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Newsletter Staff
Professor Rafael L. Bras will begin a two-year term as Chair of the Faculty next June 15, 2003. Professor Bras is the Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.
Rafael, as he is normally called by colleagues, is an MIT "lifer." He came to MIT in 1968 as a freshman and left in January 1975 with a Sc.D in Water Resources and Hydrology. At that point he returned to his native Puerto Rico where he taught engineering in the Mayaguez Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. A call from former CEE Department Head Frank Perkins, interrupting a pick-up basketball game, brought him back to MIT on July 1, 1976 as an assistant professor. Rafael moved through the ranks becoming a full professor in 1984. He was director of the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory from 1983 to 1991. In 1992 he became head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, remaining in that position until 2001. During his period at MIT he has enjoyed sabbatical stays at Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela), The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenberg, Austria), the University of Iowa, and Harvard University.
Rafael's research interests have evolved over the years. Originally his emphasis was on random processes, operations research and estimation/control theory applied to problems of water resource systems. By the mid-1980s, his interests shifted to fluvial geomorphology and landscape evolution. Currently, his research group is equally divided between fluvial geomorphology and land-atmosphere interactions. The latter topic deals with how large-scale changes over land, like deforestation, impact weather and climate, and vice versa. Remote sensing, simulation, and nonlinear systems theory are all tools used in the studies.
Privately, and in collaboration with other MIT faculty, Rafael has been a consultant on the protection of the City of Venice against flooding. His research activity, and wonderful students, have kept him busy publishing. He is the author of two textbooks and over 135 peer-reviewed publications. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Meteorological society and the American Geophysical Union. Rafael is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received several other national and international awards. He serves in an advisory capacity to academic units in Cornell, RPI, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins. Rafael recently received the Public Service Medal for his service to NASA.
Most recently, Rafael's research and educational interests have focused on the Earth System Initiative. This effort, directed by Professors Sallie Chisholm and Kip Hodges, seeks to develop increased scientific and engineering understanding of the complex processes that make life on Earth possible. Terrascope is an alternative freshman core experience organized by ESI. Professors Hodges and Bras teach the Terrascope required subjects.
The job of Chair of the Faculty is not one that Rafael had ever considered. He attributes his acceptance of the job to the persuasive nature and arm-twisting tactics of Professor Alar Toomre. He could not decline a request from his and his oldest son's calculus professor!
During this past year
outgoing Chair, Steve Graves, has been showing Professor Bras the
"ins and outs" of the job. As part of that learning process, they
have been visiting all academic units in the Institute, sensing the
interests of the faculty, seeking to set an agenda for the next few
years. Those meetings have debated issues of governance, promotions
and tenure, diversity in the faculty ranks, quality of life,
undergraduate core and graduate education. Professor Bras has
been
impressed by the diversity of ideas and opinions he has heard. He
promises to summarize the experience in an article for the Faculty
Newsletter.
Professor Bras resides in Lexington with his wife, Patricia. They have two children. Rafael E. is a graduate student at Northwestern University, following his MIT studies in Material Sciences and Engineering. Alejandro is heading to Princeton University as a freshman.
Rafael feels very much honored and humbled by the appointment as Chair of the Faculty. In tackling the challenge he promises to follow his dictum of, in any job, firmly taking on the responsibility and the persona of the position and having fun.
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