Off to see the interns, the wonderful interns of MISTI...
As we say in Course 6:
Hello, World! I'm Mish Madsen, the
other
MISTI reporter who will be covering Israel this summer, traveling around to get
the other interns' perspectives on their work and their time here. At MIT, I've
just finished my thid year. I'm in CS, and over last winter break, I decided to
go premed as well, which means I've been working pretty hard recently. My work is
MIT is in autism, and I had the good fortune (and networking luck) to find an
internship at the Technion here in Israel in autism as well, in the Faculty of
Industrial Engineering and Management. For those keeping score at home, a
"faculty" is a department and "Industrial Engineering", as far as I can tell, is
the study of human factors in a work environment; essentially consulting, with
lots of ergonomics research as well. My supervisor,
Dr. Eldad Yechiam, is in the
behavioral science area, which apparently includes autism research!
As a MISTI reporter, it's my job to visit the other interns; this week I took
Sunday off (I love flexible academic environments!) and visited two MISTI interns
in different parts of the country. One of the absolute best things about Israel
is that - although it may seem like an enormous place because of the
diversity of scenery, historical perspectives, and ideas - the actual country is
in fact quite small (only a tiny bit bigger than New Jersey) and you can actually
travel substantive amounts of it over the course of a day. So I began the day at
9am in Beit Shemesh, a suburb of Jerusalem, where I was visiting family friends;
traveled to Jerusalem proper, then to Hadassah Hospital to visit one intern;
headed back to the center of Jerusalem, had lunch with a visiting friend,
traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the other intern, and was back in Haifa by 7pm or
so. It's really amazing how close everything is; it doesn't seem possible when
you consider how different those cities actually are from one another.
Batya Fellman, the intern in Jerusalem, is working at the Hebrew University
Medical School (adjacent to the well-known Hadassah Medical Center) in the area
of Dental Medicine. She just graduated from MIT with a degree in Mechanical
Engineering, and she's now interning in the area of biotechnology with MISTI. The
medical school campus where she's working is absolutely beautiful:
She's just beginning her internship with a lab in Dental Medicine, but they work
on many topics related to physiology and bone structure. Here's Batya next to her
building:
Batya will be exploring the issue of lower back pain resulting from degenerate
disc disease, since not much is known about what actually happens to the disc.
During her internship, she will be investigating the structure and properties of
one of the prominent molecules, called aggrecan, that makes up the vertebral disc
to help understand more about how degenerate disc disease operates.
During my visit, I met some of Batya's co-workers: Professor Gadi Pelled, who
supervises her work...
... and a grad student, Dima
Sheyn, who works on similar projects in the same room.
During my time at Hadassah, I was able to interview Batya, Dima, and another of
Batya's coworkers, Zulma Gazit.
After my interviews, Batya and I took some time to check out the quirky nearby
art:
... and then it was off to Tel Aviv to visit Meena!
Meena Viswanath, one of the MISTI interns at Tel Aviv University this summer, is
a Course 1 (Civil Engineering) major at MIT who has just finished her first year.
Her internship is at the gorgeous Tel Aviv university's main campus.
This summer, she's doing something a little different than her usual courses at
MIT...
Her internship involves using sensitive nanoseismic equipment to analyze waves
resulting from events below 2.0 on the Richter scale. Essentially, she's learning
about mini-earthquakes! Applications of this
technology include predicting collapses of caves and sinkholes, analyzing
building responses the earthquakes, and tracking underground animals.
Here's Meena and her Professor Hillel Wust-
Bloch discussing nanoseismic events:
During the summer, Meena will be
focusing mostly on tracking and analyzing the signals made by the Middle
Eastern blind mole-rat as it digs underground - it was very exciting to hear
about her research and the interesting collaborations with groups in Jordan and
other nearby countries.
After the interviews, Meena and I headed out for a
quick bite to eat...
... and then I was on my way back to Haifa! I had a fabulous time beginning to
visit the MISTI-Israel interns, and I'll be posting more about them soon. Clips
from interviews with Meena, Batya, and their coworkers/supervisors will be posted
soon.