Special events and guest speakers

Bill Griffith writes for Boston.com ahead of the MIT Car and Vehicle Show, which features vehicles designed by MIT researchers and several outside groups. 

Scott Kirsner writes for BetaBoston about the MIT Media Lab’s 30^th anniversary celebration, which will feature a daylong symposium on October 30th. The event will feature talks by former United Nations Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan, and White House chief technology officer and MIT alumna Megan Smith. 

The Boston Globe’s Malcolm Gay speaks with Provost Marty Schmidt about HUBweek, a festival showcasing Boston’s prowess in arts, culture and technology. “Things move a lot faster now than they might have a quarter of a century ago, so HUBweek is, and is going to need to evolve rapidly,” says Schmidt. 

During a visit to MIT, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stressed the need for government investment in research, reports Jeff Engels for Xconomy. “Our investment in R&D in this country is flat since, I think, 1980. It’s actually quite concerning at a time when the rest of the world, as you said, is not standing still,” said Pritzker. 

Catherine Pearson writes for The Huffington Post about the Gala Pump, a compression breast pump designed by Kohana Inc. at MIT’s “make the breast pump not suck” hackathon: “Kohana has run a small clinical trial with 30 moms and says the majority of those women preferred The Gala to their vacuum pumps.”

Boston Globe reporter Katherine Landergan writes that during MIT’s 2015 Commencement, U.S. CTO Megan Smith ’86, SM ’88 urged graduates to “be kind, be inclusive, be open.” President L. Rafael Reif asked graduates to have a “bold willingness to disrupt the status quo, to make the world a better place.”

Bill Griffith writes for Boston.com writes about a recent conference hosted by MIT and the New England Motor Press Association on the future of electric vehicles. Griffith explains that the event brought together the “worlds of automotive manufacturing, government, utilities, clean-air proponents, global-warming experts, and academia.”

Boston.com reporter Bill Griffith writes that MIT and the New England Motor Press Association are holding their fifth technology conference on May 21 at the Media Lab. During the event, MIT alumnus Chris Brewer will receive the “Winter Vehicle of New England” on behalf of Ford. 

Boston Globe reporter Laura Krantz writes about an event held at MIT to honor Robert Robinson Taylor, MIT’s first African-American graduate who was honored earlier this year with a new postage stamp. 

MIT has unveiled a new memorial to honor Officer Sean Collier, writes Jennifer Switzer for The Tech. “The permanent memorial is intended to be a place of remembrance and reflection, a place that evokes the strength of Collier Strong, a place that reflects the connectedness of our community,” said Executive Vice President Israel Ruiz.

Bernice Corpuz reports for CBS Radio on the construction of a new memorial to honor Officer Sean Collier that was designed to embody the spirit of “Collier Strong.” Prof. J. Meejin Yoon explains that the memorial is made up of “32 unique, solid granite blocks working together to support each other to create an impossibly flat five-way vault.”

WBUR reports on the dedication of a new permanent memorial at MIT created in honor of Officer Sean Collier. “Our goal was to show the best of MIT for Sean Collier. Hopefully he would look at it and say ‘Wow, that’s something really cool,’” explains Professor John Ochsendorf. 

On Wednesday, MIT dedicated a new “curving, star-shaped memorial” in honor of Officer Sean Collier, Steve Annear reports for The Boston Globe. The memorial’s architect, Prof. J. Meejin Yoon, explained that she designed the “memorial to not only look strong, but to have a position about that strength,” explains Yoon. 

WHDH reporter Byron Barnett reports from MIT on the dedication of a new permanent memorial commemorating the life and legacy of Officer Sean Collier. Barnett reports that the monument is “an MIT engineering marvel: Five granite arches leaning in on each other, held in place by the laws of physics.” 

Joy Lim Nakrin of Fox 25 reports on the construction and dedication of the memorial built in honor of Officer Sean Collier. “When asked to design the memorial by the Collier Committee, I was both honored and very nervous and anxious. How could any physical structure truly commemorate this incredible life and service?” said Prof. J. Meejin Yoon, the memorial’s architect.