In the Media

Students at Massachusetts college design lightsaber with engineering skills – CBS News

Sep 13, 2024

A recent graduate of Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts has brought a film icon to life, designing his own lightsaber.

How we transform to a fully decarbonized world – MIT Technology Review

Apr 24, 2024

A world powered by electricity from abundant, renewable resources is now within reach.

Campuses, Climate Change and ‘How Infrastructure Works’ – Inside Higher Ed

Apr 18, 2024

"There is a lovely section in How Infrastructure Works when Professor Chachra brings her Olin College students on a journey of infrastructural discovery. Running beneath the campus is the Sudbury Aqueduct, a 16-mile-long century-old water tunnel. Chachra students are delighted to discover the hidden-in-plain-sight civilization-enabling infrastructure that exists, largely unnoticed and unseen, all around us."

As business booms in Boston Harbor, port communities pay the health costs – GBH

Apr 02, 2024

How hard is it to make mobile apps more accessible? – The Boston Globe

Mar 19, 2024

“Some feedback that we got was that most blind or visually impaired individuals are pretty much able to navigate to an extent but have trouble with orienting in new spaces,” Ayush Chakraborty, a junior at Olin, said. Chakraborty along with three other Olin students came up with the idea for a mobile app that could “speak” room titles, airport gates, or other descriptive information as the user passed by low-cost Bluetooth beacons that could be placed around a building, mall, or airport.

Defense Innovation Board: Scaling Innovation Forward – U.S. Department of Defense

Feb 20, 2024

The board is comprised of experts from industry, academia and the national security community who provide diverse insight on the department’s biggest challenges. Currently, the DIB is chaired by businessman Mike Bloomberg and includes Gilda Barabino, who holds a doctorate in chemical engineering; Sue Gordon; Reid Hoffman; Mary Meeker; retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen; Charles Phillips; Will Roper, who holds a doctorate in mathematics; Ryan Swann; and Mac Thornberry.

Local college president who broke barriers encourages students of color to pursue STEM fields – Boston 25 News

Feb 16, 2024

President Barabino has been a trailblazer in chemical engineering and is now working to get more young people of color excited about STEM-related fields. Barabino has been the president of Olin College of Engineering since 2020. To get there, she’s broken through many barriers.

To address climate anxiety, colleges embrace environmental humanities – WGBH

Jan 25, 2024

“I think it's fabulous that people are waking up to the concerns about the environment," said Rick Miller, the former president of Olin College in Needham whose background is in engineering.

'A Field Manual For A Whole New Education' Shows How Education Can Remain Relevant In An AI-dominated World – International Business Times

Jan 24, 2024

"The huge changes caused by AI and other advanced technologies necessitate changes in how education is conducted. David E. Goldberg, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and machine learning, wrote about this in his 2014 book, A Whole New Engineer, co-authored with Mark Somerville of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering"

What We’re Made Of – The New York Times

Dec 21, 2023

A professor at the Olin College of Engineering who teaches about the intersection of technology and culture, Chachra would seem to be perfectly equipped to act as our Virgil through the built environment — highways and sewer pipes, electrical substations, bridges, those weird poles that recently sprouted like alien superweeds around New York — constructed out of the materials Conway describes.

New Action Collaborative Launched to Improve Pathways for Women of Color in Tech Education and Careers – The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Dec 20, 2023

“Women of color face amplified barriers and biases that can impede their progress and limit their opportunities in STEM and in tech,” said Gilda Barabino, chair of the National Academies’ Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine and president of the Olin College of Engineering. “Through this effort, we will work together to dismantle these barriers and foster an environment where every woman, regardless of her background, has the chance to thrive and contribute to cutting-edge developments in science and technology.”

‘Hypervisible and invisible’: Olin College president discusses journey as a Black woman in engineering – The Boston Globe

Nov 30, 2023

When you’re entering a space that people like you weren’t in before, there is a heightened pressure to do well. If you don’t, then that opening might be closed for someone who shares your background, so you’re carrying the load on your shoulders. I wanted to be successful so that I could continue to change the environment and also be able to bring others in.

The Elegance Of Infrastructure – Science Friday

Nov 10, 2023

Elegance in engineering often encompasses the surprising and very particular use of the specific resources that are available. Beauty might be part of it, but mostly as something inherent in the design, and the skill and care of its manufacture is part of it too.

A passionate argument for the necessity of functioning infrastructure – The Washington Post

Nov 06, 2023

Written in an engaging, personal style, “How Infrastructure Works” combines engineering history and science with Chachra’s witty anecdotes about traveling to power plants and cities across the world.

How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World – Publishers Weekly

Nov 06, 2023

In a deceptively easygoing style, Chachra constructs a complex treatise on the fundamental necessity of infrastructure to human flourishing. These grand systems not only provide the stuff of life, she poignantly observes, but expand our individual abilities.

It’s Time to Rethink Infrastructure – TIME

Nov 02, 2023

Most of us use nearly all of that energy through collective systems: our infrastructural utilities. These networks give us freedom from what would otherwise be the daily labor of meeting our most basic human needs, delivering clean water and whisking away waste, providing for the warmth or cooling of our homes, and the heat we need to cook our daily meals.