LIDS/ALL 2011

The magazine of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems

In this issue you will find articles on our Assistant Director for Administration Debbie Wright, graduate students Ermin Wei and Mesrob Ohanessian, research scientist Ketan Savla, Professor David Forney, LIDS Advisory Committee member Manfred Morari, and alums Sridevi Sarma and Martin Wainwright.

A Message from the Director

We are about to complete another exciting year at LIDS. This was a particularly special year because of the MIT150 celebrations...

Surprised by Success

It happens in the blink of an eye. A press of the 'Enter' key returns Google search results almost instantaneously. Video chats easily collapse...

Data Deluge

From "Likes" on Facebook to five-star movie ratings on Netflix and uploaded images in Google Photos, our world is virtually leaking raw data.

Cyberphysical Pioneer

It's not everyday that a lab develops a new science. But that's exactly what's happening at LIDS, where research scientist Ketan Savla...

Ever the Optimizer

Ermin Wei is one of the newest members of LIDS, yet she's already had a taste of how her ideas in distributed optimization could change technology.

A Novel Approach to Controlling the Brain

While Sridevi Sarma was a post-doc in the prestigious neuroscience lab led by Emery Brown in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at MIT...

Speeding Toward the Future

When Manfred Morari looks back over the 35 years of his career, he will tell you that his graduate school years, spent under his advisor George Stephanopoulos...

Anticipating the Unlikely

"When we observe the complex world around us, it is inevitable that we leave a good part of the possibilities unseen."

Sound Bites: Debbie Wright

I am the Assistant Director for Administration. This means that I have primary responsibility for all financial, personnel, grants management...