Harvard SEAS, Newsletter, Fall 2004

Interdisciplinary research. Integration across disciplines. Balancing theory,

experimentation, and practice. Educat-ing broad-minded students. As you read about the progress we’ve made at the Division, you will discover how actions and applications can emerge from these powerful ideas. Emergence—or a sud-den, often unexpected arrival—has various connotations. In economics, emerging markets refer to areas of high-growth potential.

In my own field of condensed matter and materials physics, the detection of emergent phenomena has transformed research and led to many inventions. While often unanticipated, break-throughs, such as high-temperature superconductivity and quantum trans-port involving fractional charges in layered semiconducting systems, de-manded the combined efforts and open minds of physicists, chemists, materials scientists, and engineers.

Likewise, novel research and unantic-ipated collaborations often arise at the Di-vision in ways that we could never engi-neer or predict. Consider a few examples: quantum control and quantum informa-tion processing, coupling CMOS circuits with microfluidic channels, and DNA se-quencing using nanopores. But this does not mean that we can simply let nature take its course and expect integrative re-search to happen on its own. Connections and innovations are emerging precisely because the Division’s dynamic environ-ment allows problems and answers to

develop on their own terms, unfettered by fields.

Progress

I am pleased to start the 2004–05 aca-demic year by reporting that the Divi-sion remains as vibrant as ever.

Faculty. Five new members arrived this fall, with interests ranging from under-standing visual and auditory perception to studying how cells communicate.

Space. We are developing and refurbish-ing our campus—such as the new labs at 40 and 60 Oxford Street—to provide the best facilities for experimenters.

Curriculum. This past year, undergrad-uates in ES96 assessed the functional and spatial requirements of our library. Along with courses on “real world” en-gineering, we are expanding entrepre-neurship opportunities at TECH with support from Altran Technologies, and broadening our ties with institutions like the Boston Museum of Science.

Engineering. Whether studying com-munication networks or how informa-tion moves, systems research is a criti-cal part of engineering. Concepts from these areas have become important in the emerging fields of systems biology and systems neuroscience. Now we also have a stronger presence in enabling technologies like sensor networks and expertise in novel device design and bioengineering.

Scientific concepts and new tools. From understanding the behavior of materi-als to investigating the chemical origins of life, fostering fundamental explora-tion remains an essential part of our mission. Physics, applied physics, and engineering are key disciplines for de-veloping new tools, such as scanning microscopes and magnetic imaging de-vices, to explore previously unobserv-able phenomena.

Praise

Progress is not possible without a strong basis to sustain it. With that in mind, I want to extend my deep appreciation to our excellent support and adminis-

Vo l u m e I I I • I s s u e 2 • F a l l 2 0 0 4

What’s inside ...Crosscurrents 2

FacultyNews 6

InMediasRes 10

StudentNews 12

InProfile 14

OutsidetheYard 16

AlumniNotes 18

Connections 20

Emergence

trative staff. From the macro—keeping the halls clean and bright—down to the micro level—ensuring that the computers and phones work—they keep things running smoothly. I also want to acknowledge the key role of our enhanced Division offices, including contracts and grants, human resources, academic/student affairs, communica-tions, and development. These improve-ments have created a stronger commu-nity at all levels.

I am equally grateful for the continued generosity of our donors and corpo-rate sponsors, and the enthusiasm and participation of our graduates. Science and technology have flourished at the Division and at Harvard because of your willingness to share in our vision. Thank you for rising to the challenge.

Opportunityandobligation

Of course, none of what emerges mat-ters if we do not use our findings for the betterment of society or apply them to further our understanding of the world. The Division has an exceptional opportunity—and an obligation—to become a resource for Harvard and for anyone confronting the rapidly evolv-ing scientific and technological land-scape.

With careful planning, a team of tal-ented people, and continued flexibility, we are poised to emerge as one of the leading places in the world for doing integrative science and collaborative research. J

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Net gains:

Emerging connections. Emerging expertise. Emerging strength. Over the last five years, a surge of new faculty hires has revitalized the Division (see page 6). Research in applied mathematics, applied physics, and materials and environ-mental sciences continues to flourish. At the same time, we are building a strong founda-tion for invention-oriented disciplines such as computer systems research and increasing our collaborations in broad fields like electrical engineering. The development of enabling tech-nologies like sensor networks and next-genera-tion labs to foster new tools and techniques will help expand our presence in multidisciplinary areas like small-scale science and bioengineer-ing. As we drill down from micro to nano and uncover new worlds, we must never forget to reach out and take a macro-level view. Connecting engineering, applied science, and technology with society and educating future scientists remains—in fact, keeps us—vital.

A typical setup for a sensor network consists of numerous small,

low-powered, wireless “motes” (specially designed data collectors

from microphones to pulse monitors). Each device, smaller than a bar

of hotel soap, has limited computation, sensing, and communication

abilities. But when properly networked and supported with the right

software, the system can gather and transmit a wealth of informa-

tion—such as the rumblings of an active volcano or the rhythm of a

patient’s heart—to a central hub such as a laptop or PDA. We hope

our “sensor net” of information gives you a glimpse into some of the

exciting activities and connections emerging at the Division.

Making house calls Vital Dust, implementing sensor net technol-ogy designed under Matt Welsh’s supervision, is powered by two AA batteries. The sensor includes an embedded microprocessor, memory, and wire-less communication interface. When the motes are attached to a patient, the device can monitor heart rate and oxygen levels in the blood and send the information to a PDA or a central computer so hospital staff can see individual patient data as well as data from all monitored patients. The device allows patients to roam freely but remain a heartbeat away from assistance if something goes awry.

Systems research allows

us to go from what is

theoretically possible

to what can actually be

implemented. — Matt Welsh, Assistant Professor

of Computer Science

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Natural rhythms How do a swarm of bees cooperate to build a hive? How do ants forage large spaces? While these questions may

seem more suited for entomologists, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Radhika Nagpal plans to explore such topics in her new course, CSS266, Biologically Inspired Distributed and Multi-Agent Systems.

She’s interested in applying some of the elegant solu-tions from biology to help design novel computing systems. How, for example, can vast numbers of decentral-ized digital components learn to ‘communicate’ on their own and recover if one node, for example, goes blank in the middle of the night? Nature’s figured out a way to ensure a restful sleep. If a few bees, or even several dozen, find themselves at the end of a flyswatter, the rest of the drones continue to complete the hive without missing a beat. Likewise, imagine creating an intelligent computer network responsible for monitoring the individual tem-peratures of thousands of priceless works of art inside museum. Ideally the system could adapt and react—on

its own – during unforeseen events, such as when some-one leaves the window open or when half the system

goes off-line because of a virus. While bits and biology may seem worlds apart, Nagpal intends

to show how being digital may bring us closer to nature in ways that we never expected. J

The way great things get

discovered is by having

great people working

freely on whatever they

find interesting.— Vahid Tarokh, Gordon McKay Professor

of Electrical Engineering and Vinton

Hayes Senior Research Fellow

Systems research and electrical engineering

All systems go Systems research focuses on the underlying software that drives many of the new applications of com-puter technology, from digital devices like iPods or cell phones to next-generation search engines and e-commerce systems. Common problems being tack-led by Division members include how to best perform large-scale parallel processing (analyzing data from the Human Genome Project) and how to effectively share data (integrating environmental data from remote monitoring stations). The ultimate goal is to make systems smaller, faster, more power-effi-cient, and wireless, so they can be embed-ded in the physical world, from shopping centers to volcanoes.

At the interface The Division has come a long way, with new faculty and facilities (see pages 4-5), toward bolstering electrical engineering. However, Federico Capasso, Robert Wal-lace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering, considers himself both a physicist and an engineer and doesn’t like to dwell on a particular field. For him, the most interesting research lies at the interfaces of sev-eral areas. Capasso is known for his pioneering research on band-structure engineering of artificially structured semiconductors and devices. The work, which culminated in the invention of quantum cascade lasers, has opened up new directions in materials research, mesoscopic physics, photonics, electronics, and nanotechnology. Moreover, he considers the border between applied and basic re-search more fluid than firm. A case in point: Capasso and colleagues showed how the Casimir Effect, the attractive force between metal-lic surfaces in a vacuum, can both illuminate fundamental prop-erties in the quantum realm and play a role in controlling the motion of future nanomechancial devices. “What makes the Division special is having people willing to look beyond the titles on their CVs and go wherever the research takes them,” says Capasso.

Fresh gear As research goes increasingly small-scale (see page 20), new devices have become even more critical for sustaining advances across all of science. Not surprisingly, Division members are actively taking tools to the next level. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineer-ing Navin Khaneja and his colleagues are using methods from opti-mal control theory to improve the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy devices. Environmental engineers like Daniel Jacob, Gordon McKay Professor of Atmospheric Chemis-try and Environmental Engineering (see page 10) and Steve Wofsy, Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental

Science, rely on developing and using advanced instrumentation to measure atmospheric trends like CO2 levels over long periods of time. Dean Venky, whose own research relies on scanning tunnel-ing microscopy (STM) and ballistic elec-tron emission microscopy (BEEM), puts it elegantly: “You discover a new star by building a better telescope and seeing something you’ve never seen before.”

Nature doesn’t divide

itself into disciplines,

so why should we? — Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace

Professor of Applied Physics and Vin-

ton Hayes Senior Research Fellow

DEAS – Fall 2004 I 3

Anyone who takes a walk down Oxford Street, the road that borders Harvard’s evolving north campus

and runs parallel to the Division’s main buildings, may leave feeling like they’ve completed a civil engineering course. Finding space, especially for experimenters, continues to be one of the Division’s greatest challenges. Several key faculty recruits—Greg Morrisett and Radhika Nagpal in Computer Science; Ken Crozier, Todd Zickler, and Patrick Wolfe in Electrical Engineering; and David Mooney in Bioengineering—will need significant new laboratory facilities to support their research.

As the Division continues to expand its reach—from enhancing administrative and student services to increasing collaborations with other faculty to fostering emerging areas—its existing spaces must also be cleverly refurbished. Building in semi-residential areas of historic Cambridge always requires a great deal of finesse and ingenuity, not to mention patience. For more information and up-to-date photos of progress, visit http://construction.fas.harvard.edu/

North/West Building

Still in the early design phase is the North/West science laboratory, with completion scheduled for 2007. It was originally conceived as two separate buildings, but in consultation with the architects, nearby residents and faculty members opted for a single facility. The more than 400,000-square-foot structure, more than half of which will be below-grade, will run almost parallel to Oxford Street. North/West will include extensive teaching laboratory space, classrooms, research laboratories, and room for collections. The Division will gain space for bioengineering and related areas, and faculty will benefit from their proximity to efforts in systems neuroscience and systems biology, facilitating collaboration and multidisciplinary investigations.

The Laboratory for Integrated Sciences Engineering (LISE)

The facilities that support advances in materials and small-scale science—CIMS, the two Harvard NSF-funded research centers, and FAS departments like physics and chemistry—are in multiple buildings throughout the Harvard campus. When the stunning new LISE building is completed in the fall of 2006, faculty, students, and the cutting-edge tools for research will all be under one roof. “Every doorway, every corridor of this building has been thought about from the point of view of bring-ing people together,” says Charlie Marcus, Professor of Physics, who has been heavily involved in planning for the new space.

The 135,000-square-foot LISE building will bridge the gap between McKay, Pierce/Maxwell Dworkin, Cruft, Lyman, Jefferson, and the Science Center, better integrating the scientific communities in each. Extensive landscaping work, including level-ing the slope behind the Science Center and adding a small outdoor theater, will transform the entire area. Designed by the celebrated Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the structure will feature a pearlescent façade that changes subtly with the day’s light, an underpinning of sculpted pedestals that preserves campus walkways, and an underground area designed to receive natural light. Partially wrapped by a 10-foot parapet, the building will rise to 117 feet.

Instead of individual rooms, the upper floors will support flexible spaces that adapt as experiments evolve in unexpected ways. The building’s heart, its three underground levels, will house a shared cleanroom (for microlithography and nano-fabrication), facilities for materials synthesis, and a microscopy suite. The spacious ground floor lobby and café, which will replace an unattractive back lot, have generated particular excitement among faculty and students.

“Right now, faculty members stand in the parking lot and are at risk of being hit by a car while having a conversation!” says Marcus. “It was so obvious that if there were a café, a patio, and chairs, instead of a lot, then physicists, biologists, chemists, and engineers would all come together. It’s almost as if the stars are aligned to pin them there anyway. I think LISE will really become a beacon.”

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40 and 60 Oxford Street

The Engineering Sciences Lab (ESL), also known as 40 Oxford Street, has long provided an infrastructure for experiments that require chemical facilities. The fourth floor has undergone extensive renovations, including the addition of HVAC infrastructure and a major electrical upgrade, to house three experimenters: David Edwards, Kit Parker, and David Mooney. The Division is now consid-ering changes to additional floors of ESL to meet the needs of Professor Scot Martin in environmental chemistry.

Less than a half-block away, 60 Oxford Street—a spacious building designed to blend into the Agassiz residential neighborhood—houses University Information Systems (UIS) on its first two floors. This green facility, notable for its rooftop garden, large windows, and shieldlike steel scrim, will soon provide an additional 8,000 square feet for the Division. Labs and classrooms on the third and fourth floors are due to open in the late fall of 2004.

Pierce Hall

Pierce Hall, the red brick centerpiece built in 1901, has undergone extensive renovations this summer and fall. The third floor has been remodeled to make room for more offices to accommodate new hires in applied math-ematics and bioengineering. Over the next year, the first and second floors will undergo a similar transformation with the additional aim of creating instructional labs. The third-floor space that currently houses the Gordon McKay and Blue Hill libraries may also be reassessed to provide a more functional design without limiting services. J


Crozier

Nagpal

Mooney

Zickler

Wolfe

Nagpal

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New arrivalsThe Division is pleased to welcome five new faculty members this fall. To see complete research profiles of the Division’s new faculty and extensive bios of all members, visit: www.deas.harvard.edu/directory

KennethBrianCrozierAssistant Professor of Electrical Engineering

Background: B.Eng. (1995) and B.S. (1996) in Electrical Engineering and Physics, University of Melbourne, (Australia); M.S.E.E. (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) in Electri-cal Engineering, Stanford University

Areas of Focus: Optics, electromagnetics, and light-matter interactions; photonics and optical devices

DavidJ.MooneyGordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering

Background: B.S. (1987) in Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin at Madison; Ph.D. (1992) in Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Medical School (1992–1994). Before coming to the Division, Mooney spent ten years conducting research and teaching at the University of Michigan.

Areas of Focus: Biophysics; biomechanics; cell and tissue engineering

RadhikaNagpalAssistant Professor of Computer Science

Background: S.B. and S.M. (1994) and Ph.D. (2001) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to the Division, Nagpal spent a year as a research fellow at the new Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.

Areas of Focus: Distributed and multi-agent systems; biologically inspired programming paradigms; systems biology

PatrickJ.WolfeAssistant Professor of Electrical Engineering

Background: B.S. (1998) in Electrical Engineering and B.Mus. (1998), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Ph.D. (2003) in Engineering, University of Cambridge (U.K.)

Areas of Focus: Communications and signal processing; stochastic systems

ToddZicklerAssistant Professor of Electrical Engineering

Background: B.Eng. (1997) in Electrical Engineering, McGill University (Montreal, Canada); M.S. (2001) and Ph.D. (2004) in Electrical Engineering, Yale University

Areas of Focus: Computational vision and control J


CollaborationsComputation for the social good gets a boost

A classic, yet campy science fiction plot shared by the 1927 classic

Metropolis and the more recent Metropolis and the more recent Metropolis I, Robotmakes even technophiles shudder. Well-meaning engineers build a machine so sophisticated that it learns to think, and even feel, on its own. As the conscious circuitry, originally meant to serve and help humanity, begins to desire free-dom from its astonished creators, philo-sophical havoc ensues.

Well outside of Hollywood, what’s be-come more important is how to think about and best use the machines that have pervaded our lives, not neces-sarily how to make ones that require Asimov’s famed three laws of robotics for safe operation. Can we develop a new generation of digital technologies suited to address some of society’s most vex-ing problems, and not end up slaves to the machine? Dur-ing a spring work-shop on privacy and security jointly sponsored with the Radcliffe Institute, the Division announced the launch of a large-scale effort, the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS), in-tended to do just that.

“While a lot of initiatives have been launched throughout industry and academia to study the intersection of technology and society, they typically look at the effects of information tech-nology on society or study ways to use existing technologies to solve societal problems,” says Stuart Shieber, Harvard College Professor and James O. Welch, Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science. Shieber is one of the creators of the initiative, made possible by an innovation fund (see page 19).

“Our approach is different and more forward-looking,” explains Shieber. “We want to support research on inno-vative computer science and technol-ogy informed by societal effects, not

merely examining the effects of ex-isting technology on society.” For in-stance, what scien-tific and technical breakthroughs are required to create a device or pro-gram that includes

strong cryptography and ensured per-sonal protection, but, when appropri-ate, could be accessed by authorized individuals? A patient might be willing to let doctors or nurses have access to

“We want to support research on

innovative computer science and

technology informed by societal

effects, not merely examining the

effects of existing technology

on society.”

Safeguarding an electronic medical record requires technical savvy. But legal, ethical, and social questions must also be addressed, such as:

Who owns the information?

Who can change the information?

When can the information be released or deleted?

Stuart Shieber, along with his fellow Computer Science faculty members, plans to use the new Center to attract a broad range of expertise to the Division.

an online medical record, provided the data was not available to other prying eyes. A complete solution would take more than developing a novel algo-rithm; ethical, legal, and access issues (who can see what, and when) abound.

Once up and running, the Center will bring computer scientists together with economists, psychologists, legal schol-ars, ethicists, neuroscientists, and other academic colleagues. The team will delve into funda mental computational problems that cross disciplines, like privacy and security, digital copyrights, and file sharing, and use their expertise to create new technologies that incor-porate tech, as well as social, savvy. JFor more information, visit

www.crcs.deas.harvard.edu

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Links & nodesScientist, scholar, citizen

HarveyBrooks,whoservedasDeanoftheDivisionfrom1957to1975andwasaprofessoratHarvardfornearlythreedecades,passedawayonMay28,2004.Hewasapioneerinconnectingsciencewithpublicpolicy.

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We noted with fondness the pass-ing of Harvey Brooks on Friday,

May 28, 2004, at the age of 88. At the time of his death, he was Benjamin Pierce Pro-fessor of Technology and Public Policy Emeritus, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Gordon McKay Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics, in the Division of Engineering and Ap-plied Sciences at Harvard. Brooks served as Dean of the Division from 1957–1975. His research was in theoretical physics and spanned diverse areas such as solid-state physics, underwater acoustics, and nuclear engineering. In 1976 he found-ed and became the first director of the

Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He remained in that position un-til his retirement in 1986.

Joseph Nye, Kennedy School Dean, said, “We have all profited from Harvey’s books, his lectures, his case studies, and his collegiality. We also remember him as a wonderfully warm human being in his roles as teacher, colleague, and family man.”

A native of Cleveland, Harvey Brooks attended Yale University, where he grad-uated in 1937 with a degree in math-ematics. He began his doctoral work at the University of Cambridge, England and relocated to Harvard to work with the acclaimed physicist, Nobel laure-ate, and former Dean of the Division, J. H. van Vleck.

“Harvey Brooks not only played a criti-cal role leading the Division during his twenty years as Dean, but was a true public intellectual,” said Venkatesh Na-rayanamurti, Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Dean of Physical Sciences. “During his tenure as Dean, the Division underwent major renewal in terms of its faculty and in its relation-ships with other parts of the University. His ability to translate his gifts as a re-searcher into insights about science and technology policy was rare and wonder-ful. He will be greatly missed.”

A memorial service was held on Octo-ber 1 at Memorial Church, Harvard Yard. To make a remembrance, please con-tact Sharon Wilke, Kennedy School of Government, the Belfer Center, 617-495-9858. J

AwardsWith merit … David Mooney received a MERIT Award from the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Re-search Council for his novel research on biomaterials ... The exact stuff ... Michael Rabin won the prestigious 2004 EMET Prize for Exact Sciences; he will travel to Israel in November to accept the accolade from the Prime Minister. In early

2003 he received the Paris Kanellakis Award on behalf of the Association for Com-puting Machinery (ACM) for his role in fostering public key cryptography and demonstrating the power of randomized algorithms ... Dual processor ... Barbara Grosz will be named as an ACM Fellow and become an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow in 2004 ... A Kapstone accomplish-ment ... Associate Professor of Computer Science Salil

Vadhan has received one of three Alpha Iota Prizes for Excellence in Teaching. Vadhan also won a 2004 Outstanding Young Investi-gator Award from the Office of Naval Research ... Alma mater ... Faculty member John Hutchinson received an honorary Doctor of En-gineering degree from his alma mater, Lehigh Univer-sity ... Real praise ... Stuart Shieber has been named as a 2004 American Associa-tion of Artificial Intelligence

Fellow ... Academy awards ... Charles Lieber has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences ... Guggenheim glories ... Michael Brenner has been named as a 2004 Gug-genheim Fellow ... When in Rome ... Federico Capasso won the 2004 Caterina Tomassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize, awarded by the Physics Department of the University of Rome–La Sapienza. J


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Retirements and recognitionAlfred A. Pandiscio, Senior Lecturer and Head of Instruction-al Laboratories, whose career at Harvard spanned more than 40 years, retired in 2004. An active participant in ES96 (see page 12) and countless other courses, he provided support and wisdom to students in and outside of the lab.

Bert I. Halperin, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, stepped down as Scientific Director of CIMS in September, 2004. Under his guidance over the last five years, the Center has become a model for conducting interdisciplin-ary research and a catalyst for the development of new tools and techniques. Charlie Marcus, Professor of Physics, will become the new director of CIMS.

John W. Hutchinson, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering, who has ably served as Associate Dean for Aca-demic Programs for the last five years, announced his plans to step down and return to teaching and research. Howard A. Stone, Harvard College Professor and Vicky Joseph Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics, will assume the role of Associate Dean for Academic Programs and work closely with Marie Dahleh, our new Assistant Dean for Undergradu-ate Studies/Academic Programs. J

PromotionsThe following faculty members received promotions during the 2003–2004 academic year:

Scot T. Martin—promoted to Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, effective July 1, 2004 (and tenure).

Martin’s research group is involved in a range of projects con-cerned with understanding and quantifying the chemistry of surfaces in environmental chemical systems. Over all, they are interested in what controls the formation and reactivity of a surface.

Salil P. Vadhan—promoted to Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Computer Science, as of July 1, 2004

Vadhan’s primary research interests are in computational complexity theory, cryptography, randomness in computa-tion, and the interplay between these areas.

Joost J. Vlassak—promoted to Associate Professor of Materi-als Engineering, as of January 1, 2004

Vlassak has developed a variety of new experimental tech-niques for studying the mechanical behavior of thin films. His goal is to develop a better understanding of how microstruc-ture controls their mechanical behavior.

Nota beneResearch rumblings ... The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Communica-tions Office issued a press release on the work of Matt Welsh and colleagues: Computer scientists at Harvard, have teamed up with seismologists at the University of New Hamp-shire and the University of North Carolina to fit an Ecuadorian peak with a wireless array to monitor volcanic activity. The sen-sors should help research-ers, officials, and local resi-dents understand and plan for eruptions of Tungura-hua, one of Ecuador’s most active volcanoes in recent years (see page 14) ... Hot type ... Daniel Jacob, a

member of the Inter-national Consortium for Atmo-spheric Research on Transport

and Transformation, was

quoted by several sources, including the Aug. 5, 2004, Christian Science Monitor and, Aug. 9, 2004, Boston Globe, about his role in monitoring pollution levels in New England (see page 10) ... Scholar and soldier ... Kit Parker, a bioengineer

and an ac-tive Army reservist who served in Afghan-istan, was featured in a Chronicle of Higher

Education cover story, “When Professors Go to War,” and took part in a live online chat about the topic. In response to one of the online queries about how the Harvard/Division community reacted upon his return from Afghani-stan, Parker said, “Upon my return, I was warmly welcomed. I think that is a reflection of the culture in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences here at Harvard more than any-

thing else. I also received an outpouring of support from the Harvard alumni community, which was a complete surprise. Har-vard alumni veterans were quick to step up to sup-port me upon my return, a community I never really even knew about until they sought me out last fall. So, yes, I have been really fortunate to be welcomed back with open arms” ... Small media ... Howard Stone was quoted in the July 21, 2004, Technology Review for a piece about nanoscale motion ... A look at the obvious ... The July 19, 2004, online issue of the Harvard Gazette fea-tured a profile of Laksh-minarayanan Mahadevan and his fascination with the seemingly mundane

... Novel research ... The July/Au-gust issue of Harvard Magazine included a story on and

a book review of a work by Thomas McMahon, a former Division faculty member who passed away in 1999. His posthumous novel, Ira Foxglove, the story of a bro-ken-hearted engineer cross-ing the Atlantic in a zepplin, was published in 2004 and received a full-page review in The New York Times Book Review. In addition, the magazine included briefs on Charles M. Lieber and Michael P. Brenner in the Brevia section ... Interactive fiction ... In the May/June 2004 issue of The Ameri-

can Scien-tist, Stuart Shieber of-fered his take on Turing: A Novel About Computation, by fellow computer

scientist Christos H. Pa-padimitriou. The MIT Press published Shieber’s own look at Turing, The Turing Test: Verbal Behavior as the Hallmark of Intelligence, in the late summer of 2004. J


Selected articles about the Division

Displaced tiny particles in the inner ear (called otoconia) are believed to collect in the back of the canals and cause a common form of vertigo. (Figure courtesy of Timothy C. Hain, Northwestern University.)

An overview of the types of monitoring equipment—including boats, planes, and satellites—used to conduct air quality stud-ies in North America and western Europe in the summer of 2004. (Figure courtesy of ICARTT.)

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Rethinking vertigoA team of engineers and physicians from Harvard University, the California Insti-tute of Technology, and Northwestern University developed a mathematical model to support a new theory on the cause of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), the most common form of vertigo.

BPPV is a mechanical disorder origi-nating in the vestibular system within the inner ear, where three fluid-filled semicircular canals detect head rota-tion about each of three axes. Many re-searchers believe that BPPV attacks are triggered when calcite particles called otoconia, which normally reside in the inner ear, dislodge and interfere with proper functioning of these semicircu-lar canals.

“While BPPV is not life-threatening, it induces disorientation that is severely discomforting and can cause nausea and accidents,” says Howard A. Stone, Harvard College Professor and recently named Vicky Joseph Professor of Engi-neering and Applied Mathematics. “We used hydrodynamic models to show that if tiny particles in the inner ear become dislodged, which researchers have previously posited as the trigger for BPPV attacks, the period of time

for these particles to fall far enough to adversely impact pressure within the inner ear roughly matches the typical lapse between a head tilt and onset of vertigo.”

Along with Harvard undergraduate (now GSAS graduate student) Michael S. Weidman, Todd M. Squires at Caltech, and Timothy C. Hain of Northwestern, Stone examined whether this delay might coincide with the movement of otoconia. Hain, a medical scientist who studies motor control of the head and neck, originally sought Stone’s as-sistance in studying the possible role of fluid dynamics in BPPV. Stone says that he, Squires, and Weidman, none of whom are physicians, bring a different perspective to a medical ailment that’s largely mechanical in nature. In addi-tion, Stone and his collaborators can provide other quantitative insights use-ful for characterizing BPPV.

“Because of its mechanical nature, BPPV may be an illness that requires a degree of cooperation between physicians and engineers,” Stone says.

Adapted from the Harvard University Gazette, August 9, 2004

Sampling the summer airHundreds of government and university scientists from across the country and in western Europe, including the Divi-sion’s Daniel Jacob, sampled the quality of the air this summer in the largest air quality and climate study to date, as part of the International Consortium for At-mospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion (NOAA) and NASA were co-leads of the endeavor, which began in early July and ended in August.

A special focus of the sampling is a com-prehensive effort to characterize air quality in New England. The research will help provide the solid science needed to underpin the region’s efforts to improve air quality. Jacob told the

Christian Science Monitor that the work is critical to setting emissions standards, “otherwise, you could find that your efforts are being defeated by ozone pollution from somewhere else.”

Scientists conducted research on all fronts—land, sea, and air—to provide unprecedented information about the air as it crosses the United States, leaves New England, traverses the Atlantic Ocean, and arrives in western Europe.

Among the U.S. partners were Harvard University, the Department of Energy, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the California Institute of Technology. The Meteorological Service of Canada and European scientists with the Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Precursors–North Atlantic Study also collaborated.

Adapted from information supplied by NOAA, June 28, 2004.

Exploring the origins of life Scot Martin, Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, and a group of Division and Harvard collaborators including Xiang Zhang, Henrich Hol-land, Cynthia Friend, and Martin Schoo-nen (SUNY–SB) presented “Mineral Photoelectrochemistry as an Efficient Pathway for Prebiotic Synthesis” as part of the American Chemical Society


Information exchange between quantum dots Scientists at Harvard have found that the fundamental elements of a quantum computer can exchange information and work in tandem even when they’re separated by a considerable distance.

The result represents the first success at controlling the transfer of informa-tion between quantum particles located some distance apart, rewriting the belief that “quantum dots” must be neighbors to operate in unison, and advancing scientists’ progress toward developing massively parallel spin-based quantum computing. Quantum computing’s practical value would be severely lim-ited if only neighboring dots were able to correlate their spins.

Adapted from the Harvard University Gazette, August 9, 2004

Quantum network goes liveIn collaboration with Harvard Univer-sity and Boston University, BBN Tech-nologies announced that it has built the world’s first quantum cryptography net-work and is now operating it continu-ously beneath the streets of Cambridge. Today the DARPA Quantum Network links BBN’s campus to Harvard Univer-sity; soon it will stretch across town to include Boston University.

Adapted from the Harvard University Gazette, August 2, 2004, and a BBN Technologies press release

Nanowires and switchesHarvard scientists have taken the first step toward making chips with billions instead of millions of components, nano-electronics instead of microelectronics, making wires as thin as 3 nanometers, tens of atoms thin. What’s more, the nanotechnologists have built switches right into the wires, solving the tedious problem of connecting the switches, amplifiers, and other devices that, in

today’s integrated circuits, are so much bigger than the nanowires. This is the first time that bridging two different types of materials has been done at the nanometer level.

Adapted from the Harvard University Gazette, July 22, 2004. Articles also ap-peared in Nature News and Chemical & Engineering News

Virus detectorsHarvard University scientists have found that ultra-thin silicon wires can be used to electrically detect the pres-ence of single viruses, in real time, with near-perfect selectivity. These nanowire detectors can also differentiate among viruses with great precision, suggesting that the technique could be scaled up to create miniature arrays easily capable of sensing thousands of different viruses.

In a clinical setting, the extreme sensi-tivity of nanowire arrays means they could detect viral infection at very early stages, when the immune system is still able to suppress virus popula-tions. It’s at this stage of viral activity that symptoms often begin to appear, but with viruses still present in limited numbers, they can be difficult to detect and treat. While there are many ways for researchers to assay viruses, most are laborious and appropriate only in laboratory settings. The use of nano-wires provides immediate verification of a given virus’s presence without any specialized biochemical manipulation.

Adapted from a September 22, 2004, press release prepared by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Office of Communications J

Related research at Harvard

A silicon nanowire (blue) is crossed by three nanowires of a different composition (top).

How did life begin? Scot Martin and other “astrobiologists” are trying to go back in time (about four billion years) by recreating the conditions that may have led to life on earth.

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(ACS) meeting held in Philadelphia on August 22–26, 2004.

In lay terms, the research team looked at how life started on earth. Carbon fixation, which is the conversion of inorganic carbon sources into organic molecules, is an important step in the origin of life. The team’s work addresses the possibility of a new reaction path-way based on solar irradiation and the photoelectrochemical properties of metal sulfide minerals. Chemical evolu-tion is the first stage, before Darwinian evolution; at this stage, chemical reac-tions that transform inorganic materi-als such as CO2 into organic molecules play an important role. These reactions are often slow and need external energy input, such as electric discharge or ther-mal energy. The research findings dem-onstrate an efficient pathway for these reactions via solar energy and minerals.

Adapted from information supplied by the ACS J


Hitting the booksStudents develop a “2.0 version” of the

Gordon McKay-Blue Hill libraries

The latest project for ES96, Engineering Design, assigned annually to junior engineering students, required some

book learning. Team-taught, or as they like to say, coached, by Fred Abernathy, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering and Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engi-neering, and Woodward Yang, Professor of Electrical Engineer-ing and Computer Science, the capstone course challenged students to envision a “2.0 version” of the Gordon McKay-Blue Hill libraries perched on the third floor of Pierce Hall.

“Young people have grown up in the digital age,” says Aberna-thy. “They understand the convenience of digital searches and they tried to bring some digital search capability to the Gor-don McKay Library.” Students worked closely with the library

Theirassignment

Devise a practical and elegant scheme to better use/reallocate library space and enhance services for Division members while considering the needs of the library itself, including its present staff, obligation to Harvard, and role in the wider community. And, of course, stay within a rea-sonable budget and do not violate publisher copyright laws. Give up?

Theirsolution

In their nearly 350-page final assessment, the students concluded, “It’s the balance of physical space and digital space that allows us to make the recommendations that will keep users of the Gordon McKay library from feeling a decrease in accessibility and functionality when the floor space of the library is

dramatically reduced.” Not surprisingly, journals and books take up much of the room in the library. Rather than figuring out a clever scheme for how best to stack the racks, students investigated what on-site publications were the most used. In the case of jour-nals, it turned out that two percent of titles accounted for almost 60 percent of citations. Combining this knowledge with other usage data, the students recommended potentially reducing the 1,200 current journal subscriptions to the 550 most-used.

Similarly, based on check-out rates, the students determined that current books could be reduced from 5,864 to 2,749. The remainder could be moved to the Harvard repository for archival purposes and still be accessible within

24 hours through library loan services. Amazingly, if the Division went through with the students’ plans, linear shelf space could be reduced by 50 percent. Further, by counting the number of visitors and vid-eotaping the use of study tables, the students sug-gested a more modular and space-saving design that better reflected actual use.

To ensure functionality despite the reduced space, the team suggested aug-menting the library’s Web site and virtual offerings to provide more service (especially outside of the physical library environs), and introduced two novel digital enhancements. Digibook, a new kind of browsing, would offer easy access to digital versions of the tables of contents and indices of books, enabling users to search beyond the

current subject-title-au-thor limitation of Harvard’s online system. All the scan-ning could be done on-site and cheaply without bump-ing up against copyright issues.

The second solution, an Article Delivery Service al-ready used by schools such as Princeton, would provide easy access to virtually any journal article online. Faculty and students would gain quick access to a locally scanned online ver-sion of a requested article via e-mail. To preserve the copyright obligations, restricted file access would be maintained through password protection.

The Division plans to fur-ther review how to enhance the libraries, and in the process consider some of the suggestions from the ES96 project.

staff to study space planning and even how to implement new digital publishing technologies. Abernathy points out that the students experienced firsthand a common principle of engineering: You often don’t know what the true problem is until you are in the thick of things.

“Both Fred and myself have some broader experiences outside of academia,” says Yang, who consults extensively and helped found a start-up semiconductor design company. Abernathy is a leading expert on the textile industry and supply chain management. “We try very hard to bring in our experiences from working on complex problems and stress the importance of communication and teamwork. This is quite different from the standard lecture–problem set–exam routine of most engi-neering classes,” continues Yang.

The goal of the “real world” course is to better convey the com-plexity of engineering. Former challenges included schemes for more efficient energy use in Maxwell Dworkin and Wil-liam James Hall and a proposal for automated garages to deal with Harvard’s parking problem.

“I believe that the overall concept of ‘What is engineering?’ is quite critical and is not well addressed by the media or even within our own academic community. Some professional engineering societies are in fact struggling with ways to edu-cate the overall population and improve the popular image of engineers,” says Yang. “I think the description of engineering as ‘solving technical problems in the real world based on real constraints’ is an important distinguishing feature of engineering and summarizes quite well what we are trying to teach in ES96.” J

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Stress tests AwardsA selection of recent

accolades for undergraduate

and graduate students in

the Division

PatrickMauro ’07 has won a Herchel Smith Harvard Undergraduate Research Fellowship. He will work with the Division’s Gu-Yeon Wei, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, on exploring power leakage and efficien-cy in computer memory.

........................

Undergraduate JingerZhao ’04 (who is taking part in the Computer Sci-ence/Mind-Brain-Behavior program) and graduate student Byungha Shin (who studies the kinetics of thin film growth) won spe-cial distinction as teaching fellows.

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AntonyClavel (master’s student in CS), Alan Nawoj (master’s student in CS), and Hassan Sultan ’04 (undergraduate in CS), won second prize in the For-Profit Track of the 2004 Harvard Entrepreneurial Contest. They proposed the Harvard Translation Center, an entity that would connect multilingual students with opportunities for translation work.

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AlanNawoj, a master’s student in Computer Science at the Division, was named as one of three recipients of the prestigious AFCEA Ralph Shrader Master’s Degree Scholarship.

Taking flight

Kyle Clark ’04, an Engineering Sciences concentrator, dealt with a different set of stressors: the forces during flight.

He received praise and awe from faculty and students when he presented his senior design project, “Design and Construc-tion of a Dynamic Flight Simulator,” as part of the yearlong Engineering Sciences 100/100hf course.

Clark’s flight simulator is based on the chassis of a motorcycle and driven by three large servomotors that are controlled by a series of cuing algorithms written in LabView, a type of powerful graphical development software. The “pilot” can control the simulated CyclePlane while sitting in a motor-cycle rider position. Although it is impossible to simulate in a confined space all the forces encountered in a real flight environment, Clark’s motorcycle design can emulate the most pronounced forces felt in flight: roll, pitch, and heave.

“I think this could be a turning point in experimental aviation. The recent release of lightweight, super-powered sport bikes makes this aircraft not only possible, but fast, efficient, and elegant—qualities that previous attempts lacked,” explains Clark.

Professor John Hutchinson oversaw the plan for the simulator and contributed significantly to its mechanical design. Before his sabbatical, Robert Howe, Gordon McKay Professor of Engi-neering, was Clark’s adviser on the design and analysis of the actual plane and model.

Clark’s eventual goal is for the CyclePlane to become a part of NASA’s Personal Air Vehicle Exploration (PAVE) initiative. The space agency has long been interested in developing inexpen-sive and easy-to-use aviation vehicles for direct point-to-point and local flights. J

Kyle Clark riding his prototype. (All images courtesy of Kyle Clark.)

A computer rendering of the CyclePlane simulator.

An illustration of what a completed CyclePlane might look like.

Didyouknow...

There are over 300 MIT students cross-registered at Harvard, and over 400 Harvard students at MIT, according to the MIT Registrar.

(Top) Readying a bridge for a weighty challenge; (bot-tom left) ES120 students look on and wait for the inevitable crunch; (bottom right) John Hutchinson gives a quick pep talk on the basics of good structural design.

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Elementary engineering Engineering is about build-ing and testing, with a lot of stressing along the way. For their final project, undergraduate teams in ES120 must build a strong structure using nothing more than 250 Popsicle sticks and glue. The resulting cre-ations are then subjected to heavy loads until they reach their breaking point. J


Computer scientist Matt Welsh

helped a team of geophysicists

by setting up tiny wireless

sensor networks to measure

the seismic activity of an active

volcano.

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When Assistant Professor of Com-puter Science Matt Welsh joined

the Division, there were a few omissions in his job description. Apparently, some-one neglected to include the parts about hiking, mule transport, and stubborn cows. In July, Welsh, an expert on run-ning Linux servers (definitely an indoor activity), found himself high atop Volcán Tungurahua in remote Baños, Ecuador.

Dormant for more than 80 years, the 5,018-meter volcano, primarily a lush green pasture used by farmers for graz-ing cattle, has begun to stir. In the early evenings, the peak of the mountain looks like Vulcan’s summer home, spewing a watercolor wash of orange ash clouds and, in the process, fueling an outpouring of scientific research. While not a volcanologist, Welsh helped a team of geophysicists by set-ting up tiny wireless sensor networks

on the side of Tungurahua to measure its seismic activity.

Bob Fisher, a former Ph.D. student of Margo Seltzer and one-time seismolo-gist, connected with Welsh and research assistant Geoffrey Warner-Allen through a different sort of networking—the social kind. Fisher knew that researchers at the Division had used sensor network motes primarily in the medical field, but he immediately saw a less obvious application. The standard monitoring equipment used by seismologists is heavy, cumbersome, and definitely not wireless. The traditional setup consists of a removable flash memory card, two car batteries, and a collection of other electronic components, all housed in a large plastic tub. Translation: Research-ers have to lug a bulky unit up almost 1,000 meters (courtesy of 4WD vehicles, traditional climbing when the truck gets stuck in the mud, and sometimes even mule transit), set it up, return to the base camp, and then wait several days before traveling back up and check-ing to see whether it’s experiencing any problems. About a week later, they haul themselves up the mountain again to remove the memory card and retrieve the data.

Welsh describes the uncertainty and hassle of this system, which he expe-rienced firsthand: “During the first

couple of days, the researchers get very nervous, biting their nails knowing that they have to go back to the station to check on things.” The alternative he’s developing would be a big relief. “By us-ing a sensor network, we could immedi-ately tell if there was a problem: Did one of the receivers go blank or did a cow step on something—which happens a lot. It’s all about becoming more lazy,” Welsh jokes. “But actually the networks are more accurate and they scale better and are less human-involved.”

Although Wi-Fi is high-tech, it takes well-grounded expertise to put a radio sensor in place and to ensure that it will work properly. Sensor network pro-gramming is incredibly difficult due to the limited capabilities, low energy re-sources, and variable quality of the radio channel signals of each node. Welsh’s aim, whatever the locale, is to create high-level languages for programming diverse, distributed networks of sensors and to simplify their design by creating routines that can compile down to the complex, low-level operations imple-mented by each sensor node.

Luckily for him, however, he doesn’t wear tweed and he’s not afraid of get-ting his boots muddy. He and his wife, Amy Bauer, have devoted much of their free time to globetrotting, building an impressive travel résumé that includes


Unafraid of heights or high-tech, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Matt Welsh gets down to work while perched on a grassy spot of Volcán Tungurahua.

The sensor nets are packed inside plastic casings for protection.

A relay antenna is used to bounce signals down the mountain to the base camp below.

Tungurahua has a reputation for erupting with more than just research opportunities.

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Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, India, Bolivia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Nepal. In November and December of 2002, they spent their honeymoon resting in the tropics—sort of.

“Instead of going to Hawaii, traveling by river to the northernmost frontier of Laos seemed more like our kind of thing,” he writes on his Web travel log. “So, we booked tickets to Luang Pra-bang, hung out with the novice monks, spent nearly a week exploring the Nam Ou river, trekked out to remote villages, drank a lot of Beerlao, and to top it off, spent a few days exploring the culinary mecca that is Bangkok.”

While there’s no word on whether he owns an Indiana Jones–style hat, Welsh has in-creasingly become an academic adventurer, his enthusiasm for new, far-reaching col-laborations as boundless as the wireless technology he implements. He’s show-ing that computer scientists need not be tethered to their desks or their desktops. Playing Tomb Raider means stepping out of—not further into—the screen.

“Reaching out into the physical world is what it’s all about,” says Welsh. “A com-puter in the classic sense is this box that sits on a desk and has no connection to the physical world other than through a power plug and a cord to the Inter-net. With sensor nets and other digital devices, we have technologies you can

put out in the world. Part of my goal is to find interesting problems outside what computer scientists typically work on.”

Welsh is still working to improve data collection for the volcano study—the sensors are not as robust as the con-ventional wired device. Yet he’s already gone a long way toward showing what’s possible. And with the mountain climb accomplished, remote villages in Asia or Africa might be next on his agenda. With a group from the Harvard School of Public Health, Welsh is trying to au-tomate the tedious data collection nec-essary to study the link between health problems and indoor cooking pollution.

Another promising project is closer to home and marks a change in field rather than location: using the networks to monitor stroke

patients at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.

While he enjoys the perk of work-relat-ed field trips, Welsh emphasizes that the true adventure (and hardest climb) lies in what’s behind the gadgets, the chal-lenge of creating software that makes everything run smoothly. Furthermore, his larger mission is to promote the unique work that he and his colleagues in computer science do so well. “I think we should show people that computer science is not just this ‘geeky’ kind of field where you do not connect with

the real world. My ultimate goal is to get everything we do out in the real world,” says Welsh. “I really want to try to reach people who normally wouldn’t consider studying computer science as a field. It’s going through a little bit of a change, partially because of new digital technologies. Just consider how many students come to Harvard with iPods.”

Welsh believes that emphasizing the real world is critical for recruiting future stu-dents and generating excitement about computer science and related fields. “I can say, ‘You can be part of a whole new area involving medical applications’ or that we will get to listen to volcanoes. There’s the chance to get this stuff used outside of a lab setting and reach beyond the traditional confines of computer sci-ence,” Welsh explains.

Sensor networks are destined to end up in countless applications and may continue to send Welsh, his laptop, and some lucky students far beyond Cam-bridge. He suggests that other computer scientists and entire departments take his and the Division’s lead in forging new connections. Welsh insists that quality coding and basic computer science remain his primary modes of exploration, but that doesn’t mean his suitcase isn’t packed, just in case. JFor more on Welsh’s work and snap-shots of his travels, see

www.eecs.harvard.edu/~mdw

“Reaching out into

the physical world is

what it’s all about.”


Museum studies

“Every week now, it seems the

public faces a range of new

risks, requiring us to digest

and weigh current research

findings in making everyday

choices.”

“A new kind of hybrid star

has arisen: the scientist–

educator–performance

artist–journalist–multimedia

producer-forum facilitator.”

Daniel Davis, Education Associate at CS&T, makes nanoshells visible to live and home audiences

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The complexities behind everyday innovations often go unnoticed—

that is, until we stop to look at a PDA or a laptop behind museum glass rather than just tapping at the keypad. Even more effective is taking that glass away: Especially for the under-10 set, pulling and poking at the guts of a cell phone or the gears of an engine may be the best way to start learning how things work. But these days, even the best exhibit cannot convey the full com-plexities involved in current science and technology.

Think about the post-9-11 anthrax scare, the rising price of fossil fuels, global warming, or the Columbia accident. We must know more than simply how or why these events occur, but how they influence our world. Carol Lynn Alpert A.B. ’77, Director of Strategic Projects for the Museum of Science in Boston, is working to meet this need with help from the Nanoscale Science and Engi-neering Center (NSEC). As she explains in her essay, “Bridging the Gap,” fea-tured in the book Creating Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Current Research, “Every week now, it seems the public faces a range of new risks, requiring us to digest and weigh current research findings in making everyday choices.”

Amidst the sensory overload of the museum—alive with snaking lines of giggling schoolkids, menacing life-sized dinosaur replicas, and the crackle of simulated lightning storms—rests her solution: the Current Science and Technology Center (CS&T). Each pre-sentation on its open-air stage begins like an arena rock concert. A huge block of pulsing plasma screens descends from steel girders hung from the ceil-ing, while a thumping bass line begins to play. Appearing on stage is the live element in this virtual spectacle, a new kind of hybrid star described by Alpert

as the “scientist–educator–performance artist–journalist–multimedia producer–forum facilitator.”

Education Associate Dan Davis deserves all of these titles. He deft-ly distills the latest re-search on advanced tech-nologies like nanoshells and nanodots, combin-ing sophisticated technol-ogy (including images of nanowires taken right from Harvard College Professor Eric Mazur’s

lab) with simple, handcrafted devices such as Styrofoam models showing how nanometer-sized semiconductor crys-tals emit different colors of light. While this is heady stuff, Davis’s engaging demeanor seems to calm any fears of hard science being too hard to grasp.

Davis’s presentations on any given day, like much of the work of the CS&T, were likely developed that same morning. CS&T strives to keep pace not just with what’s in the headlines, but with what’s going on in cleanrooms and laser labs around Boston. Because the cen-ter provides live feeds to NECN (which reaches 2.8 million homes), primary research ends up grab-bing some airtime even when its applications are not immediately appar-ent. Together with the live presentations and broadcasts, supplemen-tal multimedia displays near the staging area and a robust Web site (www.mos.org/cst) enable indi-viduals to dig into every aspect of a new device or emerging innovation.

Howard Stone, who has presented at CS&T, is excited about the Divi-sion’s growing involvement

with the museum. “A relationship with the Boston Museum of Science is valu-able—indeed critical—for the Divi-sion,” he says. “We have an opportunity to expose young people to the unending series of questions, observations, and insights that research provides.”

In addition to highlighting research at the Division and elsewhere at Harvard, CS&T gives some extra attention to our faculty and graduate students. Davis and fellow museum educator Joel Rosen-berg spend part of their time training participating Cambridge high-school teachers and graduate students through the Cambridge-Harvard GK-12 program and other initiatives. With Alpert’s help, Davis taught undergraduate researchers how to present information more effec-tively as part of the Division’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Kathryn Hollar, Director of Educational Programs at the Division and CS&T liaison, comments, “The re-

lationship is mu-tually beneficial. While we provide the museum access to the cutting-edge research going on at Harvard, the


The Technology and Entrepreneur-ship Center at Harvard (TECH)

has established an interdisciplinary program on Innovation in Science and Engineering with lead sponsorship from Altran Technologies and Arthur D. Little. The program stems from two years of teaching and collaboration among members of the Division, Altran, and its affiliate company, Synectics, Inc.

Altran and Arthur D. Little, led by CEO Michel Friedlander, will contribute funding and services to the initiative over the next five years, and will bring Innovation Fellows together with win-ners of the Altran Foundation’s Interna-

tional Innovation award and their team of Altran advisors.

The program will support a host of new endeavors and expand existing ones—such as the Innovation in Science and Engineering course that was developed in 2003 by David Weitz, Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics; with Altran CTO Thomas C. Esselman with help from Paul Bottino, TECH’s Executive Direc-tor. Through collaboration with Rick Harriman at Synectics, TECH will now be able to offer the same professional-level team dynamic and innovation training given in the course to a wide

range of research and other inventive academic groups.

“This is a great addition to the TECH program and our efforts to advance the understanding and practice of translat-ing science and technology into societal benefit,” Bottino says.

Marissa R. Olson and David S. Ricketts were named the inaugural Innovation Fellows for 2004. Both are pursuing their doctorates at DEAS; in Applied Physics, Olson is conducting opto-electronic device research, and in Elec-trical Engineering, Ricketts is investi-gating soliton electronics. J

TECH launches innovation program

Of course, initiatives that bring more current research into museums are not intended to replace existing exhibits. At the Museum of Science, kids and adults can still play a game of virtual volley-ball, take a seat in the Apollo capsule, or watch in fear and fascination as elec-tricity crackles between two massive humming Tesla coils. In museums, as in academic research, it’s the mix of the old and the new and the appreciation of the complexity of even the simplest problem that makes progress possible.

Ideally, Alpert hopes that efforts like CS&T will be an overture that ends up supporting her much broader mission of promoting science and technology. “I’d make sure every youngster got to see pond water through a low-power microscope, got to look at plasticinated human bodies, and got to see the mys-tery of the origin of the universe splayed out in the night’s sky in a place far from city lights,” she says. “I’d teach every child how to listen well, think critically, question authority, and articulate clear-ly. I’d put the values of integrity, honor, service, courage, and compassion at the top of the agenda.” JFor more information about CS&T and NSEC, visit

www.mos.org/cstwww.nsec.harvard.edu

Physicist Charlie Marcus, the new Director of CIMS, makes the quantum world visible by reaching out to the audience.

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Museum of Science’s expertise in engag-ing the public in science and engineer-ing is a skill that is transferred back to our faculty, graduate students, and un-dergraduates.”

In a short period of time, the CS&T pro-gram has enjoyed a great deal of success. People tend to mill around the presenta-tion area, interact with the multimedia displays, and ask excellent questions. Getting access to science here and now, up close and personal, draws people in—Alpert reports that this section of the museum can keep viewers engaged for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, which is impressive by any standards. Building on these results, she hopes to extend the CS&T approach to many more sci-ence museums. “I think we’ve shown that the model works. Science muse-ums are in a perfect position to meet a need,” she says.

As tiny technologies become the new standard, going from micro to nano and the quirky quantum realm, programs like CS&T and the involvement of re-search institutions like the Division will only become more essential. A group at the museum recently joked that the exhibit on nanoscience would simply be an empty box. The NSEC-museum collaboration may lead to a more per-manent, and most definitely visible, ex-hibit on nanotechnology that will serve as a model for other displays on small-scale science. Alpert hopes to establish a Nanotech Informal Science Education Resource Center to foster broad col-laboration among research institutions and science museums, documenting and sharing the best practices in nano-tech outreach exhibits, programs and materials, and facilitating their further development.


Q&A with Stephanie WilsonThe gravity of small things

“It’s all about space!” says Stephanie Wilson S.B. ’88. While she enjoys her ground duties at NASA, she’s eager to break free of earth’s gravity.

(Below) A computer rendering of U.S. Node 2; it will eventually be attached to the International Space Station (back-ground image). Wilson is currently assigned to STS-120, the mission responsible for delivering and mounting the node, which will provide attach locations for the Japanese laboratory, European laboratory, the Centrifuge Accommodation Module, and later, Multipurpose Logistics Modules.

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Last spring, astronaut Stephanie Wilson S.B. ’88, visited the Division

to discuss her career and experiences at NASA. Wilson, who earned a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas and held posi-tions at the former Martin Marietta Group and the Jet Propulsion Lab, cur-rently works in the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch at the John-son Space Center. She is assigned to the crew of STS-120, a shuttle flight respon-sible for mounting U.S. Node 2 to the International Space Station. Budding space aces should take a look at NASA’s quick guide, “How Do You Become an Astronaut?” at www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/outreach/jobsinfo/astronaut.html.

We have to ask. When did you decide to become an astronaut?

I decided at 13. I’m originally from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a small town without a lot of city lights. I’d look up at night in my backyard and see all the stars.

Who inspired you or helped you along the way?

For a high school assign-ment, I went to Williams College and interviewed an astronomy professor, Dr. Jay M. Pasachoff [A.B. ’63, A.M. ’65, Ph.D. ’69], who happened to be from Harvard. He taught me all about astronomy and about what he had a chance to do: travel around the world and view the heavens.

How are engineering problems different in zero-g versus on earth?

Gravity is the thing you have to design in or out. With the shuttle, the en-gines are used to boost us into orbit once we’re about

50 miles up. So they have to work in both environments. You have to think of a way to cool the fuel so you don’t starve the engine.

Anything else?

There are challenges you might not imagine, like eating. You must have food that doesn’t float out of a container or leave crumbs in the air. On the shuttle, you’re in a small, cluttered space with no storage.

Did being an African American woman shape your experiences?

Not really. Here’s what I found interest-ing and unexpected: A lot of the equip-ment we’re given is issued from the military—meaning that it’s all made for a particular size. Not because I’m a woman, but because I’m a small person, the standard equipment doesn’t fit me, and it costs a lot of money to modify it.

What’s it like being an astronaut work-ing on earth with the rest of us? Do you long to go into space?

Yeah, it’s all about space! In February 2003 we would have started our specific mission training, but all the flights were

delayed after the Columbia accident. I did have a chance to work at the Jet Pro-pulsion Lab on some robotic spacecraft. Simply seeing software and hardware you designed actually go into inter-planetary space and do the things they’re supposed to do is really rewarding.

Are people different in some way when they come back from space?

I think people are changed. The astro-nauts I’ve known well have phenom-enal things to say even about the littlest things, like how vivid the colors are in space or how their sense of taste was different. I think that, just like on earth, opportunity and knowledge change people.

Do you ever think about the dangers of space? It’s not like you can put on a life jacket or swim to shore if something goes wrong.

I don’t—not a lot. I was riding the shut-tle bus to Courier House when the Chal-lenger accident happened. I remember being in denial and thinking, “No, this couldn’t happen.” But it didn’t deter me at all. It’s unfortunate, but out of tragedy new and good things will be developed for the future. The same with Columbia. All we can do is execute all the training we have received, work with the Mis-sion Control team, and hope we catch a problem should it occur. If not, it was meant to be. We can use what we’ve learned for our eventual trip back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Speaking of Mars, should we go?

Yes. If we don’t, we might limit our destiny. J


EventsIn addition to almost daily seminars and colloquia—from computer science to squishy physics—the Division also sponsors major workshops.

Please visit www.deas.harvard.edu/newsandevents/ for the latest details, dates, and times. Graduates are always welcome (and encouraged) to attend events. Here’s a selection of what’s slated to come later this year.

21stQuarterlyComplexFluidsWorkshop,hostedbyHarvardUniversity

Date: December 5, 2004

Registration and information: www.complexfluids.org/necf/index.php

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HolidayLecture:PolymerPlayground,presentedbyHowardStone

Date: December 11, 2004

Last year, Stone presented, “A Peek at Printing: From Papyrus to Electronic Paper.”

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IndustrialOutreachProgram

2005 Workshop

Planning for the 2005 workshop is under way. Watch the Division site for exact dates and further details.

Innovate with usWe encourage Division graduates to get involved with the Industrial Outreach Program (IOP). Share your insights with us and learn about our latest discoveries and opportunities firsthand.

IOP recently held its third workshop in the spring, “Frontiers in Materials and Nanoscience.” In late October its sister group, the Harvard Industrial Partner-ship (HIP), hosted its meeting on the influence of computing and technology on society. To learn more about IOP, see www.deas.harvard.edu/industry or contact

FawwazHabbalAssociate Dean for Research and Planning 617-495-5829 [email protected]

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Challenge fund updateTo support cutting-edge research at the Division, an anonymous donor created a

$15 million Challenge Fund to establish 10 new professorships and 10 innova-tion funds in Engineering and Applied Sciences. Since 2003, alumni have pledged or contributed $27.5 million toward the $45 million total goal, establishing five profes-sorships and ten innovation funds.

We applaud these efforts to make the Division an even stronger and more vibrant place for cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research. Contributions help shape the Harvard of this and the next century.

Progresstodate

Professorships of Engineering and Applied SciencesThe Case Family Foundation on behalf of Bob Case A.B. ’76, M.B.A. and J.D. ’79, and Susie Case A.B. ’79, S.M. ’79, M.B.A. ’83, endowed the Robert and Suzanne Case Professorship

Jean E. de Valpine A.B. ’43, J.D. ’49 endowed the Lola England Professorship

George Joseph A.B. ’49 endowed the Vicky Joseph Professorship

Allen E. Puckett S.B. ’39, S.M. ’41 endowed the Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett Professorship

Jeff C. Tarr A.B. ’66 endowed the Tarr Family Professorship

Innovation Funds for Engineering and Applied SciencesJohn A. Armstrong A.B. ’56, A.M. ’61, Ph.D. ’61 and Elizabeth S. Armstrong A.B. ’58created the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Innovation Fund

David B. Heller A.B. ’89 created the David B. Heller Innovation Fund

William Laverack Jr. A.B. ’79, M.B.A. ’85 and Cordelia Reardon Laverack created the Laverack Family Innovation Fund

Thierry G. Porté A.B. ’79, M.B.A. ’82 created the Thierry G. Porté Innovation Fund

Gary M. Reiner A.B. ’76, M.B.A. ’80 created the Reiner Family Innovation Fund

James F. Rothenberg A.B. ’68, M.B.A ’70 created the James F. Rothenberg Innovation Fund

William A. Shutzer A.B. ’69, M.B.A. ’72 created the William A. and Fay L. Shutzer Innovation Fund

Richard W. Smith A.B. ’74 created the Porthcawl Innovation Fund

Edward A. Taft III A.B. ’73 created the Edward A. Taft III Innovation Fund

An anonymous alumnus on the Class of 1968 created an Innovation Fund

Roomforgrowth

We are also pleased to report that a room in Maxwell Dworkin, which houses faculty in computer science and electrical engineering, has been named in recognition of the generosity of two donors.

MD 123 is now the William Andrew Danoff ’82 and Ami Kuan Danoff ’84 Room.

Findoutmore

For more information about the Challenge Fund or other gift opportunities, see www.deas.harvard.edu/alumni/challengefund.html or contact

Lisa BoudreauDirector of Development and Corporate Relations 617-495-4044 or [email protected] J


The beauty of basic research

Feedback loopWe welcome and appreciate your comments, suggestions, and corrections. Please send feedback to [email protected] or call us at 617-496-3815. This newsletter is published biannually by:The Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Communications Office

Harvard UniversityPierce Hall29 Oxford StreetCambridge, MA 02138

Managing Editor/Writer: Michael Patrick Rutter

Designer, Producer, Photographer: Eliza Grinnell

This publication, including past issues, is available on the Web at www.deas.harvard.edu

Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

An ongoing series of photo essays

dedicated to showcasing how DEAS

inspires collaborative work and

encourages interdisciplinary research.

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The images portrayed at left provide an aesthetic and scientific perspective on some of the research

undertaken by our faculty and students.

Engineers and scientists increasingly rely on so-phisticated imaging, manipulation, and fabrication techniques to investigate problems.

By “seeing” more, researchers can better understand the basic properties of our world and translate what they discover into everyday technologies and applications—from novel microchip design to next-generation medical devices. J1.Alight-conductingsiliconwrapsabeamoflight

aroundastrandofhumanhair.CourtesyofL.TongandE.Mazur.

2. Complexmicrofluidicchannelsarecreatedwithsoftlithographytechniques.CourtesyofD.Weitz.

3. Microfabricationtechniquesleadtonewtypesofstructuresandnovelmaterials.CourtesyofG.Whitesides.

4. Thesecolorfulrock-likepatternsareactuallyelementalmapstakenwithanEnergyDispersiveX-raySpectroscopySystem.CourtesyofCIMS.

5. Aninvasiveglioblastomacell(atumor)remodelsthefibersofagelmatrixsurroundingit.CourtesyofV.Gordon,E.Filippidi,andL.Kaufman.

6.Wavesinjectedintotworesonatorsinatwo-dimentionalelectrongas(2DEG)emergethroughopeningsinthecavities.CourtesyofE.HellerandR.Westervelt.

7. Aslurryofsmallparticlesthatoscillateupanddownandformintoacrown.CourtesyofH.StoneandJohannSchleier-Smith(aformerHarvardundergraduate).

8. Bothwater-in-oil-in-water(w/o/w)emulsionsandtheinverse(o/w/o)formdropswithindrops.CourtesyofD.Weitz.

9. Concentratedsuspensionsofparticleswithapoly-merpresentinthesolutionbehavelikepastes.CourtesyofD.Weitz.

10.Two-andthree-dimensionalpatternsofdropsemergewhenmicrofluidicchannelswiden.Cour-tesyofG.Crisobal-Azkarate.

11.Nearlyperfectpackingofnanoparticlescausedbythesurfacetensionofaliquid.CourtesyManoukAbkarian,JanineNunes,andDavidBell.

12.Anairbubblecoveredbypolystyreneparticles.Theparticlesadherereadilytothebubbleinter-faceduetothesaltpresentinthewater.CourtesyofR.Larsen.

13.Sphericalshellsofmicron-sizedparticlescanbeformedbyintroducingcolloidal(agel-likemix-ture)particlestoemulsiondroplets.CourtesyofM.Brenner,D.Nelson,andD.Weitz.


Documents

Harvard SEAS, Newsletter, Fall 2004