Graduate students participate in all the research projects.
Some projects are carried out in an unstructured environment by individual professors working with a few students. Most projects are found within 15 departmental laboratories and centers listed below. Faculty also undertake research in the Draper Laboratory, Lincoln Laboratory, Operations Research Center, Research Laboratory of Electronics, and the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, as well as in interdepartmental laboratories and centers listed in the introduction to the School of Engineering. Research covers a broad range of disciplines within materials science, structural mechanics and dynamics, and control, centered around the technology and applications of solid state actuation systems. The laboratory conducts research in mechanics and physics of fluids and advanced aerodynamics.