CAMBRIDGE, MA.- On September 29, 2007, the MIT Museum will complete a 3 million dollar museum expansion and open a new state of the art gallery called the Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery. The new 5,000 square foot addition will include a street level entryway to the Museum, a new gallery featuring current science and technology research at MIT, MIT 360, a media-rich program and activity area, and a new museum store.

Exhibits in the new ground floor gallery include City Car, the MIT Media Laboratory's, intelligent, stackable, electric, car of the future; MIT and the Sea, a multimedia exhibition that showcases MIT engineers and the work they have done in developing tethered, undersea robots that are used for ocean exploration; Zebrafish and Cancer Research, an aquatic habitat system that houses ten scientific aquariums filled with zebrafish that are part of a cancer research study MIT scientists are conducting; numerous interactive displays and exhibits representing cutting edge research and emerging technologies as well as a new Arthur Ganson sculpture, created specifically for the new gallery.

MIT Museum Director, Professor John Durant is excited about the new developments. "With this major expansion, the Museum will establish a bold public presence on lower Massachusetts Avenue. For the first time, we'll have enough space to feature highlights of some of the most exciting, current research and innovation here at MIT."

The City of Cambridge is finishing renovations to lower Massachusetts Avenue including sidewalks, landscaping and roadway improvements surrounding the MIT Museum. With the MIT Museum as the anchor, the lower end of Central Square will now be a major cultural attraction to residents and visitors alike. "From this fall on," adds Durant, "residents and visitors will be able to find the Museum much more easily. For the first time, our visitors will be able to enter the Museum at street level; and when they get inside, they'll encounter vivid examples of the ways in which MIT researchers are continuing to invent the future."

"We are very grateful to the MIT alumni and Museum board members who jump-started this hugely important project," says Mary Leen, MIT Museum Associate Director. "It took the Museum just a little over a year to envision the new exhibition area and to raise the 3 million dollars necessary to complete the project. When the Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery opens, the Museum's capacity for event rental space will also increase, opening up the possibility to not only host MIT events, but local corporate and community events as well," adds Leen.

The MIT Museum will celebrate the grand opening of the Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery on September 29th with a weekend full of exciting activities for the whole family. Grand opening festivities include free admission to the museum for the entire weekend, a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday at 10:00 am plus a weekend full of exciting activities including music, entertainment, demonstrations, and more.

The Museum is now open 7 days a week from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. Admission is $7.50 for adults, $3.00 for students, seniors and children between the ages of 5 – 18, and free for children under the age of 5 and anyone with an MIT ID. The Museum also offers free admission on Sundays between 10:00 am – noon.

The mission of the MIT Museum is to engage the wider community with MIT's science, technology and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.