A celebration of women in science and engineering
A two-day symposium at MIT this week celebrated the research accomplishments of some of the top minds in science and engineering. The event, titled “Leaders in Science and Engineering: The Women of MIT,” brought together “the greatest collection of speakers in science and engineering that I have ever seen at MIT, or anyplace else,” noted Edmund Bertschinger, the symposium chair and head of MIT’s physics department, in the event's closing remarks.Because of the caliber of the speakers and the range of their work — from studying the tiniest cells to distant black holes, from the workings of the human mind to the prospects for finding alien life — the symposium took on the air of a celebration of these researchers, and of the progress women have made in achieving recognition for their professional accomplishments. The speakers at the event included three winners of the National Medal of Science, two MacArthur...