MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000
Through engineering education and research, the School of Engineering develops future technological leaders and advances the frontiers of engineering knowledge. The School develops innovative technologies, theory, and practice and prepares students for leadership in industry, government, and educational institutions, equipping them to creatively address the world’s complex problems. At the dawn of this new century, the School aspires to provide a new model for engineering education and practice. Leadership that emanates from a base of technical excellence and innovation will play a critical role in a world increasingly dominated by technological developments. The new engineering leader will combine a solid foundation of engineering fundamentals with an increasing breadth of experience in other areas. By solving problems from a holistic viewpoint that is deeply rooted in technology, these leaders of the future will create, develop, organize, and manage visionary new technologies and products for the betterment of humankind.
Currently, the School’s eight departments and two divisions encompass a community of many of the world’s brightest minds and inventive thinkers – –roughly two-thirds of MIT’s undergraduates with declared majors, nearly half of MIT graduate students, and just over one-third of the Institute’s faculty. During the 1999——2000 Academic Year, the School undertook several major initiatives that underscore its commitment to maintaining a leadership role in shaping engineering education and research. . The following presents selected highlights of significant achievements of the School: major new partnerships with industry; significant capital construction projects; and innovations in education, including new degree programs. In addition, this report includes updates on notable awards, personnel changes and tributes, special programs, and School statistics. The reports of the School’s departments, divisions, laboratories, centers, and programs provide additional information about the past year.
Industrial research collaborations undertaken by MIT and the School of Engineering have created new knowledge and transferred science and technology into industry, resulting in the creation of jobs, companies, and even new industries based on new technologies. In recent years, MIT has become a leader in developing research and education partnerships with industry, many of them based on significant involvement of the School of Engineering. For the School’s graduate and undergraduate students, these industry collaborations also bring significant real-world technology and engineering issues into their studies. This past year, the Institute has initiated several new partnerships.
In September 1999, DuPont and MIT announced an agreement to form a $35 million alliance. The goal of this alliance is to advance research and education in materials from biotechnology that have a variety of applications. Begun in January, the five-year alliance supports projects that draw upon expertise from the Schools of Engineering (particularly in materials science, chemical processing, and in the emerging field of bioengineering), Science, and Management and that extend and better leverage the reach of DuPont’s scientific expertise in the areas of biology, genetics, bioinformatics and catalysis. With its strategic focus at the interface of biology, materials and engineering, the alliance aims to develop processes for new materials directed at bioelectronics, biosensors, biomimetic materials, alternative energy sources, and new high-value materials.
In October 1999, Microsoft and MIT announced an alliance to enhance university education through information technology. Named "Project I-Campus," the collaboration involves cooperative projects among members of Microsoft Research and students, faculty, and researchers at MIT, particularly in Engineering. In addition to assigning several research staff members to this effort, Microsoft is allocating $25 million for work at MIT over the project’s five-year lifetime. The Co-Directors for the project from MIT are Professor Hal Abelson, the Class of 1922 Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Institute Professor Thomas Magnanti, Dean of Engineering.
Leveraging many of the successful inventions and innovations in computers and telecommunications that have occurred in the last half of the 20th century, the partnership aspires to use modern information technologies to reinvent teaching, learning, and university administration for the 21st century research university. It involves research and development in new pedagogical approaches and structures, integrating information technology concepts and methods throughout university education, and addressing the changing environment of university.
Project I-Campus began with three initial projects in October: an expansion of the MIT Shakespeare Electronic Archive; the design of an educational system using a "global classroom" established last year between MIT and The National University of Singapore under the auspices of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (which also includes Nanyang Technological University); and an initiative in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics on the experimental use of distance collaboration in design courses. Both MIT and Microsoft plan to engage additional academic and industry partners as the project evolves and produce materials that can be widely published and disseminated. Through its initial focus on methods and technologies that will enhance education on the MIT campus, Project I-Campus aspires to set the pace for university education in the next five to 10 years.
In January 2000, Nanovation Technologies and MIT announced plans to establish a world-class center dedicated to the research and prototyping of light-based photonic technologies, a 21st-century development that has the potential to revolutionize communications and boost speeds by hundreds of times. The Miami-based firm is funding a $90 million, six-year program to establish and operate the MIT center and interdisciplinary research program. Nanovation will sponsor research on photonic, microphotonic and nanophotonic devices, circuits and systems, and other photonics-related technologies for telecommunications, data communications and computing applications.
The alliance also serves to strengthen research-based teaching of undergraduates and graduate students. In addition to establishing a state-of-the-art facility where students and faculty can conduct leading-edge research, $10 million of the total Nanovation commitment will support endowed professorships. Professor Lionel C. Kimerling, Director of the School’s Materials Processing Center (MPC), will direct the new center. An initiative of the MPC, the Nanovation-sponsored research center brings together faculty and students from several departments within the Schools of Engineering and Science, as well as researchers from Nanovation. Future developments in photonics are expected to expand bandwidth and carry hundreds of times more information via devices that are hundreds to thousands of times smaller than current technology.
In June, the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) and MIT signed a memorandum of understanding to form a $25 million alliance to develop innovative ways to create and handle digital information. The five-year alliance will investigate new architectures, devices, and user interfaces in information-rich environments, and explore novel services for commerce, education, and personal use. Capitalizing on the long collaboration between the two organizations, in particular between HP and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), the HP/MIT alliance will address and support research and educational programs of mutual interest.
Current plans include projects with the World Wide Web Consortium and Oxygen within the Laboratory for Computer Science, as well as with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Media Laboratory, the Sloan School Center for eBusiness@MIT, the Internet & and Telecoms Convergence Consortium, and the MIT Libraries. Overseen by a joint steering committee, the alliance will define and fund other projects in the future. Institute Professor Thomas Magnanti, Dean of Engineering, will serve as the MIT Co-Director of the alliance.
The School initiated other MIT-industry research collaborations during the year, including a five-year collaboration with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to develop technological and policy options for nuclear power and its fuel cycle in an increasingly competitive energy market.
An important goal of the Ray and Maria Stata Center for computer, information, and intelligence sciences is to create a community for research and education. The approximately 430,000-square-foot Center will house the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab), the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, with some facilities for the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), as well as numerous spaces for community use. The Center will also redefine the northeast entrance to MIT’s campus, serving as a new interface between Cambridge and MIT. In the past year, architects Frank O. Gehry and Associates completed the Design Development stage of the project. Many key donors and distinguished guests, as well as scores of members of the MIT community, attended a ceremonial ground-breaking held in March. Actual construction work on the site began in April. Major fundraising efforts continue in support of this important project.
As an essential step toward achieving its mission to prepare engineers for success and leadership in the Conception, Design, Implementation, and Operation (CDIO) of aerospace and related complex high-performance systems, over the past year, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics has undertaken the construction of a new Learning Laboratory for Complex Systems. This endeavor will create a world-leading teaching laboratory that integrates the teaching labs, prototype shop, integrated product development areas, and hands-on engineering classroom into one interactive, interdisciplinary learning environment. This initiation has required the development and renovation of 40,000 square feet of space, including the revitalization of Building 33 and the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel, and the construction of high-bay hangar space for student projects. The Department plans to complete this key project by late this summer and will host a "Celebration of Aerospace" in September which will include the dedication of the new Learning Laboratory for Complex Systems.
Established in November 1998, the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) focuses on engineering education and research. . A major partnership between the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management with the Republic of Singapore’s two leading research universities, The National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the SMA explores the application of information technology to create a new global model for long-distance engineering education and collaborative research.
The SMA makes extensive use of state-of-the-art information and communications technology, including Internet2, to facilitate interactions in teaching and research between MIT faculty and students and faculty in Singapore. In July 1999, the School of Engineering began offering two new graduate-level programs in Singapore: "Advanced Materials" and "High Performance Computation for Engineered Systems." Hosted by NUS, professors from all three universities have conducted these programs. In July 2000, NTU will begin offering a third program in "Manufacturing Systems and Technology." The SMA offers a professional master’s-level degree program, as well as master’s- and doctoral-level research degree programs, and is expected to grow to five graduate programs after another year.
In November 1999, the University of Cambridge and MIT signed a memorandum of intent to create the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI). The major new education and research partnership builds on the complementary strengths of the two universities and has the financial backing of the UK Treasury for 80 percent of its $135 million (£84 million) budget for the first five years, with the balance of the funding to come from British industry. CMI will develop educational and research programs designed to stimulate the development of new technologies, to encourage entrepreneurship, and to improve productivity and competitiveness. Utilizing faculty and students from Cambridge and MIT (at first, primarily from the Schools of Engineering and Management, and eventually from all five Schools), CMI will concentrate on undergraduate and faculty exchanges, integrated research, professional development for executives, and collaboration with eight British universities designated as Enterprise Centers.
The School’s Engineering Systems Division and Cambridge’s Manufacturing Institute will jointly offer startup activities that include programs in manufacturing, product development, and industrial competitiveness; experience gained through SMA will provide a framework for MIT educational programs offered at a distance with Cambridge. Professor John VanderSande, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was named the MIT Co-Director of CMI in February. It is anticipated that CMI could have a significant impact on future technologies and in the evolution of our economy. It could potentially transform both Cambridge and MIT and create a new model for the global research university in the 21st century.
In April, the e-business firm Siebel Systems, Inc. announced gifts of $2.6 million each to the School of Engineering and to the Sloan School of Management, along with an annual $25,000 scholarship to be awarded to a student selected by the Dean of each School. The Siebel Scholars program recognizes outstanding students at prestigious computer science and business schools across the country as part of an educational initiative to produce the next generation of corporate executives by assisting institutions that foster academic excellence and leadership.
In May, the Navy announced that its Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA will offer a master’s of science degree in product development under the distance education program for Product Development Leadership for the 21st Century (PD21). Targeted at full-time professionals working in Navy and Marine Corps organizations responsible for the development and acquisition of major defense systems, the Navy’s two-year PD21 curriculum will begin in September and will be conducted entirely through the use of distance education technology at several military installations across the country. The PD21graduate degree program, jointly developed by the Schools of Engineering and Management, aspires to produce a core group of professionals poised to develop and build new systems and products. Responding to a huge demand and with the help of a National Science Foundation grant of $600,000, MIT established a multi-university consortium to replicate the educational program at a number of other universities with the help of several corporations. The initial partner universities are the Rochester Institute of Technology (with Eastman Kodak Company and Xerox as their primary partners) and the University of Detroit Mercy (with Ford Motor Company as its partner and input from General Motors and Chrysler Corporations). The Navy has now become the third partner to offer this graduate degree.
Supported by a grant from the Whitaker Foundation, the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health (BEH) established a new Ph.D. program in Bioengineering that began in Fall 1999. Offered along with the ongoing Toxicology Ph.D. Program within BEH, the new program aims to educate a new generation of graduates able to solve problems through the use of modern biological technology and emphasizes the ability to measure, model, and manipulate biological systems rationally. Its curriculum strives to teach both biology and engineering as synergistically as possible and focuses on fundamental concepts more than specific applications.
In addition, the MIT Faculty approved a proposal this Spring by BEH to establish both a new S.M. Program in Bioengineering and a new Master’s of Engineering (M.Eng.) program in Biomedical Engineering. The S.M. degree, which will be closely related to the BEH doctoral program, will provide a terminal degree for students not continuing for the Ph.D. and will also serve as the initial MIT graduate degree for certain students entering the Ph.D. program in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics [The Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST)]. Similar to other M.Eng. programs in the School, the new Master’s in Engineering in Biomedical Engineering (MEBE) will create a 5-year undergraduate program coupled with the S.B. degree in a School of Engineering or School of Science department major. Building on the existing undergraduate minor in biomedical engineering, it is designed for students interested in the biomedical products or biotech industries or a medical degree or for those who want to do further graduate studies in bioengineering or medical engineering.
MIT Faculty also voted in May to establish a new M.Eng. program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). Designed to be a terminal degree, the new M.Eng. will serve as a post-graduate educational pathway for practicing engineers. It is targeted to three categories of students: students continuing after the undergraduate degree; experienced professionals returning for "retooling;" and experienced professionals who will return to their companies, but with increased job opportunities. The curriculum for the 12-month program will include a new course designed specifically for the M.Eng. program plus existing graduate courses in the basics of the thermodynamics, kinetics and properties of materials. The program is slated to admit students in the Spring of 2001.
Each year faculty of the School of Engineering receive numerous honors in recognition of their research and service, many offered by professional societies and the faculties’ professional communities, as well as national recognitions. This year was no exception. The reports of the School’s departments, divisions, laboratories, centers, and programs make note of many of these awards. Several especially notable awards deserve additional mention here.
In late January, President Clinton awarded the National Medal of Science to Kenneth N. Stevens, the Clarence J. LeBel Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), one of 12 recipients of the 1999 National Medal of Science awards, for his research in speech sciences. In April, President Clinton nominated National Medal of Science winner and Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus, a professor in the Departments of EECS and Physics, to serve as Director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE).
This year, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected three members of the School of Engineering faculty to membership: Professor of Naval Architecture Justin E. Kerwin, Professor of Aerospace Information Systems Nancy G. Leveson, and Gerald J. Sussman, the Matsushita Professor of Electrical Engineering. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) elected to membership Howard Brenner, the Willard Henry Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) awarded the distinction of Fellow to two professors of Nuclear Engineering: Michael W. Golay and Lawrence M. Lidsky, and elected Institute Professor and Dean of Engineering Thomas L. Magnanti to membership.
Three MIT faculty members were among the 60 recipients of the 1999 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers: John M. Chapin, Assistant Professor in the Department of EECS; Kenneth R. Czerwinski, the Rasmussen Career Development Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering; and Feniosky Peña-Mora, Co-Director of the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory and the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The highest honor the MIT faculty can bestow on one of its colleagues is Institute Professor. This year, the faculty gave this honor to Joel Moses, the Dugald C. Jackson Professor of Computer Science and Engineering.
The Gordon Y Billard Award recognizes special service of outstanding merit performed for the Institute by a faculty member, nonfaculty employee, or one not necessarily affiliated with MIT. This year, MIT presented one of two such awards to Donna R. Savicki, Assistant Dean for Administration for the School of Engineering.
The Amar Bose Awards for Excellence in Teaching recognizes a faculty member whose teaching contributions over an extended period of time are characterized by dedication, care, creativity, and inspiration to students and colleagues. The School presented this award to Professor Gareth McKinley of Mechanical Engineering and gave the Junior Amar Bose Teaching Award to Professor Paula Hammond of Chemical Engineering in recognition of her outstanding contribution to undergraduate education.
The Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award is given each year to an untenured faculty member for exceptional distinction in teaching and in research or scholarship. This year, Associate Professor L. (Maha) Mahadevan, . the Karl van Tassel Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received the Edgerton Award.
In recognition of their devotion to undergraduate education at the Institute, MIT named four School of Engineering professors and two associate professors as 1999—2000 MacVicar Faculty Fellows: Professor Rohan Abeyaratne, Associate Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; also of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Ernest G. Cravalho, the Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and Co-Director of the new Program in Biomedical Engineering; Associate Professor Dava J. Newman of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the first junior faculty member to be named a MacVicar Fellow, and Associate Professor Jacquelyn C. Yanch of Nuclear Engineering.
The School presented the Ruth and Joel Spira Awards for Teaching Excellence this year to Associate Professor Gareth McKinley of Mechanical Engineering, Assistant Professor Leonard McMillan of EECS, and Associate Professor Jacquelyn C. Yanch of Nuclear Engineering. The Spira awards were established with a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Joel Spira to honor faculty in the three departments listed above, both for teaching excellence and in acknowledgment of the tradition of high quality engineering education at MIT.
Chee We Ng, a senior in EECS, received the Henry Ford II Scholar Award, given to a senior in the School of Engineering who has attained the highest academic record at the end of the third year and who exhibits exceptional potential for leadership in the profession of engineering and in society.
Jennifer T. Law, a junior in EECS, received one of two Barry Goldwater Scholarships given to MIT students this year. The award is given to students who exhibit outstanding potential and intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences, or those engineering disciplines that contribute significantly to the technological advances of the United States.
The 1999 BF Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Program named Amy Smith, a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program, as one of three winners. Her Phase-Change Incubator is a clinical apparatus with the ability to maintain a constant temperature without requiring electricity, expected to prove advantageous for lab work in developing countries.
The Albert G. Hill Prize is awarded to minority juniors or seniors who have maintained high academic standards and made continued contributions to the improvement of the quality of life for minorities at MIT. Danielle A. Hinton, a senior in EECS, wone the award this year. A former vice president for research, Dr. Hill was an early champion of equal opportunity at MIT.
Amy Smith, noted above, won one of two Lemelson-MIT Program prizes for students, winning the sixth annual Student Prize for Inventiveness. Three doctoral students in EECS, Michael Lim, Jalal Khan, and Thomas Murphy, received the Student Team Prize, a new award this year given for innovativeness in telecommunications and networking technologies. The three won the prize for their fabrication and design research in integrated optical devices. The methodology developed by the three could facilitate additional breakthroughs in the high-capacity telecommunications transmission industry.
The Ronald E. McNair Scholarship Award recognizes black undergraduates who have demonstrated strong academic performance and who have made considerable contributions to the minority community. Both juniors in Chemical Engineering, this year’s recipients were Carla M. Merritt and Stephanie C. Espy. The Black Alumni/ae of MIT created the award in honor of Dr. McNair (Ph.D. 1977), who died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
The Reinhold Rudenberg Memorial Prize for an outstanding undergraduate thesis is awarded to students based on their senior theses in the area of energy conversion. Awards this year went to two seniors from Mechanical Engineering: Fritz Pierre, Jr. and Jason Lawrence and to two seniors from the Laboratory Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems: David Earl Robison and Warit Wichakool.
Four students received William L. Stewart Jr. Awards, which recognize contributions by an individual student or student organizations to extracurricular activities and events during the preceding year: Susan Dacy, a graduate student in EECS; Sarah L. McDougal, a senior in Civil and Environmental Engineering; David F. McGill, a senior in EECS; and Sanith Wijesinghe, a graduate student in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Ticora V. Jones, a senior in Materials Science and Engineering and a group facilitator and tutor for the Office of Minority Education, won the Tutor of the Year award. A co-founder of the Black Women's Alliance of MIT, she also received a Leadership Award at the 26th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebratory Breakfast.
Professor Hal Abelson of EECS, a Class of 1922 Professor and MacVicar Teaching Fellow, became an MIT Co-Director of the MIT-Microsoft alliance, Project I-Campus, in October 1999.
Professor Vincent Chan, who came from MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory to join two departments, EECS and Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1998, became Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) in July, after serving as Co-Director since the previous December.
Dr. Joseph Harrington, left the positions of Assistant Dean and Director of Development for the School of Engineering to take a position as Senior Development Officer in Resource Development as of July 1, 1999.
After serving as chief scientist of the US Air Force for two years, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Daniel Hastings, returned to MIT and, on February 1, became Co-Director of the Technology and Policy Program (TPP).
Professor Lionel C. Kimerling, Director of the Materials Processing Center (MPC), will direct the new Nanovation-sponsored center in light-based photonic technologies.
Institute Professor Thomas L. Magnanti, Dean of Engineering, became an MIT Co-Director of the MIT-Microsoft alliance, Project I-Campus, in October 1999.
Professor Subra Suresh, the R.P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a professor of Mechanical Engineering, became the new head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering beginning January 16. He succeeded Thomas Eagar who served as Director for five years.
Professor John B. VanderSande, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was named the MIT Co-Director of the newly created Cambridge-MIT Institute in February.
Professor J. Kim Vandiver, founding Director of the Edgerton Center and former Director of the Experimental Study Group, became Dean for Undergraduate Research, a new rendering of the former position of Dean for Undergraduate Curriculum as of July 1, 1999.
Professor Dick K.P. Yue, Professor of hydrodynamic and ocean engineering, Director of the Vortical Flow Research Laboratory, and Associate Director of the MIT Testing Tank Facility, became Associate Dean of the School of Engineering in September 1999.
Special tributes to the accomplishments of two of the School of Engineering’s faculty deserve special mention: "Policy Studies in Engineering Education: A Tribute to Professor Richard deNeufville" held in May and the Merton C. Flemings Symposium held in late June. Professor Richard de Neufville, professor of engineering systems and civil and environmental engineering, has served as chair of the Technology and Policy Program (TPP), a pioneering interdisciplinary program, for 24 years. For his TPP efforts, Professor de Neufville won MIT's Irwin Sizer Award for the Most Significant Improvement to MIT Education and the MIT Class of 1960 Fellowship. The French government named him a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1999. Topics of the May 5 event included the role of integrated technology and policy education, the implementation of policy education at MIT, and the importance of a policy capability in the engineering profession.
To celebrate the accomplishments of Professor Merton C. Flemings and to mark his 70th birthday, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) jointly sponsored a special symposium in late June. Attendees from around the world attended this event "to recognize and acknowledge Merton C. Flemings’ contribution to MIT and the materials science and engineering community as an outstanding educator, researcher, technology policy leader, mentor, and friend." For five decades, Professor Flemings’ research and teaching has concentrated on engineering fundamentals of materials processing and on innovation of materials processing operations. The Ford Professor of Engineering and the Toyota Professor of Materials Processing, Professor Flemings is the founder of the Materials Processing Center at MIT, former Department Head of DMSE, and the current Director of the Singapore-MIT Alliance. .
The School of Engineering offers two special programs: the Minority Introduction To Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Science (MITE2S) and the Engineering Internship Program (EIP).
This year, the MITE2S program selected 62 underrepresented minority high school seniors to participate in its rigorous, six-week session. Chosen from nearly 600 applications, the students will come from 26 states, the District of Columbia, and a military base in Germany. The session will include a seminar series begun last year, entitled "Introduction to Engineering,," and will add both career and study skills workshops. A mix of corporations, foundations, alumni of the program, and parents of former participants has made major contributions in support of the 2000 session. The program will host its first reunion during MITE2S 2000 and expects over 170 students, alumni, sponsors, and other guests to attend a two-day silver anniversary celebration. Marking its 25th year, the MITE2S program produced a video documentary to help with fundraising and recruitment. For its 2001 session, MITE2S plans to increase the size of the program to 80 students and to add a new design course in robotics. Of the 60 students who attended MITE2S 1999, a record 55 applied to MIT and 52 (also a record) were accepted. Twenty-eight of the latter will attend MIT this year.
During the summer of 2000, 31 students will participate in internships through the EIP: six from Aeronautics and Astronautics, two from Materials Science and Engineering, and 23 from Mechanical Engineering. Given an increase in choices among summer internships, summer jobs,and five-year master’s programs available to School of Engineering students, the EIP plans to evaluate over the coming year the benefits and cost of maintaining the EIP as currently structured.
The following presents a summary of statistical information about students, degrees awarded, and faculty.
More information about the School of Engineering can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/engineering/www/.
Thomas L. Magnanti
MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000