Dean’s Message

Spring/Summer 2009
Dean’s Message
Put another way, to get results from
shovel-ready science involves more than
funding the shovel. You need rich soil in
which to dig.
Third, world-class scientific research requires a complex and dynamic infrastructure. The stimulus will help science, of
course, but the package aims at specific
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.
T
here’s a saying in scientific circles,
“the light bulb was not invented by
a 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 research (“shovel-ready science”) and even
calls for another “moon shot.”
First, progress in science and engineering 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, researchers won’t be able simply to conjure
up significant results on cue.
Second—and related to the previous
point—luck is rarely “dumb.” Serendipitous breakthroughs grow out of years
of sustained effort, without which they
would not have happened—or been recognized 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. 4–5). Discovering the force itself wasn’t the end of the story. It took the
subsequent development to provide the
context for “seeing” the potential of this
force anew.
Today’s big discoveries are collaborative
undertakings and require sustaining a
societal framework for inquiry and innovation. That’s why a one-shot investment
won’t make much difference. Rather, we
need to enhance education, encourage and
reward industrial innovation, and recognize 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,
he’ll be focusing precisely on this vital
political-scientific nexus.
Fourth, “top-down” direction rarely works
well in science. During these difficult economic 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, fixing the environmental
crisis, and improving global health. But
the trip to the moon was a tightly focused
undertaking—you really could “engineer”
your way up there. Current global problems are quite another matter.
In the case of energy—as materials scientist Mike Aziz discovered when he created
his new course, “Survey of Energy Technology” (pp. 14–15)—there isn’t any single solution we can all throw our weight
behind to get the job done.
So—if not to the moon—where do we go
from here?
My advice for those who lead research institutions and labs would be to build and
nurture environments that encourage discovery. In particular, promote conditions
in which ideas can most effectively take
shape. Then, as much as possible, get out
of the way! In so doing, you’re far more
likely to catch a glimpse of the exciting
places that creative inquiry can take us.
My advice for our government leaders
would be to see the stimulus as a first step
towards a broader effort to advance the enterprise of science and technology. While
I applaud the desire to “restore science to
its rightful place,” it now permeates all aspects of life and society.
To my research colleagues—and those
considering scientific careers—I recommend holding on to the inspiration of the
grand challenges while not getting lost in
the grandeur. If we end up just constructing moon shots we may miss far brighter
stars along the way.
I want to end this note with thanks to
everyone for making my year as Interim
dean a good and very interesting one, especially given the challenging financial
circumstances. It was an opportunity to
see aspects of the School and the University that otherwise I’d never have known.
I was fortunate to finish the year with our
Visiting Committee’s review. It offered an
occasion for some concerted reflection on
where SEAS has been and where it’s going.
And I am pleased at the record of progress
that we have achieved thus far.
While I’m eager to take what I have learned
back to my post at the Rowland Institute, I
will miss the daily personal interactions
with students, faculty, and staff. And I’m
sure that our new dean, Cherry A. Murray,
will soon share my sense of gratitude and
excitement at being part of the wonderful
community 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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Life On & Around Oxford Street
velopment. It is a privilege to welcome
her to Harvard,” said Harvard President
Drew Faust.
A celebrated experimentalist, Murray
is well known for her scientific accomplishments using light scattering, an
experimental technique in which photons are fired at a target of interest.
Incoming SEAS dean, Cherry A. Murray, met with
members of the community at a party held in April,
celebrating her arrival.
Cherry A. Murray
appointed dean
Cherry A. Murray, who has led some of
the nation’s most brilliant scientists and
engineers as an executive at Bell Laboratories and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been appointed
dean of Harvard University’s 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 director for science and technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
Livermore, Calif., where she leads 3500
employees in providing core science
and technology support for Lawrence
Livermore’s 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 strategic vision and experience necessary
to guide it through its next stage of de2 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
“I have known Cherry Murray for many
years as a colleague, researcher, and scientific 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 integrating discipline—rooted in science,
focused on discovery and innovation,
and connected to the wider world of
technology and society. Her appointment 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 Harvard’s Faculty
of Arts and Sciences, thanked Frans
Spaepen, who has served as interim
dean for the 2008–2009 academic year,
for his service. Spaepen will return to
his former post as the Director of the
Rowland Institute.
Long-time faculty member
Howard Stone departs
for Princeton
Howard Stone, who joined the Harvard
faculty in 1989 after earning his Ph.D. at
Caltech and spending a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of
Applied Mathematics and Theoretical
Physics at Cambridge University, departed Harvard in June to take a position at Princeton University.
In February he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE),
something he considers both a professional and personal achievement. “My
father, now 87, is also a member of NAE;
he was elected for his contributions
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 was
elected to NAE was a pleasant surprise
for him as well!”
CS 50 Fair offers free
popcorn, PHP
The CS 50 Fair—complete with free popcorn and stress balls—celebrated 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 first annual end-of-term
tech-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, reflecting strong and growing
interest in the course—and in keeping
with national trends.
Noted teacher, administrator, and researcher Howard Stone served
as a faculty member at SEAS for two decades; in June he departed
for Princeton University.
Chef Ferran Adrià cooks
for a crowd; families share
a love of chocolate
By some estimates, over 600 people
showed up for 250 first-come, firstserved seats to hear celebrated chef
Ferran Adrià discuss his innovations in
molecular gastronomy on December 9
(see page 6). The annual Holiday Lecture,
held four days later, offered a related culinary theme, “The Science of Chocolate.”
The family-style talk and demonstration
was a hit; more than 1000 adults and
kids attended the presentation.
Teaching labs open their
doors; IT gets refreshed; MD
classrooms to go the distance
Balloons lined the main staircase of the Northwest
Building, enticing nearly 900 visitors to meet at the
CS50 fair, a festive showcase of final projects from
the popular course.
Buoyed by the electronica music pumping 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
The undergraduate CAD/CAM teaching 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 Office received a long-overdue
makeover, with the existing space refurbished to better meet the needs of the
community. Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, which has long used
Maxwell Dworkin for evening classes,
will renovate lecture halls G115 and
G125 during the summer. One of the objectives is to facilitate the live streaming
and recording of classes, colloquia, and
other events from these locations.
SEAS gets greener
In collaboration with the University
Office of Sustainability (and its effort to
reduce Harvard’s greenhouse gas emissions), the SEAS community has taken
active steps to make the campus more
eco-friendly. These steps include the installation of water-conserving fixtures;
a campaign to encourage community
members to bring their own reusable
mugs and turn off power strips and
lights; and more comprehensive solutions, such as automatically regulating
building energy use. J
Overheard
“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.
Random Bits
Physics-friendly engineering
The appointment of Dr. Cherry A. Murray as the new dean of SEAS carries
on a long tradition in physics/applied
physics. Murray has both of her degrees from MIT, both in physics, and
conducts research in applied physics.
Past deans John Van Vleck, Harvey
Brooks, and Paul Martin all earned
their Ph.D.s in physics from Harvard
and were well known for their practical approach to science. In fact, until
1975, all led a division with “applied
physics” in the name. Former dean
Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti
earned his degree in physics from
Cornell, and interim dean Spaepen
earned his degree in applied physics
from Harvard.
Political science
We take pride that some of our engineers end up playing politics. Shaun
Donovan ’87, ’95, the current secretary of Housing and Urban Development, earned his undergraduate
degree in engineering sciences. He
also earned a Master of Public Ad-
ministration from the Kennedy School
and a master’s in architecture at the
Graduate School of Design in 1995.
Darcy Burner ’96, who graduated in
1996 with a B.A. in computer science,
ran for Washington’s 8th Congressional district in 2006 and 2008 but lost
by 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 America’s house in order. The current secretary of Housing and Urban
Development earned his undergraduate degree in Engineering Sciences.
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 3
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were common. Tracking sea turtles
with RFIDs, rationalizing complicated
course sections and requirements, improving 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 create a miniature version of the fair for
prospective undergrads.
Recent findings
(above) Demonstration by the Hau lab of a prototype
toroidal trap, created by a suspended, charged
carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanosphere
dimer. (right) Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
images showing the morphogenesis of helical
patterns, from the first-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.
A Roundup of Discoveries & Innovations
Researchers merge cold atoms
and nanoscale technologies
The lab of Lene Hau, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics,
proposed a new class of nanoscale electro-optical traps for neutral atoms. The
team demonstrated a prototype toroidal
trap, created by a suspended, charged
carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanosphere dimer.
An illuminating laser field, blue detuned
from an atomic resonance frequency, is
strongly focused by plasmons induced
in the dimer and generates both a repulsive potential barrier near the nanostructure surface and a large viscous
damping force that facilitates trap loading. Atoms with velocities of several meters per second may be loaded directly
into the trap via spontaneous emission
of just two photons. The finding has importance for quantum physics, enabling
novel nano-optic devices.
SEAS CIT implements application streaming with Intel
The office of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) at SEAS is collaborating with Intel to simplify the
deployment of engineering and scientific applications to around 1000 students and faculty. Through streaming
large, complex scientific and engineering applications over a heterogeneous
network architecture, initial results
showed install times decreasing from
4 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
hours to minutes, as well as fewer
problems caused by human error during complex installation and licensing
procedures.
Implants mimic infection
to rally immune system
against tumors
David Mooney, Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering, and colleagues
showed that small plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific antigens and
implanted under the skin can reprogram the mammalian immune system
to attack tumors.
The research, which rid 90 percent of
mice of an aggressive form of melanoma that would usually kill the rodents
within 25 days, represents the most effective demonstration to date of a cancer vaccine.
The implants developed by Mooney and
colleagues are slender disks measuring
8.5 millimeters across. Made of an FDAapproved biodegradable polymer, they
can be inserted subcutaneously, much
like the implantable contraceptives
that can be placed in a woman’s arm.
Mooney’s co-authors were Omar A. Ali,
Nathaniel Huebsch, and Lan Cao of
SEAS and Glenn Dranoff of the DanaFarber Cancer Institute, Brigham and
Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. The research was funded by
the National Institutes of Health and
Harvard University.
Engineers control assembly
of nanobristles
Joanna Aizenberg, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor
at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study, and L. Mahadevan, Lola England
de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, discovered a way to synthesize
and control the formation of nanobristles into helical clusters and have
further demonstrated the fabrication of
such highly ordered clusters over multiple scales and areas.
To achieve the “clumping” effect, the
scientists used an evaporating liquid on
a series of upright individual pillars arrayed like stiff threads on a needlepoint
canvas. The resulting capillary forces
caused the individual strands to deform
and to adhere to one another like braided hair, forming nanobristles.
Potential applications of the technique
include the ability to store elastic energy
and information embodied in adhesive
patterns that can be created at will.
Aizenberg and Mahadevan’s co-authors
included Boaz Pokroy and Sung H. Kang,
both in the Aizenberg Biomineralization and Biomimetics Lab at SEAS.
Researchers measure elusive
repulsive force
Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace
Professor of Applied Physics, and col-
Recent findings
(above) The Brenner lab’s work on investigating the aerodynamics of fungal spores “combines diverse fields—
mycology and applied mathematics—in synergistic and truly collaborative ways, with a critical contribution
coming from Harvard’s remarkable collections”. (right) An artist’s rendition of how the repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz
force between suitable materials in a fluid can be used to quantum mechanically levitate a small object of
density greater than the liquid (courtesy of the Capasso lab).
leagues from the National Institutes of
Health achieved quantum levitation,
measuring, for the first time, a repulsive
quantum mechanical force that could
be harnessed and tailored for a wide
range of new nanotechnology applications.
“When two surfaces of the same material, such as gold, are separated by vacuum, air, or a fluid, the resulting force
is always attractive,” explained Capasso.
When the scientists replaced one of the
two metallic surfaces immersed in a
fluid with one made of silica, the force
between them switched from attractive
to repulsive.
Potential applications of the team’s
finding 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.
Capasso’s co-authors were Jeremy Munday, formerly a graduate student in
Harvard’s Department of Physics and
now a postdoctoral researcher at the
California Institute of Technology, and
V. Adrian Parsegian, senior investigator
at the National Institutes of Health.
Team finds fungal spores
aerodynamic
new research by mycologists and applied mathematicians at SEAS based in
the Brenner lab.
Notable grants
Four SEAS faculty (Vahid Tarokh and Roger Brockett,
“Accelerated Contrast-enhanced Whole-Heart Coronary MRI with Compressed Sensing”; Kit Parker,
“Generation of Functional Human Myocardial Tissue
from Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent
Stem Cells for the Development of Cellular Models
of Human Disease and Drug Discovery and Design”;
and David Mooney, “Polymer Bacterial Mimics as
Cancer Vaccines”) were among the collaborative
groups that won awards in the first round of Harvard
Catalyst Pilot Grants. The selected projects were
chosen from a pool of 607 (representing 1448 investigators) submitted in response to a request for
applications released this past September.
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 flow, 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 to
the research as an applied mathematics graduate student and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of
California, Berkeley. “It turns out that
for forcibly ejected spores, the shape can
be explained by simple physical principles: The spores need to have a close
to minimum possible air resistance for
their size. As projectiles, they are close
to perfect.”
Colleen Hansel, Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences, and Marko Lonc̆ar, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, have both won Faculty
Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from
the National Science Foundation (NSF). The honor is
considered one of the most prestigious for up-andcoming researchers in science and engineering.
Hansel’s current research in environmental microbiology and geochemistry focuses on understanding the
abiotic and biotic processes that govern the fate and
bioavailability of metals within both terrestrial and
aquatic environments. Her lab relies on a multidisciplinary approach to understand the link between
microbial metabolism and metal-redox-chemistry.
The $212,000 CAREER Award will support Hansel’s
research in the emerging field of geomycology, metal
biomineralization by fungi.
The unusual marriage of mycology
and applied mathematics was fostered
at Harvard by the physical proximity
of disparate facilities such as the highspeed cameras Roper used to photograph spore release and the 130-year-old
Farlow Library, which ranks among the
world’s strongest mycological and botanical collections. J
Lonc̆ar’s research focuses on phenomena resulting
from the interaction of light and matter on a nanoscale level.The $400,000 CAREER Award will support Lonc̆ar’s work on nanoscale opto-mechanical
systems.
Harvard was among four universities to receive part
of $500,000 in funding from Microsoft’s Sustainable
Computing Program. David Brooks, John L. Loeb
Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences and Associate Professor of Computer Science; Gu-Yeon
Wei, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering;
and Mike Smith, John H. Finley Jr. Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Dean of FAS,
will develop a dynamic runtime environment to link
power use and load. J
The reproductive spores of many species of fungi have evolved remarkably
drag-minimizing shapes, according to
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 5
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Crosscurrents
Cooking as Practical Science
The evolution of the art and science of cuisine
C
all it a new view on gut instinct.
While enjoying the warmth of
a fireplace, Harvard’s Richard
Wrangham, Professor of Anthropology,
came up with the idea that cooking
may be what separates human beings
from their evolutionary forebears.
In his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us
Human, Wrangham surmises that putting raw
animal flesh to the flames 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 developed brains.
Whatever the source of humanity’s IQ bump,
cooking has certainly evolved—from a trial-byfire 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 different sort of white coat: scientists.
The invention of baking powder, essential for
flaky biscuits, happened in a Harvard-affiliated
facility rather than a kitchen (see sidebar on
right). Moreover, some food items have become
experimental classics. Edgerton’s milk-drop
coronet and seemingly simple substances such
as honey and cornstarch have helped scientists
understand complex phenomena, from fluid dynamics to geological formations.
Haute cuisine comes to
campus
Ferran Adrià’s December 12, 2008,
campus visit was no mere flash in
the pan. By the tenets of a memorandum of understanding between
SEAS and his nonprofit foundation, he will work with faculty and
students, including David Weitz, to
create a future academic course on
molecular cooking.
Adrià offers patrons a taste of the unusual through the use of hydrocolloids,
or “gums” that enable a delicate fruit
puree to be transformed into a dense
gel and relies on deconstruction techniques such as sterificacion, creating
a resistant skin of liquid (as in a pea
soup held in a pod of nothing more
than itself).
6 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
In fact, today’s 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 flashfrozen hot chocolate have struck many as pretentious or just plain weird. Looked at another way,
these chef-scientists are drawing from the 19thcentury definition of their profession: Cooking as
practical science.
Whether or not we ate our way to evolutionary
dominance, from that first crackle of fat on the
fire to today’s dollop of culinary foam, the art and
science of cooking have kept evolving, each ingredient complementing the other.
The curious case of Count
Rumford
Concerned with the fate of cakes and
other confections, the nation’s cooks
scarcely give the silhouette on the Rumford Baking Powder label likely never receives more than a cursory glance.
The cloaked figure in question is Sir
Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814),
better known as Count Rumford. Born
in Woburn, Massachusetts, the inventor and scientist spent his youth, according to the Web site for the Rumford
Corporation, “boot[legging] physics
courses at Harvard”—actually walking all the way to Cambridge to attend
lectures—and eventually “became one
of the discoverers of the Law of Conservation of Energy.”
Clever as he was, Rumford did not
invent his namesake baking powder.
Instead, in 1816 the Count funded
an endowment to support the Rumford Professorship at Harvard for the
express purpose of hiring faculty who
would apply physical and mathematical sciences to the useful arts (especially for those who showed exceptional achievements in science and
cooking).
His generosity was returned in kind.
Baking powder (patented in 1859) was
created by a Rumford Professor, Eben
Norton Horsford (1818–93). Horsford
honored Rumford on the label as well
as in the name of the company he
cofounded: the Rumford Chemical
Works.
As for the professorship today, it has
migrated from the lengthy Rumford
Chair of the Application of Science
to the Useful Arts to the Rumford
Professor of Physics. Currently Jene
Golovchenko, Rumford Professor of
Physics and Gordon McKay Professor
of Applied Physics, holds the honor.
While today’s work is a far cry from
commonplace baking soda and, more
generally, cooking, one suspects the
Count would be pleased
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Culinary Q&A
Inspired by the December visit to SEAS of famed chef Ferran Adrià (see sidebar)
and the annual holiday lecture dedicated to the science of chocolate, we asked
SEAS-based researchers and collaborators to pose and answer questions related
to “experimental” food. Recipes (theoretical and practical) follow. Bon appétit!
Why does honey coil?
(and other kitchen mysteries)
Honey on toast: L. Mahadevan’s quest
to explore the inner workings of everyday 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
one’s food sound productive, Mahadevan’s elegant mathematics solved a
longstanding conundrum in fluid dynamics 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 finding, saying, “The geological
flow of tectonic plates—the mechanism that creates mountain ranges—
may be similar in principle to the flow
of sheets of honey. We’ll have to see
how it pans out.”
11 years later, a related finding did
in fact pan out—curiously enough,
with the aid of another pantry staple:
cornstarch. Mahadevan helped colleagues at the University of Toronto
solve the geological mystery of the Giant’s Causeway, an area on the coast of
Ireland composed of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns resulting from a
volcanic eruption. The crack patterns
on drying samples of cornstarch are
geometrically similar to the unusually
beautiful stone pillars. This bit of supermarket science led to a quantitative
explanation of how such complicated
patterns arose.
One more tidbit too delicious to pass
up: Mahadevan has made another classic contribution to kitchen science.
He figured out why Cheerios tend to
clump together or stick to the wall in
a breakfast bowl of milk. The “Cheerio
effect” is due to the surface tension between the milk and the air.
Honey shortbread
To see the coiling process at home,
simply dip a chopstick into a jar of
honey and hold it from a sufficient
height above the jar.
When you are done watching the
dazzling display, try out the following
easy recipe.
(Photo by Derek Richardson)
Whip together ¾ cup butter at room
temperature with 2/3 cup wildflower honey.
Then mix in 3 cups almond flour and 2
tsp. vanilla. Bake in a greased 8” x 8” pan
at 350° for 20 to 30 minutes until lightly
browned.
The air/milk interface does not like to
be deformed, but at the same time, gravity is pulling on the individual Cheerios. The two effects cancel, resulting in
oatey holes that like to stick together.
You may never look at breakfast the
same way again.
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 7
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Why does chocolate have sheen
and snap when you break it?
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 remaining mass of Type V seed crystals
serves as nucleation sites for crystal
growth, ensuring that the correct crystalline form dominates as the chocolate cools completely.
Amy Rowat, a postdoctoral student in
the Weitz lab, recommends not losing your temper when dealing with
chocolate—perhaps one of the most
scientifically complex foods you will
ever encounter.
“As an everyday example, consider the
soft graphite in a pencil versus a hard
diamond,” says Rowat. “These materials both consist of carbon atoms
but have vastly different mechanical
properties, depending on the way the
carbon atoms pack together.”
Chocolate is an emulsion of cocoa and
sugar particles suspended in a continuous phase of fat. The natural fat of the
cocoa bean (called cocoa butter) gives
chocolate that sumptuous texture as it
melts in your mouth. In addition, the
fat is responsible for the candy’s characteristic glossy finish, homogeneous
texture that snaps when you break it,
and shelf life.
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 crystal forms melt, and upon uncontrolled
cooling, nonuniform types of crystals
form that do not pack together as
densely.
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 liquid 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 crystalline forms, Type V and VI, that pack
the molecules into a dense crystalline
“Different types of fat have different
melting or phase transition temperatures, 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 typically melts in your mouth, not in your
hand. Above 97°F all crystalline forms
of cocoa butter are liquid.”
Tempering Chocolate
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.
Take a chunk of 70% dark chocolate and place it in a double
boiler (a heat-proof bowl placed on top of a pot containing water).
Heat gently and stir to melt all existing fat crystals (T > 105°F).
Be careful because chocolate burns at higher temperatures, T
= 200°F. Keep stirring and remove the chocolate from heat to
cool it down to T = 81–94°F. During this time, both stable and
unstable crystals begin to form. Warm up the chocolate again
to T = 90°F to melt out the unstable crystal forms, leaving only
the stable type of crystals. Be sure to keep it at 90°F for several
minutes to ensure that the unstable crystals have melted.
Maintain at 90°F while you create delicious confections using your
tempered chocolate (excellent for dipping strawberries, candied
ginger, and biscotti). Once dipped, lay the goodies on a baking
sheet lined with wax paper to cool.
8 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
How might aerosol
science change
the way we eat?
David Edwards is asking people
to breathe what they eat. Along
with current and former Harvard
undergraduate students, including Trevor Martin ’10, Jonathan
Kamler ’07, Larissa Zhou ’10,
and chef Thierry Marx, he has
helped commercialize what may
become the newest olfactory sensation: Le Whif.
Dispensing with forks and
knives, the technique encapsulates flavors in a compact aerosol
delivery system (which looks
like a large tube of lipstick), allowing the calorie conscious to
“whiff” flavors such as chocolate.
When a whiff is inhaled, a cloud
of tiny flavor particles suspended
in a gas “coats your mouth,” creating a flavor sensation worthy
of Willy Wonka. The recently
commercialized invention was
sold in Paris starting in April and
then taken on the road to various
cities across the United States.
Aerosols have played an equally
critical role in Edwards’ bioengineering research. While working
in a food science lab, he came
upon the idea of using a spray
drying process to produce a new,
more stable, and potentially
more effective way to deliver TB
vaccines.
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Whiffed Chocolate Lamb Reduction
1.3 L water
170 mL chocolate liquor
170 mL Porto
40 mL lamb stock
70 mL orange syrup
10 g Nestle “Le Chocolate” powder.
Although not possible (at least, not
easily) at home, the following recipe
gives you an idea of what the inventors see as the future of whiffing (and,
for that matter, the future of food).
The ingredients would be poured into a liquid
vessel with an ultrasound source (similar to devices
used for aromatherapy). The resulting flavor would
“cloud” into a room. The reduction could then be
whiffed (inhaled directly using a blank Le Whif
tube) while, for example, enjoying actual lamb chops
with crushed mango.
Why is a creating a consommé so special?
“The clarification of a consommé is such
wonderful biochemistry,” says Roberto
Kolter, Professor of Microbiology and
Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical 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 consommé, 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
flavor involves denaturation, a process
For the daring, molecular cook Ferran Adrià (see
below) created a consommé fit for kings, jamón
y melon (Iberian ham and melon), where capsules
of melon spheres hang suspended in a clear
golden broth. Since the cost of the specialty ham
alone is $90, Parma ham or prosciutto is a better
bet. Part one of the recipe (the ham consommé)
is below. The full recipe is available online
(www.thestar.com/article/513456). And keep in
mind that consommé can be veggie-friendly as
well (e.g., clear tomato gazpacho).
Jamón y Melon
Cover ¼ lb. ham with 2 cups water and ¼
tsp. xanthan gum or Xantana; simmer in
small pot 15 minutes, skimming fat continuously. Strain through sieve lined with
paper coffee filter; discard filter, strain
through new filter. Refrigerate consommé
till cold, about 30 minutes. If consommé
is cloudy, freeze it overnight, then thaw
and strain again. You might need to add
more xanthan gum to the mixture so it will
support the weight of the melon caviar
(provided you have the skill and desire to
make them).
in which proteins lose and change their
structure, as when you fry an egg. By
adding egg whites (a water-soluble denatured 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 filtered off, all that remains is in-solution, delightfully crystalclear liquid full of flavor. “You are taking
something very cloudy—lots of stuff
simply suspended but not dissolved—
and taking away everything that is not
in solution,” explains Kolter.
Clarification also plays a role in beverages
such as beer and wine. For the refreshing
taste of a pilsner, brewers rely on the flocculation (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 flocculation.
Kolter, a native speaker of Spanish, served
as the chief translator during Adrià’s
visit and had no qualms in inviting the
famed chef over for dinner. “The reason
why someone who loves to do biochemistry 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.
Jamón y melon mentioned in the
recipe on the left.
Suggested Eating
Cambridge and Boston-area visitors
interested in experiencing molecular
gastronomy might like to try the following establishments:
Clio Restaurant
Chef: Ken Oringer. Reserve the tasting
menu (13–15 courses) in advance
www.cliorestaurant.com
Salts
Chef: Gabriel Bremer
www.saltsrestaurant.com
O ya
Chef: Tim Cushman
www.oyarestaurantboston.com
Suggested Reading
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made
Us Human
Robert 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 Junko
Murata). Harvard University Press (2009).
A Day at El Bulli
Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler, and Albert Adrià.
Phaidon Press (2008).
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 9
Faculty News
The High-performance Instrumented
Airborne Platform for Environmental
Research, or HIAPER, is one of the
country’s most advanced research
facilities (and it even flies). SEAS faculty member Steve Wofsy led a recent
mission to directly measure greenhouse gasses throughout the Earth’s
atmosphere, virtually pole-to-pole.
breadth within computer science or
that bridge computer science and
other disciplines.
Environmental Science and Technology named a paper by Scot Martin,
Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, and postdoctoral
student Chongzheng Na among the
best of 2008. Their paper, “Interfacial
Forces Are Modified by the Growth of
Surface Nanostructures,” sheds new
light on variability that nanostructures
create on mineral surfaces.
Nota Bene
Incoming Dean Cherry A. Murray was
interviewed by Nature and Science
about her appointment.
bioengineering (three SEAS faculty
were featured).
Eric Mazur appeared on the new
Science Channel program Brink to
discuss innovations in materials and
energy technology.
Ben Adida, of CRCS, was interviewed
on PRI’s The World Technology Podcast
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 gases
from pole to pole.
To explain her work on nanobristles,
Joanna Aizenberg appeared on
NPR’s Science Friday on January 8;
additional coverage of the research
appeared in Discovery Magazine and
The New Scientist.
The Ferran Adrià 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 coverage, Chronicle, a program aired by
CS instructor David Malan was being
filmed as part of an NYU student film
project on innovative teaching.
Ben Adida gets a vote of confidence
for his work on the Helios project.
Boston’s Channel 5, followed the chef
during his visits at Harvard and to local
area restaurants.
Federico Capasso’s 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/February Harvard Magazine highlighted
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.
10 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
The cover story of GSAS’s Colloquy
(Fall issue) was about David Edward’s
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.
DragonflyTV, a new kids’ science
show, featured several segments on
nanotechnology set at SEAS/Harvard
and featuring SEAS/Harvard researchers and staff, including instructional lab
guru Joe Ustinowich. Tune in to What’s
Nano? by visiting http://pbskids.org/
dragonflytv/nano/index.html.J
Awards
Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor
of Natural Sciences at the Harvard
School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences and dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard
University, was awarded the Allen
Newell Award from the Association
for Computing Machinery/Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence. The Newell Award recognizes career contributions that have
Howard Stone, Vicky Joseph Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics, was elected to the National
Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is among the highest
professional distinctions accorded an
engineer.
IEEE Software’s editorial and advisory
boards selected “Attacking Malicious
Code: A Report to the Infosec Research Council” (2000) authored by
Greg Morrisett, now Allen B. Cutting
Professor of Computer Science and
Associate Dean for Computer Science 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 firm
with headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area, as one of their 25thAnniversary Top Picks for full-length,
peer-reviewed articles.
Nature selected a paper by Mark
Wagner ’07 and Maurice Smith, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering,
for its Journal Club. The duo explored
the brain’s ability to learn unnatural
tasks such as driving.
New faculty member John Briscoe,
Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Environmental Engineering,
was given the Presidential Award at
the World of Water Forum held this
past March in Istanbul, Turkey.
James Rice, Mallinckrodt Professor
of Engineering Sciences and Geophysics, won the 2008 Panetti-Ferrari
Prize. The award recognizes achievements in applied mechanics.
The Materials Research Society selected 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
Faculty News
New Arrivals
John Briscoe
David Clarke
Evelyn Hu
Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Environmental Engineering and Health (joint, with the
Harvard School of Public Health)
Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science
Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and
Electrical Engineering
(Spring 2009)
(Spring 2009)
Areas: Engineering and Economic Development
(Spring 2009)
Areas: Electronic and Magnetic Systems and Devices; Materials Science; Optics, Electromagnetics,
and Light-Matter Interactions
Areas: Electronic and Magnetic Systems and
Devices; Optics, Electromagnetics, and Light-Matter
Interactions; Photonics and Optical Devices;
Biophysics; Materials Science; Soft Condensed
Matter; Surface and Interface Science
Appointments and Promotions
Venky Narayanamurti
Former SEAS dean Venkatesh Narayanamurti was named the Benjamin Pierce
Professor. This coming fall, Narayanamurti will also become the new director
of the Science, Technology, and Public
Policy program at the Harvard Kennedy
School’s Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs.
Belfer Center Director Graham Allison
noted that Narayanamurti is an “exceptionally fitting” choice to chair the
Belfer Center’s Science, Technology,
and Public Policy Program because he
follows in the footsteps of the founder
of that program, Harvey Brooks, who
also assumed that position after serving as the dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at
Harvard.
“I’m honored to follow in the footsteps
of Harvey Brooks, Lewis Branscomb,
and John Holdren,” Narayanamurti
said. “Some of today’s greatest societal challenges – from global health to
information management to sustainability to national security to economic
competitiveness – lie at the intersections of science, technology and
public policy. I am looking forward to
working at this exciting interface and
also in enhancing linkages between
SEAS, 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 scientific
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 Science, Technology, and Public Policy.
Michael P. Brenner
Frans Spaepen, Interim Dean, appointed applied mathematician Michael P.
Brenner as the School’s first Associate
Dean for Applied Mathematics.
Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied
Mathematics and Applied Physics,
investigates a wide range of areas
across the physical and biological sciences, from understanding the limitations of self-assembly to algorithm
development for atmospheric chemistry to understanding the aerodynamic
mechanism for stall-delay in humpback whales.
He has long served as the Director of
Undergraduate Studies for the concentration in Applied Mathematics, as
a tutor in Biochemical Sciences, and
co-developed Applied Math 50, “Introduction to Applied Mathematics,” with
Marie Dahleh, Assistant Dean for Academic Programs at SEAS.
In March, Brenner became the inaugural recipient of the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in
Mentoring and Advising.
As Associate Dean for Applied Mathematics, Brenner will help to manage
academic and course planning and faculty and staff searches; handle promotion reviews for faculty appointments;
represent SEAS to FAS committees on
appointments and promotion; and play
a prominent role in raising the visibility
of the area as an intellectual endeavor.
He will join David Mooney, Associate
Dean for Applied Chemical/Biological
Sciences and Engineering and Gordon
McKay Professor of Bioengineering
and Greg Morrisett, Associate Dean for
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and Allan B. Cutting Professor
of Computer Science. J
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 11
Student News
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.
His own “good work” sits somewhere
between economics, computer science,
and psychology in an area he calls environment design. Working with David
Parkes, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, and Yiling Chen, Assistant
Professor of Computer Science, Zhang
explores how to build environments
that change people’s behavior. Imagine,
he says, designing a room that encourages people to recycle, or a program interface that encourages users to properly
tag and index their online photos.
Graduate
Tips on how to be a
professional (student)
B
eing called a professional student
(as in, “You are still in school?”) is
usually 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 Seminar Series to cover all the little things
not taught in the classroom “that are really useful to know.”
The little things like … Time management. Writing a dissertation. Succeeding
in an academic job search. Navigating a
career. Public speaking. Academic writing. Grant writing. Mentoring. Budgeting. Managing perceived biases.
Graduate students soon encounter all
of the above—and, more often than not,
without the aid of a guide. “There was a
grant 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 professional dilemma, many students rely
on whatever they have “picked up by
word of mouth.” Zhang wants the semi12 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
nars to promote open discussion, not to
become a one-stop oracle or a replacement 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 during a regular 9-to-5 schedule; Manoharan
takes a more flexible approach, sometimes coming to “work” in the afternoon.
In both cases, the emphasis was on management—finding a way to titrate activities to, as Zhang puts it, “plan out your
creative time to think about problems.”
Moreover, Welsh advocated that success may come from simple fixes such
as checking email at set times or turning 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 fields. Given
the increasingly interdisciplinary nature
of scientific research, commonalities inevitably come through.
“I’ve come to realize that academia relies
a lot on good work but also on people
recognizing your good work … and that relationships 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 attendee as he is an organizer.
The research that will fuel Zhang’s thesis is “primarily theoretical” at this stage.
Through the seminar series, however, he
has designed a suitable environment for
sharing the kind of practical advice that
may soon make being a called a professional student an honor.
More sound advice
M
ichael Mitzenmacher keeps an active blog called “My Biased Coin.”
Peppered within the postings about research and academic life are useful (and
often funny) tips for graduate students,
such as: “In fact, as a graduate student, collaborating successfully is likely to be key to
your success … collaborating is often fun,
and having fun while working on a problem 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 his
past essays, including the classic “Slow
Down,” on his website, www.eecs.harvard.edu/~lewis/.
The editor of this newsletter recommends two books, Advice for a Young
Investigator, by Santiago Ramon y Cajal
(MIT Press, 1999), and a work of fiction
that accurately captures the politics of
an academic lab, Intuition, by Allegra
Goodman (Dial Press, 2007). J
Creating renewable energy in
the lab
“C
an you believe this!” Anas Chalah,
the recently appointed Director
of SEAS’s Teaching Labs, doesn’t hold
back his excitement. Galloping around
in his office, he picks up a model of a protein. Made of white plastic, still slightly
wet, and looking like a congealed explosion, the piece is fresh out of the new 3D
printer down the hall
Computer simulations present a close
to accurate depiction of biological structures, but the physical models “really let
them see it,” explains Chalah, who came
to SEAS after completing postdoctoral
research at Harvard Medical School/Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“We can use our resources for almost any
course. There’s no reason why we should
limit this technology,” he says.
In fact, groups of undergraduates in an
applied mathematics course (one that
didn’t even have a lab segment) converted
virtual to physical to study how proteins
form and fit together. Days after a student
Anas Chalah encourages undergraduate students to
pull up a chair and get comfortable in the lab.
emailed Chalah about her concept, the
printer was fired up and working overtime to construct the design in time for
a final project.
It’s that kind of spur-of-the-moment creativity Chalah plans to use to energize the
labs. For additional inspiration, he stops
professors and “hassles them” about finding 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 thoroughly integrated into computer science
and electrical engineering courses (activities coordinated by Xuan Liang, Associate
Director of Instructional Laboratories).
In March—to reduce the disparity—
Chalah offered a hands-on workshop in
mechanical engineering, developed new
experiments for the thermodynamics
course, and sketched out a plan for labbased segments for environmental engineering.
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.
I3
T
he second Innovation Challenge
(13), a Harvard campus-wide undergraduate entrepreneurship competition,
attracted 50 teams and over 150 students.
The Crimson reported on the award event
held in March. Winning entries included
“online enterprises geared towards providing free SAT prep to low-income students, making holiday travel cheaper, and
navigating New York City more easily.”
13 is led by the Harvard College Entrepreneurship Forum in association with
Harvard Student Agencies, Inc., and the
Technology and Entrepreneurship Center, based at SEAS.
For innovative undergrads,
bacteria make some buzz
A
team of undergraduates who engineered a bacterial biosensor with
electrical output recently made some
buzz at the 2008 international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition held at MIT.
The innovators won a gold medal for
their contributions to the competition
and were among the six finalists 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 develop
bacteria 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 team’s faculty adviser,
Pamela Silver, Professor of Systems Biology in the Department of Systems Biology
at Harvard Medical School (HMS). J
The blocks are a “canvas” for the
3-axis mill. The mill uses measurements specified by the user,
and then can create a design and
form a mold by cutting away
parts of the wax—a fitting metaphor for Chalah’s own vision.
“We are not a service facility. We
are part of the process.”
Student Awards
On behalf of the New York City Post of the
Society of American Military Engineers (SAME),
Harvard College senior Jason Miller ’09 was been
awarded 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 Harvard’s football team. He
earned a post on the All-Ivy League team and
was selected twice for the EPSN The Magazine
Academic All-District team.
(For more on the new teaching
labs, check out the back cover of
this newsletter.)
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 13
Student News
Undergraduate
In Profile
Material Goods
Michael Aziz encounters the
future of energy technology
T
he electric busy sign on Mike Aziz’s
door is one of those tiny details that
gradually begins to define the character
of a place. It’s the kind of open secret that
those in the know treasure—and 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. Perhaps the light burned out from overuse.
Aziz, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science, has certainly been busy.
“For the first two decades of my career I
thought there was nothing more interesting 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 thermodynamics, he wanted to find 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 what
is 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 afford not to solve.” As a result, he began to
develop energy-related activities in his
research in materials science. “The field
is being rejuvenated in the energy arena
because so many advances depend on materials,” Aziz says.
For evidence, he rattles off a litany of examples. A strip of solar cells that powers
up a road sign; a new class of superconductors that could potentially transmit
Arizona’s solar energy resources to Boston; a corrosion-resistant base for offshore
wind turbines; radiation-tolerant materials for next-generation nuclear reactors;
and cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes for
14 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
Mike Aziz, a materials scientist, became fascinated by energy technology while teaching a basic course on
thermodynamics.
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
technology—behemoth power stations
and nuclear plants buzzing with life or
wind and solar farms stretching over several football fields of land. “What’s most
visible are the big projects, and without
big projects you don’t solve the problem,”
he says. “We are dealing with a very big
energy infrastructure, and the vast majority of it has to change.”
Aziz says the most visible changes will involve 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 saving more (installing insulation and heat
pump retrofits and better managing the
thermostat). Ultra-high efficiency buildings will begin to replace older, inefficient structures and, as a whole, cities
will evolve.
Market forces, akin to what the U.S. experienced when gas prices spiked last year,
“We are dealing with a very
big energy infrastructure, and
a vast majority of it has to
change.”
and government intervention through
establishing a cost for fossil fuel emissions will help drive the even broader
transformation. Combined with the current economic crisis, the days of drafty
McMansions and power-hungry Hummers are dwindling—but their demise is
not enough for a clean planetary bill of
health.
According to Aziz, “There’s going to have
to be some very significant behavioral
changes. But a Rip Van Winkle going
to sleep now and waking up in 50 years
wouldn’t say, ‘I should have lived the rest
of my life in the early part of the 21st century, 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 countries have already embraced for several
decades. Beyond that, conventional fossil
energy needs to be displaced by low-carbon sources such as wind, solar, nuclear,
and biomass, as well as capturing CO2
from combustion exhaust streams and sequestering it away from the atmosphere.
Engineering Sciences–231, “Survey of
Energy Technology” a course Aziz developed to coincide with the newly created
graduate consortium on energy and environment (see Fall/Winter 2008 newsletter), explores the nitty-gritty behind
such ecological game changers.
Students in ES–231 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 renewable 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 environmental baggage, gasoline is a terrific energy
carrier. Aziz reminds his students that an
“elegant but too expensive” solution will
not be implemented. Even technically viable long-term solutions such as fuel cell
cars face enormous barriers in the current environment, as where will patrons
juice up in a world of gas stations?
To transform Gordon Gecko’s 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 better
than, existing solutions. That said, not
all technological approaches to mitigating climate change are perceived as being equally good for the planet.
This past spring, John Holdren, head of
the White House Office 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 implement sufficiently aggressive emissions
control. 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.
“That’s not something you can do successfully just when the alarm bell rings.”
those vital shifts in polarity that help
define 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 emerging
as energy and the environment. Toward this end,
members of the Aziz lab, along with colleagues
across Harvard, have been working on projects at both the small and large scale because
“there’s innovation needed at all levels.”
Having codeveloped a potentially viable carbon ocean sequestration process
himself (see sidebar), he thinks such
schemes have to be put on the table. “Doing controlled experiments rather than
just thinking more” is the right way to
go, provided the rationale behind the
thinking is equally controlled.
Green concrete. In 2007, Aziz and colleague
Dan Schrag (SEAS/EPS) from EPS worked
out a potentially viable carbon sequestration
process—electrochemically removing hydrochloric acid from the ocean and then neutralizing the acid by reaction with volcanic rocks,
which has the net effect of permanently transferring CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean
without acidifying the ocean.
On one hand, “you don’t want to send the
message that we can continue emitting
as we have been because the technologists are going to fix it all with some geoengineering band-aid,” says Aziz.
As a follow-up, Aziz is discovering the wonders of what he calls green concrete. In steady
state, for every ton of carbon that leaves the
atmosphere and goes into the ocean by
chemical weathering, half of it precipitates as
calcium carbonate and causes the other half
to outgas back into the atmosphere.
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 “unacceptable levels of climate change,”
making geoengineering the only viable
recourse in a planetary emergency.
Where he saw a problem—avoiding the precipitation—a start-up company saw a solution, using the precipitated calcium carbonate
in cement and concrete, and has licensed the
technology from Harvard. Cement manufacturing is responsible for 5% of all human
CO2 emissions worldwide. A reduction in its
carbon footprint could make a substantial difference.
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 developing world, owning four wheels has
become equated with economic freedom.
Flow control. Jason Rugolo, a graduate student working with Aziz, is at the early stages
of developing a new type of highly reversible
fuel cell (called a flow battery) appropriate for
large-scale energy storage. The common
hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells experience huge
losses in efficiency at the oxygen electrode,
and for storage and delivery the “energy must
be run through twice”—leaving little left after
the round trip. As an alternative, the two are
working on a hydrogen-chlorine fuel cell that
avoids the need for an oxygen electrode and
could have very little loss, making the flow
battery suitable for storing energy from intermittent renewables such as wind and photovoltaic power until there is a demand for it.
A couple years ago, Aziz set aside his
“empty minivan” for the few days his
family needs it, and started commuting in a small hybrid with triple the gas
mileage—as 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 too
will make a positive impact.
“These are long shots,” admits Aziz, “that ten
years ago I wouldn’t have taken. But now it’s
worth investing some effort into them because
the stakes are so high.”
He has been further inspired to take risks with
the addition of recent arrivals such as David
Clarke, Gordon McKay Professor of Material
Science, and Shriram Ramanathan, Assistant
Professor of Materials Science. Clarke is working on developing advanced thermal barriers
(important for allowing jet engines to operate at
higher temperatures and resulting in greater efficiency). Ramanathan is working on novel solidstate energy materials synthesis (placing a micro
fuel cell directly on a silicon chip). Both faculty
members have started new companies based
on their technologies, each aiming to be one of
the game changers in the green energy realm.
“We can keep our identification with
what we drive as an important part of
our personality and just deflect it in a
green direction.”
In terms of his own research and teaching, he’s shown just how powerful
deflecting in a green direction can be.
Aziz’s burgeoning interest in sustainability may become yet another one of
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 15
In profile
Green game changers
Intersections
The Missing App for Direct Democracy
When will e-voting evolve beyond an idea?
R
emember e-voting? In the age of
Facebook, a platform some politicos have cited as the real winner in the
2008 presidential election, and with the
ever-growing phenomenon of Twitter,
why aren’t we casting our votes on our
iPhones one moment and looking up
where to eat the next? Did next-generation direct democracy happen and we
simply missed the email?
E-voting is happening, just not in the
United States—at least not yet. Salon.
com blogger Cyrus Farivar explained
the reason for the delay in a recent post.
“One of the basic problems of voting
technology, whether electronic or not,
is that there’s no real way for anyone to
verify that their vote was counted properly,” he wrote. “Regardless of whether I
push a button on a screen or I drop my
paper in a ballot box, I’m essentially taking it on faith that my vote was recorded and tallied accurately. Even if voter
monitoring groups had people in every
precinct, it still wouldn’t be possible.”
Thanks to advanced cryptography techniques there are alternatives to just,
“taking it on faith”. Computer scientists
affiliated with the Center for Research
on Computation and Society (CRCS),
based at SEAS, in collaboration with
scientists at the Université catholique
de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, deployed
the first practical, Web-based implementation of a secure, verifiable 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 Children’s Hospital Informatics Program, Harvard Medical School.
Professors Jean-Jacques Quisquater and
Olivier Pereira and Ph.D. student Olivier de Marneffe at UCL worked closely
with the UCL Election Commission to
integrate Helios into the University’s
infrastructure, implement UCL’s custom-weighted tallying system, and
optimize the verification tools for the
election size.
16 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
“Helios allows any participant to verify
that their ballot was correctly captured,
and any observer to verify that all captured ballots were correctly tallied,” said
Adida. “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 first
real-world, open-audit election of this
magnitude and impact of outcome.”
The verifiable voting system, available
as open-source/free software, implements advanced cryptographic techniques to maintain ballot secrecy while
providing a mathematical proof that the
election tally was correctly computed.
“...you can go to the audit
website...You’re able to
download every encrypted
vote. You can verify all of
the vote fingerprints by
recomputing the fingerprint
yourself. Each voter can check
that their ballot is on that
list, under the correct voter
identifier.”
Helios relies on public key homomorphic 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).
“Because the tallying happens under the
covers of encryption, the entire verification 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;
officials must provide mathematical
proofs that everything was done appropriately.”
The system was first 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 first week of March. The UCL presidential election was available to 25,000
eligible 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 first
ever voted into office online. J
Secure, Verifiable Voting
Helios employed as an
in-precinct voting system
In an election, Helios works as follows:
First, each voter receives a tracking number for
his or her vote, and the vote is encrypted with
the election public key before it leaves the voter’s
browser.
Voter enters booth and
selects candidates on
a touchscreen.
Sandra Davis (D)
Howard Laprise (I)
Public service commissioner
Jonathan Drew (R)
Robert Dunham (D)
Nancy Roberts (I)
Second, with the tracking number, a voter can
then verify that his or her ballot was correctly captured by the voting system, which publishes a list
of all tracking numbers prior to tallying.
Voter completes
selections and
submits his/her
ballot electronically.
Finally, the voter or any observer, including election watchers from outside the election, can verify
that these tracking numbers (the encrypted votes)
were tallied appropriately. The election results
contain a mathematical proof of the tally that
cannot be “faked,” even with the use of powerful
computers.
SUBMIT
Voter ID
25A4X
Tracking # BB9627XTC1577PD5C742
Voting booth delivers
receipt containing an
electronic fingerprint
of the vote.
As for technical specs, Helios was initially implemented on Google App Engine. It is now built on
Django 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 statement
posted shortly after the election at UCL:
Poll workers scan
receipt and record that
the individual voter has
submitted a ballot.
www.votetrackingwebsite.com
Tracking # BB9627XTC1577PD5C742
Voter
John Doe
Your vote has been received and counted
“It means that you can go to the audit website.
There, you’ll find a detailed specification that describes the file formats, encryption mechanisms,
and process by which you can audit the election.
You’re able to download every encrypted vote.
You can verify all of the vote fingerprints by recomputing the fingerprint yourself. Each voter can
check that their ballot is on that list, under the correct voter identifier. Then you can check that the
encrypted tallying was done correctly, simply by
recomputing it. And you can check that the decryption proofs check out.
Voter able to visit
election website, enter
tracking number, and
confirm the vote has
been counted.
“And in the end, you can declare, with full confidence, because you coded it yourself and ran the
code yourself, that given the published list of vote
fingerprints, which individual voters checked, the
result of the election was correctly computed.”
NVIDIA/CUDA
N
VIDIA Corporation announced
that Harvard University has been
recognized as a CUDA Center of Excellence for its commitment to teaching
GPU computing and its integration of
CUDA-enabled GPUs for a host of science 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 Harvard
campus and the lively scientific landscape in Boston, there has never been
a better time to announce this partnership,” said Hanspeter Pfister, Gordon
McKay Professor of the Practice of
Computer Science in Harvard’s School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences
and Director of Visual Computing at
the Harvard Initiative in Innovative
Computing. “This generous gift from
Not exactly as easy as pulling up an application
for your iPhone, but Adida says the move toward
complete transparency is promising.
The Science of Chocolate Holiday Lecture offered
“sugar highs” on stage (kids were asked to simulate
the path of excited molecules).
NVIDIA will provide excellent learning
opportunities for Harvard students,
accelerate our research, and expand the
use of GPUs for computing in science
and other advanced applications.”
Events
V
isit www.seas.harvard.edu/newsand
events 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 Ferran Adrià, considered a pioneer in
combining scientific methodology with
cooking and known for the creation of
culinary foam, spoke at Harvard.
Barbara Grosz, Dean of the Radcliffe
Institute and Higgins Professor of
Natural Sciences in SEAS, presented
her Dean’s 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
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 17
Intersections
tion (in this case, tallying the votes); and
multiple independent private keys are
required to decrypt the message (in this
case, the election tally).
Alumni Notes
Tony Hsieh ’95
A CEO for the people
S
ome people adore Zappos, the online
shoe and clothing retailer, in the
same way they adore their favorite rock
band. Just mention the company’s name
to a crowd within earshot and a chorus
of “I just love that place!” will follow. To
CEO Tony Hsieh ’95, the reaction, italics
included, reflects the success of Zappos’
10 core values (see sidebar).
After earning his degree in computer
science, Hsieh cofounded and then sold
one of the earliest platforms for managing online advertising, LinkExchange,
to Microsoft in 1998. With the profits
from the sale, he started a venture capital/incubator firm, Venture Frogs, with
fellow graduate Alfred Lin ’94 (Applied
Mathematics). Hsieh, intrigued by one
of the start-ups in the portfolio, quickly
moved from outside investor to company insider to his present role. Lin made
the move as well, becoming CFO/COO
of Zappos.
With profiles in the Economist, CBS.com,
and Fast Company, Hsieh is becoming
the poster child of the kind of boss everyone wants. “My role is about creating an environment where employees
feel empowered to come up with their
own ideas for fulfilling that vision and
growing the culture,” he says. With over
$1 billion in sales last year, the combination of making the customer and employee king is empowering indeed.
Some people love Zappos in the same
way they love their favorite rock band.
Was that always the intention?
I think most people are initially drawn
to Zappos because of our huge selection
of shoes and clothing, but what creates
the passionate loyalty from customers
is our focus on customer service. This
includes free shipping both ways, our
365-day return policy, our fast shipping,
and the fact that we put our 1-800 number at the top of every single page of our
website because we actually want to
talk to our customers. We run our call
center pretty differently from most call
centers. The goal is to “Deliver WOW
18 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
As president of Zappos, the world’s largest online store for shoes, Tony Hsieh ’95 doesn’t mind immersing himself
in his products.
Through Service,” so we don’t have
scripts, call times, or upselling the way
most call centers do.
Did you always intend to be an entrepreneur? And now that Zappos has become
a more mature company, what, in your
mind, does it mean to “be in charge”?
I’ve been fairly entrepreneurial all my
life. In middle school I ran a mail-order
business, and while at Harvard I ran the
Quincy House Grille and decided to expand the food selection there by investing in pizza ovens. Now that Zappos is
a bigger company (we have about 1400
employees), being “in charge” is less
about me trying to do everything and
more about making sure that all of our
employees understand the vision of Zappos being about the very best customer
service and customer experience, as well
as our focus on company culture. Every
day, employees are coming up with new
ideas of how to express our core values,
both internally and externally, whether
it’s an idea for making our offices more
fun or an idea for how to make customers happier.
What was it like when Microsoft purchased LinkExchange? Did it seem
surreal?
At LinkExchange, I remember when it
was a lot of fun when it was just 5 or 10
of us working around the clock, sleeping under our desks, and having no idea
“Our belief is that if we get
the culture right, most of
the other stuff, like delivering
great customer service or
building a long-term enduring
brand, will happen naturally
on its own.”
what day of the week it was. But we
didn’t know to pay attention to company culture, so by the time we were 100
people, the culture of the company had
gone completely downhill. That was actually one of the main reasons why we
decided to sell the company. I wanted to
make sure the same mistake didn’t happen at Zappos. Our belief is that if we get
the culture right, most of the other stuff,
like delivering great customer service or
building a long-term enduring brand,
will happen naturally on its own.
What’s your advice to other corporate
(or nonprofit) leaders interested in creating the “right” culture?
The most important thing in creating
a strong culture is that it creates strong
alignment within the organization.
What the culture actually is doesn’t
matter as much as the commitment to
1. Deliver WOW Through Service.
2. Embrace and Drive Change.
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness.
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded.
5. Pursue Growth and Learning.
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With
Communication.
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit.
8. Do More With Less.
9. Be Passionate and Determined.
10. Be Humble.
the culture and core values of the organization. By commitment, I mean that
you are willing to hire, fire, and give performance reviews based on whether an
employee is living up to the core values
of the organization. A lot of companies
have “core values” or “guiding principles,” but most of the time they are
very lofty sounding, they read like press
releases, and are usually a meaningless
plaque on the wall of the lobby that nobody really pays attention to. It doesn’t
really do much good to have core values
if the organization isn’t living by them.
Right now, given the economic crisis,
consumerism is receiving a bad rap. Do
you have thoughts on the situation (as
an individual . . . as a company)?
I don’t know if it’s consumerism that’s
receiving a bad rap as much as what a
lot of companies stand for. Companies
that have built their brands around appealing to some people’s desires to brag
about their financial status probably are
not doing too well in this economy. For
Zappos, we’ve always thought of ourselves as a service company that happens
to sell shoes and clothes. I think that regardless of the economy, people always
appreciate good service, and we’ve found
that our customers have continued to be
loyal to us, and that’s why we’ve continued to grow.
my personal life. I recently gave a talk
at the SXSW Interactive conference that
talks about customer service, company
culture, and the science of happiness.
[You can find the presentation of the talk
at http://bit.ly/zsxsw and an audio version at http://bit.ly/zsxswaudio.]
What did Harvard bring out in you that
you might not have had when you arrived on day one?
For me, most of what I got out of Harvard
was outside the classroom, including
people that I met and running the pizza
business. My concentration was in computer science because that’s what I was
most passionate about at the time, but I
also learned to discover other passions
through other classes (for example, linguistics).
What’s your advice to current students
at Harvard—especially given the challenging job market? And, given your
success and experience, could you ever
imagine teaching?
I would say rather than focus on what
will make you the most money or be
best for your career, figure out what you
would be passionate for in 10 years and
go pursue that. A lot of people work hard
at building a career so that one day down
the road they think it will bring them
happiness. And most of the time, when
they finally accomplish their goal, they
realize that it doesn’t really end up bringing happiness or fulfillment for the long
term. One of the things that research
has shown is that people are very bad at
predicting what will make them happy.
If the ultimate goal is to achieve enduring happiness, it seems like it’s worth
spending some time learning about the
science of happiness so you don’t wind
up in the same situation.
“I would say rather than focus
on what will make you the
most money or be best for
your career, figure out what
you would be passionate for in
10 years and go pursue that.”
in a scalable way. That’s one of the reasons
why we launched Zappos Insights [www.
zapposinsights.com]—so we could share
some of our learnings at Zappos with
other entrepreneurs and businesses.
Who are your heroes? Favorite books?
Favorite bands?
I don’t really have favorite heroes or
bands, but here are some of my favorite
books:
Peak, by Chip Conley
Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John
King, and Halee Fischer-Wright
The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss
Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt
Other business books I enjoy are available
at www.zappos.com/Zappos-Library. J
Shoo Fly, Please Bother Me
The Zappos offices are located in Las Vegas,
and, Hsieh says, “We’d like to encourage people
to come tour our offices. The tour takes about
an hour and is available on weekdays (Mondays
through Thursdays are better, though, when there
are more people in the office). We are located next
to the airport and can pick you up in a Zappos
shuttle from there and drop you off at your hotel
afterward. To schedule a tour, just email tours@
zappos.com.”
Not up for a walking tour? You can watch orders
placed on the Zappos website from all over the
United States, coming in and being mapped to
the location to which each order is being shipped,
in real time: www.zappos.com/map/.
As far as teaching goes, that’s something
that I’d like to try to figure out how to do
Apart from Zappos, what are you passionate about?
Be part of the Renaissance ...
Over the past year, I’ve been really interested in learning more about the science
of happiness. I’ve been reading a lot of
books on the topic and thinking about
how to apply the concepts from the science of happiness to both business and
The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences thrives because of institutional, governmental, industrial, and alumni support. Such financial generosity, intellectual guidance, and enthusiasm will enable us to continue to enhance education
and research and to better society. To learn more about giving opportunities, please
contact Linda Fates, SEAS’s Associate Dean for Resource Development, at ord@seas.
harvard.edu.
SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009 I 19
Alumni Notes
Zappos’ Core Values
Connections
Experimental Learning
T
o introduce students to the refurbished teaching
labs, Director Anas Chalah, Joe Ustinowich, and
Xuan Liang offered an extracurricular workshop on
mechanical engineering, comprising a crash course
in rapid prototyping, 3-axis milling, and 3D printing.
Students were tasked with creating a classic, early 20thcentury compressed-air engine using modern tools.
As part of ES-120, “Introduction to Mechanics of Solids,”
a sensitive new stress-test device made its debut. This
state-of-the-art instrument, made by Instron, is capable
of testing the mechanical strength of a variety of materials including plastic and metal samples. In the words of
Dr. Chalah, “It’s so cool!”.
1
In an adjacent lab, the ES-130 “Tissue Engineering”
class had SEAS undergraduate students exploring the
fundamental engineering and biological principles
that underlie tissue engineering. Experiments offered
at the bioengineering teaching labs introduce students
to different techniques for culturing cell tissue. J
1 In the workshop on mechanical engineering, Andre Gabriel
’11 concentrates on assembling a compressed-air engine.
2 As part of the same workshop, Jason Miller ’09 and graduate
student Curtis Mead use the 3-axis mill. Once programmed
and run, the mill will turn the wax blue block into a mold.
3 Research assistants Vasily Dzyabura and Jieping Fang drill
holes into a metal disc intended as the main driver for the
compressed-air engine (see image 1 above).
2
3
4 In the nearby bioengineering lab, Juani Feliz ’11 and graduate student Sean Sheehy prepare a sample for ES-130
“Tissue Engineering.”
5 An ES-130 student engages in pipetting—an essential technique for biological engineering—under a protective shield.
6 Jason Miller ’09 holds up a completed gear produced by the
3D printer.
7 Brandon Hopkins ’11 loads the new stress test device while
Jared Dourdeville ’11, Rashid Yasin ’12, and graduate student Shengqiang Cai look on.
4
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8 Graduate student Shengqiang Cai comments on the properties of the sample under stress as it nears the breaking
point.
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Copyright © 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
20 I SEAS – Spring/Summer 2009
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