MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics | April 2021 |
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The International Space Station passes over Kresge Auditorium with Saturn and Jupiter in conjunction just above the roof. Scroll down to see the feature image without the Roundup header. Photo by Aero Astro grad student Evan Kramer.
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A Note from the Department Head |
Dear AeroAstro Community,
We’ve made it to just past the middle of the term. This is usually a busy time during the semester in a normal academic year between major project assignments, looming deadlines, and exams. Pair that with the added stress of the past year along with the weight of current events, and you have the recipe for a perfect storm of stress. While we can look ahead at the coming months with a renewed sense of hope, we still need to take care of ourselves and each other in the present.
The collective effort it has taken all of us — faculty, staff, and students —to maintain business as usual in extraordinary times, navigating challenge after challenge that has rippled out from every decision made with the best intentions under highly dynamic circumstances, has been enormous. It has been hard, so let's acknowledge that. For those of you who work closely with students, I would like to point you to a recorded presentation hosted by the Teaching and Learning Lab that discussed strategies for promoting a culture of student wellbeing. All community members can find a list of MIT wellness resources on the AeroAstro website, should you need additional support or guidance.
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Please be safe and be well, |
Daniel Hastings
Department Head, MIT AeroAstro
Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor
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Save the Date: AeroAstro’s First Annual Postdoctoral and Researcher Recognition Ceremony!
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Noon EDT
Click to view the flyer below.
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April 28 is Denim Day
Wednesday, April 28 is Denim Day, an international movement that brings awareness to victim-blaming and destructive myths surrounding all forms of sexual violence. Wear jeans this Wednesday in solidarity and support of survivors and victims.
If you post a picture of yourself wearing jeans or information about Denim Day on 4/28, we ask you to tag MIT AeroAstro and use the hashtag #DenimDayMIT to spread awareness of this campaign on social media.
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DI&I Events: Spring 2021
The Diversity, Inclusion, and Innovation (DI&I) Committee, open to the entire community, meets once per month during the semester to work together to make AeroAstro a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive place. Mark your calendars for the following upcoming DI&I events: (Zoom links to follow.)
Full DI&I Committee Meetings:
- Tuesday, April 27 at 11 a.m.
- Tuesday, May 18 at 11 a.m.
Mondays: Space Technology for the Development Leader
Danielle Wood is holding a public seminar series entitled "Space Technology for the Development Leader," most Mondays during the Spring 2021 Semester. This link provides the schedule, connection information, and list of speakers. This course and seminar series will help you understand how the rapidly changing technology and policy in the space sector matters to your life.
Campus Parking Extended
The program to provide free parking for all MIT ID cardholders during the Covid-19 pandemic will be extended through the end of June 2021. As of July 1, a parking account will once again be required to access parking areas. Visit the parking portal to sign up for a parking account now to maintain access without interruption. Note that the sign-up process includes choosing a billing option (payroll deduction or credit card), but no charges will be assessed through the end of June. Charges will start to accrue for parkers once the free program ends. Parking accounts can be canceled at any time. Learn more. Visit the Commuter Connections page to learn more about your commuting options.
Apply to Participate in Poetry of Science by April 25
The Poetry of Science, a project supported by the Cambridge Arts Council, aims to increase the representation of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and POC experiences in the fields of poetry, photography, and the sciences. In this project, Cambridge-based poets of color will collaborate with local scientists of color to create a poem about their research, inspirations as scientists, and their field of study. We will work with a local photographer of color to create portraits of each scientist. The project will culminate in a public art installation in Cambridge featuring the participating scientists and poetry. The poetry will be published in an award-winning literary journal and be read at the Boston Book Festival lit crawl. Learn more.
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Noteworthy News, Awards & Honors: |
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MIT was ranked number one for graduate aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering in U.S. News and Word Report’s annual rankings for 2022.
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AeroAstro leadership update effective July 1, 2021: Prof. Hamsa Balakrishnan will step down as Associate Department Head (ADH) and become the chair of the Undergraduate Committee. Prof. Steven Barrett will move from being the head of the Air Sector to the position of Associate Department Head and maintain the education portfolio in the Department. Prof. Jonathan How will move from Undergraduate Committee Chair to become the chair of the Graduate Committee. Prof. Zoltán Spakovszky will move from chairing the Graduate Committee to being the head of the Air Sector. The rest of the leadership team will stay the same: Prof. Nick Roy will remain as head of the Computing Sector, Prof. Paulo Lozano will remain as head of the Space Sector, and Prof. David Darmofal as Director of Digital Learning (on sabbatical).
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Marie Stuppard received an Infinite Mile Award from MIT IS&T for her efforts overseeing transition and supervision of student learning technologists who worked with Course 16 instructors to move their courses to the Canvas teaching platform.
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Suxin Hu has been promoted to the role of Senior Financial Officer (SFO) in AeroAstro. Congratulations!
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John Hansman and Douglas Hart (MechE) will both serve as co-director of the MIT Portugal Program after Dava Newman steps down this summer when she assumes her new role as Director of the MIT Media Lab.
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Tara Venkatadri was among four MIT recipients to receive a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for the 2021-22 academic year. Over 5,000 college students from across the United States were nominated for the scholarships, from which only 410 recipients were selected based on academic merit. Read the full story on MIT News.
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Dan Hastings, along with Tracy Gabridge deputy director of the MIT Libraries spoke to MIT News about ideas and themes emerging from the MIT Value Statement committee’s conversations, and the process of creating a statement that reflects the voices and values of the MIT community.
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Hannah Tomio was selected as a NASA Space Technology Graduate Researcher We have completed the evaluation of the proposal titled “Reconfigurable Single Photon Detecting System for Small Satellites” she submitted for the 2021 NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities Appendix to the Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion (SpaceTech–REDDI) solicitation.
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Thomas Roberts and Will Parker were awarded Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation, which recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based masters and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education.
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Dan Jang received a Lincoln Scholarship starting in Fall 2021.
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The MIT AeroAstro team for the NASA Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition challenges teams of grad and undergrad students to develop innovative concepts that would allow the expansion of human space exploration to include long-term stays and visits to distant planetary bodies including Venus and Ceres. The AeroAstro Team was selected as finalists for the MASA competition for their proposed human mission to Ceres “CHEATA - Ceres Human Exploration And Transit Architecture.” Members include Allison Porter (HSL), Rachel Bellisle (HSL), Chloé Gentgen (ESL), Benjamin Martel (SPL) and Jessica Todd (HSL), with Faculty Advisor Jeff Hoffman.
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Spot Award recipients for the month of March included: Bryt Bradley, Jei Lee Freeman, Ngan Le, and Jean Sofronas.
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Richard Miller was featured in a series of three episodes on “The Future of Higher Education,” podcast hosted by David Finegold, President of Chatham University in Pittsburgh. The series is an exploration of the founding of Olin College of Engineering, and the lessons learned that might be useful for all of higher education. Listen to Episode One, Episode Two, and Episode Three.
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We received the blades for the WBWT (below, photo credit: Aerolab) which will be installed during the week of April 26. Once the blades have been installed, we will run another test on the motor again.
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As we approach the completion of the project, painting and finishes are currently underway. Once complete the building will include, the Rocket Team space, Carmen Guerra Garcia's lab, the control from for the tunnel itself and a conference room.
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Daily work hours for the WBWT construction crew continue from 6 a.m.– 4 p.m. Some Saturday work may be expected. Construction is scheduled to continue through Spring 2021.
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Diversity, Inclusion, & Innovation (DI&I) |
View the Compton Lecture
On April 22, Kwame Anthony Appiah – noted philosopher, cultural commentator, and author of the New York Times column, “The Ethicist” – will deliver the MIT Karl Taylor Compton Lecture “Thinking About Racism.” Watch the lecture.
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Welcome to our new, regular feature in the Monthly Roundup! Here, we will highlight information about reporting paths, resources for accountability, and other tips for navigating tricky professional situations. |
Ethicspoint is an anonymous hotline hosted by a third-party vendor for the MIT community members to report any concerns, violations of policies, or inappropriate behaviors. The most common topics for hotline reports are the following:
- COVID-19 public health, safety, and policy concerns
- Conflicts of Interest
- Environmental Health & Safety
- Financial
- Human Resources (including discrimination and harassment)
- Information Technology
- Research
- Risk and Safety
- Violations of Law, Contract, or MIT Policy
Anyone may use the hotline to report a concern about suspected wrongdoing or troubling practices in the MIT community. Learn more about the local and institute reporting paths available to AeroAstro faculty, staff, and students: aeroastro.mit.edu/reporting.
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Successful ~*VIRTUAL*~ Thesis Defenders |
Congratulations
Dr. Sandeep Badrinath!
March 23, 2021
“Modeling and Control of Queuing Networks: Applications to Airport Operations”
PI: Hamsa Balakrishnan
Did you successfully defend your graduate thesis? Send a photo to aa-communications@mit.edu to be featured as one of our Successful Defenders!
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Below are a few highlights of AeroAstro publications and media coverage: |
Dava Newman
Space News
Danielle Wood
Elsevier, Science of The Total Environment
Resources Radio Podcast
Axios Space
Oliver Jia-Richards, Sebastian K. Hampl, and Paulo Lozano
AIAA Journal of Spacecraft on Rockets
Sara Seager
Wall Street Journal
Farah Alibay PhD’14
Boston Globe
MIT grad is part of NASA team that will determine whether helicopter can fly on Mars
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🚀 O2MG! We made oxygen on Mars! 🔴
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In the early morning hours of Sol 60 in Jezero Crater (in EST Earth time, that would be early evening on April 20), humans produced oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere for the first time in history.
MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-situ Resource Utilization Experiment), a small, gold box-shaped instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, successfully demonstrated a solid oxide electrolysis technology for converting the Martian atmosphere to oxygen. MOXIE’s first oxygen run produced 5.4 grams of oxygen in an hour. The power supply limits potential production to 12 g/hr — about the same amount that a large tree would produce.
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Spotted on Instagram: AeroAstro alumna Farah Alibay PhD'14 celebrates the success of Ingenuity's first flight on Mars!
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SpaceTech 2021, part of MIT Space Week, is the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's technically-oriented, future-looking event designed to build awareness around the present and future of space technology. This year’s event was held virtually and featured a fireside chat between Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President and COO, and Dava Newman, Apollo Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics and incoming director of the MIT Media Lab, who discussed the current and future state of the space industry along with personal insights about Shotwell’s experience at the helm of SpaceX. |
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Next, the Explorers Panel featured NASA astronaut and former administrator Charles Bolden, Payload Sales Director at Blue Origin Dr. Erika Wagner (SM '00, PhD '07), and Asha Balakrishnan (SM’99, PhD’07), Research Staff Member at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, and moderated by Danielle Wood, Assistant Professor and Director of Space Enabled Research Group. Together, they discussed new achievements in human and robotic space activity that will emerge in the coming decades and what new questions these achievements will raise in engineering, science, and policy.
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The afternoon concluded with a Student Lightning Talk Competition moderated by Richard Linares, Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor, Co-director Space Systems Lab. In these lightning talks, MIT graduate students will explain the main ideas about their current research during a short presentation with the goal of informing and inspiring the audience, who then voted on their favorites.
Lightning talk presentations included:
Development of Melt Probes for the Exploration of Europa
Paula do Vale Pereira
STAR Lab
Solar Sail Statite Missions to Interstellar Objects
Daniel Miller
ARCLab
Earth Observation to Inform Environmental Management in West Africa
Ufuoma Ovienmhada
Space Enabled Research Group
Probing the Oceans with Bread Loaf-Sized Spacecraft
Cadence Payne
STAR Lab
Self-deploying Tower for Lunar Exploration
Jessica Todd
MIT BIG Idea Challenge Team 2020
Imaging the X-ray Universe
Heng E. Zuo
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Evaluating Exoplanet Evidence from TESS
Zahra Essack
TESS Science Office & The Seager Group
The winners selected by the audience were Jessica Todd in First Place; Daniel Miller and Cadence Payne tied for Second Place; and Ufuoma Ovienmhada in Third Place.
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In the Flight Measurement Laboratory course (Course 16.64) taught by Prof. John Hansman, students assist with the design and execution of simple engineering flight experiments in light aircraft. Lindsey Bjornstad ‘22 (below), Emma Tauckus ‘23, and Joana Nikolova ’23 (above, left to right) tested out the effect of cognitive and sensory distractions on student pilots’ ability to maintain steady heading and altitude on Friday, April 9.
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The MIT Teaching and Learning Lab organized the first-ever AeroAstro Teach-Off, where graduate students presented eight micro-teaching sessions for judging. Charles Dawson and Mycal Tucker tied for first place in the competition!
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Amy Jarvis and her family decided to work on teaching their cat Boo (age 6) to “be civil” and stop jumping up on the table while they were working from home. Boo has taken a shine to her new perch and established a new daily routine with her seat at the family table, complete with breakfast accompanied with a side bird-watching!
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Take a look at today's featured header image: The International Space Station passes over Kresge Auditorium with Saturn and Jupiter in conjunction just above the roof. Photo by Aero Astro grad student Evan Kramer.
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Do you have highlights to include in future editions of the Monthly Roundup?
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