In March of this year, the MIT community was focused on handling the rapidly escalating COVID-19 pandemic. For much of the faculty, students and staff, this meant figuring out how to transition to remote teaching, learning and work. For Ben Linville-Engler, SDM Industry and Certificate Director, it meant joining one of the crucial efforts in Massachusetts to keep health care workers safe.
Ben has been working with the Massachusetts Manufacturing Emergency Response Team (M-ERT) for almost three months. This group has brought together leaders from academia, health care, and industry. Together, they have collaborated to help local manufacturers pivot to produce millions of items needed for health care workers such as face shields, gowns, test swabs, and many more. Before coming to SDM as a student, Ben had extensive experience in the medical device field. This led to his role as M-ERT’s key liaison with FDA officials.
SDM is proud to support Ben in his efforts with M-ERT. Below you can find a round-up of further information and news about M-ERT and Ben’s work with the project.
- A description of the work of M-ERT appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine’s COVID-19 Notes section on May 21, co-authored by Ben Linville Engler. Read now on the NEJM website.
- Ben Linville-Engler and Haden Quinlan, program manager for MIT’s Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies, appeared in a webinar hosted by MIT Horizon. In the webinar, they discussed their work with M-ERT. A full recording is available on Vimeo.
- The office of Gov. Charlie Baker highlighted the work of M-ERT in a press release, detailing the governor’s visit to the New Balance factory in Lawrence, MA to observe the factory’s production of face masks. Read now on the Mass.gov website.
- MIT News featured the work of M-ERT and spoke extensively with Ben in their article published June 9. Read now on the MIT News website.
- In collaboration with the MIT Innovation Initiative team that developed their Rapid Innovation Dashboard, Ben built a knowledge graph of the MIT and greater Boston ecosystem’s efforts in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Check out the map in a previous SDM News post.
For more information on MIT’s efforts to fight COVID-19, visit the Rapid Innovation Dashboard on the MIT Innovation Initiative website.
