Welcome from the Ashdown Housemasters, Prof. Terry Orlando and Dr. Ann Orlando, to Ashdown House. The oldest graduate residence on campus, is now also the newest.

Like everyone else at Ashdown this year, we are also new to the building. It has been our privilege to live with the Ashdown House community for seven years. Ashdown is a lively and interesting community. Ashdown House is not just a place to sleep, but a real community of scholars. We learn from each other both professionally and culturally; we enjoy one another and share the ideas, tasks, and initiatives that keep a real community alive.

Let us briefly introduce ourselves to you: Terry and Ann met as graduate students at Stanford. Terry has been a professor in EECS (Course 6) since 1981. His research areas include superconducting electronics and quantum computing. Terry is also the head of the EECS Graduate Office. Ann is a retired electrical engineer (specializing in navigation systems). Ann recently found a second career as a professor of Church History at St. John's Seminary. We have one daughter, married, who is an M.D. practicing in Rhode Island. We look forward to getting to know all of you. Please introduce yourselves at Coffee Hour, every Thursday at 9 pm in the Hulsizer Room, or whenever you see us in the gym or elsewhere in Ashdown. We are eager to learn about where you are from, what you are studying and your experiences as graduate students at MIT. We would also like to hear your ideas of how we can make your stay at Ashdown more pleasant and more interesting. We are planning occasional dinners and other events in our apartment, to which residents and some outside Faculty are invited. We will let you know well in advance as these become scheduled.

Feel free to contact us any time in our apartment, Suite 5047, or call us at 617-225-9195. Terry's email is orlando (at) mit.edu, Ann's email is aorlando (at) mit.edu.