Fascinating interview and congrats to winning team.  Very exciting to see the young engineers take to building radically new transportation systems/concepts like Hyperloop that will transform the future of mobility/transportation! Graduate student Chris Merian, chief engineer for MIT’s Hyperloop team, speaks with Radio Boston’s Meghna Chakrabarti about the team’s success in the recent Hyperloop contest

“…really cool engineering challenge that we are really passionate about, and seeing our hundreds of hours of work rewarded like that was really, really nice”

Related articles

• SpaceX selects 124 engineering teams to do battle in Hyperloop pod design competition

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, the Austrian research institute with European format which focuses on the key infrastructure issues of the future, is looking to strengthen its team in the Department Mobility with the immediate appointment of a PhD Thesis “Perception Based Modeling”

 Job profile:

Over the past years, the “Dynamic Transportation Systems” group within the AIT´s Mobility Department has carried out extensive research in the field of modeling and simulation of human and crowd behavior. The increasing availability of large data sets originating from a broad variety of novel sensor technologies enables to investigate new ways for closing the gap between individual decisions based on context-related perception and the integration of this individual knowledge into mobility simulations. The ultimate goal is to integrate perceptual models with the simulation of movement behavior in train stations, airports and dense urban areas (including shopping areas) in order to optimize mobility flows according to different criteria.

We are seeking an exceptional PhD candidate to fill a sponsored research position involving the development of novel methods to capture and process human perception data as well as to integrate human perception information into mobility simulation tools.

This PhD project will be part of the research collaboration between the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that aspires to advance the state-of-the-art of integrating perception data into simulation models.

Qualifications:

• Passion for finding creative solutions for bridging the gap between the natural and social sciences
• Outstanding master´s degree and proven experience in either computer science, software engineering, applied mathematics or sociology, environmental psychology, transportation research with a strong interest in exploring the synergies between engineering and psychology
• Candidates should have strong, proven knowledge in some of the following areas:
  • Data management (e.g. database systems)
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Mathematical modeling and computer simulation in the field of transportation
  • Good programming skills in Matlab and/or Java
  • Behavior research (e.g. neuroscience, psychology, social science, gaming, or human computer interaction)
• High motivation for research and capability of working in an autonomous way
• Excellent communication skills in English, both written and oral form

Offer:

• Begin: Immediately
• Duration: 3 years

Place of employment: Vienna, Austria; research visits at the MIT

We are pleased to invite interested persons who wish to contribute their knowledge, their network and their ideas to the field of applied research. Please attach meaningful application documents, including certificates and photos.

Mrs. Maria Leonhard-Maurer, MSc
Head of Human Resources
2444 Seibersdorf
Tel.: +43(0) 50550 – 2032
maria.leonhard-maurer@ait.ac.at

click here to apply and to learn more about AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Donau-City-Straße 1 | 1220 Wien, Austria | T +43 (0) 50550-0 | F +43 (0) 50550-2201, office@ait.ac.at | www.ait.ac.at, T +43 (0) 505 50, F +43 (0) 505 50-2201, www.arcs.ac.at

(via MIT News)

Apart from the aesthetic beauty this dynamic data visualization, the video also offers a lot to think about if you are a person tasked with natioanl security should a contagious disease be detected…  Also, it helped me understand how pandemics can easily spread between far flung places via air travelers. Pretty interesting yet quite scary stuff..  That said, it makes me wonder how ready is our aviation infrastructure to handle a healthcare crisis like the one triggered by SARS or h1n1 virus a few years a back..

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzhKyD19ZEY&hd=1′]

Click here to read the analysis published on MIT News

Related articles

• Honolulu Airport Among Most Likely Airports To Spread A Pandemic(outsidethebeltway.com)

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• U.S. Airports Ranked In Terms Of Their Spreading Influence In Disease Contagion(medicalnewstoday.com)

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• MIT model shows the most influential US airports for spreading disease(theverge.com)

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• When contagion strikes, it’s Honolulu you should avoid(guardian.co.uk)

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• REPORT: Honolulu, JFK, LAX to be ‘early spreaders’ of next pandemic…(12160.info)

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• Planning For Your Pandemic: Study Ranks Highest Risk Airports As Kennedy, LAX . . . And Honolulu(jonathanturley.org)

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• Infographic: Which Airports Are Most Likely To Spread A Pandemic?(fastcodesign.com)

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The school’s Mobile Experience Lab explores the future of life with the mobile handset

(Source: ContactlessNews via Bernie Wagenblast’  TCN)

Most trials of Near Field Communication (NFC) have involved payment applications at the neighborhood department store, restaurant or transit agency. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge took a different tact, however, attempting to illustrate the many other ways NFC could be used in everyday life.

The result was a video featuring several students and how they utilized NFC-compliant cell phones. Right now, it’s more a vision on how NFC can influence the lives of citizens, says Federico Casalegno, director of MIT’s Mobile Experience Lab and one of the movers behind this NFC project.

New initiative to pioneer 21st century solutions via greater coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration

(Source: MIT News)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today launchedTransportation@MIT, a coordinated effort to address one of civilization’s most pressing challenges: the environmental impact of the world’s ever-increasing demand for transportation. Building on MIT’s rich tradition of engineering research and interdisciplinary collaboration, the new initiative will knit together the wide-ranging, robust research already under way at the Institute and create new opportunities for education and innovation.

The program’s creation comes as the global movement of people and things becomes increasingly unsustainable — a problem that cannot be pinned on any one mode of transport. Two-thirds of the world’s petroleum consumption is taken up by transportation-related needs. Projections indicate that demand for petroleum, if unchecked, may outstrip supply within a few decades, while carbon dioxide output across the globe could triple by 2050.

“The global transportation challenge is as multi-faceted as a problem could be, and it is hard to think of an institution better equipped to tackle it than MIT,” said Dean of Engineering Subra Suresh. “By coordinating our own efforts and leveraging connections among faculty across our schools — from researchers exploring efficient new fuels to those studying transportation as a system to those rethinking how our cities are organized — we can make important and innovative contributions and encourage the rapid development of new ideas in sustainability, technology, business practices, and public policy related to all modes of transportation.