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      in Energy

      Ms. Nuclear Energy is winning over nuclear skeptics

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      First-year MIT nuclear science and engineering (NSE) doctoral student Kaylee Cunningham is not the first person to notice that nuclear energy has a public relations problem. But her commitment to dispel myths about the alternative power source has earned her the moniker “Ms. Nuclear Energy” on TikTok and a devoted fan base on the social media platform.

      Cunningham’s activism kicked into place shortly after a week-long trip to Iceland to study geothermal energy. During a discussion about how the country was going to achieve its net zero energy goals, a representative from the University of Reykjavik balked at Cunnigham’s suggestion of including a nuclear option in the alternative energy mix. “The response I got was that we’re a peace-loving nation, we don’t do that,” Cunningham remembers. “I was appalled by the reaction, I mean we’re talking energy not weapons here, right?” she asks. Incredulous, Cunningham made a TikTok that targeted misinformation. Overnight she garnered 10,000 followers and “Ms. Nuclear Energy” was off to the races. Ms. Nuclear Energy is now Cunningham’s TikTok handle.

      Kaylee Cunningham: Dispelling myths and winning over skeptics

      A theater and science nerd

      TikTok is a fitting platform for a theater nerd like Cunningham. Born in Melrose, Massachusetts, Cunningham’s childhood was punctuated by moves to places where her roofer father’s work took the family. She moved to North Carolina shortly after fifth grade and fell in love with theater. “I was doing theater classes, the spring musical, it was my entire world,” Cunningham remembers. When she moved again, this time to Florida halfway through her first year of high school, she found the spring musical had already been cast. But she could help behind the scenes. Through that work, Cunningham gained her first real exposure to hands-on tech. She was hooked.

      Soon Cunningham was part of a team that represented her high school at the student Astronaut Challenge, an aerospace competition run by Florida State University. Statewide winners got to fly a space shuttle simulator at the Kennedy Space Center and participate in additional engineering challenges. Cunningham’s team was involved in creating a proposal to help NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, designed to help the agency gather a large boulder from a near-earth asteroid. The task was Cunningham’s induction into an understanding of radiation and “anything nuclear.” Her high school engineering teacher, Nirmala Arunachalam, encouraged Cunningham’s interest in the subject.

      The Astronaut Challenge might just have been the end of Cunningham’s path in nuclear engineering had it not been for her mother. In high school, Cunningham had also enrolled in computer science classes and her love of the subject earned her a scholarship at Norwich University in Vermont where she had pursued a camp in cybersecurity. Cunningham had already laid down the college deposit for Norwich.

      But Cunningham’s mother persuaded her daughter to pay another visit to the University of Florida, where she had expressed interest in pursuing nuclear engineering. To her pleasant surprise, the department chair, Professor James Baciak, pulled out all the stops, bringing mother and daughter on a tour of the on-campus nuclear reactor and promising Cunningham a paid research position. Cunningham was sold and Backiak has been a mentor throughout her research career.

      Merging nuclear engineering and computer science

      Undergraduate research internships, including one at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she could combine her two loves, nuclear engineering and computer science, convinced Cunningham she wanted to pursue a similar path in graduate school.

      Cunningham’s undergraduate application to MIT had been rejected but that didn’t deter her from applying to NSE for graduate school. Having spent her early years in an elementary school barely 20 minutes from campus, she had grown up hearing that “the smartest people in the world go to MIT.” Cunningham figured that if she got into MIT, it would be “like going back home to Massachusetts” and that she could fit right in.

      Under the advisement of Professor Michael Short, Cunningham is looking to pursue her passions in both computer science and nuclear engineering in her doctoral studies.

      The activism continues

      Simultaneously, Cunningham is determined to keep her activism going.

      Her ability to digest “complex topics into something understandable to people who have no connection to academia” has helped Cunningham on TikTok. “It’s been something I’ve been doing all my life with my parents and siblings and extended family,” she says.

      Punctuating her video snippets with humor — a Simpsons reference is par for the course — helps Cunningham break through to her audience who love her goofy and tongue-in-cheek approach to the subject matter without compromising accuracy. “Sometimes I do stupid dances and make a total fool of myself, but I’ve really found my niche by being willing to engage and entertain people and educate them at the same time.”

      Such education needs to be an important part of an industry that’s received its share of misunderstandings, Cunningham says. “Technical people trying to communicate in a way that the general people don’t understand is such a concerning thing,” she adds. Case in point: the response in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident, which prevented massive contamination leaks. It was a perfect example of how well our safety regulations actually work, Cunningham says, “but you’d never guess from the PR fallout from it all.”

      As Ms. Nuclear Energy, Cunningham receives her share of skepticism. One viewer questioned the safety of nuclear reactors if “tons of pollution” was spewing out from them. Cunningham produced a TikTok that addressed this misconception. Pointing to the “pollution” in a photo, Cunningham clarifies that it’s just water vapor. The TikTok has garnered over a million views. “It really goes to show how starving for accurate information the public really is,” Cunningham says, “ in this age of having all the information we could ever want at our fingertips, it’s hard to sift through and decide what’s real and accurate and what isn’t.”

      Another reason for her advocacy: doing her part to encourage young people toward a nuclear science or engineering career. “If we’re going to start putting up tons of small modular reactors around the country, we need people to build them, people to run them, and we need regulatory bodies to inspect and keep them safe,” Cunningham points out. “ And we don’t have enough people entering the workforce in comparison to those that are retiring from the workforce,” she adds. “I’m able to engage those younger audiences and put nuclear engineering on their radar,” Cunningham says. The advocacy has been paying off: Cunningham regularly receives — and responds to — inquiries from high school junior girls looking for advice on pursuing nuclear engineering.

      All the activism is in service toward a clear end goal. “At the end of the day, the fight is to save the planet,” Cunningham says, “I honestly believe that nuclear power is the best chance we’ve got to fight climate change and keep our planet alive.” More

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      in Energy

      Q&A: Three Tata Fellows on the program’s impact on themselves and the world

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      The Tata Fellowship at MIT gives graduate students the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary research and work with real-world applications in developing countries. Part of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, this fellowship contributes to the center’s goal of designing appropriate, practical solutions for resource-constrained communities. Three Tata Fellows — Serena Patel, Rameen Hayat Malik, and Ethan Harrison — discuss the impact of this program on their research, perspectives, and time at MIT.

      Serena Patel

      Serena Patel graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in energy engineering and a minor in energy and resources. She is currently pursuing her SM in technology and policy at MIT and is a Tata Fellow focusing on decarbonization in India using techno-economic modeling. Her interest in the intersection of technology, policy, economics, and social justice led her to attend COP27, where she experienced decision-maker and activist interactions firsthand.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: The Tata Center appealed to my interest in searching for creative, sustainable energy technologies that center collaboration with local-leading organizations. It has also shaped my understanding of the role of technology in sustainable development planning. Our current energy system disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, and new energy systems have the potential to perpetuate and/or create inequities. I am broadly interested in how we can put people at the core of our technological solutions and support equitable energy transitions. I specifically work on techno-economic modeling to analyze the potential for an early retirement of India’s large coal fleet and conversion to long-duration thermal energy storage. This could mitigate job losses from rapid transitions, support India’s energy system decarbonization plan, and provide a cost-effective way to retire stranded assets.

      Q: Why is interdisciplinary study important to real-world solutions for global communities, and how has working at the intersection of technology and policy influenced your research?

      A: Technology and policy work together in mediating and regulating the world around us. Technological solutions can be disruptive in all the good ways, but they can also do a lot of harm and perpetuate existing inequities. Interdisciplinary studies are important to mitigate these interrelated issues so innovative ideas in the ivory towers of Western academia do not negatively impact marginalized communities. For real-world solutions to positively impact individuals, marginalized communities need to be centered within the research design process. I think the research community’s perspective on real-world, global solutions is shifting to achieve these goals, but much work remains for resources to reach the right communities.

      The energy space is especially fascinating because it impacts everyone’s quality of life in overt or nuanced ways. I’ve had the privilege of taking classes that sit at the intersection of energy technology and policy, involving land-use law, geographic representation, energy regulation, and technology policy. In general, working at the intersection of technology and policy has shaped my perspective on how regulation influences widespread technology adoption and the overall research directions and assumptions in our energy models.

      Q: How has your experience at COP27 influenced your approach to your research?

      A: Attending COP27 at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, last November influenced my understanding of the role of science, research, and activism in climate negotiations and action. Science and research are often promoted as necessary for sharing knowledge at the higher levels, but they were also used as a delay tactic by negotiators. I heard how institutional bodies meant to support fair science and research often did not reach intended stakeholders. Lofty goals or financial commitments to ensure global climate stability and resilience still lacked implementation and coordination with deep technology transfer and support. On the face of it, these agreements have impact and influence, but I heard many frustrations over the lack of tangible, local support. This has driven my research to be as context-specific as possible, to provide actionable insights and leverage different disciplines.

      I also observed the role of activism in the negotiations. Decision-makers are accountable to their country, and activists are spreading awareness and bringing transparency to the COP process. As a U.S. citizen, I suddenly became more aware of how political engagement and awareness in the country could push the boundaries of international climate agreements if the government were more aligned on climate action.

      Rameen Hayat Malik

      Rameen Hayat Malik graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering and a Bachelor of Laws. She is currently pursuing her SM in technology and policy and is a Tata Fellow researching the impacts of electric vehicle (EV) battery production in Indonesia. Originally from Australia, she first became interested in the geopolitical landscape of resources trade and its implications for the clean energy transition while working in her native country’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: I came across the Tata Fellowship while looking for research opportunities that aligned with my interest in understanding how a just energy transition will occur in a global context, with a particular focus on emerging economies. My research explores the techno-economic, social, and environmental impacts of nickel mining in Indonesia as it seeks to establish itself as a major producer of EV batteries. The fellowship’s focus on community-driven research has given me the freedom to guide the scope of my research. It has allowed me to integrate a community voice into my work that seeks to understand the impact of this mining on forest-dependent communities, Indigenous communities, and workforce development.

      Q: Battery technology and production are highly discussed in the energy sector. How does your research on Indonesia’s battery production contribute to the current discussion around batteries, and what drew you to this topic?

      A: Indonesia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal, while also having one of the largest nickel reserves in the world — a key mineral for EV battery production. This presents an exciting opportunity for Indonesia to be a leader in the energy transition, as it both seeks to phase out coal production and establish itself as a key supplier of critical minerals. It is also an opportunity to actually apply principles of a just transition to the region, which seeks to repurpose and re-skill existing coal workforces, to bring Indigenous communities into the conversation around the future of their lands, and to explore whether it is actually possible to sustainably and ethically produce nickel for EV battery production.

      I’ve always seen battery technologies and EVs as products that, at least today, are accessible to a small, privileged customer base that can afford such technologies. I’m interested in understanding how we can make such products more widely affordable and provide our lowest-income communities with the opportunities to actively participate in the transition — especially since access to transportation is a key driver of social mobility. With nickel prices impacting EV prices in such a dramatic way, unlocking more nickel supply chains presents an opportunity to make EV batteries more accessible and affordable.

      Q: What advice would you give to new students who want to be a part of real-world solutions to the climate crisis?

      A: Bring your whole self with you when engaging these issues. Quite often we get caught up with the technology or modeling aspect of addressing the climate crisis and forget to bring people and their experiences into our work. Think about your positionality: Who is your community, what are the avenues you have to bring that community along, and what privileges do you hold to empower and amplify voices that need to be heard? Find a piece of this complex puzzle that excites you, and find opportunities to talk and listen to people who are directly impacted by the solutions you are looking to explore. It can get quite overwhelming working in this space, which carries a sense of urgency, politicization, and polarization with it. Stay optimistic, keep advocating, and remember to take care of yourself while doing this important work.

      Ethan Harrison

      After earning his degree in economics and applied science from the College of William and Mary, Ethan Harrison worked at the United Nations Development Program in its Crisis Bureau as a research officer focused on conflict prevention and predictive analysis. He is currently pursuing his SM in technology and policy at MIT. In his Tata Fellowship, he focuses on the impacts of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on global vulnerability and the global energy market.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: Coming to MIT, one of my chief interests was figuring out how we can leverage gains from technology to improve outcomes and build pro-poor solutions in developing and crisis contexts. The Tata Fellowship aligned with many of the conclusions I drew while working in crisis contexts and some of the outstanding questions that I was hoping to answer during my time at MIT, specifically: How can we leverage technology to build sustainable, participatory, and ethically grounded interventions in these contexts?

      My research currently examines the secondary impacts of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on low- and middle-income countries — especially fragile states — with a focus on shocks in the global energy market. This includes the development of a novel framework that systematically identifies factors of vulnerability — such as in energy, food systems, and trade dependence — and quantitatively ranks countries by their level of vulnerability. By identifying the specific mechanisms by which these countries are vulnerable, we can develop a map of global vulnerability and identify key policy solutions that can insulate countries from current and future shocks.

      Q: I understand that your research deals with the relationship between oil and gas price fluctuation and political stability. What has been the most surprising aspect of this relationship, and what are its implications for global decarbonization?

      A: One surprising aspect is the degree to which citizen grievances regarding price fluctuations can quickly expand to broader democratic demands and destabilization. In Sri Lanka last year and in Egypt during the Arab spring, initial protests around fuel prices and power outages eventually led to broader demands and the loss of power by heads of state. Another surprising aspect is the popularity of fuel subsidies despite the fact that they are economically regressive: They often comprise a large proportion of GDP in poor countries, disproportionately benefit higher-income populations, and leave countries vulnerable to fiscal stress during price spikes.

      Regarding implications for global decarbonization, one project we are pursuing examines the implications of directing financing from fuel subsidies toward investments in renewable energy. Countries that rely on fossil fuels for electricity have been hit especially hard 
by price spikes from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, especially since many were carrying costly fuel subsidies to keep the price of fuel and energy artificially low. Much of the international community is advocating for low-income countries to invest in renewables and reduce their fossil fuel burden, but it’s important to explore how global decarbonization can align with efforts to end energy poverty and other Sustainable Development Goals.

      Q: How does your research impact the Tata Center’s goal of transforming policy research into real-world solutions, and why is this important?

      A: The crisis in Ukraine has shifted the international community’s focus away from other countries in crisis, such as Yemen and Lebanon. By developing a global map of vulnerability, we’re building a large evidence base on which countries have been most impacted by this crisis. Most importantly, by identifying individual channels of vulnerability for each country, we can also identify the most effective policy solutions to insulate vulnerable populations from shocks. Whether that’s advocating for short-term social protection programs or identifying more medium-term policy solutions — like fuel banks or investment in renewables — we hope providing a detailed map of sources of vulnerability can help inform the global response to shocks imposed by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and post-Covid recovery. More

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      in Environment

      Dyanna Jaye: Bringing the urgency of organizing to climate policy

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      Growing up in the Tidewater region of Virginia, Dyanna Jaye had a front row seat to the climate crisis. She recalls beach stabilization efforts that pumped sand from the bottom of the ocean to the shore in response to rising sea levels. And every hurricane season, the streets would flood.

      “I was thinking at a younger age about some pretty big questions,” says Jaye. “Can I call this place home for the rest of my life? Probably not. The changes that we will endure because of climate change will probably make the place where I grew up unlivable in my lifetime.”

      Jaye attended the University of Virginia, where she studied environmental science and global development studies. She also started to get involved in organizing efforts around climate policy. The first campaign she was a part of aimed to retire UVA’s coal plant and move to more renewable energy.

      “We didn’t really win, but I learned a lot in that first campaign,” she says.

      Jaye went on to co-found the Sunrise Movement, which helped launch the Green New Deal as a framework for ambitious, holistic climate policy across the country.

      Now pursuing a master’s in city planning at MIT, Jaye is seeking a deeper understanding of how to implement climate-conscious policy across all levels of government. She hopes to bring the lessons learned back to her home state.

      “My goal is to make it back to Virginia and have a better of an idea of how to plan a multidecade transition that decarbonizes our economy while also building good jobs and protecting the fundamental things that we need in our life,” says Jaye. “Virginia was this place where I felt like I could see both ends of the climate crisis, and realized you need a holistic solution to address all aspects of this.”

      A foundation in organizing

      After graduating from the University of Virginia, Jaye led a delegation of young people from the U.S. to the United Nations to campaign for a global commitment to phase out fossil fuels and fund equitable climate solutions. At the time, the Paris climate agreement was being negotiated. Witnessing that process firsthand was eye-opening.

      Jaye realized to push the U.S. forward in the fight against climate change, she needed to help build a nationwide movement that could push the federal government to enact ambitious policy. Along with six like-minded friends, Jaye co-founded the Sunrise Movement.

      “It feels silly to say this now, but part of Sunrise was just to get climate change to be a more urgent issue, because at the time it was politically unpopular to even talk about it,” Jaye says. “The vision that became the Green New Deal was this plan to decarbonize our society within 10 years and bring all the benefits we can to build a stronger, more connected, and healthier society.”

      Jaye describes her five years with Sunrise as a “wild whirlwind.” As the national organizing director, she worked on engagement strategies to recruit new people to the movement. Following a few key wins at the polls, Sunrise grew from a handful of chapters concentrated in swing states to over 500 chapters across the nation.

      On the other side, crafting policy

      Though she is no longer directly involved with the Sunrise Movement, Jaye has moved onto a different stage of the fight. For the final year of her master’s, she will be writing her thesis while working with the Massachusetts Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience. The office is newly established as of this year, evidence of the federal funding wins that Sunrise helped make possible.

      “Transparently, we wanted to win a lot more,” says Jaye. “We had huge goals, but we did win a lot of things at the federal level. So, the time is now to get federal funding and move it through state implementation and planning, and it’s urgent.”

      The flexibility of the city planning program allows students to study theory while also putting that theory in practice in local government. Jaye’s thesis will focus on the best planning approach for full government strategy, informed by her work in the climate office. While previous climate policy focused purely on the environmental sector, effectively addressing climate change will take a multipronged approach touching every sector, from transportation to housing to energy distribution to food production.

      “What’s really cool about being in the government right now in Massachusetts is getting to see a model as they’re trying to take climate from being an environmental priority to a number one, whole-of-government challenge,” says Jaye. “It’s an issue that’s embedded into every department and level of our government.”

      As she finishes her master’s, Jaye is still keeping an eye toward home. While she isn’t in a rush to leave Massachusetts, she is always thinking about the lessons she’s learning can apply to Virginia. And by building skills in both planning and organizing, Jaye will be well-equipped to make an impact wherever she lands.

      “I still feel very committed to community organizing. We’re living in a divided time where our democracy is being challenged, and organizing is what we need to do to respond to that,” says Jaye. “We also need a lot more people diving in on the work of policy and governance to determine how we transition our economy and our energy system, how are we going to go about doing something like that. Right now, I’m feeling excited to be on that side of the work.” More

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      Q&A: Steven Gonzalez on Indigenous futurist science fiction

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      Steven Gonzalez is a PhD candidate in the MIT Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS), where he researches the environmental impacts of cloud computing and data centers in the United States, Iceland, and Puerto Rico. He is also an author. Writing under the name E.G. Condé, he recently published his first book, “Sordidez.” It’s described as an “Indigenous futurist science fiction novella set in Puerto Rico and the Yucatán.” Set in the near future, it follows the survivors of civil war and climate disaster led by protagonist Vero Diaz, as they reclaim their Indigenous heritage and heal their lands.

      In this Q&A, Gonzalez describes the book’s themes, its inspirations, and its connection to research, people, and classes at MIT.

      Q: Where did the inspiration for this story come from?

      A: I actually began my time at MIT in September of 2017 when Hurricane María struck. It was a really difficult time for me at the Institute, starting a PhD program. And it’s MIT, so there’s a lot of pressure. I was still kind of navigating the new institutional space and trying to understand my place in it. But I had a lot of people at the Institute who were extremely supportive during that time. I had family members in Puerto Rico who were stranded as a result of the hurricane, who I didn’t hear from for a very long time — who I feared dead. It was a very, very chaotic, confusing, and emotionally turbulent time for me, and also incredibly difficult to be trying to be present in a PhD program for the first semester. Karen Gardner, our administrator, was really incredibly supportive in that. Also the folks at the MIT Association of Puerto Ricans, who hosted fundraisers and linked students with counseling resources. But that trauma of the hurricane and the images that I saw of the aftermath of the hurricane, specifically in the town where my grandmother’s house was where I spent time living as a child during the summers, and to me, it was the greenest place that I have ever known. It looked like somebody had torched the entire landscape. It was traumatizing to see that image. But that kind of seeded the idea of, is there a way to burn without fire? There’s climate change, but there’s also climate terror. And so that was sort of one of the premises of the book explores, geoengineering, but also the flip side of geoengineering and terraforming is, of course, climate terror. And in a way, we could frame what’s been happening with the fossil fuel industry as a form of climate terror, as well. So for me, this all began right when I started at MIT, these dual tracks of thought.

      Q: What do you see as the core themes of your novella?

      A: One major theme is rebuilding. As I said, this story was very influenced by the trauma of Hurricane María and the incredibly inspiring accounts from family members, from people in Puerto Rico that I know, of regular people stepping up when the government — both federal and local — essentially abandoned them. There were so many failures of governance. But people stepped up and did what they could to help each other, to help neighbors. Neighbors cleared trees from roads. They banded together to do this. They pooled resources, to run generators so that everyone in the same street could have food that day. They would share medical supplies like insulin and things that were scarce. This was incredibly inspiring for me. And a huge theme of the book is rebuilding in the aftermath of a fictive hurricane, which I call Teddy, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, where Puerto Rico’s journey began as a U.S. commonwealth or a colony.

      Healing is also a huge theme. Healing in the sense of this story was also somewhat critical of Puerto Rican culture. And it’s refracted through my own experience as a queer person navigating the space of Puerto Rico as a very kind of religious and traditional place and a very complex place at that. The main character, Vero, is a trans man. This is a person who’s transitioned and has felt a lot of alienation and as a result of his gender transition, a lot of people don’t accept him and don’t accept his identity or who he is even though he’s incredibly helpful in this rebuilding effort to the point where he’s, in some ways, a leader, if not the leader. And it becomes, in a way, about healing from the trauma of rejection too. And of course, Vero, but other characters who have gone through various traumas that I think are very much shared across Latin America, the Latin American experiences of assimilation, for instance. Latin America is a very complex place. We have Spanish as our language, that is our kind of lingua franca. But there are many Indigenous languages that people speak that have been not valued or people who speak them or use them are actively punished. And there’s this deep trauma of losing language. And in the case of Puerto Rico, the Indigenous language of the Taínos has been destroyed by colonialism. The story is about rebuilding that language and healing and “becoming.” In some ways, it’s about re-indigenization. And then the last part, as I said, healing, reconstruction, but also transformation and metamorphosis. And becoming Taíno. Again, what does that mean? What does it mean to be an Indigenous Caribbean in the future? And so that’s one of the central themes of the story.

      Q: How does the novella intersect with the work you’re doing as a PhD candidate in HASTS?

      A: My research on cloud computing is very much about climate change. It’s pitched within the context of climate change and understanding how our digital ecosystem contributes to not only global warming, but things like desertification. As a social scientist, that’s what I study. My studies of infrastructure are also directly referenced in the book in a lot of ways. For instance, the now collapsed Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, where some of my pandemic fieldwork occurred, is a setting in the book. And also, I am an anthropologist. I am Puerto Rican. I draw both from my personal experience and my anthropological lens to make a story that I think is very multicultural and multilingual. It’s set in Puerto Rico, but the other half is set in the Yucatán Peninsula in what we’ll call the former Maya world. And there’s a lot of intersections between the two settings. And that goes back to the deeper Indigenous history. Some people are calling this Indigenous futurism because it references the Taínos, who are the Indigenous people of Puerto Rico, but also the Mayas, and many different Maya groups that are throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, but also present-day Guatemala and Honduras. And the story is about exchange between these two worlds. As someone trained as an anthropologist, it’s a really difficult task to kind of pull that off. And I think that my training has really, really helped me achieve that.

      Q: Are there any examples of ways being among the MIT community while writing this book influenced and, in some ways, made this project possible?

      A: I relied on many of my colleagues for support. There’s some sign language in the book. In Puerto Rico, there’s a big tradition of sign language. There’s a version of American sign language called LSPR that’s only found in Puerto Rico. And that’s something I’ve been aware of ever since I was a kid. But I’m not fluent in sign language or deaf communities and their culture. I got a lot of help from Timothy Loh, who’s in the HASTS program, who was extremely helpful to steer me towards sensitivity readers in the deaf community in his networks. My advisor, Stefan Helmreich, is very much a science fiction person in a lot of ways. His research is on the ocean waves, the history and anthropology of biology. He’s done ethnography in deep-sea submersibles. He’s always kind of thinking in a science fictional lens. And he allowed me, for one of my qualifying exam lists, to mesh science fiction with social theory. And that was also a way that I felt very supported by the Institute. In my coursework, I also took a few science fiction courses in other departments. I worked with Shariann Lewitt, who actually read the first version of the story. I workshopped it in her 21W.759 (Writing Science Fiction) class, and got some really amazing feedback that led to what is now a publication and a dream fulfilled in so many ways. She took me under her wing and really believed in this book. More

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      in Environment

      3 Questions: Boosting concrete’s ability to serve as a natural “carbon sink”

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      Damian Stefaniuk is a postdoc at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub). He works with MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm and Admir Masic of the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) to investigate multifunctional concrete. Here, he provides an overview of carbonation in cement-based products, a brief explanation of why understanding carbonation in the life cycle of cement products is key for assessing their environmental impact, and an update on current research to bolster the process.

      Q: What is carbonation and why is it important for thinking about concrete from a life-cycle perspective?

      A: Carbonation is the reaction between carbon dioxide (CO2) and certain compounds in cement-based products, occurring during their use phase and end of life. It forms calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and has important implications for neutralizing the GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and achieving carbon neutrality in the life cycle of concrete.

      Firstly, carbonation causes cement-based products to act as natural carbon sinks, sequestering CO2 from the air and storing it permanently. This helps mitigate the carbon emissions associated with the production of cement, reducing their overall carbon footprint.

      Secondly, carbonation affects concrete properties. Early-stage carbonation may increase the compressive strength of cement-based products, enhancing their durability and structural performance. However, late-stage carbonation can impact corrosion resistance in steel-reinforced concrete due to reduced alkalinity.

      Considering carbonation in the life cycle of cement-based products is crucial for accurately assessing their environmental impact. Understanding and leveraging carbonation can help industry reduce carbon emissions and maximize carbon sequestration potential. Paying close attention to it in the design process aids in creating durable and corrosion-resistant structures, contributing to longevity and overall sustainability.

      Q: What are some ongoing global efforts to force carbonation?

      A: Some ongoing efforts to force carbonation in concrete involve artificially increasing the amount of CO2 gas present during the early-stage hydration of concrete. This process, known as forced carbonation, aims to accelerate the carbonation reaction and its associated benefits.

      Forced carbonation is typically applied to precast concrete elements that are produced in artificially CO2-rich environments. By exposing fresh concrete to higher concentrations of CO2 during curing, the carbonation process can be expedited, resulting in potential improvements in strength, reduced water absorption, improved resistance to chloride permeability, and improved performance during freeze-thaw. At the same time, it can be difficult to quantify how much CO2 is absorbed and released because of the process.

      These efforts to induce early-stage carbonation through forced carbonation represent the industry’s focus on optimizing concrete performance and environmental impacts. By exploring methods to enhance the carbonation process, researchers and practitioners seek to more efficiently harness its benefits, such as increasing strength and sequestering CO2.

      It is important to note that forced carbonation requires careful implementation and monitoring to ensure desired outcomes. The specific procedures and conditions vary based on the application and intended goals, highlighting the need for expertise and controlled environments.

      Overall, ongoing efforts in forced carbonation contribute to the continuous development of concrete technology, aiming to improve its properties and reduce its carbon footprint throughout the life cycle of the material.

      Q: What is chemically-induced pre-cure carbonation, and what implications does it have?

      A: Chemically-induced pre-cure carbonation (CIPCC) is a method developed by the MIT CSHub to mineralize and permanently store CO2 in cement. Unlike traditional forced carbonation methods, CIPCC introduces CO2 into the concrete mix as a solid powder, specifically sodium bicarbonate. This approach addresses some of the limitations of current carbon capture and utilization technologies.

      The implications of CIPCC are significant. Firstly, it offers convenience for cast-in-place applications, making it easier to incorporate CO2 use in concrete projects. Unlike some other approaches, CIPCC allows for precise control over the quantity of CO2 sequestered in the concrete. This ensures accurate carbonation and facilitates better management of the storage process. CIPCC also builds on previous research regarding amorphous hydration phases, providing an additional mechanism for CO2 sequestration in cement-based products. These phases carbonate through CIPCC, contributing to the overall carbon sequestration capacity of the material.

      Furthermore, early-stage pre-cure carbonation shows promise as a pathway for concrete to permanently sequester a controlled and precise quantity of CO2. Our recent paper in PNAS Nexus suggests that it could theoretically offset at least 40 percent of the calcination emissions associated with cement production, when anticipating advances in the lower-emissions production of sodium bicarbonate. We also found that up to 15 percent of cement (by weight) could be substituted with sodium bicarbonate without compromising the mechanical performance of a given mix. Further research is needed to evaluate long-term effects of this process to explore the potential life-cycle savings and impacts of carbonation.

      CIPCC offers not only environmental benefits by reducing carbon emissions, but also practical advantages. The early-stage strength increase observed in real-world applications could expedite construction timelines by allowing concrete to reach its full strength faster.

      Overall, CIPCC demonstrates the potential for more efficient and controlled CO2 sequestration in concrete. It represents an important development in concrete sustainability, emphasizing the need for further research and considering the material’s life-cycle impacts.

      This research was carried out by MIT CSHub, which is sponsored by the Concrete Advancement Foundation and the Portland Cement Association. More

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      in Energy

      3 Questions: What’s it like winning the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition?

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      Solar power plays a major role in nearly every roadmap for global decarbonization. But solar panels are large, heavy, and expensive, which limits their deployment. But what if solar panels looked more like a yoga mat?

      Such a technology could be transported in a roll, carried to the top of a building, and rolled out across the roof in a matter of minutes, slashing installation costs and dramatically expanding the places where rooftop solar makes sense.

      That was the vision laid out by the MIT spinout Active Surfaces as part of the winning pitch at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which took place May 15. The company is leveraging materials science and manufacturing innovations from labs across MIT to make ultra-thin, lightweight, and durable solar a reality.

      The $100K is one of MIT’s most visible entrepreneurship competitions, and past winners say the prize money is only part of the benefit that winning brings to a burgeoning new company. MIT News sat down with Active Surface founders Shiv Bhakta, a graduate student in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations dual-degree program within the MIT Sloan School of Management and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Richard Swartwout SM ’18 PhD ’21, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate and former Research Laboratory of Electronics postdoc and MIT.nano innovation fellow, to learn what the last couple of months have been like since they won.

      Q: What is Active Surfaces’ solution, and what is its potential?

      Bhakta: We’re commercializing an ultrathin film, flexible solar technology. Solar is one of the most broadly distributed resources in the world, but access is limited today. It’s heavy — it weighs 50 to 60 pounds a panel — it requires large teams to move around, and the form factor can only be deployed in specific environments.

      Our approach is to develop a solar technology for the built environment. In a nutshell, we can create flexible solar panels that are as thin as paper, just as efficient as traditional panels, and at unprecedented cost floors, all while being applied to any surface. Same area, same power. That’s our motto.

      When I came to MIT, my north star was to dive deeper in my climate journey and help make the world a better, greener place. Now, as we build Active Surfaces, I’m excited to see that dream taking shape. The prospect of transforming any surface into an energy source, thereby expanding solar accessibility globally, holds the promise of significantly reducing CO2 emissions at a gigaton scale. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

      Swartwout: Solar and a lot of other renewables tend to be pretty land-inefficient. Solar 1.0 is using low hanging fruit: cheap land next to easy interconnects and new buildings designed to handle the weight of current panels. But as we ramp up solar, those things will run out. We need to utilize spaces and assets better. That’s what I think solar 2.0 will be: urban PV deployments, solar that’s closer to demand, and integrated into the built environment. These next-generation use cases aren’t just a racking system in the middle of nowhere.

      We’re going after commercial roofs, which would cover most [building] energy demand. Something like 80-90 percent of building electricity demands in the space can be met by rooftop solar.

      The goal is to do the manufacturing in-house. We use roll-to-roll manufacturing, so we can buy tons of equipment off the shelf, but most roll-to-roll manufacturing is made for things like labeling and tape, and not a semiconductor, so our plan is to be the core of semiconductor roll-to-roll manufacturing. There’s never been roll-to-roll semiconductor manufacturing before.

      Q: What have the last few months been like since you won the $100K competition?

      Bhakta: After winning the $100K, we’ve gotten a lot of inbound contact from MIT alumni. I think that’s my favorite part about the MIT community — people stay connected. They’ve been congratulating us, asking to chat, looking to partner, deploy, and invest.

      We’ve also gotten contacted by previous $100K competition winners and other startups that have spun out of MIT that are a year or two or three ahead of us in terms of development. There are a lot of startup scaling challenges that other startup founders are best equipped to answer, and it’s been huge to get guidance from them.

      We’ve also gotten into top accelerators like Cleantech Open, Venture For Climatetech, and ACCEL at Greentown Labs. We also onboarded two rockstar MIT Sloan interns for the summer. Now we’re getting to the product-development phase, building relationships with potential pilot partners, and scaling up the area of our technology.      

      Swartwout: Winning the $100K competition was a great point of validation for the company, because the judges themselves are well known in the venture capital community as well as people who have been in the startup ecosystem for a long time, so that has really propelled us forward. Ideally, we’ll be getting more MIT alumni to join us to fulfill this mission.

      Q: What are your plans for the next year or so?

      Swartwout: We’re planning on leveraging open-access facilities like those at MIT.nano and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We’re pretty focused now on scaling size. Out of the lab, [the technology] is a 4-inch by 4-inch solar module, and the goal is to get up to something that’s relevant for the industry to offset electricity for building owners and generate electricity for the grid at a reasonable cost.

      Bhakta: In the next year, through those open-access facilities, the goal is to go from 100-millimeter width to 300-millimeter width and a very long length using a roll-to-roll manufacturing process. That means getting through the engineering challenges of scaling technology and fine tuning the performance.

      When we’re ready to deliver a pilotable product, it’s my job to have customers lined up ready to demonstrate this works on their buildings, sign longer term contracts to get early revenue, and have the support we need to demonstrate this at scale. That’s the goal. More

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      in Environment

      Helping the transportation sector adapt to a changing world

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      After graduating from college, Nick Caros took a job as an engineer with a construction company, helping to manage the building of a new highway bridge right near where he grew up outside of Vancouver, British Columbia.  

      “I had a lot of friends that would use that new bridge to get to work,” Caros recalls. “They’d say, ‘You saved me like 20 minutes!’ That’s when I first realized that transportation could be a huge benefit to people’s lives.”

      Now a PhD candidate in the Urban Mobility Lab and the lead researcher for the MIT Transit Research Consortium, Caros works with seven transit agencies across the country to understand how workers’ transportation needs have changed as companies have adopted remote work policies.

      “Another cool thing about working on transportation is that everybody, even if they don’t engage with it on an academic level, has an opinion or wants to talk about it,” says Caros. “As soon as I mention I’ve worked with the T, they have something they want to talk about.”

      Caros is drawn to projects with social impact beyond saving his friends a few minutes during their commutes. He sees public transportation as a crucial component in combating climate change and is passionate about identifying and lowering the psychological barriers that prevent people around the world from taking advantage of their local transit systems.

      “The more I’ve learned about public transportation, the more I’ve come to realize it will play an essential part in decarbonizing urban transportation,” says Caros. “I want to continue working on these kinds of issues, like how we can make transportation more sustainable or promoting public transportation in places where it doesn’t exist or can be improved.”

      Caros says he doesn’t have a “transportation origin story,” like some of his peers who grew up in urban centers with robust public transit systems. As a child growing up in the Vancouver suburbs, he always enjoyed the outdoors, which were as close as his backyard. He chose to study engineering as an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia, fascinated by the hydroelectric dams that supply Vancouver with most of its power. But after two projects with the construction company, the second of which took him to Maryland to work on a fossil fuel project, he decided he needed a change.

      Not quite sure what he wanted to do next, Caros sought out the shortest master’s program he could find that interested him. That ended up being an 18-month master’s program in transportation planning and engineering at New York University. Initially intending to pursue the course-based program, Caros was soon offered the chance to be a research assistant in NYU’s Behavioral Urban Informatics, Logistics, and Transport Laboratory with Professor Joseph Chow. There, he worked to model an experimental transportation system of modular self-driving cars that could link and unlink with each other while in motion.

      “It was this really futuristic stuff,” says Caros. “It turned out to be a really cool project to work on because it’s kind of rare to have a blank-slate problem to try and solve. A lot of transportation engineering problems have largely been solved. We know how to make efficient and sustainable transportation systems; it’s just finding the political support and encouraging behavioral change that remains a challenge.”

      At NYU, Caros fell in love with research and the field of transportation. Later, he was drawn to MIT by its interdisciplinary PhD program that spans both urban studies and planning and civil engineering and the opportunity to work with Professor Jinhua Zhao.

      His research focuses on identifying “third places,” locations where some people go if their job gives them the flexibility to work remotely. Previously, transportation needs revolved around office spaces, typically located in city centers. With more people working from home, the first assumption is that transportation needs would decrease. But that’s not what Caros has found.

      “One major finding from our research is that people have changed where they’re going when they go to work,” says Caros. “A lot of people are working from home, but some are also working in other places, like coffee shops or co-working spaces. And these third places are not evenly distributed in Boston.”

      Identifying the concentration of these third places and what locations would benefit from them is the core of Caros’ dissertation. He’s building an algorithm that identifies ideal locations to build more shared workplaces based on both economic and social factors. Caros seeks to answer how you can minimize travel time across the board while leaving room for the spontaneous social interactions that drive a city’s productivity. His research is sponsored by seven of the largest transit agencies in the United States, who are members of the MIT Transit Research Consortium. Rather than a single agency sponsoring a single specific project, funding is pooled to tackle projects that address general topics that can apply to multiple cities.

      These kinds of problems require a multidisciplinary approach that appeals to Caros. Even when diving into the technical details of a solution, he always keeps the bigger picture in mind. He is certain that changing people’s views of public transportation will be crucial in the fight against climate change.

      “A lot of it is not necessarily engineering, but understanding what the motivations of people are,” says Caros. “Transportation is a leading sector for carbon emissions in the U.S., and so figuring out what makes people tick and how you can get them to ride public transit more, for example, would help to reduce the overall carbon cost.”

      Following the completion of his degree, Caros will join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He already spent six months at its Paris headquarters as an intern during a leave from MIT, something his lab encourages all of its students to do. Last fall, he worked on drafting policy guidelines for new mobility services such as vehicle-share scooters, and addressing transportation equity issues in Ghana. Plus, living in Paris gave him the opportunity to practice his French. Growing up in Canada, he attended a French immersion school, and his internship offered his first opportunity to use the language outside of an academic context.

      Looking forward, Caros hopes to keep tackling projects that promote sustainable public transportation. There is an urgency in getting ahead of the curve, especially in cities experiencing rapid growth.

      “You kind of get locked in,” says Caros. “It becomes much harder to build sustainable transportation systems after the fact. But it’s really just a geometry problem. Trains and buses are a way more efficient way to move people using the same amount of space as private cars.” More

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      in Energy

      Understanding boiling to help the nuclear industry and space missions

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      To launch extended missions in space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is borrowing a page from the nuclear engineering industry: It is trying to understand how boiling works.

      Planning for long-term missions has NASA researching ways of packing the least amount of cryogenic fuel possible for efficient liftoff. One potential solution is to refuel the rocket in space using fuel depots placed in low Earth orbits. This way, the spacecraft can carry the lightest fuel load — enough to reach the low Earth orbit to refuel as necessary and complete the mission. But refueling in space requires a thorough knowledge of cryogenic fuels.

      “We [need to understand] how boiling of cryogens behaves in microgravity conditions [encountered in space],” says Florian Chavagnat, a sixth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE). After all, understanding how cryogens boil in space is critical to NASA’s fuel management strategy. The vast majority of studies on boiling evaluate fluids that boil at high temperatures, which doesn’t necessarily apply to cryogens. Under the advisement of Matteo Bucci and Emilio Baglietto, Chavagnat is working on NASA-sponsored research about cryogens and the way the lack of buoyancy in space affects boiling.

      A childhood spent tinkering

      A deep understanding of engineering and physical phenomena is exactly what Chavagnat developed growing up in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, a suburb of Paris, with parents who worked for SNCF, the national state-owned rail company. Chavagnat remembers discussing the working of trains and motors with his engineer dad and building a variety of balsa-wood models. One of his memorable projects was a sailboat propelled by a motor from an electric toothbrush.

      By the time he was a teenager, Chavagnat received a metal lathe as a gift. His tinkering became an obsession; a compressed air engine was a favorite project. Soon his parents’ small shed, meant for gardening, became a factory, Chavagnat recalls, laughing.

      A lifelong love of math and physics propelled a path to the National Institute of Applied Science in Rouen, Normandy, where Chavagnat studied energetics and propulsion as part of a five-year engineering program. In his final year, Chavagnat studied atomic engineering from INSTN Paris-Saclay, part of the esteemed French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

      The final year of studies at CEA required a six-month-long internship, which traditionally sets the course for a job. Chavagnat decided to take a chance and apply for an internship at MIT NSE instead, knowing his future course might be uncertain. “I didn’t take a lot of risk in my life, but this one was a big risk,” Chavagnat says. The gamble paid off: Chavagnat won the internship with Charles Forsberg, which paved the way for his admission as a doctoral student. “I selected MIT because it has always been my dream school,” Chavagnat says. He also enjoyed the idea of challenging himself to improve his English-speaking skills.

      A love of physics and heat transfer

      Chavagnat loves physics — “if I can study any problem in physics, I’d be happy” he says — which led him to working on heat transfer, more specifically on boiling heat transfer. His early doctoral research focused on transient boiling in nuclear reactors, part of which has been published in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer.

      Chavagnat’s research targets a specific kind of nuclear reactor called a material test reactor (MTR). Nuclear scientists use MTRs to understand how materials used in plant operations might behave under long-term use. Densely packed nuclear fuel, running at high power, simulates long-term effects using a very intense neutron flux.

      To prevent failure, operators limit reactor temperature by flowing very cold water at high velocity. When reactor heat power increases uncontrollably, the piped water begins to boil. Boiling works to prevent meltdown by altering neutron moderation and extracting heat from the fuel. “[Unfortunately], that only works until you reach a certain heat flux at the fuel cladding, after which the efficiency completely drops,” Chavagnat says. Once the critical heat flux is reached, water vapor starts to blanket and insulate the fuel elements, leading to rapidly rising cladding temperatures and potential burnout.

      The key is to figure out the behavior of maximum boiling heat flux under routine MTR conditions — cold water, high flow velocity, and narrow spacing between the fuel elements.

      Study of cryogenic boiling

      Boiling continues to occupy center stage as Chavagnat pursues the question for NASA. Cryogens boil at very low temperatures, so the question of how to prevent fuel loss from routine space-based operations is an important one to answer.

      Chavagnat is studying how boiling would behave under reduced or absent buoyancy, which are the conditions cryogenic rocket fuel will encounter in space.

      To reproduce space-like conditions on Earth, buoyancy can be modified without going to space. Chavagnat is manipulating the inclination of the boiling surface — placing it upside down is an example — such that buoyancy does not do what it usually does: help bubbles break away from the surface. He is also performing boiling experiments in parabolic flights to simulate microgravity, similar to what is experienced aboard the International Space Station.

      Chavagnat designed and built equipment which can perform both methods with minimum changes. “We observed nitrogen boiling on our surface by imaging it using two high-speed video cameras,” he says. The experiment was approved to go on board the parabolic flights operated by Zero-G, a company that operates weightless flights. The team successfully completed four parabolic flights in 2022.

      “Flying an experiment aboard an aircraft and operating it in microgravity is an incredible experience, but is challenging,” Chavagnat says, “Knowing the details the experiment is a must, but other skills are quite useful — in particular, working as a team, being able to manage high stress levels, and being able to work while being motion-sick.” Another challenge is that the majority of issues cannot be fixed once aboard, as aircraft pilots perform the parabola (each lasting 17 seconds) almost back-to-back.

      Throughout his research at MIT, Chavagnat has been captivated by how complex a simple phenomenon like boiling can truly be. “In your childhood, you have a certain idea of how boiling looks, relatively slow bubbles that you can see with the naked eye,” he says, “but you don’t realize the complexity until you see it with your own eyes.”

      In his infrequent spare time, Chavagnat plays soccer with the NSE’s team, the Atom Smashers. The group meets only five times a semester so it’s a low-key commitment, says Chavagnat who spends most of his time at the lab. “I am doing mostly experiments at MIT; it turns out the skills I learned in my shed when I was 15 are actually quite useful here,” he laughs. More