harvard seas, newsletter, spring 2009

8/14/2019 Harvard SEAS, Newsletter, Spring 2009

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DeansM

essa

ge

S p r i n g / S u m m e r 2 0 0 9

Theres a saying in scientic circles,the light bulb was not invented bya crash program on candles. Now seems

like a good time to pause and consider

what that saying means, given the media

buzz about the stimulus money for re-

search (shovel-ready science) and evencalls for another moon shot.

First, progress in science and engineer-

ing rarely follows a linear path. If it did,

I suspect our graduate students would

complete their theses twice as fast! Even

with substantial, immediate funding, re-

searchers wont be able simply to conjure

up signicant results on cue.

Secondand related to the previous

pointluck is rarely dumb. Serendipi-

tous breakthroughs grow out of years

of sustained effort, without which they

would not have happenedor been rec-

ognized as important.

In this issue of the newsletter you can

read about how Federico Capasso used

the elusive Casimir-Lifshitz force (once

dismissed as a curiosity) to levitate a small

object (pp. 45). Discovering the force it-

self wasnt the end of the story. It took the

subsequent development to provide the

context for seeing the potential of this

force anew.

Put another way, to get results fromshovel-ready science involves more than

funding the shovel. You need rich soil in

which to dig.

Third, world-class scientic research re-

quires a complex and dynamic infrastruc-

ture. The stimulus will help science, of

course, but the package aims at specic

and very practical ends: creating jobs and

injecting money into the economy for

the near term. For continued success, we

have to consider the entire infrastructure

of science.

Todays big discoveries are collaborativeundertakings and require sustaining a

societal framework for inquiry and inno-

vation. Thats why a one-shot investment

wont make much difference. Rather, we

need to enhance education, encourage and

reward industrial innovation, and recog-

nize the social consequences and political

implications of science and engineering.

With respect to the last of these points, we

are fortunate that Venky Narayanamurti

has been appointed director of the Science,

Technology, and Public Policy Program at

the Belfer Center (p. 11). In his new role,hell be focusing precisely on this vital

political-scientic nexus.

Fourth, top-down direction rarely works

well in science. During these difcult eco-

nomic times, some have proposed another

moon shot to rally the country and open

new avenues for economic revitalization.

If we can put a man on the moon, surely

we can _____! is a popular sentiment.

The grand challenges being nominated

for such an approach include solving the

energy problem, xing the environmental

crisis, and improving global health. But

the trip to the moon was a tightly focused

undertakingyou really could engineer

your way up there. Current global prob-

lems are quite another matter.

In the case of energyas materials scien-

tist Mike Aziz discovered when he created

his new course, Survey of Energy Tech-

nology (pp. 1415)there isnt any sin-

gle solution we can all throw our weight

behind to get the job done.

Soif not to the moonwhere do we gofrom here?

My advice for those who lead research in-stitutions and labs would be to build andnurture environments that encourage dis-covery. In particular, promote conditionsin which ideas can most effectively takeshape. Then, as much as possible, get outof the way! In so doing, youre far morelikely to catch a glimpse of the excitingplaces that creative inquiry can take us.

My advice for our government leaderswould be to see the stimulus as a rst step

towards a broader effort to advance the en-terprise of science and technology. WhileI applaud the desire to restore science toits rightful place, it now permeates all as-pects of life and society.

To my research colleaguesand thoseconsidering scientic careersI recom-mend holding on to the inspiration of thegrand challenges while not getting lost inthe grandeur. If we end up just construct-ing moon shots we may miss far brighterstars along the way.

I want to end this note with thanks to

everyone for making my year as Interimdean a good and very interesting one, es-pecially given the challenging nancialcircumstances. It was an opportunity tosee aspects of the School and the Univer-sity that otherwise Id never have known.

I was fortunate to nish the year with ourVisiting Committees review. It offered anoccasion for some concerted reection onwhere SEAS has been and where its going.And I am pleased at the record of progressthat we have achieved thus far.

While Im eager to take what I have learned

back to my post at the Rowland Institute, Iwill miss the daily personal interactionswith students, faculty, and staff. And Imsure that our new dean, Cherry A. Murray,will soon share my sense of gratitude andexcitement at being part of the wonderfulcommunity that we have here at SEAS. J

Frans A. Spaepen

Interim Dean; John C. and Helen F. Franklin Professor

of Applied Physics


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Linksandno

des

Incoming SEAS dean, Cherry A. Murray, met with

members of the community at a party held in April,

celebrating her arrival.

Cherry A. Murrayappointed dean

Cherry A. Murray, who has led some of

the nations most brilliant scientists and

engineers as an executive at Bell Labora-tories and the Lawrence Livermore Na-

tional Laboratory, has been appointed

dean of Harvard Universitys School

of Engineering and Applied Sciences

(SEAS) effective July 1, 2009. She will

also become the John A. and Elizabeth

S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering

and Applied Sciences.

Murray, 57, is principal associate direc-

tor for science and technology at Law-

rence Livermore National Laboratory in

Livermore, Calif., where she leads 3500employees in providing core science

and technology support for Lawrence

Livermores major programs. She is also

the current president of the American

Physical Society (APS).

Our School of Engineering and Applied

Sciences has made impressive strides in

recent years, and she will bring the stra-

tegic vision and experience necessary

to guide it through its next stage of de-

velopment. It is a privilege to welcome

her to Harvard, said Harvard President

Drew Faust.

A celebrated experimentalist, Murray

is well known for her scientic accom-plishments using light scattering, an

experimental technique in which pho-

tons are red at a target of interest.

I have known Cherry Murray for many

years as a colleague, researcher, and sci-

entic leader, said Venkatesh Venky

Narayanamurti, who stepped down in

September after 10 years as SEAS dean.

She has a deep understanding of the

interplay between basic and applied

research and the role of engineering

and applied science as a linking and in-tegrating disciplinerooted in science,

focused on discovery and innovation,

and connected to the wider world of

technology and society. Her appoint-

ment as SEAS dean is a tremendous

coup. She is a proven leader.

In the appointment announcement,

Michael D. Smith, John H. Finley Jr.

Professor of Engineering and Applied

Sciences and dean of Harvards Faculty

of Arts and Sciences, thanked Frans

Spaepen, who has served as interimdean for the 20082009 academic year,

for his service. Spaepen will return to

his former post as the Director of the

Rowland Institute.

Long-time faculty memberHoward Stone departsfor Princeton

Howard Stone, who joined the Harvard

faculty in 1989 after earning his Ph.D. at

Caltech and spending a year as a post-

doctoral fellow in the Department ofApplied Mathematics and Theoretical

Physics at Cambridge University, de-

parted Harvard in June to take a posi-

tion at Princeton University.

In February he was elected to the Na-

tional Academy of Engineering (NAE),

something he considers both a profes-

sional and personal achievement. My

father, now 87, is also a member of NAE;

he was elected for his contributions

Noted teacher, administrator, and researcher Howard Stone ser

as a faculty member at SEAS for two decades; in June he depa

for Princeton University.

to nuclear engineering after having

worked his entire career for General

Electric, Stone said. He has emeritus

status so did not see the NAE ballot nor

could he vote, so the news that I waselected to NAE was a pleasant surprise

for him as well!

CS 50 Fair offers freepopcorn, PHP

The CS 50 Faircomplete with free pop-

corn and stress ballscelebrated what

can happen in the course of a semester

as students graduate from passive users

to active programmers.

Nearly 900 people from across campus

attended the rst annual end-of-termtech-fest sponsored by students in CS

50, Introduction to Computer Science.

Reps from Akamai, Google, Microsoft,

VMware, and the homegrown hero,

Facebook, also took in the scene.

Enrollment in the course, taught by

SEAS instructor David Malan 99, 07,

has more than doubled (to 330) in the

past year, reecting strong and growing

interest in the courseand in keeping

with national trends.

2 I SEAS Spring/Summer 2009

Life On & Around Oxford Street


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Balloons lined the main staircase of the Northwest

Building, enticing nearly 900 visitors to meet at the

CS50 fair, a festive showcase of nal projects fromthe popular course.

Physics-friendly engineering

The appointment of Dr. Cherry A. Mur-

ray as the new dean of SEAS carrieson a long tradition in physics/appliedphysics. Murray has both of her de-

grees from MIT, both in physics, andconducts research in applied physics.Past deans John Van Vleck, Harvey

Brooks, and Paul Martin all earnedtheir Ph.D.s in physics from Harvardand were well known for their practi-

cal approach to science. In fact, until

Random Bits

It was liberating that I had accumulated skills that I could use in

the sports world. Plus, I was much more passionate about sports than I was about insurance.

Scott Swanay 87 (Applied Mathematics), as quoted in the Harvard Crimson. Swanay made

a major career shift from an actuary for insurance companies to managing a successful

fantasy baseball enterprise.

Overheard

were common. Tracking sea turtles

with RFIDs, rationalizing complicated

course sections and requirements, im-

proving blogging, and enjoying some

retro gaming (a reinterpretation of the

board game Battleship) were also in

the mix. To generate more interest in

computer science, Malan plans to cre-

ate a miniature version of the fair forprospective undergrads.

Teaching labs open theirdoors; IT gets refreshed; MDclassrooms to go the distance

The undergraduate CAD/CAM teach-ing labs debuted with a short course,

Mechanical Engineering: Introduction

to Rapid Prototyping, 3-Axis Milling,and 3D Printing (see pages 13 and 20).

The IT Ofce received a long-overdue

makeover, with the existing space refur-bished to better meet the needs of thecommunity. Harvards Division of Con-

tinuing Education, which has long used

Maxwell Dworkin for evening classes,

will renovate lecture halls G115 andG125 during the summer. One of the ob-

jectives is to facilitate the live streaming

and recording of classes, colloquia, and

other events from these locations.

Chef Ferran Adri cooksfor a crowd; families sharea love of chocolate

By some estimates, over 600 people

showed up for 250 rst-come, rst-

served seats to hear celebrated chef

Ferran Adri discuss his innovations in

molecular gastronomy on December 9(see page6). The annual Holiday Lecture,

held four days later, offered a related cu-

linary theme, The Science of Chocolate.

The family-style talk and demonstration

was a hit; more than 1000 adults and

kids attended the presentation.

SEAS gets greener

In collaboration with the University

Ofce of Sustainability (and its effort to

reduce Harvards greenhouse gas emis-

sions), the SEAS community has taken

active steps to make the campus more

eco-friendly. These steps include the in-

stallation of water-conserving xtures;

a campaign to encourage community

members to bring their own reusable

mugs and turn off power strips and

lights; and more comprehensive solu-

tions, such as automatically regulating

building energy use.J

Buoyed by the electronica music pump-

ing through the ground-level gathering

space in the new Northwest Building,

visitors made station stops to learn

about individual student projects.

iPhone and BlackBerry apps mashing

Google maps with social networking

1975, all led a division with applied

physics in the name. Former dean Venkatesh Venky Narayanamurtiearned his degree in physics fromCornell, and interim dean Spaepen

earned his degree in applied physicsfrom Harvard.

Political science

We take pride that some of our engi-neers end up playing politics. Shaun

Donovan 87, 95, the current sec-retary of Housing and Urban Devel-opment, earned his undergraduate

degree in engineering sciences. Healso earned a Master of Public Ad-

ministration from the Kennedy School

and a masters in architecture at theGraduate School of Design in 1995.

Darcy Burner 96, who graduated in1996 with a B.A. in computer science,

ran for Washingtons 8th Congressio-nal district in 2006 and 2008 but lostby a narrow margin. Former teacher/

mentor Harry Lewis stumped for her(via video) during the campaign. J

Shaun Donovan 87, 95 is helping to

put Americas house in order. The cur-

rent secretary of Housing and Urban

Development earned his undergradu-

ate degree in Engineering Sciences.

SEAS Spring/Summer 2009 I 3


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(above) Demonstration by the Hau lab of a prototype

toroidal trap, created by a suspended, charged

carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanospheredimer. (right) Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)

images showing the morphogenesis of helical

patterns, from the rst-order unclustered nanobristle

to the fourth-order coiled bundle. Lead author Joanna

Aizenberg points out that the large clusters braided in

a unique structure reminiscent of modern dreadlocks

or mythical Medusa.

Recentfindings

A Roundup of Discoveries & Innovations

Researchers merge cold atomsand nanoscale technologies

The lab of Lene Hau, Mallinckrodt Pro-

fessor of Physics and of Applied Physics,

proposed a new class of nanoscale elec-

tro-optical traps for neutral atoms. The

team demonstrated a prototype toroidal

trap, created by a suspended, charged

carbon nanotube decorated with a sil-

ver nanosphere dimer.

An illuminating laser eld, blue detuned

from an atomic resonance frequency, is

strongly focused by plasmons inducedin the dimer and generates both a re-

pulsive potential barrier near the nano-

structure surface and a large viscous

damping force that facilitates trap load-

ing. Atoms with velocities of several me-

ters per second may be loaded directly

into the trap via spontaneous emission

of just two photons. The nding has im-

portance for quantum physics, enabling

novel nano-optic devices.

SEAS CIT implements appli-

cation streaming with IntelThe ofce of Computing and Informa-

tion Technology (CIT) at SEAS is col-

laborating with Intel to simplify the

deployment of engineering and scien-

tic applications to around 1000 stu-

dents and faculty. Through streaming

large, complex scientic and engineer-

ing applications over a heterogeneous

network architecture, initial results

showed install times decreasing from

hours to minutes, as well as fewer

problems caused by human error dur-ing complex installation and licensing

procedures.

Implants mimic infectionto rally immune systemagainst tumors

David Mooney, Gordon McKay Profes-

sor of Bioengineering, and colleagues

showed that small plastic disks impreg-

nated with tumor-specic antigens and

implanted under the skin can repro-

gram the mammalian immune systemto attack tumors.

The research, which rid 90 percent of

mice of an aggressive form of melano-

ma that would usually kill the rodents

within 25 days, represents the most ef-

fective demonstration to date of a can-

cer vaccine.

The implants developed by Mooney and

colleagues are slender disks measuring

8.5 millimeters across. Made of an FDA-

approved biodegradable polymer, they

can be inserted subcutaneously, muchlike the implantable contraceptives

that can be placed in a womans arm.

Mooneys co-authors were Omar A. Ali,

Nathaniel Huebsch, and Lan Cao of

SEAS and Glenn Dranoff of the Dana-

Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and

Womens Hospital, and Harvard Medi-

cal School. The research was funded by

the National Institutes of Health and

Harvard University.

Engineers control assemblyof nanobristles

Joanna Aizenberg, Gordon McKay Pro-

fessor of Materials Science and the Su-

san S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor

at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced

Study, and L. Mahadevan, Lola England

de Valpine Professor of Applied Math-

ematics, discovered a way to synthesize

and control the formation of nano-

bristles into helical clusters and have

further demonstrated the fabrication of

such highly ordered clusters over mul-

tiple scales and areas.

To achieve the clumping effect, the

scientists used an evaporating liquid on

a series of upright individual pillars ar-

rayed like stiff threads on a needlepoint

canvas. The resulting capillary forces

caused the individual strands to deform

and to adhere to one another like braid-

ed hair, forming nanobristles.

Potential applications of the technique

include the ability to store elastic energy

and information embodied in adhesivepatterns that can be created at will.

Aizenberg and Mahadevans co-authors

included Boaz Pokroy and Sung H. Kang,

both in the Aizenberg Biomineraliza-

tion and Biomimetics Lab at SEAS.

Researchers measure elusiverepulsive force

Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace

Professor of Applied Physics, and col-



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leagues from the National Institutes of

Health achieved quantum levitation,measuring, for the rst time, a repulsive

quantum mechanical force that could

be harnessed and tailored for a wide

range of new nanotechnology applica-

tions.

When two surfaces of the same mate-

rial, such as gold, are separated by vac-

uum, air, or a uid, the resulting force

is always attractive, explained Capasso.

When the scientists replaced one of the

two metallic surfaces immersed in a

uid with one made of silica, the forcebetween them switched from attractive

to repulsive.

Potential applications of the teams

nding include the development of

nanoscale bearings based on quantum

levitation suitable for situations in

which ultra-low static friction among

micro- or nano-fabricated mechanical

parts is necessary.

Capassos co-authors were Jeremy Mun-

day, formerly a graduate student in

Harvards Department of Physics andnow a postdoctoral researcher at the

California Institute of Technology, and

V. Adrian Parsegian, senior investigator

at the National Institutes of Health.

Team nds fungal sporesaerodynamic

The reproductive spores of many spe-

cies of fungi have evolved remarkably

drag-minimizing shapes, according to

Notable grantsFour SEAS faculty (Vahid Tarokh and Roger Brockett,Accelerated Contrast-enhanced Whole-Heart Cor-

onary MRI with Compressed Sensing; Kit Parker,Generation of Functional Human Myocardial Tissuefrom Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent

Stem Cells for the Development of Cellular Modelsof Human Disease and Drug Discovery and Design;and David Mooney, Polymer Bacterial Mimics as

Cancer Vaccines) were among the collaborativegroups that won awards in the rst round of Harvard

Catalyst Pilot Grants. The selected projects werechosen from a pool of 607 (representing 1448 in-vestigators) submitted in response to a request for

applications released this past September.

Colleen Hansel, Assistant Professor of Environmen-tal Sciences, and Marko Loncar, Assistant Profes-

sor of Electrical Engineering, have both won FacultyEarly Career Development (CAREER) awards fromthe National Science Foundation (NSF). The honor is

considered one of the most prestigious for up-and-coming researchers in science and engineering.

Hansels current research in environmental microbiol-

ogy and geochemistry focuses on understanding theabiotic and biotic processes that govern the fate andbioavailability of metals within both terrestrial and

aquatic environments. Her lab relies on a multidis-ciplinary approach to understand the link betweenmicrobial metabolism and metal-redox-chemistry.

The $212,000 CAREER Award will support Hanselsresearch in the emerging eld of geomycology, metal

biomineralization by fungi.

Loncars research focuses on phenomena resulting

from the interaction of light and matter on a nano-scale level.The $400,000 CAREER Award will sup-

port Loncars work on nanoscale opto-mechanical

systems.

Harvard was among four universities to receive partof $500,000 in funding from Microsofts SustainableComputing Program. David Brooks, John L. Loeb

Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences and As-sociate Professor of Computer Science; Gu-YeonWei, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering;

and Mike Smith, John H. Finley Jr. Professor of En-gineering and Applied Sciences and Dean of FAS,will develop a dynamic runtime environment to link

power use and load. J

new research by mycologists and ap-

plied mathematicians at SEAS based inthe Brenner lab.

In many cases, the drag experienced by

these fungal spores is within 1 percent

of the absolute minimum possible drag

for their size. But these sleek shapes are

seen only among spores distributed by

air ow, not those which are borne by

animals.

We set out to answer a very simple

question: Why do fungal spores have

the shapes that they do? says co-author

Marcus Roper 07, who contributed tothe research as an applied mathemat-

ics graduate student and is now a post-

doctoral researcher at the University of

California, Berkeley. It turns out that

for forcibly ejected spores, the shape can

be explained by simple physical prin-

ciples: The spores need to have a close

to minimum possible air resistance for

their size. As projectiles, they are close

to perfect.

The unusual marriage of mycology

and applied mathematics was fosteredat Harvard by the physical proximity

of disparate facilities such as the high-

speed cameras Roper used to photo-

graph spore release and the 130-year-old

Farlow Library, which ranks among the

worlds strongest mycological and bo-

tanical collections. J

(above) The Brenner labs work on investigating the aerodynamics of fungal spores combines diverse elds

mycology and applied mathematicsin synergistic and truly collaborative ways, with a critical contribution

coming from Harvards remarkable collections. (right) An artists rendition of how the repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz

force between suitable materials in a uid can be used to quantum mechanically levitate a small object of

density greater than the liquid (courtesy of the Capasso lab).



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Crosscurren

ts

Cooking as Practical ScienceThe evolution of the art and science of cuisine

Haute cuisine comes tocampus

Ferran Adris December 12, 2008,campus visit was no mere ash in

the pan. By the tenets of a memo-

randum of understanding betweenSEAS and his nonprofit founda-

tion, he will work with faculty andstudents, including David Weitz, tocreate a future academic course on

molecular cooking.

Adri offers patrons a taste of the un-usual through the use of hydrocolloids,

or gums that enable a delicate fruitpuree to be transformed into a densegel and relies on deconstruction tech-

niques such as stericacion, creating

a resistant skin of liquid (as in a peasoup held in a pod of nothing more

than itself).

The curious case of CountRumford

Concerned with the fate of cakes andother confections, the nations cooksscarcely give the silhouette on the Rum-

ford Baking Powder label likely never re-ceives more than a cursory glance.

The cloaked gure in question is Sir

Benjamin Thompson (17531814),better known as Count Rumford. Born

in Woburn, Massachusetts, the inven-tor and scientist spent his youth, ac-cording to the Web site for the Rumford

Corporation, boot[legging] physicscourses at Harvardactually walk-ing all the way to Cambridge to attend

lecturesand eventually became oneof the discoverers of the Law of Con-servation of Energy.

Clever as he was, Rumford did notinvent his namesake baking powder.Instead, in 1816 the Count funded

an endowment to support the Rum-ford Professorship at Harvard for theexpress purpose of hiring faculty who

would apply physical and mathemati-cal sciences to the useful arts (espe-cially for those who showed excep-

tional achievements in science andcooking).

His generosity was returned in kind.

Baking powder (patented in 1859) wascreated by a Rumford Professor, Eben

Norton Horsford (181893). Horsfordhonored Rumford on the label as wellas in the name of the company he

cofounded: the Rumford ChemicalWorks.

As for the professorship today, it has

migrated from the lengthy RumfordChair of the Application of Scienceto the Useful Arts to the Rumford

Professor of Physics. Currently JeneGolovchenko, Rumford Professor ofPhysics and Gordon McKay Professor

of Applied Physics, holds the honor.While todays work is a far cry fromcommonplace baking soda and, more

generally, cooking, one suspects theCount would be pleased

Call it a new view on gut instinct.

While enjoying the warmth ofa replace, Harvards Richard

Wrangham, Professor of Anthropology,came up with the idea that cookingmay be what separates human beingsfrom their evolutionary forebears.

In his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us

Human, Wrangham surmises that putting raw

animal esh to the ames before digging in made

digestion far easier for early man. Consequently,

the increasing ability to obtain more and more

diverse calories led to our bigger and more devel-

oped brains.

Whatever the source of humanitys IQ bump,

cooking has certainly evolvedfrom a trial-by-

re affair to a sophisticated art. Creative chefs

have played an essential role in the elevation of

food, of course, but so have those wearing a dif-

ferent sort of white coat: scientists.

The invention of baking powder, essential for

aky biscuits, happened in a Harvard-afliated

facility rather than a kitchen (see sidebar on

right). Moreover, some food items have become

experimental classics. Edgertons milk-drop

coronet and seemingly simple substances such

as honey and cornstarch have helped scientists

understand complex phenomena, from uid dy-

namics to geological formations.

In fact, todays molecular cooking techniques

(also known as molecular gastronomy) rely on

the same methods and even the same equipment

found in the lab.

The resulting menus of bacon foam or ash-

frozen hot chocolate have struck many as preten-tious or just plain weird. Looked at another way,

these chef-scientists are drawing from the 19th-

century denition of their profession: Cooking as

practical science.

Whether or not we ate our way to evolutionary

dominance, from that rst crackle of fat on the

re to todays dollop of culinary foam, the art and

science of cooking have kept evolving, each in-

gredient complementing the other.

lololololololololololololololololololololollololol

lololololololololololololololololololololollololo



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Honey shortbread

Whip together cup butter at roomtemperature with 2/3 cup wildfower honey.Then mix in 3 cups almond four and 2tsp. vanilla. Bake in a greased 8 x 8 panat 350 or 20 to 30 minutes until lightlybrowned.

Culinary Q&AInspired by the December visit to SEAS of famed chef Ferran Adri (see sidebar)and the annual holiday lecture dedicated to the science of chocolate, we askedSEAS-based researchers and collaborators to pose and answer questions related

to experimental food. Recipes (theoretical and practical) follow. Bon apptit!

To see the coiling process at home,

simply dip a chopstick into a jar of

honey and hold it from a sufcient

height above the jar.

When you are done watching the

dazzling display, try out the following

easy recipe.

Why does honey coil?

(and other kitchen mysteries)

Honey on toast: L. Mahadevans quest

to explore the inner workings of ev-

eryday experiences began with such a

breakfast. In 1998, the recently hired

assistant professor at MIT revealed a

scaling law that predicted the coiling

frequency of honey when poured from

a particular height.

In addition to making playing with

ones food sound productive, Mahade-

vans elegant mathematics solved a

longstanding conundrum in uid dy-

namics that seemed nearly impossible

to solve. Curiosity might have driven

the research, but he hinted at the more

practical implications in a New York

Times article that appeared soon after

the nding, saying, The geological

ow of tectonic platesthe mecha-nism that creates mountain ranges

may be similar in principle to the ow

of sheets of honey. Well have to see

how it pans out.

11 years later, a related nding did

in fact pan outcuriously enough,

with the aid of another pantry staple:

cornstarch. Mahadevan helped col-

leagues at the University of Toronto

solve the geological mystery of the Gi-

ants Causeway, an area on the coast of

Ireland composed of 40,000 interlock-

ing basalt columns resulting from avolcanic eruption. The crack patterns

on drying samples of cornstarch are

geometrically similar to the unusually

beautiful stone pillars. This bit of su-

permarket science led to a quantitative

explanation of how such complicated

patterns arose.

One more tidbit too delicious to pass

up: Mahadevan has made another clas-

sic contribution to kitchen science.

He gured out why Cheerios tend to

clump together or stick to the wall in

a breakfast bowl of milk. The Cheerioeffect is due to the surface tension be-

tween the milk and the air.

The air/milk interface does not like to

be deformed, but at the same time, grav-

ity is pulling on the individual Chee-

rios. The two effects cancel, resulting in

oatey holes that like to stick together.

You may never look at breakfast the

same way again.

llololololololololololololololololololololollololo

olololololololololololololololololololololollolol

(Photo by Derek Richardson)



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Attempts to temper

chocolate have left

even the most skilled

cooks cursing. This

how-to guide (see right)

by Amy Rowat gets rid

of the guesswork.

array. To achieve this uniform crystal

structure requires a process called

tempering (see below). A chocolatier

cycles the temperature around the

melting temperature to melt out the

undesirable forms of crystals. The re-

maining mass of Type V seed crystals

serves as nucleation sites for crystal

growth, ensuring that the correct crys-

talline form dominates as the choco-

late cools completely.

As an everyday example, consider the

soft graphite in a pencil versus a hard

diamond, says Rowat. These ma-

terials both consist of carbon atoms

but have vastly different mechanical

properties, depending on the way the

carbon atoms pack together.

The process of tempering also helps

explain why chocolate stored at the

wrong temperature ends up looking

dusty and moldy and crumbles instead

of snaps when broken. The stable crys-

tal forms melt, and upon uncontrolled

cooling, nonuniform types of crystals

form that do not pack together as

densely.

Different types of fat have different

melting or phase transition tempera-

tures, depending on the structure of

the lipid molecules that make up the

fat, Rowat adds. For example, olive

oil is liquid at room temperature,while lard is solid. Understanding the

composition of fat in chocolate also

helps to explain why chocolate typi-

cally melts in your mouth, not in your

hand. Above 97F all crystalline forms

of cocoa butter are liquid.

Why does chocolate have sheen

and snap when you break it?

Amy Rowat, a postdoctoral student in

the Weitz lab, recommends not los-

ing your temper when dealing with

chocolateperhaps one of the most

scientically complex foods you will

ever encounter.

Chocolate is an emulsion of cocoa and

sugar particles suspended in a continu-

ous phase of fat. The natural fat of thecocoa bean (called cocoa butter) gives

chocolate that sumptuous texture as it

melts in your mouth. In addition, the

fat is responsible for the candys char-

acteristic glossy nish, homogeneous

texture that snaps when you break it,

and shelf life.

To make a solid bar, a chocolatier

starts by melting chocolate and then

letting it solidify into different shapes

in molds. While cooling, the cocoa

butter molecules transition from a liq-uid into a solid phase. The molecules

can crystallize into six different forms,

each with a distinct phase transition

temperature and material properties.

Under the wrapper lie two crystal-

line forms, Type V and VI, that pack

the molecules into a dense crystalline

How might aerosolscience changethe way we eat?David Edwards is asking peopleto breathe what they eat. Alongwith current and former Harvardundergraduate students, includ-ing Trevor Martin 10, JonathanKamler 07, Larissa Zhou 10,and chef Thierry Marx, he hashelped commercialize what maybecome the newest olfactory sen-sation: Le Whif.

Dispensing with forks and

knives, the technique encapsu-lates avors in a compact aerosoldelivery system (which lookslike a large tube of lipstick), al-lowing the calorie conscious towhiff avors such as chocolate.When a whiff is inhaled, a cloudof tiny avor particles suspendedin a gas coats your mouth, cre-ating a avor sensation worthyof Willy Wonka. The recentlycommercialized invention wassold in Paris starting in April and

then taken on the road to variouscities across the United States.

Aerosols have played an equallycritical role in Edwards bioengi-neering research. While workingin a food science lab, he cameupon the idea of using a spraydrying process to produce a new,more stable, and potentiallymore effective way to deliver TBvaccines.

Tempering Chocolate

Take a chunk o 70% dark chocolate and place it in a doubleboiler (a heat-proo bowl placed on top o a pot containing water).Heat gently and stir to melt all existing at crystals (T > 105F).Be careul because chocolate burns at higher temperatures, T= 200F. Keep stirring and remove the chocolate rom heat tocool it down to T = 8194F. During this time, both stable andunstable crystals begin to orm. Warm up the chocolate againto T = 90F to melt out the unstable crystal orms, leaving onlythe stable type o crystals. Be sure to keep it at 90F or severalminutes to ensure that the unstable crystals have melted.

Maintain at 90F while you create delicious conections using yourtempered chocolate (excellent or dipping strawberries, candiedginger, and biscotti). Once dipped, lay the goodies on a bakingsheet lined with wax paper to cool.

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9/20

Suggested Eating

Cambridge and Boston-area visitorsinterested in experiencing molecular

gastronomy might like to try the fol-lowing establishments:

Clio RestaurantChef: Ken Oringer. Reserve the tastingmenu (1315 courses) in advancewww.cliorestaurant.com

SaltsChef: Gabriel Bremer

www.saltsrestaurant.com

O yaChef: Tim Cushman

www.oyarestaurantboston.com

Suggested Reading

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made

Us HumanRobert Wrangham. Basic Books (2009).

On Food and Cooking: The

Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Harold McGee. Scribner (1984).

What Einstein Told His Cook:

Kitchen Science Explained

Robert L. Wolke. W. W. Norton& Company (2002).

Whiff

David Edwards (illustrated by JunkoMurata). Harvard University Press (2009).

A Day at El Bulli

Ferran Adri, Juli Soler, and Albert Adri.Phaidon Press (2008).

For the daring, molecular cook Ferran Adri (see

below) created a consomm t for kings, jamn

y melon (Iberian ham and melon), where capsulesof melon spheres hang suspended in a clear

golden broth. Since the cost of the specialty hamalone is $90, Parma ham or prosciutto is a betterbet. Part one of the recipe (the ham consomm)

is below. The full recipe is available online(www.thestar.com/article/513456). And keep inmind that consomm can be veggie-friendly as

well (e.g., clear tomato gazpacho).

Jamn y Melon

Cover lb. ham with 2 cups water and tsp. xanthan gum or Xantana; simmer insmall pot 15 minutes, skimming at con-tinuously. Strain through sieve lined withpaper coee lter; discard lter, strainthrough new lter. Rerigerate consommtill cold, about 30 minutes. I consommis cloudy, reeze it overnight, then thawand strain again. You might need to addmore xanthan gum to the mixture so it willsupport the weight o the melon caviar(provided you have the skill and desire tomake them).

Whied Chocolate Lamb Reduction

1.3 L water170 mL chocolate liquor170 mL Porto40 mL lamb stock70 mL orange syrup10 g Nestle Le Chocolate powder.

The ingredients would be poured into a liquid

vessel with an ultrasound source (similar to devicesused or aromatherapy). The resulting favor wouldcloud into a room. The reduction could then bewhied (inhaled directly using a blank Le Whitube) while, or example, enjoying actual lamb chopswith crushed mango.

Although not possible (at least, noteasily) at home, the following recipegives you an idea of what the inven-

tors see as the future of whifng (and,

for that matter, the future of food).

in which proteins lose and change their

structure, as when you fry an egg. By

adding egg whites (a water-soluble de-natured protein) to a thick soup, you

create networks of denatured proteins

that, as they are coming out of solution,

trap all the other stuff not in solution

like a molecular mesh, says Kolter. In

the process, any impurities in solution

get trapped and eventually form into a

gel-like scum (called raft) that rises to

the top of the soup.

Once the raft is ltered off, all that re-

mains is in-solution, delightfully crystal-

clear liquid full of avor. You are taking

something very cloudylots of stuff

simply suspended but not dissolved

and taking away everything that is not

in solution, explains Kolter.

Clarication also plays a role in beverages

such as beer and wine. For the refreshing

taste of a pilsner, brewers rely on the oc-

culation (close gathering) of strains of

yeast. Once strains that are just touching

adhere, they settle, resulting in clarity.

Settling happens in winemaking as well,

but the slower process of winemaking

does not require such rapid occulation.Kolter, a native speaker of Spanish, served

as the chief translator during Adris

visit and had no qualms in inviting the

famed chef over for dinner. The reason

why someone who loves to do biochem-

istry also loves to cook is because much

of the tinkering you do at the bench top

is the same that you would do at the

kitchen counter. Meaning, he felt right

at home.

The clarication of a consomm is such

wonderful biochemistry, says Roberto

Kolter, Professor of Microbiology andMolecular Genetics at Harvard Medi-

cal School and FAS. You might as well

be doing a precipitation of a protein

[removing contaminants], since you are

using the exact same techniques you

would use in the lab.

To create a consomm, a rich, intense

broth that is at the same time delicate

and nearly translucent, you start with

a standard soup or stock. What keeps

a thick soup thick is the suspension of

proteins that are not quite in solution.

Thinning the soup without losing the

avor involves denaturation, a process

Why is a creating a consomm so special?

l

Jamn y melon mentioned in the

recipe on the left.


lololololololololololololololololololololololololo

lolololololololololololololololololololololololol

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10/20

FacultyNews

Nota BeneIncoming Dean Cherry A. Murray was

interviewed by Nature and Science

about her appointment.

Ben Adida, of CRCS, was interviewed

on PRIs The World TechnologyPodcast

234: The One with the Talking Sheep

(www.theworld.org/techarchive).

As part of a video for the National

Science Foundation, Steve Wofsy

chatted about HIAPER (see above),

an advanced research aircraft that

aims to conduct real-time sampling

of CO2 and other greenhouse gasesfrom pole to pole.

To explain her work on nanobristles,

Joanna Aizenberg appeared on

NPRs Science Friday on January 8;

additional coverage of the research

appeared in Discovery Magazine and

The New Scientist.

The Ferran Adri talk generated some

major media attention. Publications

from Time Magazine and the Boston

Globe to El Pais covered the event. In

addition to Spanish television cover-

age, Chronicle, a program aired by

Bostons Channel 5, followed the chef

during his visits at Harvard and to local

area restaurants.

Federico Capassos work on quantum

levitation (a repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz

force) appeared on AOL.com, Reuters,

The New Scientist, Time Magazine,

and various publications in his native

Italy, including Fondazione Italiani,

Video Torino, and Virgilio Notizie.

A feature article in the January/Febru-

ary Harvard Magazine highlighted

AwardsBarbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor

of Natural Sciences at the Harvard

School of Engineering and Applied

Sciences and dean of the Radcliffe In-

stitute for Advanced Study at Harvard

University, was awarded the Allen

Newell Award from the Association

for Computing Machinery/Associa-

tion for the Advancement of Articial

Intelligence. The Newell Award recog-

nizes career contributions that have

breadth within computer science or

that bridge computer science andother disciplines.

Environmental Science and Technol-

ogynamed a paper by Scot Martin,

Gordon McKay Professor of Environ-

mental Chemistry, and postdoctoral

student Chongzheng Na among the

best of 2008. Their paper, Interfacial

Forces Are Modied by the Growth of

Surface Nanostructures, sheds new

light on variability that nanostructures

create on mineral surfaces.

Howard Stone, Vicky Joseph Profes-

sor of Engineering and Applied Math-

ematics, was elected to the National

Academy of Engineering (NAE). Elec-

tion to the NAE is among the highest

professional distinctions accorded an

engineer.

IEEE Softwares editorial and advisory

boards selected Attacking Malicious

Code: A Report to the Infosec Re-

search Council (2000) authored by

Greg Morrisett, now Allen B. Cutting

Professor of Computer Science and

Associate Dean for Computer Sci-

ence and Electrical Engineering at the

Harvard School of Engineering and

Applied Sciences, and Gary McGraw,

now CTO of Cigital, Inc., a software

security and quality consulting rm

with headquarters in the Washing-

ton, D.C., area, as one of their 25th-

Anniversary Top Picks for full-length,

peer-reviewed articles.

Nature selected a paper by Mark

Wagner 07 and Maurice Smith, As-

sistant Professor of Bioengineering,

for its Journal Club. The duo explored

the brains ability to learn unnatural

tasks such as driving.

New faculty member John Briscoe,

Gordon McKay Professor of the Prac-

tice of Environmental Engineering,

was given the Presidential Award at

the World of Water Forum held this

past March in Istanbul, Turkey.

James Rice, Mallinckrodt Professorof Engineering Sciences and Geo-

physics, won the 2008 Panetti-Ferrari

Prize. The award recognizes achieve-

ments in applied mechanics.

The Materials Research Society select-

ed Joanna Aizenberg, Gordon McKay

Professor of Materials Science, Susan

S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor

at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced

Study, and Professor of Chemistry and

Chemical Biology, to present the 2009

Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship

in Nanoscience.J

bioengineering (three SEAS faculty

were featured).

Eric Mazur appeared on the new

Science Channel program Brink to

discuss innovations in materials and

energy technology.

CS instructor David Malan was being

lmed as part of an NYU student lm

project on innovative teaching.

The cover story of GSASs Colloquy

(Fall issue) was about David Edwards

new book,ArtScience.

The November 10, 2008, New York

Times highlighted a student-created,

SEAS-based startup that looks to

light up Africa using microbial fuel cell

technology.

DragonfyTV, a new kids science

show, featured several segments on

nanotechnology set at SEAS/Harvard

and featuring SEAS/Harvard research-

ers and staff, including instructional lab

guru Joe Ustinowich. Tune in to Whats

Nano? by visiting http://pbskids.org/

dragonytv/nano/index.html.J

The High-performance Instrumented

Airborne Platform for Environmental

Research, or HIAPER, is one of the

countrys most advanced research

facilities (and it even ies). SEAS fac-

ulty member Steve Wofsy led a recent

mission to directly measure green-

house gasses throughout the Earths

atmosphere, virtually pole-to-pole.

DragonFlyTV, a PBS science show for kids, hosted a segment on nanoscience

on the Harvard campus. Two of the young hosts got suited up and plumbed the

depths of the LISE building, visiting the clean room so they could try to get their

hands around, if not on, the question, What is a Nano? Kathryn Hollar, Director

of Educational Programs at SEAS, coordinated the site visit.

Ben Adida gets a vote of condence

for his work on the Helios project.



11/20

Appointments and Promotions

Venky NarayanamurtiFormer SEAS dean Venkatesh Narayan-amurti was named the Benjamin PierceProfessor. This coming fall, Narayana-

murti will also become the new directorof the Science, Technology, and PublicPolicy program at the Harvard Kennedy

Schools Belfer Center for Science andInternational Affairs.

Belfer Center Director Graham Allisonnoted that Narayanamurti is an ex-ceptionally tting choice to chair the

Belfer Centers Science, Technology,and Public Policy Program because he

follows in the footsteps of the founder

Michael P. BrennerFrans Spaepen, Interim Dean, appoint-ed applied mathematician Michael P.Brenner as the Schools rst Associate

Dean for Applied Mathematics.

Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied

Mathematics and Applied Physics,investigates a wide range of areasacross the physical and biological sci-

ences, from understanding the limita-tions of self-assembly to algorithmdevelopment for atmospheric chemis-

try to understanding the aerodynamicmechanism for stall-delay in hump-

back whales.

New Arrivals

John Briscoe(Spring 2009)

Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Envi-ronmental Engineering and Health (joint, with theHarvard School of Public Health)

Areas: Engineering and Economic Development

David Clarke(Spring 2009)

Gordon McKay Professor of Materials ScienceAreas: Electronic and Magnetic Systems and De-vices; Materials Science; Optics, Electromagnetics,and Light-Matter Interactions

Evelyn Hu(Spring 2009)

Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics andElectrical Engineering

Areas: Electronic and Magnetic Systems andDevices; Optics, Electromagnetics, and Light-Matter

Interactions; Photonics and Optical Devices;Biophysics; Materials Science; Soft CondensedMatter; Surface and Interface Science

He has long served as the Director ofUndergraduate Studies for the con-

centration in Applied Mathematics, as

a tutor in Biochemical Sciences, andco-developed Applied Math 50, Intro-

duction to Applied Mathematics, withMarie Dahleh, Assistant Dean for Aca-demic Programs at SEAS.

In March, Brenner became the inau-gural recipient of the Capers and Mar-

ion McDonald Award for Excellence inMentoring and Advising.

As Associate Dean for Applied Math-ematics, Brenner will help to manage

academic and course planning and fac-ulty and staff searches; handle promo-tion reviews for faculty appointments;

represent SEAS to FAS committees onappointments and promotion; and playa prominent role in raising the visibility

of the area as an intellectual endeavor.

He will join David Mooney, AssociateDean for Applied Chemical/BiologicalSciences and Engineering and Gordon

McKay Professor of Bioengineeringand Greg Morrisett, Associate Dean forComputer Science and Electrical Engi-

neering and Allan B. Cutting Professor

of Computer Science.J

of that program, Harvey Brooks, whoalso assumed that position after serv-

ing as the dean of the Division of En-

gineering and Applied Sciences atHarvard.

Im honored to follow in the footstepsof Harvey Brooks, Lewis Branscomb,

and John Holdren, Narayanamurtisaid. Some of todays greatest soci-etal challenges from global health to

information management to sustain-ability to national security to economic

competitiveness lie at the intersec-tions of science, technology andpublic policy. I am looking forward to

working at this exciting interface andalso in enhancing linkages betweenSEAS, Harvard College, and the

professional schools.

Since stepping down, Narayanamurti

has been on sabbatical and spending

time at both Harvard Kennedy School

and Harvard Business School. During

his sabbatical, he is doing research on

management processes at scientic

research institutions and their ability to

serve as engines of innovation. He has

also been developing a new course

called Introduction to Technology and

Society for Harvard College students.

At the Kennedy School, he plans to

teach the introductory course in Sci-

ence, Technology, and Public Policy.



12/20

StudentNew

s

Tips on how to be aprofessional (student)

Being called a professional student(as in, You are still in school?) isusually not considered a compliment.

Haoqi Zhang 07, a second year graduate

student in computer science, is working

to change that.

This past fall Zhang, with help from

faculty members Greg Morrisett, Margo

Seltzer, and Howard Stone, created the

SEAS Professional Development Semi-nar Series to cover all the little things

not taught in the classroom that are re-

ally useful to know.

The little things like Time manage-

ment. Writing a dissertation. Succeeding

in an academic job search. Navigating a

career. Public speaking. Academic writ-

ing. Grant writing. Mentoring. Budget-

ing. Managing perceived biases.

Graduate students soon encounter all

of the aboveand, more often than not,

without the aid of a guide. There was agrant that involved me and some work I

was involved with. But even then, I had

no idea what I was doing, said Zhang,

citing one of many personal examples

that inspired him to form the group.

Though careful analytic reasoning may

reign in the lab, when faced with a pro-

fessional dilemma, many students rely

on whatever they have picked up by

word of mouth. Zhang wants the semi-

nars to promote open discussion, not to

become a one-stop oracle or a replace-

ment for faculty advising.

In fact, during one of the seminars, SEAS

faculty members Matt Welsh and Vinny

Manoharan presented polar-opposite

views on time management techniques.

Welsh prefers packing in priorities dur-

ing a regular 9-to-5 schedule; Manoharan

takes a more exible approach, some-

times coming to work in the afternoon.

In both cases, the emphasis was on man-

agementnding a way to titrate activi-

ties to, as Zhang puts it, plan out your

creative time to think about problems.Moreover, Welsh advocated that suc-

cess may come from simple xes such

as checking email at set times or turn-

ing off the distracting popup tab or new

email alert sound.

Each week, 30 to 40 students from SEAS

and related areas (such as physics, earth

and planetary sciences, and organismic

and evolutionary biology) show up to

hear advice from faculty and experts in

an equally wide range of elds. Given

the increasingly interdisciplinary natureof scientic research, commonalities in-

evitably come through.

Ive come to realize that academia relies

a lot on good work but also on people

recognizingyour good work and that re-

lationships are extremely important, as

regardless of who you are talking to, it is

always more fun if people are friendly,

says Zhang, who is as much an avid at-

tendee as he is an organizer.

His own good work sits somewhere

between economics, computer science,

and psychology in an area he calls en-

vironment design. Working with DavidParkes, Gordon McKay Professor of Com-

puter Science, and Yiling Chen, Assistant

Professor of Computer Science, Zhang

explores how to build environments

that change peoples behavior. Imagine,

he says, designing a room that encour-

ages people to recycle, or a program in-

terface that encourages users to properly

tag and index their online photos.

The research that will fuel Zhangs the-

sis is primarily theoretical at this stage.

Through the seminar series, however, hehas designed a suitable environment for

sharing the kind of practical advice that

may soon make being a called a profes-

sional student an honor.

More sound advice

Michael Mitzenmacher keeps an ac-tive blog called My Biased Coin.Peppered within the postings about re-

search and academic life are useful (and

often funny) tips for graduate students,

such as: In fact, as a graduate student, col-laborating successfully is likely to be key to

your success collaborating is often fun,

and having fun while working on a prob-

lem can make people more productive on

its own. So there are reasons House has his

staff, Buffy has her Scooby gang, and even

Holmes hangs out with Watson.

Radhika Nagpal strongly recommends

the essay Technology and Courage, by

Ivan Sutherland. Googling the title will

bring up various versions.

Harry Lewis provides an archive of hispast essays, including the classic Slow

Down, on his website, www.eecs.har-

vard.edu/~lewis/ .

The editor of this newsletter recom-

mends two books, Advice for a Young

Investigator, by Santiago Ramon y Cajal

(MIT Press, 1999), and a work of ction

that accurately captures the politics of

an academic lab, Intuition, by Allegra

Goodman (Dial Press, 2007).J

Haoqi Zhang 07, a second year graduate student in

computer science, helped to spearhead a professional

development program to cover all the little things

typically not taught in the classroom.


Graduate


13/20

Creating renewable energy inthe lab

Can you believe this! Anas Chalah,the recently appointed Directorof SEASs Teaching Labs, doesnt hold

back his excitement. Galloping aroundin his ofce, he picks up a model of a pro-tein. Made of white plastic, still slightly

wet, and looking like a congealed explo-

sion, the piece is fresh out of the new 3D

printer down the hall

Computer simulations present a close

to accurate depiction of biological struc-tures, but the physical models really let

them see it, explains Chalah, who came

to SEAS after completing postdoctoralresearch at Harvard Medical School/Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

We can use our resources for almost any

course. Theres no reason why we should

limit this technology, he says.

In fact, groups of undergraduates in an

applied mathematics course (one thatdidnt even have a lab segment) converted

virtual to physical to study how proteins

form and t together. Days after a student

Student AwardsOn behalf of the New York City Post of the

Society of American Military Engineers (SAME),Harvard College senior Jason Miller 09 was beenawarded the 2008 Colonel and Mrs. S. S. Dennis

III Scholarship.

Miller, an engineering sciences concentrator(Mechanical Engineering) from Zionsville, Indiana,

is a tight end for Harvards football team. Heearned a post on the All-Ivy League team andwas selected twice for the EPSN The Magazine

Academic All-District team.

Undergraduate emailed Chalah about her concept, theprinter was red up and working over-time to construct the design in time for

a nal project.

Its that kind of spur-of-the-moment cre-

ativity Chalah plans to use to energize the

labs. For additional inspiration, he stops

professors and hassles them about nd-

ing ways to integrate the lab components

into current and future courses.

In part because of the complexity and

previous space constraints, only select

SEAS engineering sciences courses have

a standard lab component. By contrast,

hands-on learning has been more thor-

oughly integrated into computer science

and electrical engineering courses (activi-

ties coordinated by Xuan Liang, Associate

Director of Instructional Laboratories).

In Marchto reduce the disparityChalah offered a hands-on workshop in

mechanical engineering, developed new

experiments for the thermodynamics

course, and sketched out a plan for lab-

based segments for environmental engi-

neering.

He also anticipates building a stronger

relationship with the medical school and

closer ties to industry partners so that

by the time students graduate, they can

be established and even trained to

work at a company facility.

The ultimate aim for Chalah is to

implement what he calls a 100%

hands-on philosophy.

The students are doing the

thinking and design, in part, for

the professor. If faculty members

like what they did, they can run it

in the lab course next semester,

he adds, while picking up a block

of blue-colored wax.

The blocks are a canvas for the

3-axis mill. The mill uses mea-surements specied by the user,

and then can create a design and

form a mold by cutting away

parts of the waxa tting meta-

phor for Chalahs own vision.

We are not a service facility. We

are part of the process.

(For more on the new teaching

labs, check out the back cover of

this newsletter.)

I3

The second Innovation Challenge(13), a Harvard campus-wide under-graduate entrepreneurship competition,

attracted 50 teams and over 150 students.

The Crimsonreported on the award event

held in March. Winning entries included

online enterprises geared towards pro-viding free SAT prep to low-income stu-

dents, making holiday travel cheaper, and

navigating New York City more easily.

13 is led by the Harvard College Entre-

preneurship Forum in association with

Harvard Student Agencies, Inc., and the

Technology and Entrepreneurship Cen-

ter, based at SEAS.

For innovative undergrads,bacteria make some buzz

Ateam of undergraduates who engi-neered a bacterial biosensor withelectrical output recently made somebuzz at the 2008 international Geneti-

cally Engineered Machine (iGEM) com-

petition held at MIT.

The innovators won a gold medal for

their contributions to the competition

and were among the six nalists for the

grand prize; they also won an area prize

for the best energy project.

The Harvard entrants dubbed their entry

bactricity because they aimed to developbacteria that could produce a detectable

change in electric current in response to

an environmental stimulus

You can think of their work as an early

step to building a biochemical/electrical

hybrid, said the teams faculty adviser,

Pamela Silver, Professor of Systems Biolo-

gy in the Department of Systems Biology

at Harvard Medical School (HMS). J


Anas Chalah encourages undergraduate students to

pull up a chair and get comfortable in the lab.


14/20

Mike Aziz, a materials scientist, became fascinated by energy technology while teaching a basic course on

thermodynamics.

In

Profile

Material GoodsMichael Aziz encounters the

future of energy technology

The electric busy sign on Mike Azizsdoor is one of those tiny details thatgradually begins to dene the character

of a place. Its the kind of open secret that

those in the know treasureand love to

share with new arrivals.

As of late, the small box topped with an

even smaller bulb (on for busy, off for free)

has been obscured by an out-of-order sign

made from a torn yellow sticky note. Per-

haps the light burned out from overuse.

Aziz, Gordon McKay Professor of Materi-

als Science, has certainly been busy.

For the rst two decades of my career I

thought there was nothing more inter-

esting or important than developing the

basic materials science that underlies

semiconductor-related technologies,

Aziz says. Then he became fascinated by

energy technology.

While teaching a course on thermody-

namics, he wanted to nd a way to shake

up the oft-dreaded subject. I looked into

the future of world energy supply and

demand, which led me to the climate

problem, he adds. Even better, he found

that his students were eager to take on the

challenge: exploring the science of whatis and is not possible in energy generation

and conversion.

Teaching soon turned to practice and

made him, he says, wake up to this very

big area that I think is not just the biggest

challenge of the 21st century for mankind

but the only problem we truly cannot af-

ford not to solve. As a result, he began to

develop energy-related activities in his

research in materials science. The eld

is being rejuvenated in the energy arena

because so many advances depend on ma-terials, Aziz says.

For evidence, he rattles off a litany of ex-

amples. A strip of solar cells that powers

up a road sign; a new class of supercon-

ductors that could potentially transmit

Arizonas solar energy resources to Bos-

ton; a corrosion-resistant base for offshore

wind turbines; radiation-tolerant materi-

als for next-generation nuclear reactors;

and cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes for

fuel cells and batteries that will permit

the electric motor to replace the internal

combustion engine. In all these cases, the

properties of materials both limit and

unleash the possibilities for the future of

energy.

Forces of human nature

Grimy or clean, energy conjures up big

technologybehemoth power stations

and nuclear plants buzzing with life or

wind and solar farms stretching over sev-

eral football elds of land. Whats mostvisible are the big projects, and without

big projects you dont solve the problem,

he says. We are dealing with a very big

energy infrastructure, and the vast major-

ity of it has to change.

Aziz says the most visible changes will in-

volve overhauling the U.S. transportation

system by replacing gasoline-powered

vehicles with electric or fuel cell vehicles

and through bolstering the mass-transit

infrastructure. Suburban sprawl will stop

or be reversed.At home and at work, people will have

to get used to consuming less and sav-

ing more (installing insulation and heat

pump retrots and better managing the

thermostat). Ultra-high efciency build-

ings will begin to replace older, inef-

cient structures and, as a whole, cities

will evolve.

Market forces, akin to what the U.S. expe-

rienced when gas prices spiked last year,

and government intervention through

establishing a cost for fossil fuel emis-

sions will help drive the even broader

transformation. Combined with the cur-

rent economic crisis, the days of draftyMcMansions and power-hungry Hum-

mers are dwindlingbut their demise is

not enough for a clean planetary bill of

health.

According to Aziz, Theres going to have

to be some very signicant behavioral

changes. But a Rip Van Winkle going

to sleep now and waking up in 50 years

wouldnt say, I should have lived the rest

of my life in the early part of the 21st cen-

tury, when we could consume without

consequence.Aziz calls such measures belt-tightening

steps, since they are no more than what

Japan and many Western European coun-

tries have already embraced for several

decades. Beyond that, conventional fossil

energy needs to be displaced by low-car-

bon sources such as wind, solar, nuclear,

and biomass, as well as capturing CO2

from combustion exhaust streams and se-

questering it away from the atmosphere.


We are dealing with a very

big energy infrastructure, and

a vast majority of it has to

change.


15/20

those vital shifts in polarity that helpdene our future.

Who knows what kind of sign on the

door he has in mind for that. J

Long Shots

The central dilemma of this century is emergingas energy and the environment. Toward this end,

members of the Aziz lab, along with colleaguesacross Harvard, have been working on proj-ects at both the small and large scale becausetheres innovation needed at all levels.

Green concrete. In 2007, Aziz and colleagueDan Schrag (SEAS/EPS) from EPS workedout a potentially viable carbon sequestration

processelectrochemically removing hydro-chloric acid from the ocean and then neutral-izing the acid by reaction with volcanic rocks,

which has the net effect of permanently trans-ferring CO

2from the atmosphere to the ocean

without acidifying the ocean.

As a follow-up, Aziz is discovering the won-ders of what he calls green concrete. In steadystate, for every ton of carbon that leaves the

atmosphere and goes into the ocean bychemical weathering, half of it precipitates ascalcium carbonate and causes the other half

to outgas back into the atmosphere.

Where he saw a problemavoiding the pre-

cipitationa start-up company saw a solu-tion, using the precipitated calcium carbonatein cement and concrete, and has licensed the

technology from Harvard. Cement manu-facturing is responsible for 5% of all humanCO

2emissions worldwide. A reduction in its

carbon footprint could make a substantial dif-

ference.

Flow control. Jason Rugolo, a graduate stu-

dent working with Aziz, is at the early stagesof developing a new type of highly reversiblefuel cell (called a ow battery) appropriate for

large-scale energy storage. The commonhydrogen-oxygen fuel cells experience hugelosses in efciency at the oxygen electrode,

and for storage and delivery the energy mustbe run through twiceleaving little left afterthe round trip. As an alternative, the two are

working on a hydrogen-chlorine fuel cell thatavoids the need for an oxygen electrode andcould have very little loss, making the ow

battery suitable for storing energy from inter-mittent renewables such as wind and photo-voltaic power until there is a demand for it.

These are long shots, admits Aziz, that tenyears ago I wouldnt have taken. But now itsworth investing some effort into them because

the stakes are so high.

He has been further inspired to take risks withthe addition of recent arrivals such as David

Clarke, Gordon McKay Professor of MaterialScience, and Shriram Ramanathan, AssistantProfessor of Materials Science. Clarke is work-

ing on developing advanced thermal barriers(important for allowing jet engines to operate athigher temperatures and resulting in greater ef-

ciency). Ramanathan is working on novel solid-

state energy materials synthesis (placing a microfuel cell directly on a silicon chip). Both faculty

members have started new companies basedon their technologies, each aiming to be one ofthe game changers in the green energy realm.

Green game changers

Engineering Sciences231, Survey of

Energy Technology a course Aziz devel-

oped to coincide with the newly created

graduate consortium on energy and en-

vironment (see Fall/Winter 2008 news-

letter), explores the nitty-gritty behind

such ecological game changers.Students in ES231 begin with a dose of

hard reality: the thermodynamic basis

for what is possible and an overview of

the conventional energy infrastructure.

In order to understand where renew-

able or low/no carbons have a chance,

students must understand the technical

details of a world in which fossil energy

generation is exceedingly cheap (and

thus, enjoys a competitive advantage).

Moreover, for all its negative environmen-

tal baggage, gasoline is a terric energycarrier. Aziz reminds his students that an

elegant but too expensive solution will

not be implemented. Even technically vi-

able long-term solutions such as fuel cell

cars face enormous barriers in the cur-

rent environment, as where will patrons

juice up in a world of gas stations?

To transform Gordon Geckos famed line

from Greed is good to Green is good

means thinking like an entrepreneur.

Any successful green energy technology

must be competitive with, if not betterthan, existing solutions. That said, not

all technological approaches to mitigat-

ing climate change are perceived as be-

ing equally good for the planet.

This past spring, John Holdren, head of

the White House Ofce of Science and

Technology Policy and former faculty

member at the Harvard Kennedy School,

mentioned the possibility of considering

radical geo-engineering solutions to turn

back climate change if we fail to imple-

ment sufciently aggressive emissionscontrol. He was roundly criticized by the

press and even members of Greenpeace

for advocating outlandish schemes.

If the popularity of movies such as

WALL-E and television series such as

Battlestar Galactica are any indication

of public sentiment, then turning to

technology, which created the mess, to

solve the climate problem may not sell

well to even green-minded consumers.

In a complex system like the Earth, you

have to do experiments starting at a very

small scale and then scale up, checking

for unintended consequences, says Aziz,

providing a more sanguine assessment.

Thats not something you can do suc-

cessfully just when the alarm bell rings.

Having codeveloped a potentially vi-

able carbon ocean sequestration process

himself (see sidebar), he thinks such

schemes have to be put on the table. Do-

ing controlled experiments rather than

just thinking more is the right way to

go, provided the rationale behind the

thinking is equally controlled.

On one hand, you dont want to send the

message that we can continue emitting

as we have been because the technolo-

gists are going to x it all with some geo-

engineering band-aid, says Aziz.

On the other hand, Aziz continues, even

if we are on our best behavior, we might

not be able to reduce carbon dioxide

emissions rapidly enough to avoid un-

acceptable levels of climate change,

making geoengineering the only viable

recourse in a planetary emergency.

Counting on the cool factor

For long-term success Aziz insists on not

counting out the cool factor. Especially in

this country, the car is a cultural icon and

a means of personal identity. In the de-veloping world, owning four wheels has

become equated with economic freedom.

A couple years ago, Aziz set aside his

empty minivan for the few days his

family needs it, and started commut-

ing in a small hybrid with triple the gas

mileageas a matter of conscience.

Policy changes are needed to induce

large numbers of people to make similar

choices for purely economic reasons.

But, if enough people make similar

green choices just to be cool, that toowill make a positive impact.

We can keep our identication with

what we drive as an important part of

our personality and just deect it in a

green direction.

In terms of his own research and teach-

ing, hes shown just how powerful

deecting in a green direction can be.

Azizs burgeoning interest in sustain-

ability may become yet another one of



16/20

...you can go to the audit

website...Youre able to

download every encrypted

vote. You can verify all of

the vote ngerprints byrecomputing the ngerprint

yourself. Each voter can check

that their ballot is on that

list, under the correct voter

identier.

Intersection

s

The Missing App for Direct DemocracyWhen will e-voting evolve beyond an idea?

Remember e-voting? In the age ofFacebook, a platform some politi-cos have cited as the real winner in the

2008 presidential election, and with theever-growing phenomenon of Twitter,why arent we casting our votes on our

iPhones one moment and looking up

where to eat the next? Did next-gener-ation direct democracy happen and we

simply missed the email?

E-voting is happening, just not in the

United Statesat least not yet. Salon.

com blogger Cyrus Farivar explainedthe reason for the delay in a recent post.

One of the basic problems of voting

technology, whether electronic or not,

is that theres no real way for anyone toverify that their vote was counted prop-

erly, he wrote. Regardless of whether I

push a button on a screen or I drop my

paper in a ballot box, Im essentially tak-ing it on faith that my vote was record-

ed and tallied accurately. Even if voter

monitoring groups had people in everyprecinct, it still wouldnt be possible.

Thanks to advanced cryptography tech-niques there are alternatives to just,

taking it on faith. Computer scientists

afliated with the Center for Researchon Computation and Society (CRCS),

based at SEAS, in collaboration with

scientists at the Universit catholique

de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, deployedthe rst practical, Web-based imple-

mentation of a secure, veriable voting

system for the presidential election held

at UCL in late March.

Called the Helios Voting System(www.heliosvoting.org ), the system

was developed by Ben Adida, a fellow

at CRCS and an instructor/researcher at

the Childrens Hospital Informatics Pro-gram, Harvard Medical School.

Professors Jean-Jacques Quisquater andOlivier Pereira and Ph.D. student Ol-

ivier de Marneffe at UCL worked closely

with the UCL Election Commission tointegrate Helios into the Universitys

infrastructure, implement UCLs cus-

tom-weighted tallying system, and

optimize the verification tools for theelection size.

Helios allows any participant to verify

that their ballot was correctly captured,

and any observer to verify that all cap-

tured ballots were correctly tallied, saidAdida. We call this open-audit voting

because the complete auditing process

is now available to any observer. This

revolutionary approach to elections

has been described in the literature for

more than 25 years, yet this is the rst

real-world, open-audit election of this

magnitude and impact of outcome.

The veriable voting system, available

as open-source/free software, imple-

ments advanced cryptographic tech-

niques to maintain ballot secrecy whileproviding a mathematical proof that the

election tally was correctly computed.

Helios relies on public key homomor-

phic encryption, a method in which a

public key is used to encrypt a message(in this case, a vote); messages can be

combined under the covers of encryp-

An illustration of how voters in the most recent U.S. Presidential election might have gone to their touch screens

instead of the polls (if e-voting was a reality).



17/20

NVIDIA/CUDA

NVIDIA Corporation announcedthat Harvard University has beenrecognized as a CUDA Center of Excel-lence for its commitment to teaching

GPU computing and its integration of

CUDA-enabled GPUs for a host of sci-

ence and engineering research projects.

The honor complements a prior $2M

grant the University received from the

National Science Foundation (NSF)

for the development of GPU-enabled

computational science.

With interest in the CUDA architecture

spreading rapidly across the Harvardcampus and the lively scientic land-

scape in Boston, there has never been

a better time to announce this partner-

ship, said Hanspeter Pster, Gordon

McKay Professor of the Practice of

Computer Science in Harvards School

of Engineering and Applied Sciences

and Director of Visual Computing at

the Harvard Initiative in Innovative

Computing. This generous gift from

Secure, Verifable Voting

In an election, Helios works as follows:

First, each voter receives a tracking number for

his or her vote, and the vote is encrypted withthe election public key before it leaves the votersbrowser.

Second, with the tracking number, a voter canthen verify that his or her ballot was correctly cap-

tured by the voting system, which publishes a listof all tracking numbers prior to tallying.

Finally, the voter or any observer, including elec-

tion watchers from outside the election, can verifythat these tracking numbers (the encrypted votes)were tallied appropriately. The election results

contain a mathematical proof of the tally thatcannot be faked, even with the use of powerfulcomputers.

As for technical specs, Helios was initially imple-mented on Google App Engine. It is now built onDjango and is compatible with Firefox 2/3, Safari

3, and IE 7.

So, what does it mean to verify election results? Adida, who hosts his own blog (http://benlog.

com/), summed it up this way in a statementposted shortly after the election at UCL:

It means that you can go to the audit website.There, youll nd a detailed specication that de-scribes the le formats, encryption mechanisms,

and process by which you can audit the election. Youre able to download every encrypted vote. You can verify all of the vote ngerprints by re-

computing the ngerprint yourself. Each voter can

check that their ballot is on that list, under the cor-rect voter identier. Then you can check that the

encrypted tallying was done correctly, simply byrecomputing it. And you can check that the de-cryption proofs check out.

And in the end, you can declare, with full con-dence, because you coded it yourself and ran thecode yourself, that given the published list of vote

ngerprints, which individual voters checked, the

result of the election was correctly computed.

Not exactly as easy as pulling up an application

for your iPhone, but Adida says the move towardcomplete transparency is promising.

tion (in this case, tallying the votes); and

multiple independent private keys are

required to decrypt the message (in this

case, the election tally).

Because the tallying happens under the

covers of encryption, the entire verica-

tion process is done without revealing

the contents of each individual vote,

explained Adida. Moreover, by using

Helios, voters no longer need to blindly

trust those supervising the election;

ofcials must provide mathematical

proofs that everything was done appro-

priately.

The system was rst tested in smaller

elections throughout 2008 and then, in

early February 2009, on a population

of 3000 voters at UCL in anticipation

of the presidential election held during

the rst week of March. The UCL presi-

dential election was available to 25,000eligible voters, of whom 5400 registered

and 4000 cast ballots.

Adida is still assessing the participants

experience with the e-voting process,

and UCL has a new president, the rst

ever voted into ofce online.J

NVIDIA will provide excellent learning

opportunities for Harvard students,

accelerate our research, and expand the

use of GPUs for computing in scienceand other advanced applications.

Events

Visit www.seas.harvard.edu/newsandevents for the latest details, dates,and times for SEAS events. Here are some

highlights from the past months and a

list of future opportunities:

On December 13, 2008, SEAS hosted its

annual Holiday Lecture, intended to

inspire kids of all ages. The theme was

the science of chocolate, closely related

to the prior theme of the science of

another favorite food, pizza. In keeping

with the gastroscience theme, earlier

in the week world-renowned chef Fer-

ran Adri, considered a pioneer in

combining scientic methodology with

cooking and known for the creation ofculinary foam, spoke at Harvard.

Barbara Grosz, Dean of the Radcliffe

Institute and Higgins Professor of

Natural Sciences in SEAS, presented

her Deans Lecture on October 27, 2008.

She described her research, which aims

to shift the burden of adaptation from

human to computer so that computers

respect our needs and adapt to us rather

than the other way around. J

The Science of Chocolate Holiday Lecture offered

sugar highs on stage (kids were asked to simulate

the path of excited molecules).

Helios employed as anin-precinct voting system

Voter enters booth andselects candidates ona touchscreen.

Voter completesselections andsubmits his/herballot electronically.

Voting booth delivers

receipt containing an

electronic fingerprint

of the vote.

Poll workers scanreceipt and reco

harvard seas, newsletter, spring 2009

Documents