Engineering

Town & Country named MIT one of the 15 best colleges preparing students for the AI economy. “The School of Engineering’s major in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making is among the institute’s most popular, designed for students interested in algorithms for learning and reasoning, real-world applications of AI, and its connections to human cognition…For students who want to be immersed in a culture where ambitious ideas move quickly from theory to application, MIT remains in a class of its own.”

Climate Now host Ozak Esu speaks with Senior Research Engineer Howard Herzog about the origins and mechanics of carbon capture technology. “The primary method today is what we call scrubbing. And it could be either chemical or physical scrubbing depending on the concentration,” says Herzog.

Financial Times reporter Tom Wilson writes that researchers from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) have successfully demonstrated the use of a high-temperature superconductor, which engineers believe can allow for a more compact fusion power plant. “It’s the type of technology innovation that you know shows up every once in a while in a given field,” CFS chief executive, Bob Mumgaard, tells Wilson.

MIT spinoff ClearMotion is working on a proactive suspension system that would allow for smoother car rides over rough surfaces, writes Jack Stewart for Wired. The system would use actuators that can actually lift the wheel over bumps and potholes, allowing cars using ClearMotion to “play offense” against potentially damaging patches.

Led by senior research scientist Rolland Pellenq, students in the School of Engineering developed a model “that links a city’s ‘texture’ to its night-time UHI (Urban Heat Index),” writes Laurie Winkless for Forbes. The team hopes their research will influence future urban development, especially in very hot or cold climates.

Steve Annear of The Boston Globe writes about the tradition of MIT students building a roller coaster to welcome freshmen to campus. “It was a good part of the reason that I became a mechanical engineer and I know that’s also true for other people,” says senior Andrea Meister.