CEE News November 2020
Dear CEE community and friends,
 
The end of the semester is fast approaching and we are already beginning to look ahead to the spring. This semester has provided us many challenges due to the ongoing problems presented by the pandemic – but there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. The recent news of several promising vaccines being approved gives hope that we are getting closer to the end of this experience and will be able to resume life as we once knew it, and finally be able to reunite our community on campus once again.
 
In this newsletter, you can learn more about some of the exciting work that our students, faculty, postdocs and research staff are doing. This week’s newsletter includes Benedetto Marelli’s work with silk fibroins and how it could be used as a novel tool to improve global food security and sustainability using state-of-the-art bio material science and engineering. Elfatih Eltahir’s new book on Malaria is a story more than 15 years in the making and offers a comprehensive case study on predicting the impacts of climate change on regions. We also have updates and insights on the coronavirus from several members of our department, including Markus Buehler, Colette Heald, and Jesse Kroll. Markus’ work demonstrates for the first time, the insights that can be gained from study of vibrations of coronavirus spike proteins. Colette Heald and Jesse Kroll highlight the COVID-19 related shutdowns and their effect on complex chemistry of the atmosphere.
 
Finally, I would like to highlight the interview by CEE alum Michael Gruenbaum CEE ’53 with the ITE journal on his career as a city planner and his experience as a holocaust survivor, as well as his book on his experience which has been translated to 13 languages and sold 75000 copies.
 
See below for more news and insights into the amazing research going on within our department, as well as the people conducting it.
 
I wish you and your families a very happy and healthy holiday season.
 
Sincerely,

Ali Jadbabaie
JR East Professor of Engineering
Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering
Core Faculty, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
NEWS
The cost of climate change: malaria in Ethiopia
Elfatih Eltahir's new book uses malaria transmission in Africa as a case study on modeling the impacts of climate change on regional scales, and what governments and leaders can do about it. Read more
Quantifying plant drying and water stress across Africa
AGU publishes paper from Andrew Feldman, Daniel J. Short Gianotti and others in CEE titled Land-Atmosphere Drivers of Landscape-Scale Plant Water Content Loss. Find it here
WATCH: Digital Transformation Strategies – From Data First to Cloud
Dr. Abel Sanchez and Professor John Williams discuss the lessons learned in the software industry and how they can be applied to drive digital transformation in other areas. Watch it here
Feature Article
Looking beyond luxury: silk eyed as powerful tool in fight against climate change and global food sustainability
Benedetto Marelli's work studying silk may open new possibilities for limiting food waste and improved methods for feeding a growing global population. Read more
COVID-19 Updates
Vibe check
New research from Markus Buehler shows that vibrations of the protein spikes on coronaviruses, including the one that causes Covid-19, play a crucial part in allowing the virus to penetrate human cells. Read more
3Q with Colette Heald and Jesse Kroll: COVID-19 shutdowns highlight complex chemistry in the atmosphere
Emission levels of some pollutants dropped during COVID-19 shutdowns, but MIT Professors Colette Heald and Jesse Kroll say that’s not the whole story when it comes to air quality and human health. Read more
Research
An escape route for seafloor methane
A new study has solved the mystery of how and why columns of the methane gas can stream out of methane hydrates. Both the bubble tubes and the inverted droplets are encased in clear gas hydrate.. Read more
For the love of peat
In less than three decades, most of Southeast Asia’s peatlands have been wholly or partially deforested, drained, and dried out. A study by MIT researchers and others reveals the startling prevalence of the destruction and subsidence of these peatlands. Read more
Alumni Highlights
CEE alum and holocaust survivor featured in Journal of Transportation Engineers
Michael Gruenbaum CEE ’53 was featured in the November issue of the ITE Journal. The article digs into Gruenbaum’s career as a city planner in Boston, and highlights his life experience as a survivor of the Holocaust.
Gruenbaum was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1930 and was sent to a concentration camp in 1942. After the war, he emigrated to the United States where he attended school and served in the military for two years. In 2015, he published a book, Somewhere there is Still a Sun, detailing his experience growing up during World War II; the book has been translated into 13 different languages and has sold 75,000 copies to date. Now in his nineties, Gruenbaum feels compelled to keep the stories and struggles of those who experienced such evil alive for all to remember.
 
“I consider it now my last mission to alert people all over the world what evil can result from small actions like painting a swastika – and as a result, eventually things can get completely out of hand, like they did in 1930’s Germany.” Says Gruenbaum.
 
Gruenbaum received his undergraduate in CEE at MIT and attended Yale University where he would eventually gain his master’s degree in city planning. His career exploits include some prodigious highlights: he literally wrote the book on Transportation Facts for the Boston Region and served on the team tasked with studying the environmental impacts posed by the “Big Dig.”
CEE Profiles
Engineering for good
CEE postoc Md Hasnine has engineering in his bones and he's using his power to facilitate positive changes within his communities. Read more