MIT Robotics & Climate Workshop

Christoph Reinhart

• From HAL to Alexa: On Robotics and Buildings

  Abstract: Voice controlled building automation systems have long captured the imagination of Sci-Fi enthusiasts, and technophiles. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart home devices, such technologies have become accessible to a wider audience and Alexia now controls the sound and lighting systems in many US homes. To date, such technologies have however not had a fundamental impact on how buildings are operated, let alone saved significant amounts greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this talk, I will initially review the relationship between buildings and climate change, describe potential technology pathways towards a carbon neutral building stock and engage in a discussion of how robotics could play a larger role in the process.

• Bio: Christoph Reinhart is a building scientist and architectural educator working in the field of sustainable building design and environmental modeling. At MIT, he is the inaugural Alan and Terri Spoon Professor of Architecture and Climate, Director of the Building Technology Program and head of the Sustainable Design Lab (SDL), an inter-disciplinary group with a grounding in architecture that develops design workflows, planning tools and metrics to evaluate the environmental performance of buildings and neighborhoods. He is also a managing member at Solemma, a technology company and served as strategic development advisor for MIT spinoff mapdwell until it joined Palmetto Clean Technology in 2021. Planning tools originating from SDL and Solemma are used in practice and education in over 90 countries.

Abigail Bodner

• Ocean mixed layer dynamics: from physics to climate models and back again

  Abstract: Climate simulations and future climate change projections are notoriously sensitive to unresolved physics involving complex air-sea interactions. This is particularly important in the ocean mixed layer, where small-scale mixing and turbulence modulate the transfer of properties - such as heat, momentum, and carbon - between the atmosphere and ocean interior. These processes are on scales much smaller than the grid used in climate models, even at the highest possible resolution. In this talk, I will present my work towards a comprehensive understanding of multi-scale turbulent interactions in the ocean mixed layer. I will discuss insights learned from a combination of theory, numerical simulations, observations, and data-driven methods, in an attempt to isolate individual processes and improve their unresolved physical effects in climate models.

• Bio: Dr. Abigail Bodner has joined the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and the Schwarzman College of Computing (SCC) in January 2024. Previously, she was a Simons Society Junior Fellow working at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York University. Bodner completed her PhD from the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University. She holds Master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and in Atmospheric Sciences from Tel Aviv University. Bodner’s research spans climate, physical oceanography, geophysical fluid dynamics, and turbulence. She investigates multi-scale turbulent interactions in the upper ocean using a combination of theory, numerical models, and data driven methods. Dr. Bodner is the creator and co-founder of Climatematch Academy, an international volunteer-driven organization teaching computational tools for climate science.

Norhan Bayomi

Shide Salimi

Ramon Weber

Lukas Lobert Taenzer

Bianca Champenois

Alice Ren

Charles Dawson

Alan Papalia

Jingnan Shi

Shouyi Wang

Luca Carlone

John Leonard