Writing, speaking, and visual design for engineers—by engineers.

A peer-to-peer scientific communication resource for students and postdocs.

Department Comm Labs

MIT Communication Lab

The Communication Lab is a discipline-specific peer-coaching program for MIT’s School of Engineering that helps students and postdocs with their scientific writing, speaking, and visual design.

By hiring and training students and postdocs as Communication Fellows, the Communication Lab offers individual coaching, targeted workshops, and a spectrum of initiatives to support engineers as they learn key transferable communication skills that will help them achieve their career goals.

We invite MIT’s School of Engineering students and postdocs to find their department’s Communication Lab website and:

  • make an appointment with a Communication Fellow at any point in the writing process
  • use our CommKit: a collection of quick tips and annotated examples for scientific communication tasks.

While we are not able to support students from other institutions with individual coaching appointments, we encourage the use of our online CommKit, which is open and available to all.

Gazing Upwards with MIT’s Evan Kramer

Gazing Upwards with MIT’s Evan Kramer

February 29, 2024 Join Evan Kramer, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate and Comm Lab Fellow, and Babak Tafreshi, a National Geographic photographer, for an afternoon of inspiring photography and conversation about the importance of a healthy connection between humanity and the night sky.

Comm Lab in the News: Celebrating 10 years

Comm Lab in the News: Celebrating 10 years

November 6, 2023 Learn how the Comm Lab turns engineers into well-rounded communicators in an MIT News article celebrating the SoE’s Communication Lab and its 10th anniversary.

Graduate Applications: Use the Resource Portal

Graduate Applications: Use the Resource Portal

June 21, 2023 Applying to STEM graduate school and graduate fellowships? Use the resource portal, where you’ll find all of the resources that the MIT Communication Lab has designed to help you with the application process.

Third annual MIT Research Slam showcase highlights PhD and postdoc communication skills

Third annual MIT Research Slam showcase highlights PhD and postdoc communication skills

May 5, 2023 The 2023 competition featured three-minute talks on cutting-edge research from across MIT in an engaging, live competition.

Insightful maps and connections: tools for effective literature reviews

Insightful maps and connections: tools for effective literature reviews

February 8, 2023 The purpose of a literature review is to generate a state-of-the-art overview for a particular topic. This requires identifying the most relevant papers to the topic at hand and crafting a story about how the papers are related to one another. This can be a challenging endeavor without some way to strategize and organize the review.