in regulating the ocean’s capacity to cycle and store carbon.

Domestic groundwater wells in Appalachia show evidence of low-dose, complex mixtures of legacy pollutants

PhD student Nicolette Bugher was lead author on a recent paper highlighting the risks of volatile organic compound (VOC) contamination in private drinking water sources near industrial and historically contaminated sites in Appalachia.

CEE graduate student and Morningside Academy for Design Fellow Zane Schemmer writes algorithms that optimize overall function, minimize carbon footprint, and produce a manufacturable design.

C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series

Dr. Trent Northen from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is the invited speaker for the C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, March 5 at 4pm. Join us in room 1-190 for his presentation, "The Chemical Underground: Are Rhizosphere Microbes Hooked on Root Exudates?"

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Civil 

and Environmental Engineering

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