NEWS BRIEFS
Election Day is next Tuesday
Voters will choose next Tuesday, Nov. 5, the next mayor of Boston, who will either be Marty Walsh or John R. Connolly. Incumbent Mayor Thomas Menino is not running for reelection.
In Cambridge, 25 candidates, including 2 MIT alumni, are vying for the 9 seats on the Cambridge City Council. Incumbent Mayor Henrietta Davis is not running for reelection. The elected council will choose one among them to be the next mayor of Cambridge. See page 9 for the list of candidates.
The candidates’ positions on such issues as city development, housing, sustainability, and town-and-gown relationships can be found in The Cambridge Chronicle, The Cambridge Day, The Harvard Crimson, and the Cambridge Civic Journal.
Fraternity brothers suspected in N.H. vandalism
A statue dedicated to two fallen police officers was toppled and signs were written over with obscenities over Columbus Day weekend, during which about 20 MIT students were staying at a New Hampshire campground over Columbus Day weekend, a local police chief told Fox Boston.
Three people, intoxicated and underage, were taken into custody, according to Wayne Preve, police chief of Epsom, N.H., a town of 5,000. Fox Boston reported that it was unclear whether the three were MIT students.
Police suspected that the vandals were fraternity brothers, WCVB reported.
Volunteers later restored the monument, which was tipped over just days before the anniversary of the death of one of the slain officers, according to The Hooksett Banner.
As of press time, Preve has not responded to The Tech’s requests for information.
Professors named deans for innovation
President L. Rafael Reif named professors Vladimir Bulovic and Fiona Murray associate deans for innovation on Oct. 17.
In their new positions, Murray and Bulovic will lead the Innovation Initiative, plans for which were first announced by Reif at a conference in September. The initiative will support engineering and policy research at MIT to boost innovation in manufacturing and help industry firms bring new ideas to the market.
The Innovation Initiative is a part of Reif’s vision for more Institute-wide efforts in the vein of the MIT Energy Initiative, according to Martin A. Schmidt, who will be acting provost beginning Friday.
Murray is an expert on entrepreneurship and is the faculty director of MIT’s Martin Trust Center, which helps students build start-ups.
Bulovic is known for his contributions to nanotechnology and was the director of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) before taking on his new role.
MIT announced Monday that electrical engineering professor Jesús del Alamo will succeed Bulovic at MTL.
Simultaneous hackathons to be held in memory of Aaron Swartz
Hackers in Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, New York, Buenos Aires, and Seattle will churn out code the weekend of Nov. 8–10 at synchronized events in memory of Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who hanged himself in January, according to aaronswartzhackathon.org.
Swartz, 26, faced felony charges after downloading millions of journal articles from JSTOR to a laptop hooked up to an MIT network switch in a Building 16 closet.
The Boston hackathon will be held at the MIT Media Lab.
This is the second such round of hackathons since January.
—Leon Lin
Cambridge City Council candidates
—Dennis Benzan
—Dennis Carlone
—Leland Cheung MBA ’12
—Janneke House
—Craig A. Kelley
—James Lee
—Logan E. Leslie
—David P. Maher
—Nadeem Mazen ’06
—Marc C. McGovern
—Gary W. Mello
—Mushtaque Mirza
—Gregg J. Moree
—Ron Peden
—Lesley Phillips
—Kenneth E. Reeves
—Sam Seidel
—E. Denise Simmons
—Jefferson Smith
—Timothy J. Toomey, Jr.
—Minka Y. vanBeuzekom
—Luis Vasquez
—Kristen von Hoffmann
—James M. Williamson
—Elie Yarden