Much of the physical transformation fell to Braunstein’s predecessor, Richard Fenner. Leeb credits Braunstein with maintaining and growing the lab’s creative ethos that began when technology entrepreneur and founder of Meditech, Neil Pappalardo ’64, donated money to remake a cluttered steam lab into a sophisticated design studio in the mid-1990s. “It is the gold standard for how to work with engineering students,” Leeb says, adding that the lab teaches students “to take the passion and desire they have to build and actually turn that into reality.” The Pappalardo Lab is used by students in some of the largest, most important classes in MIT’s MechE department, including 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing 1) and 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes).Įxuberantly praised by many in MechE, the Pappalardo Lab is described as “one of the greatest facilities that has ever existed on the MIT campus” by Steven Leeb, professor of electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. With his academic background and his experience in industry - where he says he felt job candidates who had just graduated lacked the the gritty, hands-on experience that the industry needed - “I thought I had something to offer the undergrads here.”īraunstein found his context, and his opportunity to apply MIT’s motto of “mens et manus” (“mind and hand”), when he took over the leadership of the Pappalardo Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories. So he headed back to MIT, where he had earned his PhD in 1997. “I felt like I could apply myself in a different capacity that might be more profound, that might have a little bit more legs than just, say, the next product development cycle.” “I’m kind of cautious about telling this part, but I had been in professional services at that point for 15 years, and I reached a point where I felt like I was not giving everything that I could give,” Braunstein says. Luckily for MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE), he found an ideal next step. In about 2010, working as a principal and director of mechanical engineering at Continuum, a global innovation firm, Daniel Braunstein says he felt that what he was providing wasn’t as meaningful as he would like.
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