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Inside of a UAV flight space, the @miteecs graduate student is using augmented reality to train robots! Watch as she explains her research.

#EngineeringAtMIT

📷: Malik and Miles George

From interning at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland as a high schooler to working with both NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Yale University’s Department of Astronomy as an undergraduate, Carissma McGee’s fascination with space has spanned most of her life. When she began working for a local congresswoman in college, an opportunity arose to use her voice to “advocate for astronomy and astrophysics with the American Astronomical Society, advocate for space sciences, and for science representation.”

McGee SM ’25 pursued her passion for both space and advocacy while earning her dual master’s degrees in aeronautics and astronautics (AeroAstro) and public policy at MIT. She now studies exoplanets and examines intellectual property frameworks for space collaborations.

“I want to bring an expert level in science in the rooms where policy decisions are made,” says McGee, now a doctoral student in @MITAeroAstro. “That perspective is critical for shaping the future of research and exploration.”

📸: Gretchen Ertl

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

MIT engineers have designed an ultrasound wristband that precisely tracks a wearer’s hand movements in real-time. The wristband produces ultrasound images of the wrist’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments as the hand moves, and is paired with an artificial intelligence algorithm that continuously translates the images into the corresponding positions of the five fingers and palm.

The researchers can train the wristband to learn a wearer’s hand motions, which the device can communicate in real-time to a robot or a virtual environment.

“We think this work has immediate impact in potentially replacing hand tracking techniques with wearable ultrasound bands in virtual and augmented reality,” says Xuanhe Zhao, the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor of @MITMechE and senior author of a paper on this work in Nature Electronics. “It could also provide huge amounts of training data for dexterous humanoid robots.”

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

A team of researchers led by MIT Professor Collin Stultz developed a deep learning model that can predict which patients with heart failure are at risk of having their condition worsen up to a year in advance.

If the model predicts that a patient’s condition is likely to worsen within a year, the clinician can prioritize the patient for follow-up. The model can also be deployed in low-resource clinical settings, including doctors offices in rural areas that don’t typically have a cardiac sonographer employed to run ultrasounds on a daily basis.

“About half of the people diagnosed with heart failure will die within five years of diagnosis,” says Teya Bergamaschi, an MIT PhD student in @MITEECS. “Understanding how a patient will fare after hospitalization is really important in allocating finite resources.”

(Pictured: MIT PhD students Tiffany Yau (left) and Teya Bergamaschi, co-first authors of the paper on this research)

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

To better treat ovarian cancer, MIT researchers have designed new nanoparticles that can deliver an immune-stimulating molecule called IL-12 directly to ovarian tumors. When given along with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, IL-12 helps the immune system launch an attack on cancer cells.

Studying a mouse model of ovarian cancer, the researchers showed that this combination treatment could eliminate metastatic tumors in more than 80 percent of the mice. When the mice were later injected with more cancer cells, to simulate tumor recurrence, their immune cells remembered the tumor proteins and cleared them again.

“What’s really exciting is that we’re able to deliver IL-12 directly in the tumor space. And because of the way that this nanomaterial is designed to allow IL-12 to be borne on the surfaces of the cancer cells, we have essentially tricked the cancer into stimulating immune cells to arm themselves against that cancer,” says Paula Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor and dean of the School of Engineering, and a senior author of the study.

#WorldOvarianCancerDay

Pictured: Dean Paula Hammond.

📸: Conor McArdle

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

This winter, about a dozen students attended a workshop at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) on Raman spectroscopy. The technique uses laser light to “fingerprint” materials, which can help identify materials in fields ranging from law enforcement to art restoration.

The workshop, led by MIT postdoc Lamyaa Almehmadi in collaboration with CBA, introduced participants to a powerful technique used by law enforcement and first responders to detect narcotics and explosives, by gemologists to authenticate precious stones, and pharmaceutical companies to verify raw materials and ensure product quality. The session also featured a robotic dog equipped with sensing equipment, demonstrating how chemical analysis can be done remotely.

“It can open up new possibilities for innovation across many fields,” said Almehmadi, an analytical chemist in @MITDMSE. After attendees learned the fundamentals, she encouraged them to think creatively about new applications: “My hope is to inspire all of you to think about doing something with Raman spectroscopy that no one has done before.”

The student team formed in @MITAeroAstro's Space Resources Workshop has earned Phase II Milestone prizes in both the Prototype and Digital Twin tracks of NASA’s LunaRecycle Centennial Challenge. They will advance to a live final demonstration this summer.

The challenge asks participants to design and develop recycling solutions that can reduce non-metabolic waste and improve the sustainability of longer-term lunar missions. The MIT team’s solution, CERBERUZ (Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek), delivers a fully integrated recycling and manufacturing pipeline for some of the Moon’s most difficult waste streams: thermoset foams and mixed thermoplastics.

The system breaks down the waste into powder and then remakes it into parts using injection molding and 3D printing. This approach can transform waste into tools, life-support components, and other essential items for a lunar outpost.

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

The student team formed in @MITAeroAstro's Space Resources Workshop has earned Phase II Milestone prizes in both the Prototype and Digital Twin tracks of NASA’s LunaRecycle Centennial Challenge. They will advance to a live final demonstration this summer.

The challenge asks participants to design and develop recycling solutions that can reduce non-metabolic waste and improve the sustainability of longer-term lunar missions. The MIT team’s solution, CERBERUZ (Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek), delivers a fully integrated recycling and manufacturing pipeline for some of the Moon’s most difficult waste streams: thermoset foams and mixed thermoplastics.

The system breaks down the waste into powder and then remakes it into parts using injection molding and 3D printing. This approach can transform waste into tools, life-support components, and other essential items for a lunar outpost.

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

The student team formed in @MITAeroAstro's Space Resources Workshop has earned Phase II Milestone prizes in both the Prototype and Digital Twin tracks of NASA’s LunaRecycle Centennial Challenge. They will advance to a live final demonstration this summer.

The challenge asks participants to design and develop recycling solutions that can reduce non-metabolic waste and improve the sustainability of longer-term lunar missions. The MIT team’s solution, CERBERUZ (Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek), delivers a fully integrated recycling and manufacturing pipeline for some of the Moon’s most difficult waste streams: thermoset foams and mixed thermoplastics.

The system breaks down the waste into powder and then remakes it into parts using injection molding and 3D printing. This approach can transform waste into tools, life-support components, and other essential items for a lunar outpost.

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio.

May the Fourth Be With You!

📸: Gretchen Ertl

#starwarsday #maythefourthbewithyou

MIT engineers have developed a test to detect disease-related compounds in a patient’s breath. The new test could provide a faster way to diagnose pneumonia and other lung conditions. Rather than sit for a chest X-ray or wait hours for a lab result, a patient may one day take a breath test and get a diagnosis within minutes.

Until now, detecting such exhaled biomarkers required laboratory-grade instruments that are not available in most doctor’s offices. The MIT team, led by Assistant Professor Loza Tadesse, has now shown they can detect exhaled biomarkers of pneumonia at extremely low concentrations using the new portable, chip-scale breath test, which they’ve dubbed “PlasmoSniff.”

“In practice, we envision that a patient would inhale nanoparticles and, within about 10 minutes, exhale a synthetic biomarker that reports on lung status,” says Aditya Garg, a postdoc in @MITMechE. “Our new PlasmoSniff technology would enable detection of these exhaled biomarkers within minutes at the point of care.”

Course 6-5: Electrical Engineering With Computing, a new major launched last fall by @MITEECS, has been embraced by the MIT student community. It is now the third-most selected major among first-year students.

“The major was thoughtfully designed to offer a strong foundation in core electrical engineering concepts — such as circuits, signals, systems, and architecture — while also providing well-structured specialization tracks that prepare students for the future of the field,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s Provost.

Those tracks include structured paths to explore not only the traditional domains of electrical engineering, but cutting-edge fields such as nanoelectronics, quantum systems engineering, and photonics.

PhD student Audrey Parker’s desire to preserve the environment stemmed from her childhood growing up in Boise, Idaho, where she was constantly outside on backpacking trips, skiing, horseback riding, and otherwise enjoying what her natural surroundings had to offer.

Now at MIT, Parker works with @MIT_CEE Professor Desirée Plata to explore methane mitigation strategies, focusing on emissions from air being vented from coal mines, and dairy farms. Most engineering students wouldn’t expect their graduate research to take place in a barn full of cows, but for Parker, this is where some of the most impactful climate solutions are hiding in plain sight.

“Methane naturally converts into carbon dioxide over the course of about 12 years in the atmosphere,” Parker explains. “The technology we work on simply speeds up this natural process to achieve near-term climate benefits.”

📸: Gretchen Ertl

Palak Patel, a sixth-year doctoral student in @MITMechE, is developing advanced materials that could transform the future of human spaceflight. As a researcher in @MITAeroAstro Professor Brian Wardle’s lab, she specializes in synthesizing nanotubes and manufacturing multifunctional nanocomposites to improve structural enhancements. Her composite materials can also provide additional functionality, like extending flight durations by enhancing the ability of airplane wings to resist ice formation.

After finishing her undergraduate studies, Patel joined a company that built components for Indian Space Research Organization missions as a project engineer. The experience cemented her interest in space research and prompted her application to MIT.

“MIT is the only place where you can synthesize these nanotubes the way we do,” she says. “We’ve got some results that look great.”

📸: Gretchen Ertl