MIT.nano has announced its second annual seed grants to support hardware and software research related to sensors, 3D/4D interaction and analysis, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and gaming. The grants are awarded through the MIT.nano Immersion Lab Gaming Program, a four-year collaboration between MIT.nano and video game development company NCSOFT, a founding member of the MIT.nano Consortium. “We are thrilled to award seven grants this year in support of research that will shape how people interact with the digital world and each other,” says MIT.nano Associate Director Brian W. Anthony. “The MIT.nano Immersion Lab Gaming Program encourages cross-collaboration between disciplines. Together, musicians and engineers, performing artists and data scientists will work to change the way humans think, study, interact, and play with data and information.” The MIT.nano Immersion Lab is a new, two-story immersive space dedicated to visualizing, understanding, and interacting with large data or synthetic environments, and to measuring human-scale motions and maps of the world. Outfitted with equipment and software tools for motion capture, photogrammetry, and visualization, the facility is available for use by researchers and educators interested in using and creating new experiences, including the seed grant projects....

The following podcast and transcript feature Samantha Farrell, who is the assistant to MIT.nano director Vladimir Bulovic, as well as a professional musician. Below, she talks about how music is keeping her focused, productive, and sane, and how artists are more important than ever in difficult times like these. Click here to view Samantha Farrell’s musical collaborations on YouTube. I've had a couple people say it gave me a vacation from my anxiety or it gave me a break just for a little moment in the day. I just kind of forgot about it and to me that's the mission accomplished, like that. I couldn't hear a better thing that someone could say about this. My name is Samantha Farrell. I'm a musician and I also happen to work at MIT. I'm the assistant to the Founding Director of MIT.nano, Vladimir Bulovic, and I also help manage his research group, The One Lab. Samantha started performing professionally in the early 2000s while still in college. Most nights you can find her out listening to music, at band rehearsal or performing live. Her and her band are regulars in the Boston music scene. However, like most of us currently, they now find themselves stuck at home, struggling to adjust to the new normal. As Samantha began to settle in and navigate through canceled gigs and working remotely, she found herself in need of something more, something creative and collaborative and fun....

MIT has established a formal relationship with Tecnologico de Monterrey, one of Latin America’s largest universities, to bring students and faculty from Mexico to Cambridge for fellowships, internships, and research stays in MIT labs and centers. The agreement will initially focus on research at the frontier of nanoscience and nanotechnology. “At MIT, our mission — to bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges, for the benefit of humankind — inspires us to build relationships with individuals and institutions around the globe who share our vision and values,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “In that spirit, we are pleased that today’s agreement with Tecnologico de Monterrey will allow us to welcome young Mexican scientists and technologists to MIT to work on world-class research projects in nanoscience and nanotechnology, fields with extraordinary potential to improve human society.” The agreement was celebrated today with a signing ceremony at MIT attended by a delegation from Tecnologico de Monterrey that included President Salvador Alva; the chairman of the board of trustees, Jose Antonio Fernandez Carbajal; Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Eduardo Medina Mora; and Daniel Hernandez Joseph, the consul general of Mexico in Boston....

In anticipation of the official opening of the new MIT.nano building — which will house some of the world’s leading facilities supporting research in nanoscience and nanotechnology — MIT last week officially launched a new “center of excellence” called SENSE.nano, which is dedicated to pushing the frontiers of research in sensing technologies. Like the new building, which is slated to open a year from now, SENSE.nano is an endeavor that cuts across the divisions of departments, labs, and schools, to encompass research in areas including chemistry, physics, materials science, electronics, computer science, biology, mechanical engineering, and more. Faculty members from many of these areas spoke about their research during a daylong conference on May 25 that marked the official launch of the new center. Introducing the event, MIT President L. Rafael Reif said that “[MIT.nano] will create opportunities for research and collaboration for more than half our current faculty, and 67 percent of those recently tenured. In fact, we expect that it will serve — and serve to inspire – more than 2,000 people across our campus, from all five MIT schools, and many more from beyond our walls.”...