Dear CEE Community and Friends,

We begin this newsletter by highlighting Kelsey Pittman and Jacqueline Orr, two service members whose journey took them from West Point to MIT, along with a new exhibit exploring MIT’s earliest Japanese students. We share MIT’s Engineers Without Borders Health and Sanitation team's work in Tanzania, where they are improving healthcare infrastructure in the village of Mkutani. We congratulate Prof. Michael Howland for receiving a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, and graduate student Faisal AlNasser and Prof. Dara Entekhabi, who received the MIT Prize for Open Data.

Also in this issue, we feature a new AI model by Prof. Markus Buehler that uncovers hidden links between science and art to inspire innovative materials, and MIT scientists, including Prof. Benedetto Marelli, who are exploring ways to make agriculture more resilient to climate change. We feature an MIT News profile of Prof. Admir Masic, who is using ancient materials to find sustainable solutions for the future. Finally, we share photos from the CEE Halloween Party, where faculty, students, and staff enjoyed pumpkin carving, costumes, and crafts.

Sincerely,

Ali Jadbabaie

JR East Professor

Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering

Core Faculty, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Service members Kelsey Pittman and Jacqueline Orr share a similar path from the United States Military Academy West Point to graduate studies in structural engineering at MIT. 

Samurai in Japan, then engineers at MIT

A new exhibit explores the Institute’s first Japanese students, who arrived as MIT was taking flight and their own country was opening up. In 1874, Eiichirō Honma became MIT’s first graduate from Japan, majoring in civil engineering.

Female health and sanitation project in Tanzania

CEE funding helped support members of the Health and Sanitation team from the MIT chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA travel to Mkutani, Tanzania for an implementation trip this summer. The team is renovating the local medical dispensary, which serves 4800 village residents. Updates include creating a new patient room, updating the electrical system to include solar panels and lights, and building a new roof.

Prof. Michael Howland named 2025 Young Investigator Program awardee from Office of Naval Research

The award will support his project, “Closing the Loop on Joint Physics- and Data-Driven Modeling of Marine Boundary Layer Turbulence Above Waves.” This research will advance weather and climate modeling and enable his lab to integrate computational and experimental fluid dynamics research through uncertainty quantification, improving engineered systems operating in uncertain marine environments for Naval applications.

Third Annual MIT Prize for Open Data Celebrates Researchers Across MIT

PhD candidate Faisal AlNasser and Prof. Dara Entekhabi were named MIT Prize for Open Data awardees for the DustSCAN Dust Plumes Dataset, the first open-source collection tracking mineral dust plumes using satellite data across the global “Dust Belt.”

A new AI method developed by Prof. Markus Buehler finds hidden links between science and art to create novel materials.

Making agriculture more resilient to climate change

Prof. Benedetto Marelli’s research addresses the agricultural challenges caused by Earth’s rising temperatures. His developments include silk-based seed coatings that can envelop and nourish seeds during the critical germination process. Marelli is the director of one of the six missions of the recently launched Climate Project at MIT, which focus on research areas such as decarbonizing industry and building resilient cities. 

The associate professor of civil and environmental engineering studies ancient materials while working to solve modern problems.

The department held its annual Halloween party on Wednesday, October 30. Attendees enjoyed a spooky evening including pumpkin carving, a costume contest, and crafts. View photos from the party on our Flickr.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Civil 

and Environmental Engineering

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