Student-led Conference Charts the Future of Micro- and Nanoscale Research, Reinforces Scientific Community

February 22, 2023

Snowshoeing and microelectronics are not often mentioned together in the same sentence, but at the Microsystems Annual Research Conference (MARC), winter activities, technical talks, and poster sessions all combine for a two-day flurry of research celebrations.

Returning to the Omni Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire on Jan. 24-25 for the first time since before the pandemic, MARC gathered over 240 MIT students, faculty, staff, and industry partners to chart the future of microsystems and nanotechnology. Now in its 19th year, the student-run conference is organized by the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and, since 2020, co-sponsored jointly with MIT.nano.

In a letter to attendees, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) graduate student co-chairs Maitreyi Ashok and Jennifer Wang laid out the goals of the conference: “to celebrate the scientific and technical achievements of the past year, to revisit and redefine our roles as researchers in ever-shifting sociopolitical contexts, and to acknowledge the precious and resilient community that we have built and maintained together.”