Spotlight:

Housing expert discusses work in bayou
For Reinhard Goethert, principal research associate in architecture, heading to Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck last summer seemed only natural given his extensive work on settlement housing around the world. As director of MIT's Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement (SIGUS), Goethert has been working on Lift House, a housing design and building initiative in Houma, La., where many homes were destroyed by the hurricanes and their a ftermath.

View Video Lectures:

Big Questions After Big Hurricanes: MIT-wide Symposia

What's So Natural About Natural Disasters? Panel from Nov. 15 symposium includes Professors David S. Jones, Meg Jacobs, David Mindell and Rosalind Williams.

What Does Current Scientific Research Have to Say About the Present and Future Risks Associated With Hurricanes? Oct. 31 symposium featuring Professor Kerry Emanuel, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

How Can We Plan for Safe and Sustainable Regions? Panel from Oct. 18 symposium includes Professors Chiang C. Mei, Michael M. J. Fischer, Anne Whiston Spirn, and Andrew Whittle.

How Can Communities, Cities and Regions Recover From Disaster? Panel from Oct. 5 symposium includes Professors Lawrence Vale, Thomas Kochan, J. Phillip Thompson and David Mindell

How Can We Improve Disaster Response? Panel from Sept. 30 symposium includes Professors Kenneth Oye, Richard Larson, Yossi Sheffi, and Daniel Hastings.

Thank you from President Hockfield

"I am gratified by the creative and generous responses of the entire MIT community to the short- and long-term needs of those affected by Hurricane Katrina. These include ongoing student and staff fundraising efforts, faculty educational and research initiatives, and alumni contributions.

Our combined endeavors are yet another example of the application of MIT ingenuity and initiative that makes us all proud to be members of this community."    - Susan Hockfield, President

Message board

More than 70 alumni from various decades have posted their ideas and visions for the devastated region's recovery on a special online message board created after the hurricane.

Student initiatives

MIT students have initiated relief efforts including food drives, cash/TechCash collection, a fundraiser dinner on September 17 in La Sala, a benefit concert with Berklee College of Music, student service projects (in collaboration with the PSC), and more.