Jamaican American Danielle Grey-Stewart is one of two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to receive a Rhodes Scholarship for 2021, and one of only 32 students from the United States to do so. She was selected for the scholarship after an intense round of interviews conducted via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said her selection left her speechless, honored, and excited about the opportunity. Grey-Stewart’s father Roy migrated to the United States in 1982 from Jamaica; her mother Denise is from the US. Both of her parents were students at City University of New York, and her father served as president of the Caribbean Students’ Association at Baruch College in New York. Grey-Stewart, who was raised in Hicksville, New York, and graduated from Hicksville High School in 2017, has always been interested in science. She is currently a senior at MIT majoring in materials science and engineering. Under the Rhodes Scholar program, she will pursue a two-year MPhil degree in nature, society, and environmental governance at the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford. The degree program will allow her to study how environmental policy is constructed from how people view society and nature. In the future, she plans to become a leader in the area of science policy and hopes to open new pathways for her fellow scientists of color. She will graduate from MIT in February 2021....

“The students were supported by MIT's distinguished fellowships team in career advising and professional development. They were also mentored by the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships,” MIT explained. “We could not be more proud of our candidates,” the release quotes Professor Tamar Schapiro, who co-chairs the committee along with Professor Will Broadhead. “This year in particular, we are so impressed not only with their accomplishments but also with their resilience. Being interviewed for a Rhodes scholarship is intimidating enough as it is. Doing so remotely is even more challenging. We are thrilled that the spark we see in our students came through, even over Zoom.” The university release said that Grey-Stewart, who is from Long Island, New York, is a senior majoring in materials science and engineering. “As a Rhodes Scholar, she will pursue an MPhil in nature, society, and environmental governance at Oxford University's School of Geography and the Environment,” MIT said, adding that Grey-Stewart wants to become a leader in science policy with the goal of opening new avenues for fellow scientists of colour....

On a crisp afternoon in early September, seven MIT freshmen set out on a campus tour with their faculty advisor, John Ochsendorf, the Class of 1942 Professor in Architecture and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Their first stop was “The Big Sail,” the 33-ton steel sculpture by Alexander Calder that stands in McDermott Court. “We tend to think of art, architecture, and engineering as separate disciplines,” says Ochsendorf, who taught the first edition of freshmen seminar 4.A06 (Art, Engineering, and Architecture) this fall. “But they are more closely linked than we can ever imagine. And the barriers between them are extremely porous. Calder, for example, is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. But his mobiles and sculptures are also explorations in equilibrium. And while he’s definitely an artist, he was trained as an engineer.” Ochsendorf’s weekly two-hour seminar was conceived to help students explore the fertile intersections of art, technology, and design at MIT and beyond. Over the semester, students investigated the many artworks on campus, met with faculty and visiting artists and designers, made frequent field trips to local museums and buildings, and attended a concert by cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Boston Symphony Hall....

Professor Emeritus Julian Beinart, an internationally celebrated architect and longtime MIT professor known for his highly influential course on urbanism, died on Oct. 2 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 88. “Julian Beinart’s best ideals were the best ideals of this department,” says Nicholas de Monchaux, head of the MIT Department of Architecture. “A tireless student of form, he believed architecture’s role in the city also made it inextricable from politics. His legacy — in South Africa, the U.S., and beyond — also reminds us that the professional obligation of architects to the city stands alongside the civic demands on every one of us, architect or not.” “Julian’s strengths came from an old-school faith,” says Arindam Dutta, professor of architectural history at MIT. “He believed cities were somehow designed artifacts, and in being so, they could be designed better. It was his task to train designers for this job.” Born in South Africa to immigrant Jewish parents from Lithuania, Julian Beinart grew up in a small rural town about 40 miles north of Cape Town. A gifted student, he entered the University of Cape Town at age 16. In 1955 he came to MIT where he studied with Gyorgy Kepes, Louis Kahn, and Kevin Lynch on his way to a master’s degree. He also earned a master’s at Yale University....