Placement: Promote to Homepage

Lindsay Case

Education

  • PhD, 2014, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BA, 2008, Biology, Franklin and Marshall College

Research Summary

We study how cells regulate the spatial organization of signaling molecules at the plasma membrane to control downstream signaling. For example, receptor clustering and higher-order assembly with cytoplasmic proteins can create compartments with unique biochemical and biophysical properties. We use quantitative experimental approaches from biochemistry, molecular biophysics, and cell biology to study transmembrane signaling pathways and how they are misregulated in diseases like cancer.

Awards

  • NSF Career Award, 2025
  • Searle Scholar, 2022
  • NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2022
  • AFOSR Young Investigator Award, 2021
  • Brown-Goldstein Award, 2020
  • Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist, 2020
Yukiko Yamashita

Education

  • PhD, 1999, Kyoto University
  • BS, Biology, 1994, Kyoto University

Research Summary

Two remarkable feats of multicellular organisms are generation of many distinct cell types via asymmetric cell division and transmission of the germline genome to the next generation, essentially in eternity. Studying these processes using the Drosophila male germline as a model system has led us to venture into new areas of study, such as functions of satellite DNA, a ‘genomic junk,’ and how they might be involved in speciation.

Awards

  • National Academy of Sciences, 2025
  • Tsuneko and Reiji Okazaki Award, 2016
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Investigator, 2014
  • MacArthur Fellow, 2011
  • Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award, American Society for Cell Biology, 2009
  • Searle Scholar, 2008
Seemingly similar, two neurons show distinct styles as they interact with the same muscle partner
Picower Institute
July 7, 2020

A new study by MIT neuroscientists into how seemingly similar neuronal subtypes drive locomotion in the fruit fly revealed an unexpected diversity as the brain’s commands were relayed to muscle fibers. A sequence of experiments revealed a dramatic difference between the two nerve cells – one neuron scrambled to adjust to different changes by the other, but received no requital in response when circumstances were reversed.

The findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggest that these subclasses of neurons, which are also found abundantly in people and many other animals, exhibit a previously unappreciated diversity in their propensity to respond to changes, a key property known as “synaptic plasticity.” Synaptic plasticity is considered an essential mechanism of how learning and memory occur in the brain, and aberrations in of the process are likely central to disorders such as autism.

“By seeing that these two different types of motor neurons actually show very distinct types of plasticity, that’s exciting because it means it’s not just one thing happening,” said senior author Troy Littleton, a member of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Menicon Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Departments of Biology and of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “There’s multiple types of things that can be altered to change connectivity within the neuromuscular system.”

Tonic and phasic neurons

Both of the neurons work in the same way, by emitting the neurotransmitter glutamate onto their connections, or synapses, with the muscles. But these two neurons do so with different styles. The “tonic” neuron, which connects only to a single muscle, emits its glutamate at a constant but low rate while the muscle is active. Meanwhile, the “phasic” neuron connects to a whole group of muscles and jumps in with a strong quick pulse of activity to spring the muscles into action.

Heading into the study Littleton and lead author Nicole Aponte-Santiago were curious to explore whether these different neurons compete or cooperate to drive the muscle fibers, and if they exhibited different plasticity when their functions were altered. To get started on what ultimately became her dissertation research, Aponte-Santiago developed the means to tailor genetic alterations specifically in each of the two neurons.

“The reason we were able to answer these questions in the first place was because we produced tools to start differentially manipulating one neuron versus the other one, or label one versus the other one,” said Aponte-Santiago, who earned her PhD in Littleton’s lab earlier this spring and is now a postdoc at the University of California at San Francisco.

With genetic access to each neuron, Aponte-Santiago distinctly labeled them to watch each one grow in fly larvae as they developed. She saw that the tonic neuron reached the muscle first and that the phasic one connected to the muscle later. She also observed that unlike in mammals, the neurons did not compete to control the muscle but remained side by side, each contributing in its characteristic way to the total electrical activity needed to drive movement.

To study the neurons’ plasticity, Aponte-Santiago employed two manipulations of each neuron. She either wiped them out completely by making them express a lethal protein called “reaper” or she substantially tamped down their glutamate activity via expression of tetanus toxin.

When she wiped out the phasic neuron with reaper, the tonic neuron quickly stepped up its signaling, attempting to compensate as much as it could. But in flies where she wiped out the tonic neuron, the phasic neuron didn’t budge at all, continuing as if nothing had changed.

Similarly when Aponte-Santiago reduced the activity of the phasic neuron with the toxin, the tonic neuron increased the number of boutons and active zone structures in its synapses to respond to the loss of its partner. But when she reduced the activity of the tonic neuron the phasic neuron again didn’t appear to respond.

In all the experiments, the muscle received less overall drive from the neurons than when everything was normal. And while the phasic neuron  apparently didn’t bother to make up for any loss on the part of the tonic neuron, the tonic neuron employed different means to compensate – either increasing its signaling or by enhancing the number of its connections on the muscle – depending on how the phasic neuron was diminished.

“It was quite intriguing that Nicole found that when the phasic input wasn’t there, there was a unique form of plasticity that the tonic neuron showed,” Littleton said, “but if the phasic neuron was there and wasn’t working, the tonic neuron behaved in a very different way.”

Another intriguing aspect of the study is the role of the muscle itself, which may be an active intermediary of the plasticity, Littleton said. The neurons may not sense when each other have been wiped out or inactivated. Instead the muscle appears to call for those changes.

“Even though a muscle has two distinct inputs, it can sort of uniquely control those two,” Littleton said. “When the muscle is getting glutamate, does it know whether it is coming from the tonic or the phasic neuron and does it care? It appears that it does care, that it really needs the tonic more than the phasic. When the phasic is gone it shifts some of the plasticity, but when the tonic is gone the phasic can’t do much about it.”

In new work, the lab is now looking at differences in gene expression between the two neurons to identify which proteins are responsible for the unique properties and plasticity of the tonic and phasic neurons. By defining the genetic underpinnings of their unique properties, the lab hopes to begin to get a handle on the molecular underpinnings of neuronal diversity in the brain.

In addition to Aponte-Santiago and Littleton, the paper’s other authors are Kiel Ormerod and Yulia Akbergenova.

The National Institutes of Health and the JPB Foundation supported the study.

Nine MIT School of Science professors receive tenure for 2020

Professors earn tenure in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics.

School of Science
July 6, 2020

Beginning July 1, nine faculty members in the MIT School of Science have been granted tenure by MIT. They are appointed in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics.

Physicist Ibrahim Cisse investigates living cells to reveal and study collective behaviors and biomolecular phase transitions at the resolution of single molecules. The results of his work help determine how disruptions in genes can cause diseases like cancer. Cisse joined the Department of Physics in 2014 and now holds a joint appointment with the Department of Biology. His education includes a bachelor’s degree in physics from North Carolina Central University, concluded in 2004, and a doctoral degree in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, achieved in 2009. He followed his PhD with a postdoc at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris and a research specialist appointment at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus.

Jörn Dunkel is a physical applied mathematician. His research focuses on the mathematical description of complex nonlinear phenomena in a variety of fields, especially biophysics. The models he develops help predict dynamical behaviors and structure formation processes in developmental biology, fluid dynamics, and even knot strengths for sailing, rock climbing and construction. He joined the Department of Mathematics in 2013 after completing postdoctoral appointments at Oxford University and Cambridge University. He received diplomas in physics and mathematics from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The University of Augsburg awarded Dunkel a PhD in statistical physics in 2008.

A cognitive neuroscientist, Mehrdad Jazayeri studies the neurobiological underpinnings of mental functions such as planning, inference, and learning by analyzing brain signals in the lab and using theoretical and computational models, including artificial neural networks. He joined the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2013. He achieved a BS in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in 1994, an MS in physiology at the University of Toronto in 2001, and a PhD in neuroscience from New York University in 2007. Prior to joining MIT, he was a postdoc at the University of Washington. Jazayeri is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Yen-Jie Lee is an experimental particle physicist in the field of proton-proton and heavy-ion physics. Utilizing the Large Hadron Colliders, Lee explores matter in extreme conditions, providing new insight into strong interactions and what might have existed and occurred at the beginning of the universe and in distant star cores. His work on jets and heavy flavor particle production in nuclei collisions improves understanding of the quark-gluon plasma, predicted by quantum chromodynamics (QCD) calculations, and the structure of heavy nuclei. He also pioneered studies of high-density QCD with electron-position annihilation data. Lee joined the Department of Physics in 2013 after a fellowship at CERN and postdoc research at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science at MIT. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees were awarded by the National Taiwan University in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and his doctoral degree by MIT in 2011. Lee is a member of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Josh McDermott investigates the sense of hearing. His research addresses both human and machine audition using tools from experimental psychology, engineering, and neuroscience. McDermott hopes to better understand the neural computation underlying human hearing, to improve devices to assist hearing impaired, and to enhance machine interpretation of sounds. Prior to joining MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, he was awarded a BA in 1998 in brain and cognitive sciences by Harvard University, a master’s degree in computational neuroscience in 2000 by University College London, and a PhD in brain and cognitive sciences in 2006 by MIT. Between his doctoral time at MIT and returning as a faculty member, he was a postdoc at the University of Minnesota and New York University, and a visiting scientist at Oxford University. McDermott is also an associate investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and an investigator in the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines.

Solving environmental challenges by studying and manipulating chemical reactions is the focus of Yogesh Surendranath’s research. Using chemistry, he works at the molecular level to understand how to efficiently interconvert chemical and electrical energy. His fundamental studies aim to improve energy storage technologies, such as batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers, that can be used to meet future energy demand with reduced carbon emissions. Surendranath joined the Department of Chemistry in 2013 after a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley. His PhD was completed in 2011 at MIT, and BS in 2006 at the University of Virginia. Suendranath is also a collaborator in the MIT Energy Initiative.

A theoretical astrophysicist, Mark Vogelsberger is interested in large-scale structures of the universe, such as galaxy formation. He combines observational data, theoretical models, and simulations that require high-performance supercomputers to improve and develop detailed models that simulate galaxy diversity, clustering, and their properties, including a plethora of physical effects like magnetic fields, cosmic dust, and thermal conduction. Vogelsberger also uses simulations to generate scenarios involving alternative forms of dark matter. He joined the Department of Physics in 2014 after a postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Vogelsberger is a 2006 graduate of the University of Mainz undergraduate program in physics, and a 2010 doctoral graduate of the University of Munich and the Max Plank Institute for Astrophysics. He is also a principal investigator in the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Adam Willard is a theoretical chemist with research interests that fall across molecular biology, renewable energy, and material science. He uses theory, modeling, and molecular simulation to study the disorder that is inherent to systems over nanometer-length scales. His recent work has highlighted the fundamental and unexpected role that such disorder plays in phenomena such as microscopic energy transport in semiconducting plastics, ion transport in batteries, and protein hydration. Joining the Department of Chemistry in 2013, Willard was formerly a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and then the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, achieved in 2009, and a BS in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Puget Sound, granted in 2003.

Lindley Winslow seeks to understand the fundamental particles shaped the evolution of our universe. As an experimental particle and nuclear physicist, she develops novel detection technology to search for axion dark matter and a proposed nuclear decay that makes more matter than antimatter. She started her faculty position in the Department of Physics in 2015 following a postdoc at MIT and a subsequent faculty position at the University of California at Los Angeles. Winslow achieved her BA in physics and astronomy in 2001 and PhD in physics in 2008, both at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also a member of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Parasite research heats up
Greta Friar | Whitehead Institute
July 7, 2020

Apicomplexan parasites infect hundreds of millions of people around the world each year. Several species of apicomplexan parasites in the Plasmodium genus cause malaria, while another apicomplexan species, Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), causes toxoplasmosis, a disease with flu-like symptoms that can be lethal for people with weakened immune systems. In spite of their impact, the biology of these disease-causing parasites is not very well understood and treatment options for infection are limited.

One potential approach to treat infection could be drugs that disrupt the parasites’ calcium signaling, which they rely on to spread from cell to cell in their hosts. The parasites need an influx of calcium in order to burst out of an infected host cell—a process called egress—and move through the host’s body and invade other cells. In previous work, a researcher from Whitehead Institute Member Sebastian Lourido’s lab, Saima Sidik, had tested a large collection of molecules and identified one called enhancer 1 (ENH1), which perturbed the parasites’ calcium levels and prevented egress, as a promising anti-parasitic lead. However, the original experiments did not determine how ENH1 acts. In research published in the journal ACS Chemical Biology on June 29, Alice Herneisen, a graduate student in Lourido’s lab, and Lourido, who is also an assistant professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used an approach called thermal proteome profiling to discover how ENH1 prevents T. gondii parasites from egress. They identified the main target of ENH1 as a calcium-dependent molecule called CDPK1 that parasites use to prepare for egress, moving between cells, and invasion of host cells. ENH1 binds to and prevents CDPK1 from functioning.

“Advances over the past few decades have made discovering a molecule’s potentially therapeutic activity much easier, but the next step of figuring out how the molecule works is often still a challenge,” Lourido says. “By applying newer expansive approaches, we are starting to build a more holistic picture of the parasites’ cell biology.”

Understanding the biology responsible for a potential drug’s observed effects is important because most drugs require modification before they are ready for human use—they may need to be made less toxic, more potent, or more amenable to the environment of the human body—and these sorts of modifications cannot be made until the molecule and its activity are understood.

Herneisen decided to use a relatively new approach in parasites, thermal proteome profiling, to discover the targets of ENH1—the molecules it binds to, leading to its therapeutic effects. The approach works by graphing how each of the proteins inside the parasite reacts to changes in heat with and without being exposed to ENH1. One advantage of this approach is that it is unbiased, meaning that instead of researchers picking likely targets up front to test, they investigate as many molecules as possible, which can lead to unexpected findings. For example, Lourido has been investigating CDPK1 in other contexts for many years, and based on his lab’s previous understanding of its role would not have expected it to be a main target of ENH1—such surprises can direct research in exciting new directions.

Although CDPK1 is ENH1’s main target, the investigations did not uncover the target that allows ENH1 to cause oscillations in the parasites’ calcium levels. Finding this missing target is one of the lab’s next goals.

“The fact that ENH1 affects multiple aspects of calcium signaling may be what makes it such an effective antiparasitic agent,” Herneisen says. “It’s messing with the parasites on several levels.”

Translation of the research for clinical testing is a long way off, but there are multiple indicators that this is a promising direction for investigation. Not only is calcium signaling key to the parasites’ life cycle and ability to spread inside of a host, but the molecules and mechanisms that the parasites use to modulate calcium levels are very different from the ones found in mammals. This means that a drug that disrupts the parasites’ calcium signaling is unlikely to interfere with calcium signaling in human patients, and so could be deadly to the parasites without harming the patients’ cells.

Written by Greta Friar

***

Sebastian Lourido’s primary affiliation is with Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where his laboratory is located and all his research is conducted. He is also an assistant professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

***

Herneisen, Alice L. et al. “Identifying the target of an antiparasitic compound in Toxoplasma using thermal proteome profiling.” ACS Chemical Biology, June 29, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.0c00369

Ruth Lehmann

Education

  • Dr. rer. nat., 1985, University of Tübingen
  • MS, 1981, Biology, University of Freiburg

Research Summary

We study germ cells, the only cells in the body naturally able to generate completely new organisms. In addition to the nuclear genome, cytoplasmic information is passed though the egg cell to the next generation. We analyze the organization and regulation of germ line specific RNA-protein condensates, and explore mechanisms used by endosymbionts such as mitochondria and the intracellular bacterium, Wolbachia, to propagate through the cytoplasm of the female germ line.

Awards

  • Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science, 2022
  • Gruber Genetics Prize, 2022
  • Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, Genetics Society of America, 2021
  • Francis Amory Prize in Reproductive Medicine and Reproductive Physiology, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020
  • Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science, 2020
  • Keith R. Porter Award, American Society for Cell Biology, 2018
  • Inaugural Klaus Sander Prize, German Society for Developmental Biology, 2017
  • European Molecular Biology Organization, Foreign Associate, 2012
  • Conklin Medal of the Society of Developmental Biology, 2011
  • National Academy of Sciences, Foreign Associate, 2005; Member, 2008
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member, 1998
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Investigator, 1990 and 1997
LEAH Knox Scholars Program celebrates fourth summer with kick-off event

The science program for local high school students will be remote this year, as MIT instructors create at-home lab experiences.

Raleigh McElvery
July 2, 2020

A kick-off event on June 24 commenced a summer of science for local high school students. Established in 2017 as a biomedical research track within the Leaders through Education, Action, and Hope (LEAH) Project, the LEAH Knox Scholars Program is a collaboration between MIT and Health Resources in Action (HRiA), providing mentorship and hands-on lab experience in the field of biology.

Each summer, 24 rising juniors and seniors from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds enrolled in Boston, Cambridge, and Everett public schools attend a five-week lab course at MIT. They receive a stipend, learn basic laboratory and quantitative techniques, and attend workshops to develop other professional skills. The next summer, they join research groups throughout the Boston area to complete a six-week internship.

The kick-off event was held via Zoom, and brought together over 63 current and former students, donors, partners, parents, and instructors.

“The LEAH Project has a concept called ‘FamiLEAH,’ and so the kick-off event is all about welcoming everyone into that community,” says Lisa Aslan, director of HRiA’s LEAH Project.

Ryan Elbashir, LEAH Knox teaching assistant and incoming first-year Biology graduate student, says she knew when she was applying to MIT that she wanted to interact with the greater Boston community.

“Programs like LEAH Knox inspire other students from under-represented groups to get excited about science and form meaningful connections with higher education institutions like MIT,” she adds. “My impression from the kick-off event was that this program aims to not only provide students with an educational experience, but also a support network and source of mentorship for the remainder of their academic careers.”

Participants split into breakout rooms for icebreaker activities, and then reconvened for a live Q&A with Lynn Porter. A pediatrician and advisor to the program, Porter is the granddaughter of the man who inspired the LEAH Knox Program: William J. Knox.

Knox was the grandson of slaves, and went on to earn degrees from Harvard and MIT, contributed to the Manhattan Project, and had a fruitful career at the technology company Eastman Kodak. Despite his many accomplishments, he faced adversity simply because of the color of his skin. For instance, as a student at Harvard he was forced to sleep in the kitchen because Black men were not allowed in the dorms.

Porter recounted her grandfather’s life and discussed why it’s crucial for people of color to pursue science degrees. She encouraged the LEAH Knox Scholars to work hard, form lasting relationships with mentors, and never give up on their dreams.

Following Porter’s Q&A, the keynote speech was delivered by Nancy Kanwisher, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and a founding member of the McGovern Institute. She shared her love of research, and explained her work studying the functional organization of the human brain. The LEAH Knox Scholars had the chance to ask Kanwisher questions, before a brief orientation for their families.

Rothsaida Sylvaince, a former LEAH Knox Scholar, says the program introduced her to another world where she transformed into a scientist. As she entered her second year, she realized “that I could be a scientist not only within MIT’s lab, but anywhere. It gave me the confidence and support network to pursue science with all of my energy.”

Person in lab teaching to iPhone
Vanessa Cheung teaches lab techniques remotely

This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, students will not be conducting lab work on MIT’s campus. Instead, Director of Outreach Mandana Sassanfar and Technical Instructor Vanessa Cheung partnered with MIT’s Edgerton Center to enable participants to bring their research home. Sassanfar and Cheung created “Bags of Science” containing specialized DNA and protein modeling kits, as well as tubes, pipettes, and other lab equipment. These tools, Cheung says, will help students participate in hands-on activities — like extracting DNA from fruit and running an agarose gel — from the comfort of their own kitchens.

“The hope is that even though the students can’t physically be in the lab this summer, they will still get a chance to practice some basic lab techniques and gain a better appreciation for molecular biology research,” she adds.

HRiA will be providing their college and career readiness programing for all students virtually, and second-years will complete their research internships remotely. Eight have been placed in labs at MIT, and started their six-week internships on June 29.

Sassanfar says that, despite the current circumstances, it was very important to offer second-year students the opportunity to work on remote research projects.

“The eight students placed at MIT will gain very valuable coding skills,” she adds. “It was even more important to offer a virtual lab course to the first-years this summer, so they can apply for internships next summer. The LEAH Knox Scholars Program is all about teaching students underrepresented in the STEM fields how to do research, and to prepare them for a career in STEM.”

Don Pinkerton, a biology teacher at Revere High School and LEAH Knox intern supervisor, says he admires the program’s mission to bring STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) opportunities to low-income students of color.

“Even though we won’t be in the lab this summer,” he says, “our students will be able to conduct real science through the exploration of data. In addition to reading and discussing papers and other media, I hope to bring in engaging guest speakers and possibly run some at-home experiments.”

Posted: 7.2.20
Twelve MIT faculty honored as “Committed to Caring” for 2020-2021

Honor recognizes faculty mentors who devote true attention to students’ well-being.

Ellie Immerman | Office of Graduate Education
June 30, 2020

The term “mentor” traces back to the ancient Greek author Homer. When Odysseus sets off for Troy, he entrusts his son Telemachus to a close friend, Mentor. Finding Telemachus floundering, the goddess Athena takes on the guise of Mentor, visiting and counseling Telemachus throughout “The Odyssey.” Athena, as Mentor, embodies this transfer of wisdom, compassion, and guidance; the term “mentor” has gone on to capture these sentiments.

Numerous professors at MIT echo this generosity of attention and care in their mentoring relationships with graduate students. The Committed to Caring (C2C) program recognizes outstanding mentors and promotes thoughtful, engaged mentorship throughout the Institute.

For considerate and humanizing acts such as validating students’ identities, inviting students to join in lab and departmental decision-making, and going to great lengths to ensure continuity in funding for students, 12 MIT faculty members were recently honored by their graduate students as stalwart mentors. These new honorees join 48 previous C2C honorees.

The following faculty members are the 2020-21 Committed to Caring Honorees:

  • Daron Acemoglu, Department of Economics;
  • Alfredo Alexander-Katz, Department of Materials Science and Engineering;
  • Kristin Bergmann, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences;
  • Kerri Cahoy, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics;
  • Catherine Drennan, departments of Biology and Chemistry;
  • Colette Heald, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering;
  • Caroline Jones, Department of Architecture;
  • Jesse Kroll, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering;
  • Gene-wei Li, Department of Biology;
  • Anna Mikusheva, Department of Economics;
  • Gigliola Staffilani, Department of Mathematics; and
  • Lawrence Susskind, Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Selecting for generous guidance

Every other year, the Office of Graduate Education invites graduate students to nominate professors for the Committed to Caring honor. A selection committee composed of graduate students and MIT staff members reads the nomination letters, settling on a pool of awardees who devote true attention to their students’ well-being. Selection criteria include the depth and breadth of faculty members’ caring actions, promoting the development of scholarly excellence in students, and the support of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the research groups and the wider community.

This year’s committee included Associate Dean for Graduate Education Suraiya Baluch (chair); Renée Caso (academic programs manager, Department of Architecture); and graduate students Courtney Lesoon (2017-19 C2C graduate community fellow; History, Theory, and Criticism section, Department of Architecture), Ellie Immerman (2019-20 C2C graduate community fellow, departments of History and Science, Technology, and Society), Noam Buckman (Department of Mechanical Engineering), Grace Putka Ahlqvist (Department of Chemistry), and Shayna Hilburg (Department of Materials Science and Engineering).

Baluch writes that she “was deeply moved to read about the many … acts of humanity and compassion that prioritized the well-being of graduate students. So many of the nomination letters spoke to the lasting impact these advisors had on their students’ professional and personal development.” The letters illustrated faculty advisors’ remarkable compassion and eagerness to wholeheartedly support their students.

In particular, these faculty tend to personalize their advising styles to the individual student; work collaboratively with students to navigate distressing life events; reassure students and help renew their love of the discipline when research results go awry; and empower students to guide their own research agendas. In the coming months, each of these honorees will be featured in an MIT News article and an accompanying poster campaign.

Faculty Peer Mentorship Program

During fall 2019, the Office of Graduate Education and Associate Provost Tim Jamison launched a pilot Faculty Peer Mentorship Program (FPMP). Ten of 29 entering untenured faculty members chose to participate. Each was matched with a previous Committed to Caring honoree.

The goal is for pairs to connect regularly throughout the year, discussing how to intentionally craft caring mentoring relationships with graduate students and postdocs. In building mentorship networks, the FPMP will help the Institute enact excellent mentorship as a community value.

Pilot faculty participants come from the schools of Science; Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; Architecture and Planning; and Engineering. Blanche Staton, senior associate dean for graduate education, is “enthused by the wealth of advising wisdom and the eagerness of faculty members to help build a stronger MIT.”

Amid times of uncertainty and great stress, C2C honorees provide a foundation of support for the community, helping us to weather the strains and take care of each other, as well as ourselves.

Learning during lockdown

Whether seeking a career change or rediscovering intellectual pursuits, learners worldwide turn to <i>MITx</i> courses.

Kate Stringer | MIT Open Learning
June 29, 2020

Despite the extraordinary pressures of adapting to the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic, learners have increasingly sought out MITx courses as a way to stay intellectually active, work toward longstanding goals, and affect change in themselves and in the world around them. MITx courses have seen over 500,000 enrollments since the start of the pandemic.

“It’s been humbling to witness the role our courses have played in learners’ lives these past few months,” says Dana Doyle, director of the MITx Program. “The number of people who are using their time at home to learn something new or make a change in their lives is inspiring.”

MITx instructors and staff have heard from learners from over a dozen countries across the globe, sharing their experiences during the pandemic. Some have used MITx courses to rediscover subjects they had once been passionate about; some are leveraging a career change; still others hope to pass on new knowledge to the next generation. The following represent just a few of their stories.

Between careers and countries

Paula Unger was just finishing up an internship in Peru when Covid-19 hit. “The first case was discovered in March, and the lockdown began eight days later,” she recalls. Unger, who recently received her degree in agricultural studies from the University of Bonn, had spent several months analyzing DNA sequencing data at the International Potato Center in Lima.

A Peruvian national, Unger had planned to return to her home in Aachen, Germany immediately following the internship to begin looking for jobs. Instead, she sheltered in place with her family in Lima, where lockdown was strictly enforced. “You could not even go outside for a walk, it’s totally prohibited,” she says.

Unable to leave the house, Unger turned to a project she’d been putting off for some time: taking Professor Eric Lander’s Introduction to Biology MITx course. Though she earned her degree in a science-based field, Unger had spent a few years moving between majors and universities across Germany, and felt that a stronger background in biology would help her career. She didn’t count on how much she would enjoy the course for its own sake.

“I’m mind-blown by how well the course is made,” she says, citing Lander’s engaging lectures and the course’s challenging, interactive problems sets as particularly valuable. “A lot of universities should learn to create courses that are as well-conceived pedagogically as these are.” Thanks to her MITx learning journey, Unger felt she was able to keep moving forward even while stuck in one place: “I could keep growing as a person, even though my life had been put on hold.”

Happily, Unger’s life and career were able to resume sooner than expected. Not long into lockdown, the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne contacted her about a position, conducted an e-interview, and hired her with the promise that they would wait for her until she could return to Germany.

Now back in Aachen, Unger has started her new job, but has no plans to abandon her learning journey. She enrolled in the MITx Quantitative Biology Workshop, and plans eventually to return to school to complete a master’s degree. “I wish more people would realize the potential of what’s possible through online learning,” she says.

Between flights, Australian pilot learns to engineer spacecraft

When he’s not flying U.S. and Australian citizens back to their home countries as part of pandemic-related repatriation efforts, Sydney-based pilot Andrew Wangler necessarily has a lot of time on his hands.

While Wangler’s company maintains the “minimum viable international network” of flights, he’s been on and off furlough throughout the pandemic. When called up, he commutes 10 hours to Melbourne International Airport before flying to San Francisco or Los Angeles to drop off American nationals and pick up returning Australians.

Wangler joined Qantas after a 15-year career in the Royal Australian Air Force. He graduated from the Australian Defence Force Academy with a double major in mathematics and political science, and minors in physics and computer science, before completing an MBA; it’s safe to say that he loves to learn. So when he found himself stuck in a pattern of self-isolation at home and in hotels before and after each flight, Wangler was thrilled to find MITx courses that helped him rediscover yet another academic passion: spaceflight.

“Professor Hoffmann’s passion for the subject material and teaching style are very infectious and engaging,” says Wangler. Finding Hoffman’s Introduction to Aerospace Engineering course brought back fond memories of his interest in the subject as an undergraduate. These days, Wangler hopes to channel his own enthusiasm and what he’s learned from MITx to help his 12 year-old son, “hell-bent on being an engineer,” to find the right learning resources.

“As my son gets older, it will be helpful to have the engineering background, just to open his eyes and point him in the right direction,” says Wangler. Last year, father and son visited the Boeing facilities near Seattle as well as the Museum of Flight, including a session in the Space Shuttle Crew Trainer. They are planning more educational trips in the future, including Houston, Texas and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In the meantime, Wangler’s enthusiasm for his online learning journey shows no signs of abating: while preparing for another flight to LAX, he emails, “I am actually enjoying Professor Hoffman’s archived course on Engineering the Space Shuttle as we speak!”

Under lockdown in Madrid, retiree rediscovers a love of physics 

Miguel Doñate has witnessed the effects of Covid-19 more directly than many. Under strict lockdown since March 15 in Madrid, Spain, Doñate is surrounded by reminders of the pandemic’s worst outcomes.

“We have been in a very difficult situation here, with a lot of deaths, including people I know,” Doñate says. “Five hundred meters away from where I live, they created a morgue within a shopping mall.” Police keep tight control of the streets, regulating all forms of traffic. Doñate hasn’t been able to leave the house except to buy necessities.

Doñate feels fortunate to have found intellectual stimulation and a welcome distraction in MITx courses on quantum mechanics, taught by Professor Barton Zwiebach. After retiring last year from a long career in information technology, Doñate, who earned his undergraduate degree in physics in 1978, turned to online courses as a way to reconnect with the field. After exploring a variety of options, he gravitated toward MITx courses for their rigor, engaging problem sets, and the support of the professor and an online community of learners.

When the pandemic began, all these qualities became even more important to him. “I’m very grateful to be able to do what I enjoy,” Doñate says. “These courses prevent me from turning on the TV to watch the news, or from looking at my phone, seeing people post negative things,” noting that deep political divisions have sprung up in his country.

Physics coursework has become an integral part of Doñate’s daily routine, helping him stay focused on the things that make him happy. He studies every weekday morning for three to four hours before moving on to chores and other household activities. This “productive isolation” allows him to stay positive, instead of dwelling on circumstances outside his control, including the future of his wife’s optics business, which has suffered as a result of the crisis.

Still, unlike many in his situation, Doñate says he is determined to take life one day at a time: “I’m not just counting the days until this is over.” After 40 years away from the field, he’s fully occupied catching up on physics: “I’m very focused on the present; I have a lot of things to do.”