A gift from alumnus Samuel Tak Lee will be used to establish a new MIT lab for sustainable real estate development, reports Chris Staiti of Bloomberg News. The gift will “help design a program that ties the study of real estate to 21st-century realities.”
One of the largest gifts in MIT's history will be used to “advance socially responsible and sustainable real estate, with a focus on China,” the Associated Press reports. The gift, from alumnus Samuel Tak Lee, will be used to establish a lab for sustainable real estate development, fund student fellowships, and put the lab’s curriculum online.
BostInno reporter Lauren Landry writes that MIT has received one of the largest gifts in the school’s history from alumnus Samuel Tak Lee. The gift will be used to create a lab dedicated to socially responsible and sustainable real estate development, with a focus on China.
Austin Hess of The Tech speaks with MIT alumna and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith following her selection as the 2015 commencement speaker. “The students graduating today are going to live … possibly past 100 years. So there’s so many different adventures that people should get up to,” says Smith.
WBUR’s Deborah Becker and Lynn Jolicoeur report on the new MIT-MGH partnership aimed at developing better tools to treat disease. Prof. Arup Chakraborty hopes the collaboration will allow researchers to take risks. “Safe ideas are often not the transformative ones,” he says.
Nature highlights the top science news of the week, including the new interdisciplinary center at MIT aimed at examining the microbiome. “The center will initially focus on inflammatory bowel disease, but organizers hope to eventually broaden the scope to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis and autism,” Nature reports.
Professor Ernest Moniz, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, participates on NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!. “A number of young scientists around the country considered the pathway I've taken one that inspires them. And it's really a pleasure to be able to hopefully encourage these young students,” says Moniz.
WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman reports on MIT.nano, the nanotechnology research facility that when completed will provide cutting-edge laboratory space for thousands of researchers. “The world is built on nanoscale and the 21st century will be defined by it,” says Prof. Vladimir Bulovic.
ArchDaily reporter Karissa Rosenfield reports on plans to construct a new facility on the MIT campus for nanoscience and nanotechnology research. “Centrally located at the heart of MIT, the new glass-encased, four-story structure will house two floors of high-performance cleanrooms, as well as imaging and prototyping facilities that are all designed to foster innovation through cross-discipline collaboration,” writes Rosenfield.
Kath Xu writes about plans for the new MIT nanotechnology facility in an article for The Tech. “For a long time, [nanotechnology] was just science and we were playing in the lab and doing measurements and it was really fun,” Professor Polina Anikeeva told The Tech. “But now it’s exploding and it’s really becoming its own field… Nanotechnology has entered every part of engineering.”
MIT.nano "will break down barriers traditionally separating subjects in the name of nanoscale research,” writes Chemistry World reporter Andy Extance, who quotes MIT’s Moungi Bawendi as explaining: “It is a shared space in a state-of-the-art building that will house state-of-the-art instrumentation. I expect there will be many new activities fostered by this new space.”
The Associated Press reports on the 200,000-square-foot nanotechnology research facility to be constructed in the heart of the MIT campus. “An estimated 2,000 MIT researchers may ultimately use the building in fields including energy, health, life sciences, quantum sciences, electronics and manufacturing,” the AP reports.
The Boston Globe's Carolyn Johnson reports on how MIT is building a new space specifically devoted to nanotechnology research. The building will, "double the size of the nanotechnology clean room and imaging facilities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," Johnson reports.