Common Ground Steering Committee

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Deputy Dean for Academics Asu Ozdaglar and Troy Van Voorhis, the Haslam and Dewey Professor of Chemistry, co-chair the Common Ground Steering Committee, which is comprised of faculty from all five MIT schools. The committee evaluates how to best to support and advance Common Ground’s objectives through the review and approval of individual class proposals. They also guide the development of collaborative computing and AI programs across MIT, including “with computing” majors.

Faculty and departments interested in developing Common Ground subjects or other programs may contact common-ground@mit.edu or visit the For Instructors section of this website for more information.

The committee should evaluate how to bring together multi-department teaching to develop classes and programs that blend computing with other disciplines. Issues to examine should include:

  • How do we develop “Computation in Context” classes? Can we distill common concepts in a common core which can then be blended and integrated within the context of a specific domain? How can we integrate computing into existing core classes?
  • How do we combine these courses into a coherent set of offerings?
  • How do we streamline and coordinate offering of computing classes in many disciplines across MIT, such as numerical and simulation methods and machine learning?
  • How can we better integrate blended majors? How do we develop a systematic template for blended majors and paths in computation in curricula of other departments?
  • How can we develop a process for faculty to develop courses in the Common Ground?
  • What is the right funding model for supporting efforts across the Common Ground?

  • Asu Ozdaglar, co-chair (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
  • Troy Van Voorhis, co-chair (Chemistry)
  • Josephine Carstensen (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
  • Devin Caughey (Political Science)
  • Laurent Demanet (Mathematics)
  • Rodrigo Freitas (Materials Science and Engineering)
  • Daniel Frey (Mechanical Engineering)
  • Jeff Grossman (Materials Science and Engineering)
  • Caspar Hare (Linguistics and Philosophy)
  • Phillip Isola (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
  • Alexandre Jacquillat (MIT Sloan)
  • Mingda Li (Nuclear Science and Engineering)
  • Rob Miller (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
  • Caitlin Mueller (Architecture)
  • Rama Ramakrishnan (MIT Sloan)
  • Arvind Satyanarayan (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
  • Rebecca Saxe (Brain and Cognitive Sciences)
  • Michael Williams (Physics)