11/25/08 · Members of the Ortiz Group will give four presentations at The 55th Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society, February 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. For a word document listing of the group's 2009 ORS presentations, click here.

11/23/08 · Christine Ortiz was named to the 2009 class of the Department of Defense National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows (NSSEFF) for her grant, "Natural Armor: An Untapped Encyclopedia of Engineering Designs for Protective Defense Applications." The "NSSEFF provides grants to top-tier researchers from U.S. universities to conduct long-term, unclassified, basic research involving the most challenging technical issues facing the DoD." The grant includes 600K in direct funds for a period of 5 years.

· A link to the MIT press release can be found here.

· Read an article in Physics Today on the NSSEFF award program,"DOD launches genius awards."

09/02/08 · Members of the Ortiz research group will give 9 presentations at the Fall 2008 Materials Research Society Meeting. Check out the schedule here.

08/22/08 · Members of the Ortiz research group traveled to the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology in Washington D.C., met with researchers, viewed their mollusc, dinosaur, and ancient fish armor collections. See all photos here.

A few photos : (Left to right) Christine Ortiz holding ancient armored fish fossil, fractured and repaired shell, Dr. Jerry Harasewych showing draw of samples in mollusc archive, Postdoc Haimin Yao and graduate student Juha Song holding ancient fish armor fossil, Dr. Michael Brett Surman holding sample of Placoderm shoulder armor

07/29/08 · Read the new paper (PDF) by 2008 PhD alumni Ben Bruet and graduate student Juha Song published in the journal Nature Materials "Mechanical design principles of ancient fish armor," which will be featured on the cover (high resolution image here) of the September 2008 issue. This work was a collaboration with Professor Mary Boyce, Department Head in MIT Mechanical Engineering. See photos of our armored fish Polypterus senegalus (1) (2) (3) (4) - he is very cute! Also a high resolution photo of the macroscopic structure of the armor shown below (1) (These images require permission for use).



Press :
· Front page of the Boston Globe: "Armor tips from a scaly era" (Monday July 28th, 2008)

· MIT News Office Article and Press Release: "Protection built to scale-fish scale, that is" (Sunday, July 27th, 2008)
· MIT Website Spotlight (Tuesday, July 29th, 2008)
· Foxnews.com: "Incredible Fish Armor Could Suit Soldiers" (Monday, July 28th, 2008)
· BBC Focus: "Aquatic Armour - Fishy design could protect soldiers from bullets" (Tuesday, July 29th, 2008)
· Materials Research Society, MRS Bulletin: "Materials Design Principles from Ancient Armored Fish Give Clues for Improved Engineered Biomimetic Structural Materials" (November 2008)

06/30/08 · Alumni News :
· Kristin Domike (M.S. DMSE, 2004) is scheduled to receive her Ph.D. from the Physics Department (Cavendish Laboratory) Cambridge University, UK on July 19th, 2008. The title of her thesis is "A Study of Large-Scale Aggregation Mechanisms and Kinetics of Beta-lactoglobulin Protein." Her PhD Advisor was Professor Athene Donald. Kristin will start a new position as an Assistant Professor in Physics at the College of Wooster, Ohio in August 2008.
· Miao Ye (PhD, DMSE, 2008) begins a new job as a Scientist at Proctor & Gamble's Beijing Technical Center in Beijing, China. Congratulations, Miao!
· Fred Porter (B.S., DMSE, 2008), Ortiz group UROP, has been accepted to Duke University's Master of Engineering Management program, which he will begin this Fall. Congratulations!
· Julián Villarreal (B.S., DMSE 2007), Ortiz group B.S. Thesis, will be participating in the MIT-Italy Program at the Materials and Technology Group at Indesit Company in Fabriano, Italy. Indesit is the second largest maker of home appliances in Europe.

06/22/08 · The "Future Faculty Workshop" organized by MIT Professor and Chemistry Department Head Tim Swager for underrepresented minority graduate students and postdocs from around the country, held at the MIT Endicott House, June 15th - June 18th. To see photos from the event, please click here for PDF.

Christine Ortiz acted as a mentor and speaker and is in the front row, center. Professors Paula Hammond and Tim Swager are also pictured (2nd from the right and last on the right in the first row, respectively).

06/02/08 · Christine Ortiz attends the second trip for the Defense Science Study Group. Session 2 represents the first foray into the field. The DSSG Members visit Navy, Marine and Army bases on the East Coast. Members fly via Military Air (an Air Force KC-135). The itinerary included : Joint Forces Command (JFCOM); Norfolk, VA, Fleet Forces Command; Norfolk, VA , II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF); Camp Lejune, NC, XVIII Airborne; U.S. Special Operations Command (USASOC); Fort Bragg, NC, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM); U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM); MacDill AFB, FL Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay; Kings Bay, GA. See Photo Album here including photos of Christine Ortiz jumping off a 34' paratrooper training tower at Fort Bragg

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Christine Ortiz in the cockpit of an Air Force KC-135 Jet during landing.

06/01/08 · 15 students leave for three month summer internships in Israel via the MISTI (The MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives) MIT-Israel Program. Christine Ortiz is faculty director of the MIT-Israel program which offers students the opportunity to live and work in Israel (in companies and universities) for extended periods of time, all expenses paid. Students can work in areas such as stem cell-based tissue engineering, advanced electron microscopy, cell biomechanics, nanotechnology, environmental protection and energy conversion systems, and more. The program is open to students at all academic levels (undergraduate + graduate) and post-doctoral researchers.

· Read an MIT news article about the program here (includes information on how to apply).

· View a powerpoint presentation with further information on the details of the program (includes information on how to apply).

· Read the latest MISTI MIT-Israel Progress Report here.

· For more on MIT-Israel Interns 2008 watch the new video clip here.

03/31/08 · Congratulations to Hsu-Yi Lee (Ortiz-Grodzinsky Joint Ph.D. Student) who was awarded the Whitaker Health Sciences Fund Fellowship!! It was an extremely competitive evaluation process. The Fellowship covers full tuition, health insurance and a monthly stipend for one year and may be renewed afterwards. Nice work!

03/05/08 · Members of the Ortiz group, in collaboration with Professor Alan Grodzinsky (MIT-EECS), gave four presentations at The 54th Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society, March 2008 in San Francisco, CA. For a word document listing of the group's 2008 ORS presentations, click here.

02/01/08 · Christine Ortiz will participate in the 2008-2009 Defense Science Study Group (link here). Over the course of the two-year program, participants focus on defense policy, related research and development, and the systems, missions, and operations of the armed forces.

01/29/08· Ortiz Group members Benjamin Bruet and Miao Ye successfully delivered their PhD thesis defense presentations this month. Miao's thesis is titled "Reversible stimulus-responsive polymers for the control of the surface interfacial and nanomechanical properties". Ben's thesis is titled "Multiscale structural and mechanical design of mineralized biocomposites". Congratulations!

01/20/08· Christine Ortiz arrives in Jerusalem, Israel to spend the spring term as a visiting Professor at Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical Center in the Skeletal Biotechnology Laboratory of Professor Dan Gazit. To read a recent Scopus article about Prof. Gazit and the Skeletal Biotechnology Lab, please click for PDF.