Thad Eugene Starner is a founder and director of the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Tech 's College of Computing , where he is a full professor. He is a pioneer of wearable computing as well as human-computer interaction , augmented environments , and pattern recognition . Starner is a strong advocate of continuous-access, everyday-use systems, and has worn his own customized wearable computer continuously since 1993. His work has touched on handwriting and sign-language analysis, intelligent agents and augmented realities. He also helped found Charmed Technology.
79-665: Starner graduated from Dallastown Area High School in York PA in 1987 with honors. He won a talent show in technological science for one of the first AI puzzle-solving PC computer simulations in 1986 before high school graduation gaining him early recognition. Starner graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Science (1991), a B.S. in Computer Science (1991),
158-610: A M.S. in Media Arts and Science, and finally a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences (1999) from the MIT Media Laboratory . His doctoral work was entitled "Wearable Computing and Contextual Awareness," dealing with pattern recognition and how wearable computing can be utilized for purposes such as recognizing hand motions used in American Sign Language . Starner is probably most well known for being
237-442: A towing tank for testing ship and ocean structure designs, and previously Alcator C-Mod , which was the largest fusion device operated by any university. MIT's campus-wide wireless network was completed in the fall of 2005 and consists of nearly 3,000 access points covering 9.4 × 10 ^ sq ft (870,000 m ) of campus. The campus' primary energy source is natural gas. In connection with capital campaigns to expand
316-401: A "technological" research university and to build more autonomy from private industry. In the 1930s, President Karl Taylor Compton and Vice-President (effectively Provost ) Vannevar Bush emphasized the importance of pure sciences like physics and chemistry and reduced the vocational practice required in shops and drafting studios. The Compton reforms "renewed confidence in the ability of
395-564: A bridge between the deaf and hearing communities that will facilitate communication between the two using an ASL-to-English one-way translator . Starner is also researching dual-purpose speech, where a wearable computer will be able to interpret certain speech patterns and bring up appropriate programs, such as a calendar for scheduling appointments. In addition, Starner has been involved in the Aware Home project, which uses technology to create an interactive and personalizable environment within
474-600: A dense high-rise transit-oriented development plan. The MIT Museum has moved immediately adjacent to a Kendall Square subway entrance, joining the List Visual Arts Center on the eastern end of the campus. Each building at MIT has a number (possibly preceded by a W , N , E , or NW ) designation, and most have a name as well. Typically, academic and office buildings are referred to primarily by number while residence halls are referred to by name. The organization of building numbers roughly corresponds to
553-564: A desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually, the MIT Corporation approved a formal agreement to merge with Harvard and move to Allston, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni. The merger plan collapsed in 1905 when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that MIT could not sell its Back Bay land. In 1912, MIT acquired its current campus by purchasing
632-676: A first for a non-industrial – much less university – building in the US. Bosworth's design was influenced by the City Beautiful Movement of the early 1900s and features the Pantheon -esque Great Dome housing the Barker Engineering Library. The Great Dome overlooks Killian Court, where graduation ceremonies are held each year. The friezes of the limestone-clad buildings around Killian Court are engraved with
711-431: A kit made by Park Enterprises, a Private Eye display, and a Twiddler chorded keyboard . As of January 29, 2008, Starner's setup has evolved to include a heads-up display showing 640x480 screen resolution, a Twiddler, and an OQO Model 1 Ultra-Mobile PC (though the specifications listed suggest an OQO Model 01+ ) with a GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM , 30GB hard disk, USB2 , Firewire , and Wi-Fi built in, as well as
790-534: A mile along the north side of the Charles River basin. The campus is divided roughly in half by Massachusetts Avenue , with most dormitories and student life facilities to the west and most academic buildings to the east. The bridge closest to MIT is the Harvard Bridge , which is known for being marked off in a non-standard unit of length – the smoot . The Kendall/MIT MBTA Red Line station
869-588: A mobile phone with cellular Internet access as well. Some of the benefits he receives from wearing a computer include being able to type and access the Internet while walking around or talking to others, allowing him to take notes on a conversation in real-time , opening up notes on a certain subject and e-mailing them at any time or even having two conversations at once, one online and one face to face, and if he comes across something he doesn't know or recognize, he can instantly find out. In addition to augmenting
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#1732794566197948-488: A modest fee. The " edX " online platform supporting MITx was initially developed in partnership with Harvard and its analogous "Harvardx" initiative. The courseware platform is open source, and other universities have already joined and added their own course content. In March 2009 the MIT faculty adopted an open-access policy to make its scholarship publicly accessible online. MIT has its own police force. Three days after
1027-496: A new Schwarzman College of Computing dedicated to the study of artificial intelligence, named after lead donor and The Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman . The focus of the new college is to study not just AI, but interdisciplinary AI education, and how AI can be used in fields as diverse as history and biology. The cost of buildings and new faculty for the new college is expected to be $ 1 billion upon completion. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
1106-678: A one-mile (1.6 km) tract of filled lands along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The neoclassical "New Technology" campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious "Mr. Smith", starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman , an inventor of film production methods and founder of Eastman Kodak . Between 1912 and 1920, Eastman donated $ 20 million ($ 304.2 million in 2024 dollars) in cash and Kodak stock to MIT. In 1916, with
1185-405: A polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws. The Rogers Plan reflected
1264-421: A special type of educational institution which can be defined as a university polarized around science, engineering, and the arts. We might call it a university limited in its objectives but unlimited in the breadth and the thoroughness with which it pursues these objectives. —MIT president James Rhyne Killian These activities affected MIT profoundly. A 1949 report noted the lack of "any great slackening in
1343-613: A strong advocate for wearable computing . During his time at the MIT Media Lab, Starner, already responsible for helping create one of the earliest high-accuracy online cursive handwriting recognition systems in 1993 as an associate scientist with BBN 's Speech Systems Group, became one of the world's leading experts on the subject. Starner is also a co-founder of the IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) and co-founder and first member of
1422-543: Is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science . Founded in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States , MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering . MIT
1501-497: Is a large, highly residential, research university with a majority of enrollments in graduate and professional programs. The university has been accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges since 1929. MIT operates on a 4–1–4 academic calendar with the fall semester beginning after Labor Day and ending in mid-December, a 4-week "Independent Activities Period" in the month of January, and
1580-454: Is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by MIT Technology Review magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. The subcategories for the awards change from year to year, but generally focus on biomedicine , computing , communications , business , energy , materials , and the web . Nominations are sent from around the world and evaluated by a panel of expert judges. In some years, an Innovator of
1659-593: Is located on the northeastern edge of the campus, in Kendall Square . The Cambridge neighborhoods surrounding MIT are a mixture of high tech companies occupying both modern office and rehabilitated industrial buildings, as well as socio-economically diverse residential neighborhoods. In early 2016, MIT presented its updated Kendall Square Initiative to the City of Cambridge, with plans for mixed-use educational, retail, residential, startup incubator, and office space in
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#17327945661971738-617: Is one of three private land-grant universities in the United States, the others being Cornell University and Tuskegee University . The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River , and operates off-campus facilities including the MIT Lincoln Laboratory , the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory , as well as affiliated laboratories such as
1817-459: Is the largest research facility of its kind in the nation. With a cost of US$ 400 million, it is also one of the costliest buildings on campus. The facility also provides state-of-the-art nanoimaging capabilities with vibration damped imaging and metrology suites sitting atop a 5 × 10 ^ lb (2,300,000 kg) slab of concrete underground. Other notable campus facilities include a pressurized wind tunnel for testing aerodynamic research,
1896-470: Is the largest taxpayer in the city, contributing approximately 14% of the city's annual revenues. Holdings include Technology Square , parts of Kendall Square , University Park , and many properties in Cambridgeport and Area 4 neighboring the main campus. The land is held for investment purposes and potential long-term expansion. MIT's School of Architecture , founded in 1865 and now called
1975-403: Is widely conceived as basically a vocational school", a "partly unjustified" perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and
2054-580: The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , and the Tech Model Railroad Club wrote some of the earliest interactive computer video games like Spacewar! and created much of modern hacker slang and culture. Several major computer-related organizations have originated at MIT since the 1980s: Richard Stallman 's GNU Project and the subsequent Free Software Foundation were founded in the mid-1980s at
2133-547: The Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, MIT Police patrol officer Sean Collier was fatally shot by the suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev , setting off a violent manhunt that shut down the campus and much of the Boston metropolitan area for a day. One week later, Collier's memorial service was attended by more than 10,000 people, in a ceremony hosted by the MIT community with thousands of police officers from
2212-479: The Broad and Whitehead Institutes . As of October 2024 , 105 Nobel laureates , 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medals of Technology and Innovation recipients, 50 MacArthur Fellows , 83 Marshall Scholars , 41 astronauts , 16 Chief Scientists of
2291-587: The German research university model , emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars and laboratories. Two days after MIT was chartered, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MIT's first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865. The new institute was founded as part of
2370-508: The MIT Sloan School of Management were formed in 1950 to compete with the powerful Schools of Science and Engineering . Previously marginalized faculties in the areas of economics, management, political science, and linguistics emerged into cohesive and assertive departments by attracting respected professors and launching competitive graduate programs. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences continued to develop under
2449-700: The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to fund institutions "to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes" and was a land-grant school. In 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College , which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst . In 1866, the proceeds from land sales went toward new buildings in
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2528-554: The One Laptop per Child initiative to expand computer education and connectivity to children worldwide was launched in 2005. MIT was named a sea-grant college in 1976 to support its programs in oceanography and marine sciences and was named a space-grant college in 1989 to support its aeronautics and astronautics programs. Despite diminishing government financial support over the past quarter century, MIT launched several successful development campaigns to significantly expand
2607-546: The governor of Massachusetts , on April 10, 1861. Rogers, who was educated at the College of William & Mary and later held professorships at both William & Mary and the University of Virginia , wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. He did not wish to found a professional school , but a combination with elements of both professional and liberal education , proposing that: The true and only practicable object of
2686-467: The "Technology Plan" in 1920. As MIT grew under the Tech Plan, it built new postgraduate programs that stressed laboratory work on industry problems, including a new program in electrical engineering. Gerard Swope , MIT's chairman and head of General Electric , believed talented engineers needed scientific research training. In 1930, he recruited Karl Taylor Compton to helm MIT's transformation as
2765-510: The 1980s, there was more controversy at MIT over its involvement in SDI (space weaponry) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare) research. More recently, MIT's research for the military has included work on robots, drones and 'battle suits'. MIT has kept pace with and helped to advance the digital age. In addition to developing the predecessors to modern computing and networking technologies, students, staff, and faculty members at Project MAC ,
2844-742: The AI Lab; the MIT Media Lab was founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner to promote research into novel uses of computer technology; the World Wide Web Consortium standards organization was founded at the Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee ; the OpenCourseWare project has made course materials for over 2,000 MIT classes available online free of charge since 2002; and
2923-556: The Back Bay. MIT was informally called "Boston Tech". The institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker . Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, and
3002-568: The Boston area's classical architecture and serve as examples of contemporary campus " starchitecture ". These buildings have not always been well received; in 2010, The Princeton Review included MIT in a list of twenty schools whose campuses are "tiny, unsightly, or both". Undergraduates are guaranteed four-year housing in one of MIT's 11 undergraduate dormitories. Those living on campus can receive support and mentoring from live-in graduate student tutors, resident advisors, and faculty housemasters. Because housing assignments are made based on
3081-611: The Institute to develop leadership in science as well as in engineering". Unlike Ivy League schools, MIT catered more to middle-class families, and depended more on tuition than on endowments or grants for its funding. The school was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1934. Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at MIT that "the Institute
3160-514: The LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves, two Caltech physicists, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish , and MIT physicist Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2017. Weiss, who is also an MIT graduate, designed the laser interferometric technique, which served as the essential blueprint for the LIGO. In April of 2024, MIT students joined other campuses across
3239-528: The MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo), a subsidiary of the MIT Corporation created in 2004. A minor revenue source for much of the Institute's history, the endowment's role in MIT operations has grown due to strong investment returns since the 1990s, making it one the largest endowments held by American universities . Among its holdings are a majority of shares in the audio equipment manufacturer Bose Corporation . MIT
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3318-546: The MIT Wearable Computing Project, where he was one of the first 6 cyborgs involved. Since 1993, Starner has been wearing his own customized wearable computer system full-time, arguably one of the longest, if not the longest, such instances. He designed the hardware for his system, dubbed "The Lizzy", based on designs of the wearable "hip PC" designed by Doug Platt, who built Starner's original wearable. The original system consisted of custom parts from
3397-628: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Acts of 1861, Chapter 183 In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay , Boston for a " Conservatory of Art and Science ", but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed by William Barton Rogers , was signed by John Albion Andrew ,
3476-638: The Media Lab, the Sloan School's eastern campus, and graduate residences in the northwest. In 2006, President Hockfield launched the MIT Energy Research Council to investigate the interdisciplinary challenges posed by increasing global energy consumption . In 2001, inspired by the open source and open access movements , MIT launched OpenCourseWare to make the lecture notes, problem sets , syllabi, exams, and lectures from
3555-535: The New England region and Canada. On November 25, 2013, MIT announced the creation of the Collier Medal, to be awarded annually to "an individual or group that embodies the character and qualities that Officer Collier exhibited as a member of the MIT community and in all aspects of his life". The announcement further stated that "Future recipients of the award will include those whose contributions exceed
3634-523: The School of Architecture and Planning, was the first formal architecture program in the United States, and it has a history of commissioning progressive buildings. The first buildings constructed on the Cambridge campus, completed in 1916, are sometimes called the "Maclaurin buildings" after Institute president Richard Maclaurin who oversaw their construction. Designed by William Welles Bosworth , these imposing buildings were built of reinforced concrete ,
3713-538: The US Air Force , and 1 foreign head of state have been affiliated with MIT. The institute also has a strong entrepreneurial culture and MIT alumni have founded or co-founded many notable companies. MIT is a member of the Association of American Universities . [...] a school of industrial science aiding the advancement, development and practical application of science in connection with arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce [...] Act to Incorporate
3792-643: The United States in protests and setting up encampments against the Israel–Hamas war . Student likened their actions to the historic protests against the American invasion of Vietnam and MIT investment’s in South African apartheid ; they called for ending ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense . MIT's 166-acre (67.2 ha) campus in the city of Cambridge spans approximately
3871-552: The Year or a Humanitarian of the Year is also named from among the winners. The purpose of the award is to honor "Exceptionally talented young innovators whose work has the greatest potential to transform the world." The award was started in 1999 as the TR100, with 100 winners, but was changed to TR35 (35 winners) starting in 2005. The awards are presented to the winners at the annual Emtech conference on emerging technologies, held in
3950-408: The arts and sciences. In 2010, it was dubbed "most selective" by U.S. News , admitting few transfer students and 4.1% of its applicants in the 2020–2021 admissions cycle. It is need-blind for both domestic and international applicants. MIT offers 44 undergraduate degrees across its five schools. In the 2017–2018 academic year, 1,045 Bachelor of Science degrees (abbreviated " SB ") were granted,
4029-540: The boundaries of their profession, those who have contributed to building bridges across the community, and those who consistently and selflessly perform acts of kindness". In September 2017, the school announced the creation of an artificial intelligence research lab called the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. IBM will spend $ 240 million over the next decade, and the lab will be staffed by MIT and IBM scientists. In October 2018 MIT announced that it would open
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#17327945661974108-734: The budget, new programs, degrees and faculty appointments, and elects a president to manage the university and preside over the Institute's faculty. The current president is Sally Kornbluth , a cell biologist and former provost at Duke University , who became MIT's eighteenth president in January 2023. MIT has five schools ( Science , Engineering , Architecture and Planning , Management , and Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences ) and one college ( Schwarzman College of Computing ), but no schools of law or medicine. While faculty committees assert substantial control over many areas of MIT's curriculum, research, student life, and administrative affairs,
4187-636: The campus, the Institute has also extensively renovated existing buildings to improve their energy efficiency. MIT has also taken steps to reduce its environmental impact by running alternative fuel campus shuttles, subsidizing public transportation passes , constructing solar power offsets , and building a cogeneration plant to power campus electricity, heating, and cooling requirements. MIT has substantial commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge on which it pays property taxes , plus an additional voluntary payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) on academic buildings which are legally tax-exempt. As of 2017 , it
4266-549: The campus: new dormitories and athletics buildings on west campus; the Tang Center for Management Education ; several buildings in the northeast corner of campus supporting research into biology , brain and cognitive sciences , genomics , biotechnology , and cancer research ; and a number of new "backlot" buildings on Vassar Street including the Stata Center . Construction on campus in the 2000s included expansions of
4345-551: The chair of each of MIT's 32 academic departments reports to the dean of that department's school, who in turn reports to the Provost under the President. Academic departments are also evaluated by "Visiting Committees," specialized bodies of Corporation members and outside experts who review the performance, activities, and needs of each department. MIT's endowment , real estate, and other financial assets are managed through by
4424-491: The country gathered at MIT's Radiation Laboratory , established in 1940 to assist the British military in developing microwave radar . The work done there significantly affected both the war and subsequent research in the area. Other defense projects included gyroscope -based and other complex control systems for gunsight , bombsight , and inertial navigation under Charles Stark Draper 's Instrumentation Laboratory ;
4503-691: The development of a digital computer for flight simulations under Project Whirlwind ; and high-speed and high-altitude photography under Harold Edgerton . By the end of the war, MIT became the nation's largest wartime R&D contractor (attracting some criticism of Bush), employing nearly 4000 in the Radiation Laboratory alone and receiving in excess of $ 100 million ($ 1.2 billion in 2015 dollars) before 1946. Work on defense projects continued even after then. Post-war government-sponsored research at MIT included SAGE and guidance systems for ballistic missiles and Project Apollo . ...
4582-553: The dormitory system starting in 2002. Because FSILGs had previously housed as many as 300 freshmen off-campus, the new policy could not be implemented until Simmons Hall opened in that year. In 2013–2014, MIT abruptly closed and then demolished undergrad dorm Bexley Hall, citing extensive water damage that made repairs infeasible. In 2017, MIT shut down Senior House after a century of service as an undergrad dorm. That year, MIT administrators released data showing just 60% of Senior House residents had graduated in four years. Campus-wide,
4661-560: The expanding university. By the 1950s, MIT no longer simply benefited the industries with which it had worked for three decades, and it had developed closer working relationships with new patrons, philanthropic foundations and the federal government. In late 1960s and early 1970s, student and faculty activists protested against the Vietnam War and MIT's defense research. In this period MIT's various departments were researching helicopters, smart bombs and counterinsurgency techniques for
4740-518: The fall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where there is an awards ceremony and reception. There are several regional TR35 lists produced by Technology Review also, such as the list of the top 35 innovators under 35 in Europe , MENA , Latin America , Asia Pacific , China and India . The regional winners are automatically qualified as candidates for the global list. In 2013,
4819-474: The first academic buildings complete, the MIT administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion. Institute faculty continued to debate whether the Institute education should continue to emphasize "hands on" industrial training or scientific research. Needing funds to match Eastman's gift and cover retreating state support, President Richard MacLaurin launched an industry funding model known as
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#17327945661974898-548: The four-year graduation rate is 84% (the cumulative graduation rate is significantly higher). MIT is a publicly-chartered nonprofit corporation governed by a privately appointed board known as the MIT Corporation . A large board since MIT's founding, the Corporation has 60–80 members at any time, some with fixed terms, some with life appointments, and eight who serve ex officio . The Corporation approves
4977-641: The great majority of its courses available online for no charge, though without any formal accreditation for coursework completed. While the cost of supporting and hosting the project is high, OCW expanded in 2005 to include other universities as a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which currently includes more than 250 academic institutions with content available in at least six languages. In 2011, MIT announced it would offer formal certification (but not credits or degrees) to online participants completing coursework in its "MITx" program, for
5056-587: The home that would benefit individuals who wouldn't normally be able to live independently. Starner's preeminence in his field earned him a spot among Technology Review 's TR100 top 100 remarkable innovators (now renamed TR35 and limited to thirty-five winners) in 1999. His work has featured on CBS 's 60 Minutes, CNN , BBC , and The Wall Street Journal and has been demonstrated to a number of Fortune 500 companies including Merrill Lynch , IBM , and Motorola . Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT )
5135-548: The men participated in fraternities and 20% of the women were involved in sororities. Most FSILGs are located across the river in Back Bay near where MIT was founded, and there is also a cluster of fraternities on MIT's West Campus that face the Charles River Basin. After the 1997 alcohol-related death of Scott Krueger, a new pledge at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, MIT required all freshmen to live in
5214-446: The most popular department, collectively identify themselves as "Course 6". MIT students use a combination of the department's course number and the number assigned to the class to identify their subjects; for instance, the introductory calculus-based classical mechanics course is simply "8.01" (pronounced eight-oh-one ) at MIT. The four-year, full-time undergraduate program maintains a balance between professional majors and those in
5293-439: The most powerful university-based nuclear reactors in the United States. The prominence of the reactor's containment building in a densely populated area has been controversial, but MIT maintains that it is well-secured. MIT Nano, also known as Building 12, is an interdisciplinary facility for nanoscale research. Its 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m ) cleanroom and research space, visible through expansive glass facades,
5372-702: The names of important scientists and philosophers. The spacious Building 7 atrium at 77 Massachusetts Avenue is regarded as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor and the rest of the campus. Alvar Aalto 's Baker House (1947), Eero Saarinen 's MIT Chapel and Kresge Auditorium (1955), and I.M. Pei 's Green , Dreyfus, Landau, and Wiesner buildings represent high forms of post-war modernist architecture . More recent buildings like Frank Gehry 's Stata Center (2004), Steven Holl 's Simmons Hall (2002), Charles Correa 's Building 46 (2005), and Fumihiko Maki 's Media Lab Extension (2009) stand out among
5451-782: The only type of undergraduate degree MIT now awards. In the 2011 fall term, among students who had designated a major, the School of Engineering was the most popular division, enrolling 63% of students in its 19 degree programs, followed by the School of Science (29%), School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences (3.7%), Sloan School of Management (3.3%), and School of Architecture and Planning (2%). The largest undergraduate degree programs were in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ( Course 6–2 ), Computer Science and Engineering ( Course 6–3 ), Mechanical Engineering ( Course 2 ), Physics ( Course 8 ), and Mathematics ( Course 18 ). TR35 The Innovators Under 35
5530-399: The order in which the buildings were built and their location relative (north, west, and east) to the original center cluster of Maclaurin buildings. Many of the buildings are connected above ground as well as through an extensive network of tunnels, providing protection from the Cambridge weather as well as a venue for roof and tunnel hacking . MIT's on-campus nuclear reactor is one of
5609-436: The outside world, having a computer on at all times improves Starner's nerves while giving talks; Starner has a speech impediment but is able to speak more clearly when prompted by a computer. Starner is a Technical Lead/Manager on Google 's Project Glass wearable computing project. One of his prominent research focuses is the involvement of wearable computing with American Sign Language (ASL). His work intends to create
5688-556: The pace of life at the Institute" to match the return to peacetime, remembering the "academic tranquility of the prewar years", though acknowledging the significant contributions of military research to the increased emphasis on graduate education and rapid growth of personnel and facilities. The faculty doubled and the graduate student body quintupled during the presidential terms of Karl Taylor Compton (1930–1948), James Rhyne Killian (1948–1957), and chancellor Julius Adams Stratton (1952–1957), whose institution-building strategies shaped
5767-905: The preferences of the students themselves, diverse social atmospheres can be sustained in different living groups; for example, according to the Yale Daily News staff's The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2010 , "The split between East Campus and West Campus is a significant characteristic of MIT. East Campus has gained a reputation as a thriving counterculture." MIT also has 5 dormitories for single graduate students and 2 apartment buildings on campus for married student families. MIT has an active Greek and co-op housing system, including thirty-six fraternities , sororities , and independent living groups ( FSILGs ). As of 2015 , 98% of all undergraduates lived in MIT-affiliated housing; 54% of
5846-637: The protests. The student body, faculty, and administration remained comparatively unpolarized during what was a tumultuous time for many other universities. Johnson was seen to be highly successful in leading his institution to "greater strength and unity" after these times of turmoil. However six MIT students were sentenced to prison terms at this time and some former student leaders, such as Michael Albert and George Katsiaficas , are still indignant about MIT's role in military research and its suppression of these protests. ( Richard Leacock 's film, November Actions , records some of these tumultuous events. ) In
5925-674: The size of the student body increased to more than one thousand. The curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership. During these "Boston Tech" years, MIT faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president (and former MIT faculty) Charles W. Eliot 's repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard College's Lawrence Scientific School . There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard. In its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving
6004-451: The spring semester commencing in early February and ceasing in late May. MIT students refer to both their majors and classes using numbers or acronyms alone. Departments and their corresponding majors are numbered in the approximate order of their foundation; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is Course 1 , while Linguistics and Philosophy is Course 24 . Students majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS),
6083-427: The successive terms of the more humanistically oriented presidents Howard W. Johnson and Jerome Wiesner between 1966 and 1980. MIT's involvement in military science surged during World War II . In 1941, Vannevar Bush was appointed head of the federal Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed funding to only a select group of universities, including MIT. Engineers and scientists from across
6162-588: The war in Vietnam as well as guidance systems for nuclear missiles. The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded on March 4, 1969 during a meeting of faculty members and students seeking to shift the emphasis on military research toward environmental and social problems. MIT ultimately divested itself from the Instrumentation Laboratory and moved all classified research off-campus to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory facility in 1973 in response to
6241-514: Was designed and constructed by a team of scientists from California Institute of Technology , MIT, and industrial contractors, and funded by the National Science Foundation . It was designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astronomy through the detection of gravitational waves predicted by general relativity . Gravitational waves were detected for the first time by the LIGO detector in 2015. For contributions to
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