What Says "MIT" to You?

Museum seeks objects for 150th-anniversary exhibit

If you've ever wanted to be a museum curator, now's your chance. As the Institute gears up for its 150th anniversary in 2011, the MIT Museum is planning an exhibit of 150 quintessential MIT objects. Alumni, faculty, students, and staff are invited to nominate objects from the past or present. All nominated objects will appear online, and this summer, website visitors will be able to vote for those they hope to see displayed at the MIT Museum throughout the anniversary year.

Any object with a strong MIT connection is fair game. Items nominated so far include the Charles River and the cavity magnetron that was key to MIT's development of radar during World War II. "You could argue that this is MIT's most important object," says Deborah Douglas, the museum's science and technology curator. "If you were going to run into a burning building to save something, that would be it." To nominate an object, visit museum.mit.edu/150.