Comings & goings

Starting in September, Prof. Phil Gschwend will be the new chair of the Joint Committee for Chemical Oceanography of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program.

For the next five years, Prof. Sallie Chisholm will hold the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professorship. The chair, established by the Martin Foundation, supports research and education activities related to studies of the environment.

The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the MIT ASCE student chapter a 2002 Letter of Significant Improvement, based on activities recorded in the 2001 annual report by the Committee on Student Activities. Their congratulatory letter to Prof. Franz Ulm states, "Your Chapter has shown considerable advancement in its activities from the previous year. The chapter's accomplishments reflect the enthusiasms and hard work of your student officers and members, as well as your fine guidance as faculty advisor."

As the Bacardi and Stockholm Water professor at MIT, Prof. Rafael Bras introduced this year's winner of the Stockholm Water Prize former CEE professor Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe (now at Princeton). Known as the "Nobel Prize of Water," it was awarded by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Stockholm City Hall on Aug. 15. The official statement notes Rodríguez Irtube's "significant scientific contributions to the understanding of the interaction between climate, soil and vegetation structures, surface water, floods and droughts." The Princeton Environmental Institute's newsletter adds that his research has led to greater understanding of meteorological and hydrological events such as extreme floods and droughts. He developed a mathematical model for long-term extremes, and these formulations have been used extensively throughout the world in forecasting river flows and variations in water levels, among other things. Most recently, he has defined the concept of eco-hydrology to explain the interaction of the atmosphere and the hydrology with plants and soil in a natural system. Results of research in this area will be important to understand global carbon cycles and climate variation.

Janelle Thompson, a PhD candidate pursuing a joint degree from CEE and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, received one of the four Switzer Foundation Awards given to outstanding students at Massachusetts universities. According to the press release, her field of interest is the microbial ecology of coastal ecosystems, particularly the environmental conditions that influence the distribution and abundance of pathogens endemic to the marine environment, aside from those associated with sewage contamination. The research will help determine the potential health risks associated with global climate change and sea temperature changes.

Starting on Sept. 1, 2002, Prof. David Simchi-Levi is now head of the Engineering Systems Group within CEE. He sends news that a number of his students have won honors. One of his thesis advisees, Julie Swann, received the 2002 Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Council of Logistics Management for her thesis, "Dynamic Pricing Models to Improve Supply Chain Performance." Last year she was a visiting PhD student on leave from Northwestern. She is currently on the faculty at Georgia Tech.
      Another of his former PhD students, Ana Muriel, who is now at UMass/Amherst, received the Career Award from the National Science Foundation. Recent graduate Yao Zhao has joined the faculty of Rutgers Univ.
      Simchi-Levi received a major gift from SAP to support research in the Supply Chain Innovation Forum (http://supplychain.mit.edu/innovation/).

Massport, the organization which runs the state's airports and other facilities, has been in turmoil and under intense political scrutiny ever since the two airplanes which destroyed the World Trade Towers were hijacked from Logan airport on Sept. 11, 2001. In May and June, Prof. Richard de Neufville was a member of the transition team for the organization's new Chief Executive Officer, Craig Coy, and this fall he will continue as a member of the expert panel reviewing aviation plans for New England.

The International Journal of Logistics Management, and Accenture, Inc., have given the Best Paper Award to Prof. Yossi Sheffi for "Supply Chain Management Under the Threat of International Terrorism," printed in Vol. 12, No. 1, 2002.

During her busy summer, Prof. Tina Voelker had the honor of being an invited speaker at the biannual Gordon Research Conference in Environmental Sciences Water in Plymouth, NH. Her speech was called "A tale of two transients roles of aqueous superoxide and hydroxyl radicals in environmental redox processes." Since MIT faculty members learn how to balance multiple demands on their time, she also found opportunities at the conference for hiking, swimming, and kayaking. She also organized a symposium, "Metal complexation in natural waters," at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in August.

Prof. Rory O'Connor traveled to Lake Tahoe to attend the National Workshop of Future Sensing Systems hosted by UC Berkeley and the National Science Foundation. "The objective of the workshop was to plan a roadmap for the burgeoning field of sensors research. Over 100 invited guests participated, representing civil engineering, electrical engineering and physics, mechanical engineering, biology and chemistry, industry, and government agencies. I had many fruitful discussions with my peers and it was a wonderful example of the possible synergy between the disciplines."

Delivering a series of lectures around the world this summer, Prof. Yossi Sheffi addressed "The Terrorism Threat and the Private Sector Challenge" with the Council on Competitiveness in Washington DC. He described various aspects of supply chain and systems response to terrorism at the Northrop Grumman Information Technology Research Seminar in Reading, MA; at CMI/Cambridge Univ. in England; and at the Supply Chain Leaders Conference in Como, Italy, where he also lectured on supply chain collaboration and collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment. For the PhD Colloquium at the Univ. of Zaragoza Engineering School in Spain, he provided the keynote presentation, "Risk Sharing and Supply Contracts," and lectured on optimization-based combinatorial procurement of transportation services at the Management School. He gave another keynote presentation, "Dynamic Pricing Along the Supply Chain," to the International Conference on Supply Chain Management and Electronic Commerce at Beijing, China.

Profs. Richard de Neufville and Amadeo Odoni (CEE and Aero/Astro) presented their annual short course, Airport Systems, at the end of September. It attracted over 50 aviation professionals from all over the world, including a significant contingent from the US Federal Aviation Administration. Since the annual course in the United States has been consistently oversubscribed, they will repeat the course in March 2003 in cooperation with the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands).

Isaac Moses '02 and Eva Lemann '04 (Biology) were married August 15, 2002 in St. Louis, MO. He is now pursuing an SM in transportation in the Center of Transportation Logistics.

Erdem Karaca '02 (SM) and Zekiye Kahraman were married on Aug. 18 in Turkey. He is currently studying for his PhD here.

Leanne M. Peters (Attai) '95 & '97 (1-C) and Christopher N Peters ('97,

Electrical Engineering) announce the birth of Matthew Stratos Peters on May 14, 2002, in New Hampshire. She is working at Eckman Construction in Bedford, NH, and he is employed by BAE Systems in Nashua, NH. "We are both very proud and excited to be parents to our beautiful bundle of joy."

Vanessa and Alberto Lazaro '96 (MEng, environmental) have a new daughter, Elena Isabel, born on Aug. 17 at 651 PM, and an accompanying web site with photographs, at http://photos.yahoo.com/amlazaro (click on the "Elena Isabel" folder).

Danielle and James Hines '96 (MEng) e-mailed a photo of their beautiful new son, Jimmy, born on Aug. 29.

Jiun-yan Wu '01 (MEng) and Lan-ting Chen "want to share with all of you the joyful moment of my life," the birth of Katie Wu on Sept. 6. He promises to display some photos soon on http://www.geocities.com/wujyoung.

Thomas Goldfrank '40, died on June 18. No details were available except that his son Ed found a 1939 Benchmark (surveying camp yearbook) while cleaning out his papers.

Paul Crandall '42, former president of Crandall Dry Dock Engineers, died on July 20 in New York at age 82. According to an obituary in the Boston Globe, he had designed numerous dry docks worldwide, including an 81,000-ton floating dock built for Portland, OR in 1974 and eventually moved to the Bahamas in 2001. He was the fifth generation of Crandalls to run the dry dock business, started in 1854. He leaves a daughter and four grandchildren.

Rush Lincoln '35 (SM) died on Aug. 15 in Wellesley, MA at age 91. The obituary in the Boston Globe called him a key advisor on logistics to Allied commanders in Europe during World War II, and to President Franklin Roosevelt at major international conferences. A major general who had graduated from West Point, he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and was assigned to the Army Corps of Transportation during World War II, where he played a key role in the vast military movements of that time. Before retiring from the Armed Forces in 1965, he commanded the Traffic Management Service, which controlled the movement of all defense personnel and goods in the US.
      Appointed general manager of the Mass. Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) in 1965 to help modernize and expend the system, Mr. Lincoln expanded and accelerated service on several important lines, including the first commuter-rail line. He also headed the redevelopment of the line to provide commuter rail services to the South Shore, and started the shuttle bus service at Logan Airport. He leaves his wife, Jean, a son, a daughter, a sister, and five grandchildren.

The second edition of Prof. Philip Gschwend's textbook, Environmental Organic Chemistry, published by Wiley-Interscience, is about to be distributed.

In 1997, the architect/engineer Santiago Calatrava gave three well attended lectures at MIT. These lectures and accompanying illustrations have been edited by Cecilia Lewis Kausel (wife of Prof. Eduardo Kausel) and Ann Pendleton-Jullian, for a new book, Santiago Calatrava, Conversations with Students. The MIT Lectures, published by Princeton Architectural press. "Calatrava represents what the architect-engineer should be. His bridges and public buildings reflect a deep understanding of engineering. Like a classic arch, his structures seem to flow with the forces and, vice versa, the force vectors seem to merge with the structures," writes Prof. Rafael Bras in the preface.
      The related website, http://web.mit.edu/civenv/Calatrava/, contains the complete and unabridged lectures, plus all of Calatrava's projects up to 1997, including the sketches he made as he explained the design basis for his work. Some of the sketches transform from rudimentary lines to a more finished form, giving a hint into the creative process. The website's media presentation, concept and design is by Cecilia Lewis Kausel, who is director of the Interior Design Program at Mount Ida College (Newton, MA) and a Research Affiliate in CEE. Co-editor Ann Pendleton-Jullian is Associate Prof. of Architecture at MIT.

In October, Profs. Richard de Neufville and Amadeo Odoni (CEE and Aero/Astro) anticipate the publication of their new book, Airport Systems Planning, Design, and Management, by McGraw-Hill. "Written for professionals worldwide, it is a comprehensive presentation of all aspects of this subject," writes de Neufville. At 900 pages and a list price of $95, "it is about 10 cents a page, a real deal!"

Publicity

Scientists from MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women's Hospital have received $15 million from the Dept. of Energy to study the bacteria Prochlorococcus and Pseudomonas, and Caulobacter Prochlorococcus, a simple blue-green algae, for potential as "nano-machines" to clean the environment and produce energy, and also to understand the natural roles they play in sustaining the biosphere.
      As reported by the MIT News Office, by using the previously determined genomes of each organism, the researchers will set out to define each organism's proteome, or the unique interactions of their proteins. They will also examine the interrelationships of each organism to its environment. By studying both systems, they hope to learn how to further engineer each microorganism to handle hazardous chemical waste and other environmental concerns. They could also be engineered as possible energy sources.
      Prof. Penny Chisholm, one of the co-principal investigators on the grant, stresses that "genomics approaches are also extremely valuable for helping us understand the structure of natural microbial ecosystems, and the role they play in sustaining the Earth's biogeochemical cycles. These cells do not exist in a vacuum; their metabolic networks have been shaped over evolutionary time by interactions with other organisms. We have to understand their ecology if we are to gain a full understanding of their cellular architecture."
      George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, will head the team. MIT members include Chisholm, who holds the McAfee Professorship in Engineering and has appointments in CEE and Biology; and Prof. Martin Polz, who holds CEE's Doherty Professorship in Ocean Utilization.
      More details are available at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2002/bacteria.html

A press release by the MIT News Office describes how MIT researchers have shown that a common pollutant strongly impacts the behavior of arsenic and potentially other toxic metals in some lakes, adding to scientists' understanding of how such elements move through the water.
      "Nitrate pollution, which arises from sources such as automobile exhaust, wastewater disposal and fertilizers, is more important in lake dynamics than had been thought," said Harry Hemond, the Leonhard Professor of CEE and an author along with David Senn '01 (PhD) of a paper on the work in Science on June 28. "This is a linkage we need to understand if we want to manage water quality."
      In an interesting twist, said Hemond, the nitrate pollution, which is also associated with noxious impacts such as excessive algal growth, was found to have a mitigating effect. It reacts with naturally occurring iron to create iron oxides that in turn adsorb arsenic. "The result is a suppression of seasonal arsenic release into the water," said Hemond.
      The researchers focused on the Upper Mystic Lake (UML) which is part of the Aberjona Watershed, a 25-square-mile drainage basin that includes parts of Woburn, Winchester, Wilmington, Lexington, Burlington, Reading and Stoneham. Tons of toxic wastes from former leather, chemical and other industries had been dumped into the waterways of the Aberjona, leaving a residue of considerable amounts of solvents, chromium and arsenic. For the last 14 years MIT researchers have been exploring the fate of these wastes and the chains of events that can lead to effects on human health.
      The work reported in Science began with a search by Senn to discover why iron and arsenic in water samples from the depths of UML in summer were not in the chemical forms Hemond and earlier graduate students expected. Lakes in the Northeast become stratified in summer, with a layer of warm oxygenated water covering cold, oxygen-deficient water on the bottom. The two layers don't mix and have different properties.
      Senn and Hemond developed a filtration unit that allowed them to filter water samples while they were still deep within the lake, preventing oxygen from contaminating the deep water. Suspecting that nitrate pollution was responsible for the anomalous forms of iron and arsenic, over several months they tracked the concentration of nitrate, along with the concentrations and chemical forms of arsenic and iron. Higher nitrate concentrations did indeed coincide with the previously unexpected particulate forms of iron and arsenic. Culture studies in the lab, and thermodynamic calculations, further supported the feasibility of the reactions observed in the field.
      The work not only aids scientists' understanding of how arsenic moves through polluted, stratified lakes, but also has implications for other pollutants, including phosphate and toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc). These contaminants are similarly adsorbed onto iron oxides, so they are expected to have similar behaviors in lakes.
      Senn is currently a postdoctoral associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, studying heavy metals in marine sediments.
      The full press release is on the web at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2002/hemond.html