INSTRUCTOR PROFILES

A Lecturer at MIT and a Senior Director of Experiential Learning at MIT Open Learning, Erdin Beshimov is committed to creating new pathways for learners worldwide to study innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. He founded MIT Bootcamps and the MITxMicroMasters program, and the Incubation Group in the Office of Digital Learning.

Kara Blackburn is a Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an affiliate of MIT Sloan's Leadership Center. Blackburn teaches Communication for Leaders and runs the accompanying Communications Lab for full-time MBA students. Blackburn also teaches Advanced Communication for Leaders, an elective for full-time MBA students and Sloan Fellows. Blackburn co-created and teaches a new elective at MIT Sloan, Leading the Way: Perspectives on Advancing Equity and Inclusion. She also teaches in MIT Sloan’s Executive Education programs. Blackburn was awarded the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT Sloan in 2019. She was also a recipient of the 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology Award.

Mark Schwartz is an award-winning CIO currently working as Enterprise Strategist at Amazon Web Services, where he helps senior executives from some of the world’s largest companies to formulate strategies and overcome impediments to succeeding in the digital era.

Mike Acton, CFA, is a Managing Director and Head of Research at AEW. He works closely with the Fund’s investment management team in the development of the Fund’s investment strategy and criteria. The resources of AEW Research are an integral part of AEW’s investment process and Mr. Acton works closely with senior professional in all areas of the firm to develop investment strategies that match clients’ risk/reward objectives with market opportunities.

Pulkit Agrawal is assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and leads the Improbable AI Lab, part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT and affiliated with the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. Agrawal also co-founded SafelyYou, an organization that builds fall prevention technology, and the AI Foundry, an incubator for AI startups.

Abdullah Almaatouq is an Assistant Professor at MIT. His research spans three streams: (1) studying and improving collective decision-making systems, such as teams, committees, and crowds; (2) examining metascientific questions to enhance research methods and practice in the social and behavioral sciences; and (3) developing research tools and infrastructure for broader use in the scientific community. 

Jehangir Amjad is the Head of AI Platform at Ikigai Labs and has been a Computer Science Lecturer both at Stanford (2023-now) and CSAIL at MIT (2018-2022), teaching courses in Machine Learning (CS 229, 6.036/6.390) and Artificial Intelligence (CS 221). He was awarded the Jerome H. Saltzer Award for Excellence in Teaching at MIT (2022).

Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, a Professor of Organization Studies, and the Founder of the MIT Leadership Center at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Her pioneering research into how successful teams operate has highlighted the critical importance of managing outside, as well as inside, the team’s boundary. This research directly led to the concept of X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations. Ancona’s work also focuses on the concept of distributed leadership and on the development of research-based tools, practices, and teaching/coaching models that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level.

Brian Anthony is the co-director of MIT’s Medical Electronic Device Realization Center and associate director of MIT.nano. With over 25 years of experience in product realization, Brian Anthony designs instruments and techniques to monitor and control physical systems. His work involves systems analysis and design, calling upon mechanical, electrical, and optical engineering, along with computer science and optimization. 

Ben Armstrong is the Executive Director and a Research Scientist at MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, where he co-leads the Work of the Future initiative. His research and teaching examine how workers, firms, and regions adapt to technological change. His current projects include a working group on generative AI and its impact on jobs, as well as a book on American manufacturing competitiveness. His research has been published or featured in academic and popular outlets including the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Sloan Management Review, Times Higher Education, Boston Review, Daedalus, and Economic Development Quarterly.

Course Director Emilio Baglietto is Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and PhD Graduate of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research goals include improving the effectiveness and expanding the reach of 3-D, first-principles computational tools for nuclear reactor design.

Bhavik Bakshi received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor in technology and environmental policy. Currently, he is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and civil environmental and geodetic engineering at The Ohio State University (OSU). Professor Bakshi’s research is developing systematic and scientifically rigorous methods for improving the sustainability and efficiency of engineering activities.

Jim Bales is Associate Director and Instructor at the MIT Edgerton Center. Dr. Bales has, over the years, studied the optical properties of semiconductors, built robot submarines, debugged assembly language programs while seasick, traveled as far north as Greenland and as far south as Tasmania, and taught electronics and high-speed imaging.

Regina Barzilay is a School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Moshe Ben-Akiva is the Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Director of the MIT Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Lab, and Principal Investigator at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.

Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Berinsky received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is the author of "In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq" (University of Chicago Press, 2009). He is also the author of "Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America" (Princeton University Press, 2004) and has published articles in many journals.

Dr. Richard D. Braatz is the Edwin R. Gilliland Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, where he conducts research into advanced biopharmaceutical manufacturing systems. In this role, he leads process data analytics, mechanistic modeling, and control systems for several projects on campus, including those focused on monoclonal antibody, viral vaccine, and gene therapy manufacturing.

Markus J. Buehler is the McAfee Professor of Engineering at MIT. Professor Buehler pursues new modeling, design and manufacturing approaches for advanced bio-inspired materials that offer greater resilience and a wide range of controllable properties from the nano- to the macroscale. He received many distinguished awards, including the Feynman Prize, the Drucker Medal, the J.R. Rice Medal, the Leonardo da Vinci Award, the Washington Award, and many others. Buehler is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. 

Vladimir Bulović is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT holding the Fariborz Maseeh Chair in Emerging Technology. He directs the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory, co-leads the MIT-Eni Solar Frontiers Center, leads the Tata GridEdge program, and is the Founding Director of MIT.nano, MIT's new 20,000 m2 nano-fabrication, nano-characterization, and prototyping facility that opened in the summer of 2018.

Devin Bunten is an Assistant Professor of Urban Economics and Housing. Her research uses economic theory and tools to study a range of urban topics, including gentrification and neighborhood change, restrictive zoning, and urban economic history.

Kerri Cahoy is an associate professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the MIT Space Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation (STAR) Lab. She develops nanosatellite laser communication systems and weather sensors, such as the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite (MicroMAS) and the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) mission.

Bruce Cameron is the Director of the System Architecture Lab at MIT and a co-founder of Technology Strategy Partners, a consultancy. His research interests include technology strategy, system architecture, and the management of product platforms.

Federico Casalegno, associate professor of the practice, is the founder and director of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SHASS, Program in Comparative Media Studies. A social scientist with an interest in the impact of networked digital technologies on human behavior and society, Professor Casalegno both teaches and leads advanced research at MIT, and designs interactive media to foster connections between people, information, and physical places using cutting-edge information technology.

Dr. Jacek Cieslak is a product quality team leader in the Office of Biotechnology Products (OBP), Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ), CDER, FDA. Between 2005 and 2014, Dr. Cieslak has been working at FDA as a researcher/reviewer in the Division of Therapeutic Proteins in OBP where he gained review experience including protein therapeutics and biosimilar products. Dr. Cieslak joined the FDA in 2001 where he conducted his postdoctoral research on chemical synthesis and modifications of oligonucleotides. Prior to joining the FDA, he earned his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored and co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications in the area of oligonucleotide synthesis.

Richard J. Cohen is the Whitaker Professor in Biomedical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on the application of physics and engineering to solve problems in biology and medicine, particularly in developing cardiovascular diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.

Darrell Coles is a senior research geophysicist at Schlumberger. His research efforts have been in optimal experimental design for industrial-scale geoscientific applications, inverse and optimization theory, uncertainty characterization and control, all in the context of seismic data acquisition and analysis. He has obtained several additional patents and written several peer-reviewed publications since joining Schlumberger and is currently branching into commercial software development and data science.

Dr. Neal Connors is the founder and a consultant at Phoenix BioConsulting, LLC. His industrial microbiology experience is diverse: bioprocess development for renewable chemicals, fermentation and strain improvement for the production of anti-bacterial and anti-fungal natural products (e.g. Cancidas®), heterologous protein production using microbial fermentation or mammalian cell culture, whole-cell biocatalysis for the production of chiral intermediates.

Charles L. Cooney is Robert T. Haslam Professor Emeritus in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. He serves as a consultant to and/or director of a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies and is on several boards of professional journals.

Munther Dahleh is director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He was previously the associate department head of EECS. He is also a member of MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

Bazarragchaa Damdinsuren, MD, PhD is a product quality team leader at Office of Biotechnology Products (OBP), Office of Pharmaceutical Quality at CDER, FDA. Dr. Damdinsuren received his MD from National Medical University in Mongolia and his PhD from Osaka University in Japan, and completed postdoc in immunology and cell biology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He joined the OBP/FDA as a Commissioner’s Fellow in 2010.
 

Dr. Edwin F. David is the Head of the Engineering Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He joined the Laboratory in 1998 as a technical staff member in the Systems and Analysis Group, supporting the Air Vehicle Survivability program. His research focused on modeling, simulation, and testing of navigation and guidance systems, sensor systems, and directed energy systems. In this role, he supported the Defense Science Board Task Force for the Global Positioning System space segment modernization. He also served as program manager for the Directed Energy Countermeasures Assessment Team.  

Michael A M Davies teaches the engineering and business elements of the Integrated Design and Management (IDM) program at MIT. He is an expert on the connections between technology, innovation, product development, consumer choice and behavior, the adoption and diffusion of new products, intellectual property, and the emergence and evolution of platforms and business ecosystems.

Dr. Javier de Luis earned BS (1983), MS (1985), and PhD (1989) in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, as well as an MS (2003) from the Sloan School of Management.  His professional interests are in the fields of safety, aerospace research and operations, engineering design and analysis, and technology management.  Dr. de Luis joined Payload Systems Inc. in 1989 as a staff scientist, and later as the Chief Scientist and CEO at the company, prior to its merger with Aurora Flight Sciences.  While at Aurora, he was Chief Scientist and Vice President for Research and Development until 2016.  Presently, he holds a Lecturer appointment at MIT.

Prof. de Weck is a leader in systems engineering research. He focuses on how complex man-made systems such as aircraft, spacecraft, automobiles, printers, and critical infrastructures are designed and how they evolve over time. His main emphasis is on strategic properties that have the potential to maximize lifecycle value (a.k.a the “iIities”).

Industry Contributor

Lou DiBerardinis is Director, MIT Office of Environmental Health and Safety. Since 1986, he also has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard University School of Public Health, where he currently teaches in several graduate courses and continuing education programs.

Industry Contributor

Professor Dov Dori is Harry Lebensfeld Chair in Industrial Engineering and Head of the Enterprise System Modeling Laboratory at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. His research interests include model-based systems engineering, conceptual modeling of complex systems, systems architecture and design, software and systems engineering, and systems biology.

Tolga Durak is the Managing Director of the MIT Environment, Health & Safety Office (EHS). As MIT’s Managing Director, Durak is the responsible administrator for health, safety and environmental programs for all MIT academic and administrative units. Durak leads EHS to assure university activities are conducted in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, best business practices as well as by supporting development, implementation, and monitoring of prevention control strategies and initiatives. In addition to the main MIT campus, EHS provides support for and oversight over all off-site and international departments, laboratories and research centers.

Elazer R. Edelman is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, where he directs the Institute of Medical Engineering and Science. He is also a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a cardiac intensive care unit cardiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston.

Tony Eng is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He graduated from MIT with degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics and Biology. He teaches courses and runs workshops in oral communication at MIT and elsewhere.

Chuchu Fan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT. Chuchu is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award, and the 2020 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award. 

John Feiler joined the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program as Leadership Specialist and Student Programs Coordinator in July 2015. He previously served for over 26 years as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and brings extensive experience developing engineering leaders.

Alan J. Fenn is a senior staff member in the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems and Technology Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He has conducted extensive research in the area of adaptive phased array antennas and electromagnetic systems for radar and communications.

John E. Fernández ‘85 is a professor of building technology in the Department of Architecture and a practicing architect. Fernández founded and directs the MIT Urban Metabolism Group, a highly multidisciplinary research group focused on the resource intensity of cities and design and technology pathways for future urbanization. He is author of two books, numerous articles in scientific and design journals including Science, the Journal of Industrial Ecology, Building and Environment, Energy Policy and others, and author of nine book chapters. He is Chair of Sustainable Urban Systems for the International Society of Industrial Ecology and Associate Editor of the journal Sustainable Cities and Society. 

Benoit Forget is the Department Head and Professor at MIT in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. His research and teaching focuses mainly on transport theory, computational reactor physics and the nuclear fuel cycle.

Anna Frebel is an observational astronomer and astrophysicist. Prof. Frebel has authored more than 120 papers in various refereed journals and is best known for her discoveries and spectroscopic analyses of the oldest, most metal-poor stars in the Milky Way and small dwarf galaxies.

Johannes Fruehauf is Executive Director of LabCentral, a new shared lab facility in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a serial biotech entrepreneur, a co-founder of ViThera Pharmaceuticals, Deltix, and Cequent Pharmaceuticals, and an advisor or Board member to numerous life sciences companies and non-profits.

Sandra Galletti is the Assistant Director, Crisis Courses at MIT. She is a multi-lingual executive with international experience in business operations, business resiliency, and crisis management; her focus is on banking and financial institutions.

Dr. Jonathan E. Gans leads the Systems and Architectures Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He oversees multiple BMD related programs for the Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Air Force, with a focus on developing new discrimination techniques and providing in-depth assessments of domestic and foreign Ballistic and Hypersonic defense concepts. Dr. Gans recently led a report to Congress on Space Based Interceptors and his team was a major contributor to the MDA Defense Against Hypersonic Weapons AoA. Jonathan graduated from Vassar College in 1999 and earned a Ph.D. in particle physics from Yale University in 2004.

Professor David Geltner has been at MIT since 2002 where he currently is Professor of Real Estate Finance in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning. He is the lead author of the most widely-cited real estate investments textbook, “Commercial Real Estate Analysis & Investments,” now in its third edition.

Dr. Carmine Gioia is a Research Affiliate and Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Microeconometrics Methods and has a unique combination of industry and academic experience.

Jarrod Goentzel is founder and director of the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab in the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. His research focuses on meeting human needs in resource-constrained settings through better supply chain management, information systems, and decision support technology.

Dr. Goldman is an internationally recognized expert in Business Continuity, Crisis Management, Disaster Recovery, and Crisis Communications. A Fortune 500 Company's former Global Business Continuity Program Manager, Dr. Goldman has over 30 years hands-on experience in all aspects of these disciplines.

Dr. Alessandro Golkar is the author of 44 publications and serves as a technical referee for the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems, INCOSE Systems Engineering Journal, Acta Astronautica, the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and as the guest editor for the 2015 Special Issue on Federated and Fractionated Satellite Systems hosted by the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (JAIS). He holds a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has master’s and undergraduate degrees in Astronautical and Aerospace Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome. 

“The whole set of activities not only look at ‘space for space’, that is the creation of knowledge of our Universe and advancing science for the benefit of humanity, but also and primarily at ‘space for Earth’, delivering services with direct impact to businesses and people.” - Prof. Alessandro Golkar

Chris Gordon has been a lecturer at MIT’s Center for Real Estate for over 20 years. He teaches a course on Innovative Project Delivery in the Public & Private Sectors in our MSRED program. As a practitioner, Chris serves as an advisor and manager on complex capital projects worldwide. He works in a hands-on capacity to establish the project strategies, project team, and management process, and then monitors and/or leads the project to improve the chances of success significantly. He is also a Lecturer at both the Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate, teaching several courses and writing on complex capital projects.

Jeremy Gregory is the Executive Director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium. He studies the economic and environmental implications of engineering and system design decisions, particularly in materials production and recovery systems.

Svafa Grönfeldt is a Professor of the Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a founding member and faculty Director of MIT’s newest innovation accelerator DesignX focused on the design and development of new ventures created at MIT. Dr. Grönfeldt is the co-founder of The MET Fund, a Cambridge-based seed investment fund.

John Hart is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity and Center for Additive and Digital Advanced Production Technologies (APT) at MIT. John’s research focuses on additive manufacturing, nanostructured materials, and the integration of computation and automation in process discovery.

Asegun Henry is the Noyce Career Development Chair Associate Professor in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include novel energy system concepts that help to mitigate the effects of climate change, including solar energy, energy storage, and transportation.

Dr. Ryan E. Holcomb is employed as a Principal Scientist for Legacy BioDesign LLC, a contract research organization specializing in the formulation of therapeutic proteins and peptides.

Phillip Isola is an assistant professor in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He studies visual intelligence from the perspective of both minds and machines. He received a National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate fellowship as well as an NSF postdoctoral fellowship.

Tommi Jaakkola is a Thomas Siebel Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His work pertains to inferential, algorithmic and estimation questions in machine learning, including large scale probabilistic distributed inference, deep learning, and causal inference.

Tommi Jaakkola is a Thomas Siebel Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His work pertains to inferential, algorithmic and estimation questions in machine learning, including large scale probabilistic distributed inference, deep learning, and causal inference.

Dr. Said Jahanmir is Assistant Director of Federal Partnerships in the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office. His research in tribology and machining of advanced materials is widely recognized in the scientific and engineering communities. 

Stefanie Jegelka is an X-Consortium Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, where she is a member of CSAIL, and affiliated with IDSS.

Michael Jewett is the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology at Northwestern University. Dr. Jewett received his PhD in 2005 at Stanford University, completed postdoctoral studies at the Center for Microbial Biotechnology in Denmark and the Harvard Medical School, and was a guest professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). He is the recipient of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and a Finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, among others. He is the co-founder of SwiftScale Biologics, Stemloop, Inc., Pearl Bio, Induro Therapeutics, and Design Pharmaceuticals. Jewett is a Fellow of AIMBE, AAAS, and NAI.  

Derrick Katayama, Ph.D. is the Principal Scientist at Legacy BioDesign, LLC. Dr. Katayama received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) with studies focused on understanding protein stability in both liquid and lyophilized forms. Dr. Katayama has worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for over 10 years, prior to joining Legacy BioDesign, LLC.

Derrick Katayama, Ph.D. is the Principal Scientist at Legacy BioDesign, LLC. He has experience working on peptide and protein formulation at Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., with formulation and characterization of protein subunit vaccine candidates at MedImmune Inc., and at Boehringer Ingelheim in Fremont, CA, participating in the Analytical and Formulation Development group responsible for formulation development of monoclonal antibodies.

Brent Kendrick is founder and owner of First Principles Biopharma, LLC, specializing in biopharmaceutical data sciences, data analysis automation, and consulting in formulation/analytical development/product characterization.  

Bruke Kifle is a computer scientist and product leader passionate about the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, business, ethics and society. His experiences span academia and industry in research, software engineering and product management. He is a socio-technologist motivated by the ability to improve human conditions in low-resource environments through technical solutions. An innovator and educator, Bruke has founded and scaled new initiatives, teaching programs, and research projects both domestically and internationally in countries including Ethiopia, France, Morocco and South Africa. He has also served as a course assistant for several courses taught at MIT.

Bruke is currently an AI Product Manager at Microsoft. He received his Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Management, and Master’s in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, where his academic and research interests were broadly in the fields of responsible Artificial Intelligence, algorithms and their applications for social good.

Sang-Gook Kim is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is currently the Micro/Nano Area Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Prof. Kim’s research has been in the field of product realization throughout his career at both the industry and academia. His recent research includes piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesting, micro ultrasonic transducers and nano-engineered energy conversion for carbon neutrality and solar water splitting systems. 

Prof. Sangbae Kim, is the director of the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on the bio-inspired robot design by extracting principles from animals. Kim's achievements on bio-inspired robot development include the world's first directional adhesive inspired from gecko lizards, and a climbing robot, Stickybot, that utilizes the directional adhesives to climb smooth surfaces featured in TIME's best inventions in 2006. 

James L. Kirtley Jr. is a Professor Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at MIT. Prof. Kirtley is a specialist in electric machinery and power systems engineering. He has participated in broadly-based research and development in several related areas, including superconducting electric machinery, conventional turbogenerators, large machinery for ship propulsion, monitoring of electric power systems and equipment, magnetic bearings and magnetic levitation and design of electric machinery.

Dr. Robert D. Kiss is a Distinguished Engineer and Senior Director of BioProcess Development at Genentech. His areas of focus within the industry have included media/process optimization and product quality control (especially protein glycosylation), barriers to virus contamination of mammalian cultures, and scale-up/scale-down strategies.

Mr. Kenneth E. Kolodziej is a technical staff member in the RF Technology Group, where he is pursuing research on wideband electronic and simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) systems. Since joining Lincoln Laboratory, Mr. Kolodziej has conducted research on RF, microwave and photonic circuits, including antenna, radar and communication systems.

Blade is an innovation and user-experience expert & Senior Lecturer at MIT on Design-Thinking and Innovation. Blade provides consulting service in Design-Thinking and helps top brands to innovate radically on their product and services, and teaches corporate teams how to create solutions that customers love. Customers include Bose, CPI International, Whirlpool, Lufthansa, The D.C. Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and others.

Tim Kraska is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), where he co-leads the Data Systems Group. He is also the Founding Co-Director of MIT Data System and AI Lab (DSAIL).

Matthew S. Kressy, founding director of the MIT Integrated Design & Management (IDM) master’s degree, is an expert in product design and development. As an entrepreneur and founder of Designturn, he has designed, invented, engineered, and manufactured products for startups, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between.

Dr. Delfi Krishna has 10 years of biologics and 10 years of cell and gene therapy experience. During her Ph.D., she designed efficient and targeted retroviral and lentiviral vectors for gene delivery in human cells.

Dr. Pin-Kuang Lai is an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering and materials science at Stevens Institute of Technology

Prof. Larson is Mitsui Professor in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is author, co-author, or editor of six books and author of over 85 articles, primarily in the fields of urban service systems (especially emergency response systems), queueing, logistics, disaster management, disease dynamics, dynamic pricing of critical infrastructures, education, and workforce planning.

Andrew Lawrie is an analyst studying geometric PDEs. His research focuses on the asymptotic dynamics of solutions to various geometric dispersive equations. These equations often arise as models in mathematical physics, and their study brings together techniques from harmonic analysis, nonlinear analysis, and geometry.

Steven B. Leeb currently serves as Professor in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering. Prof. Leeb is concerned with the design, analysis, development, and maintenance processes for all kinds of machinery with electrical actuators, sensors, or power electronic drives. He is particularly interested in the study of mechatronics.

Professor Charles E. Leiserson is the Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and head of the Supertech research group in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Leiserson’s research centers on the theory of parallel computing, especially as it relates to engineering reality.

A leader in international management education, Lessard has served as President of the Academy of International Business and Dean of the Fellows of the Academy. In 2014, he received the Pathfinder Award from the Engineering Projects Organization Society for his lifetime contributions to the field. Lessard has led major consulting assignments with firms, banks, and government agencies throughout the world. He currently is a member of the Advisory Board of 4DPath.

Dr. James C. Leung is a Senior Research Fellow at the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI).

Paul Levy was CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2002 to 2011. Previously, he was Professor of Urban Studies at MIT, where he was actively involved in the restructuring of the electric power and telecommunications industries. He is currently Senior Adviser at Lax Sebenius LLC, a negotiation consultancy firm.

MIT Research Contributor

Yihyun Lim is director of the MIT Design Lab, where she directs a multidisciplinary group of researchers, engineers, and designers to drive design innovation across various industry sectors. With Prof. Casalegno, she brings together behavioral research and design methods to situate emerging networked technologies in the current and future societies.  

J. Christopher Love is the Raymond A. (1921) and Helen E. St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering. He is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and an Associate Member at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. Following completion of his doctoral studies, he extended his research into immunology at Harvard Medical School with Hidde Ploegh from 2004-2005, and at the Immune Disease Institute from 2005-2007.

Dr. Stuart E. Madnick is the John Norris Maguire (1960) Professor of Information Technology, Emeritus in the MIT Sloan School of Management, as well as a Professor of Engineering Systems in the MIT School of Engineering. He is also Founding Director of Cybersecurity—MIT Sloan’s consortium for improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity—and the Co-Head of the MIT Information Quality (MITIQ) Program. He is the author or co-author of more than 400 publications, including Computer Security, one of the first books ever published on the topic of cybersecurity.

Jim Magarian is an Engineering Leadership Instructor on the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program staff. He joins the program staff after more than nine years in industry as an engineering manager and mechanical engineer in the aerospace/defense sector.

Dr. Mark Manning is Chief Scientific Officer, Legacy BioDesign, LLC. Dr. Manning has been involved in the development of biopharmaceutical products since 1988.

David Martinez is a Laboratory Fellow in the Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and MIT Instructor. He focuses on research and technical directions in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing. Previously, Mr. Martinez served as an Associate Head in the Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division. He was also a member of Lincoln Laboratory’s Steering Committee. Mr. Martinez has held many past technical leadership roles, including Leader of the Embedded Digital Systems Group and Head of the ISR Systems and Technology Division. Mr. Martinez also served in a leadership role as President and Chairman of Mercury Federal Systems. Prior to joining Lincoln Laboratory, he was employed as a principal research engineer at ARCO Oil and Gas Company, specializing in adaptive seismic signal processing. He received the ARCO special achievement award. He holds three U.S. patents based on his work in signal processing for seismic applications. He was elected an IEEE Fellow “for technical leadership in the development of high-performance embedded computing for real-time defense systems.” In 2008, he and his co-authors released a successful book titled High Performance Embedded Computing Handbook, which is highly referenced within the embedded computing research community.

Mr. Martinez was awarded a bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State University, an MS degree from MIT, and the EE degree jointly from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Electrical Engineering and Oceanographic Engineering. He completed an MBA from the Southern Methodist University.

Professor Wojciech Matusik is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, where he leads the Computational Fabrication Group. His research interests are in direct digital manufacturing and computer graphics.

Leo McGonagle is the executive director of the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program. He has been at MIT for over ten years and was part of the team that conceived and designed the Gordon Program (GEL) in 2007. Leo’s passion is developing leaders. Before joining the Gordon Program, he spent a career in service as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. This included six years on college campuses, administering leader development programs and advising, coaching, and mentoring emerging-leader students.

Tod McGrath is a Lecturer at the Center for Real Estate and a Vice President of Finance at Boston Properties. McGrath teaches introductory and advanced real estate finance courses for MIT’s Masters in Real Estate Development and the Center for Real Estate’s Professional Development Institute. He also lectures on the topic of negotiating development-phase and operating phase agreements on real estate ventures.

Lee McKnight is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University; a Research Affiliate of the Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence at MIT; and President of Marengo Research, a consultancy. His writing, research interests, and consulting span policy, economic, business and technical aspects of the emerging global information economy.

Chuck McVinney is principal of McVinney & Company, an organizational development and executive consulting company. He is an educator, facilitator, and consultant who has specialized for over 20 years in the creative process, the improvement of interpersonal dynamics (team development), and the crafting of excellent learning events for organizations. He is especially known for his work with emerging and merging organizations, helping entrepreneurs and CEO's create cultures and work environments where values that support sustainability and creativity are deeply held and applied.

John W. Meklenburg is an associate member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. Meklenburg has contributed to the development of signal processing algorithms, simulations, and hardware for ISR radar systems. Recently, his work has been focused on development of a simulation environment for Electronic Warfare analysis.

Ralph Morelli is a professor of computer science at Trinity College. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the Mobile CSP project, an NSF-funded effort to train high school teachers in Connecticut and elsewhere to teach the emerging Advanced Placement CS Principles course that is being created by the College Board. 

F. Dale Morgan is a Professor of Geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and associated with the Earth Resources Laboratory. His current interests are in rock physics, geoelectromagnetism, applied seismology, inverse theory, environmental and engineering geophysics, electrochemistry, and electronic instrumentation.

Dr. Bryan R. Moser is Academic Director of System Design & Management (SDM) at MIT, and a Senior Lecturer in both Engineering and the Sloan School of Management. He is also Associate Professor, Specially Appointed at the University of Tokyo, where he directs the Global Teamwork Lab (GTL).  Prior to returning to MIT in 2014, he worked for 25 years in industry; as a research engineer at the Basic Science Lab (A.I.) of Nissan Motor Company, as a Sr. Research Scientist at United Technologies Corporation, and as founder and President of Global Project Design, a firm pioneering software and methods for model-based project management. Moser focuses on engineering teamwork for complex systems problems and use of model-based methods to improve performance of diverse teams.  Moser received a bachelor’s in computer science and Engineering in 1987 and a Master of Science in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. His doctorate in 2012 is from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences.

Katie has been the Social Media and Public Relations Coordinator at the Mountain View Police Department since 2015. In her role, she manages the department’s social media accounts and outreach campaigns, focusing primarily on the department’s engagement efforts as well as serving as the agency’s public information officer. She presents across the country on social media best practices and crisis communication strategies.

David Niño is a Senior Lecturer in MIT’s Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Program in Engineering Leadership. He has served in this role since 2015, when he launched this program to provide academic leadership education for MIT graduate students in engineering and other disciplines. Under his leadership, the program has grown from one graduate class and to a variety of highly-rated academic classes and workshops that educate over 200 graduate students annually.

Jelena Notaros is the Robert J. Shillman Career Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from MIT in 2020 and 2017, respectively, and B.S. degree from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2015. Jelena was one of three Top DARPA Risers, a 2018 DARPA D60 Plenary Speaker, a 2023 NSF CAREER Award recipient, a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Listee, a 2021 MIT Robert J. Shillman Career Development Chair recipient, a 2020 MIT RLE Early Career Development Award recipient, a 2015 MIT Herbert E. and Dorothy J. Grier Presidential Fellow, a 2015-2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a 2019 OSA CLEO Chair's Pick Award recipient, a 2022 OSA APC Best Paper Award recipient, a 2022 OSA FiO Emil Wolf Best Paper Award Finalist, a 2014 IEEE Region 5 Paper Competition First Place recipient, a 2023 MIT Louis D. Smullin Award for Teaching Excellence recipient, a 2018 MIT EECS Rising Star, a 2014 Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Award recipient, and a 2015 CU Boulder Chancellor's Recognition Award recipient, among other honors.

William D. Oliver is a Principal Investigator in the Engineering Quantum Systems Group (MIT campus) and the Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems Group (MIT Lincoln Laboratory).  He provides programmatic and technical leadership targeting the development of quantum and classical high-performance computing technologies. Will’s research interests include the materials growth, fabrication, design, and measurement of superconducting qubits, as well as the development of cryogenic packaging and control electronics involving cryogenic CMOS and single-flux quantum digital logic.

Elsa Olivetti is the associate director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. Her research centers on improving the environmental and economic sustainability of materials in the context of growing global demand.

Anna Osherov joined MIT's ONE Lab in the fall of 2013 as a postdoctoral associate and lab manager of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Shared Experimental Facilities. Anna's research focuses on the correlation between morphology, microstructure, and physical properties of materials.

Bhaskar Pant is the Executive Director of MIT Professional Education. Prior to joining MIT, Mr. Pant held senior leadership positions in academic and corporate organizations around the globe.

Professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. Together Sandy and his students have pioneered computational social science, organizational engineering, wearable computing (Google Glass), image understanding, and modern biometrics. His most recent books are Social Physics, published by Penguin Press, and Honest Signals, published by MIT Press.

Luis Perez-Breva, PhD is an innovator, entrepreneur, educator and the author of Innovating: A Doer’s Manifesto (The MIT Press, 2017). He is an MIT expert in technology innovation, venture labs, taking deep tech to impact, and applying artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems.

Bradley T. Perry is a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He is currently working in the areas of microwave circuit and antenna design with the RF Technology group at the Laboratory. Recent work at the Laboratory has included compact receiver and transmitter designs for ground-based electronic warfare systems and active decoys, along with work on RF cancellation techniques for simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) applications.

Hanspeter Pfister is An Wang Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. Before joining Harvard, he worked for over a decade at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories where he was Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist. 

Kristala Jones Prather is the Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and an investigator in the multi-institutional Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC) funded by the National Science Foundation (USA). Professor Prather has co-authored more than 75 manuscripts and two book chapters, and has five issued patents with several additional applications pending.

Dr. Reza Rahaman, Bernard M. Gordon Industry Co-Director and Senior Lecturer. Dr. Rahaman returned to MIT in 2018 after a 29-year career in the Consumer Packaged Goods, Pharmaceuticals, and Agricultural Chemical Industries. Immediately prior to MIT, Reza was the Vice-president of Research, Development, and Innovation for the Specialty Division of the Clorox Company. 

Dr. Massod Rahimi is a product quality team leader with the Office of Biotechnology Products (OBP) in the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)/U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Rama Ramakrishnan is a Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management, specializing in the practical application of Predictive and Generative AI techniques for industry problem-solving and the development of intelligent products and services. 

Dr. Nicholas X. Randall is a Chartered Engineer (CEng MIM) who has published extensively in the field of surface mechanical properties testing, especially related to scratch (adhesion) testing, nanoindentation, and tribology testing. He is chairman of ASTM committee G02.40, responsible for developing tribological test standards for non-abrasive wear. 

Rama Rao is currently Senior Director and Head of Risk Analytics at PayPal. He leads a team of data analysts who monitor business performance and perform the analytics that go into creating PayPal’s risk policies around the world—boundaries within which users can transact and experience PayPal.

Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab and heads the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. Raskar's research interests span the fields of computational light transport, computational photography, inverse problems in imaging, and human-computer interaction.

Carlo Ratti is a Professor of Urban Technologies and Planning Director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab. In the last decade, Carlo has given talks around the world on the theme of Smart Cities, while his work has been exhibited in international venues including the Venice Biennale, New York’s MoMA, London’s Science Museum and Barcelona’s Design Museum. 

Mark G. Roberts, CFA, AIA currently serves as the Executive Director of the Real Estate Center at the UT McCombs School of Business and has over 30 years of commercial real estate experience. Prior to this, he served as a Managing Director at DWS and held several senior leadership positions including Head of Research & Strategy, Alternatives and Real Assets, Head of U.S. Multi-asset & Solutions and Co-Head of Research for DWS. He led the research teams that support the firm’s global real estate investment process which also included developing the firm’s ESG strategy. He also led the portfolio management team responsible for over $2 billion in multi-asset strategies. From 1995 until joining DWS in June 2011, he served as Global Head of Research of Invesco Real Estate. From 2003 to June 2011, Mr. Roberts was Chairman of the firm’s investment strategy group and also served as a member of various Executive and Investment Committees. Prior to joining Invesco Real Estate in 1995, Mr. Roberts previously served as an architect and also Director of Construction/Development for Club Corp International Inc., a global hospitality company. He has also served as the Chairman of the Board of NCREIF and was the former President of RERI, and a member of the NCREIF Fund - Index Subcommittee which developed the NFI - ODCE Index. He currently serves on the Leadership Committee of the Global Real Estate Fund Index (a consortium which includes NCREIF, Inrev- Europe and Anrev - APAC) and also serves on the PREA Research Committee. Mr. Roberts holds an M.S. in Real Estate Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He is a Fellow of both the Real Estate Research Institute and the Homer Hoyt Institute.

Dr. Megan Roberts is the Assistant Director of User Services of the Immersion Lab at MIT.nano, a central facility for multidimensional and interactive data visualization, including augmented and virtual reality. She has over 10 years of experience designing devices, sensors, and materials for interface with the human body. Her research interests include medical technology and manufacturing. She previously worked at Medtronic designing implantable pacemakers. Dr. Roberts received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Dr. Morris Rosenberg is founder and a consultant at MRosenberg BioPharma Consulting. He has over 25 years experience in the development of therapeutic agents to treat a variety of human diseases. 

Gilad Rosenzweig is an architect and urban planner with vast experience in community development, urban tech, and design. As Executive Director of DesignX, the venture accelerator of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, he is laying the groundwork for new technology to improve the comfort and efficiency of buildings, places, and cities. Before DesignX, Gilad created Smarter in the City, an accelerator for high-tech startups in underrepresented communities. He is a graduate of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Tim Rowe is the Founder and CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center. CIC houses over 450 startup technology companies, and is perhaps the densest collection of startups anywhere in the world. He is also the founder of the Venture Cafe Foundation dedicated to promoting connections among entrepreneurs through a weekly networking gathering; and chairman of Lab|Central, a shared wet laboratory space. Rowe's past work includes the Boston Consulting Group in Boston, Madrid, Tokyo, and Singapore.

Professor Emanuel Sachs has spent his career moving back and forth between academia and industry. He has co-founded or otherwise been involved in seven start-up companies based on his inventions and co-inventions, including three that went public, one that was acquired by a public company, and three that are still private. Professor Sachs is committed to teaching and has brought innovative methods to the teaching of invention, the engineering sciences, design, and manufacturing.

Professor Albert Saiz is the Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate, and formerly Director of the MIT Center for Real Estate (2014–2018). Professor Saiz now serves as the Director of MIT’s Urban Economics Lab, which conducts research on real estate economics, urban economics, housing markets, local public finance, zoning regulations, global real estate, and demographic trends affecting urban and real estate development worldwide.

Dr. Nannaji Saka is a former Research Affiliate and Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity at MIT. Saka has co-authored over 100 technical papers in tribology, mechanical behavior of materials, and manufacturing processes. He holds seven U.S. patents on electrical contacts and chemical-mechanical polishing and has several patents pending.

Dr. Abel Sanchez is the Executive Director of MIT's Geospatial Data Center, pioneering advancements in IoT, Big Data, AI, and Cybersecurity. He architected "The Internet of Things" global network and data analytics platforms for major corporations like SAP, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Boeing. In cybersecurity, Dr. Sanchez designed Cyber Ranges for the Department of Defense and a password firewall for IARPA. His machine learning work includes developing fraud detection frameworks for Accenture. Over the past three years, he has focused on Generative AI, building assistants, agents, and intelligence for sectors such as retail, finance, and government. Dr. Sanchez has also led e-Education software for Microsoft and co-founded the Accenture Technology Academy. He teaches MIT courses on cybersecurity, engineering computation, and data science, has produced over 1000 educational videos, and has taught professionals in 106 countries. He is a distinguished faculty member at MIT Professional Education, specializing in digital transformation.

Sanjay Sarma is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Sloan School of Management. 

Edward Schiappa is Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the prestigious John E. Burchard Chair of Humanities. From 2013 to 2019, he also served as the program's Head.

Professor Schindall re-joined the MIT faculty in June of 2002 after a 35-year career in the defense, aerospace, and telecommunications industries. His research includes the invention and development of a nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitor which holds the promise of being superior to electrochemical batteries as a means of efficient regenerative electrical energy storage, and he has also supervised research on dynamic simulation and reliability analysis of complex safety-critical systems.

Jorg Scholvin joined MIT.nano as the Assistant Director of User Services at Fab.nano in 2018.  Jorg holds a BS, MEng and PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and has over 15 years of experience working in the cleanroom on projects from power transistors and MEMS devices to neural implants and  x-ray spectrometers. Jorg has been co-lecturing MIT’s undergraduate micro/nano-fabrication laboratory class. Prior to joining MIT.nano, Jorg worked at MIT on research combining microfabrication and neuroengineering to create high-density neural implants, and co-founded an SBIR-funded company to commercialize the devices.

Michael Schrage is a research fellow with the Sloan School of Management's Center for Digital Business and a visiting fellow at Imperial College's [London] 'Innovation and Entrepreneurship' program.

Thomas U. Schwartz is the Boris Magasanik Professor of Biology at MIT. His primary research investigates communication across biological membranes, using structural, biochemical, and genetic tools. Thomas leads the Schwartz Lab at MIT, which focuses on understanding how signals and molecules are transmitted between the nucleus and cytoplasm across the nuclear envelope, and working to decipher the mechanism and structure of the machinery that executes these cellular processes.

James Robert Scott is a lecturer and research scientist of the Real Estate Technology Hub at MIT’s Center for Real Estate, with a primary focus on real estate automation and technology. He works with stakeholders across the Proptech sector to identify technologies that will make buildings more energy efficient, more competitive, and better for the end user. 

Dusan Sekulic is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Professor Sekulic’s research has been on thermodynamics aspects of energy and non-energy producing systems. 

Devavrat Shah is a professor with the department of electrical engineering and computer science, MIT. He is a member of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) and Operations Research Center (ORC), and the Director of the Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC) in IDSS. His research focus is on theory of large complex networks, which includes network algorithms, stochastic networks, network information theory and large-scale statistical inference.

Stanley Y. Shaw, MD, PhD is the inaugural Associate Dean for Executive Education at Harvard Medical School. In this role, he designs and directs a growing portfolio of programs for companies and executive leaders from diverse sectors of health care, from small biotechs to Fortune 100 companies. 

Professor Yossi Sheffi is Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL), and Director and Founder of the Master of Engineering in Logistics Program. He is an expert in systems optimization, risk analysis and supply chain management. Dr. Sheffi has been recognized in numerous ways in academic and industry forums, including the 1997 Distinguished Service Award given by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. He is also a life fellow of Cambridge University’s Clare Hall College.

Dr. Robert T-I. Shin is a Principal Staff member in the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Tactical Systems Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He is also the Director of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Beaver Works Center and a member of the MIT School of Engineering Extended Engineering Council. Prior to becoming Principal Staff, he served as the Head of the ISR and Tactical Systems Division, where he oversaw research and prototype development of systems for ISR, tactical applications, and counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, and he oversees programs assessing U.S. air vehicle survivability. 

Course Director Michael Short joined the faculty in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering in July, 2013. He brings 15 years of research experience in the field of nuclear materials, microstructural characterization, and alloy development. 

Julian Shun is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a lead investigator in MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research focuses on the theory and practice of parallel algorithms and programming, with particular emphasis on designing algorithms and frameworks for large-scale graph processing and spatial data analysis. He also studies parallel algorithms for text analytics, concurrent data structures, and methods for deterministic parallelism. Prior to joining MIT, he was a postdoctoral Miller Research Fellow at UC Berkeley. His honors include the NSF CAREER award, DOE Early Career Award, ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, the CMU School of Computer Science Doctoral Dissertation Award, Google Faculty Research Award, Google Research Scholar Award, SoE Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching, Facebook Graduate Fellowship, and best paper awards at PLDI, SPAA, CGO, and DCC.

Dr. Afreen Siddiqi is a Research Scientist in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School. She is motivated about addressing urgent problems of sustainable resource use, development of sufficient and smart infrastructure, and equitable use of technology for improving human well-being and the natural environment. She is deeply interested in intersecting issues of technology, society, and policy.

Dr. Siddiqi has an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering, an S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Systems, all from MIT. She has been a recipient of the Amelia Earhart Fellowship, Richard D. DuPont Fellowship, and the Rene H. Miller Prize in Systems Engineering.

Timothy Simpson is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include product family design and platform-based product development, multidisciplinary design optimization, trade space exploration, and additive manufacturing.

Anthony J. Sinskey is a professor of microbiology within the Department of Biology at MIT. Professor Sinskey's research focuses on establishing an interdisciplinary approach to metabolic engineering. He is a recipient of a 2015 J-WAFS Solutions Grant for his project, "A Multiplex, Nanosensor Platform for the Real Time Monitoring or Food and Water-Borne Contaminants" as well as a recipient of a 2015 J-WAFS seed grant for his project, "A Bioassay-Based Approach to Food Safety in China."

Professor Armando Solar-Lezama leads the Computer Assisted Programming Group. His research focuses on program synthesis, an exciting research area that lies at the intersection of Programming Systems and Artificial Intelligence.

Professor Justin Solomon is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT, where he leads the Geometric Data Processing Group. His textbook, Numerical Algorithms, covers numerical methods for geometry, graphics, robotics, and other computational applications.

David Sontag joined the MIT faculty in 2017 as Hermann L. F. von Helmholtz Career Development Professor in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and as Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). He is also a principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Professor Sontag’s research interests are in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Stacy Springs is the Executive Director at the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI).  The Center integrates the Institute’s technical, scientific, and management expertise to solve complex biopharmaceutical challenges. Dr. Springs is a principle investigator on several research programs in biologics manufacturing, from application of data analytics and PAT in the continuous production of monoclonal antibodies, viral vectors and vaccines, to development of innovative rapid sterility tests and new approaches to adventitious agent contamination through long read sequencing. 

Professor Suvrit Sra is an Associate Professor in the EECS department at MIT. He is also a core faculty member of the Institute for Data Systems and Society (IDSS) and PI in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

Professor Manish Srivastava is a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also a full-time clinical professor of real estate finance & investment and the former academic chair and real estate finance program chair of New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.

Ray Stata was a cofounder of Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) in 1965 and served as CEO and Chairman until 1996. He now serves as Chairman of the Board. With sales of $3.4B, ADI is recognized for leadership in the design and manufacture of analog and digital signal processing semiconductors. Mr. Stata has been active as an investor in and board member of more than 40 early stage technology based new ventures.

Professor Nam Pyo Suh is the Cross Professor Emeritus at MIT and was the 13th and 14th President of KAIST. He serves on advisory boards of universities and industrial firms.

Vivienne Sze is an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and leads the Research Lab of Electronics’ Energy-Efficient Multimedia Systems research group. Her group works on computing systems that enable energy-efficient machine learning, computer vision, and video compression/processing for a wide range of applications, including autonomous navigation, digital health, and the internet of things.

Zhengzhen Tan is a Lecturer in MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, Executive Director of the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, and Director of the China Future City Program. Her research and teaching is focused on sustainable urban development, digital innovation, and entrepreneurship. She is the editor of “Towards Urban Vibrancy: Patterns and Practices of Asia’s New Cities” (MIT SA+P Press, 2020), and the author of the digital cities chapter in this book. Prior to joining MIT, she worked as an urban planner and urban designer with extensive practice in both the public and private sectors in Shanghai, Singapore, London, and Vancouver. 
 

Neil Thompson is the Director of the FutureTech research project at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and a Principal Investigator at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.

Course director Neil Todreas is the Korea Electric Power Corp Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Emeritus) at MIT. His research and teaching focuses on thermal and hydraulic aspects of nuclear reactor engineering and safety analysis.

Dr. Walter Torous is a senior lecturer holding a joint appointment in the Center for Real Estate’s MSRED Program, as well as in the Sloan School of Management. As one of the nation’s leading scholars and researchers in real estate finance, Torous teaches a graduate course in Securitization.

Antonio Torralba is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the MIT director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and the inaugural director of the MIT Quest for Intelligence, a MIT campus-wide initiative to discover the foundations of intelligence.

Jessika Trancik is a Professor at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines the dynamic costs, performance, and environmental impacts of energy systems to inform climate policy and accelerate beneficial and equitable technology innovation.

Bernhardt L. Trout is the Raymond F. Baddour, ScD, (1949) Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees from MIT and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition, he performed post-doctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute.

John N. Tsitsiklis is a Clarence J Lebel Professor, with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

Caroline Uhler is an assistant professor in EECS and IDSS at MIT. She holds an MSc in Mathematics, a BSc in Biology, and an MEd in High School Mathematics Education from the University of Zurich. She obtained her PhD in Statistics from UC Berkeley in 2011. 

Her research focuses on mathematical statistics, in particular on graphical models and the use of optimization, algebraic and geometric methods in statistics, and on applications to biology. 

Alexander van de Minne received his PhD in Finance at the University of Amsterdam in 2015. Alex joined MIT/CRE in 2015. During his time there as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist he founded the MIT/CRE Price Dynamics Platform. He is an expert on application of Bayesian and other advanced statistical methods to real estate price indexing methodology and product development. Alex is now Professor of Finance and Real Estate in the University of Connecticut School of Business.

The T. Wilson (1953) Professor of Management of Innovation and Engineering Systems at MIT Sloan School of Management, Professor Eric von Hippel’s research focuses on patterns of innovation across industries. Professor von Hippel’s current work focuses on the nature and economics of distributed and free innovation. He also develops and teaches practical methods that individuals, open user communities, and organizations can use to enhance innovation processes. 

Ben Waber is recognized worldwide as one of the leading thinkers at the intersection of management, data, workplace, and people. He is the President and co-founder of Humanyze and a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where he received his PhD. His research was named a Top 10 Emerging Technology by the MIT Technology Review and a Breakthrough Idea by the Harvard Business Review. He is the honorary chairman of the Japan People Analytics and HR Technology Association and an advisory board member at Accenture and HR.com. Waber was previously a senior researcher at the Harvard Business School.

Ted Wagner is the Chief Information Security Officer for SAP National Security Services (SAP NS2). Ted has led cyber teams employing tactical to strategic capabilities.  His experience includes completing the certification and accreditation process for Agency level programs, including developing curriculum for the Computer Network Operations planner course and establishing a team validation process for deploying cyber teams.

Annie Wang joined MIT's ONE Lab in 2011 as a joint postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Bulovic and Prof. Jeffrey Lang after completing her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at MIT. Her graduate work in Prof. Tayo Akinwande's group (EECS, MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratory) focused on developing organic and oxide semiconductor thin film transistors (TFTs) for large area flexible electronics, particularly a low-temperature-budget, scalable fabrication process for oxide TFT circuits.

Director Emeritus Daniel I.C. Wang was the Institute Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He was the recipient of numerous awards from the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and from schools here and abroad. 

Vern D. Wedeven is President of Wedeven Associates, Inc., an engineering consulting firm specializing in tribology research and development. He pioneered a novel tribology-by-design (T/D) approach, encompassing theory, tools, methodology, and solutions, and has made significant contributions to jet engine oil qualification and space propulsion systems. The author of more than 60 technical papers, Wedeven holds three patents and has received multiple prestigious awards for his work in tribology.

Steve Weikal is a lecturer, researcher, and Industry Chair of the Center’s Real Estate Technology Hub, which explores innovative new technologies and business models that are reinventing traditional ways of developing, transacting and managing real estate. He is also the Managing Partner of MET Fund II, which invests in early-stage startups that have an MIT connection and focus on solutions for the coming built environment transformation. 

Dr. George Westerman is a world-recognized thought leader in leading transformation and competitive advantage through technological innovation. He works at the intersection of executive leadership and digital innovation to provide continuous valuable insights to leaders in all industries.

As a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, he researches digital transformation and innovation culture. As a pioneering researcher on digital transformation, George regularly conducts keynote presentations, senior executive workshops, and Board presentations worldwide. George is the author of three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation. He has also written numerous contributions for publications such as Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and academic journals.

Dr. George Westerman is a world-recognized thought leader in leading transformation and competitive advantage through technological innovation. He works at the intersection of executive leadership and digital innovation to provide continuous valuable insights to leaders in all industries.  

William C. Wheaton is a professor at MIT’s Center for Real Estate (MIT/CRE), as well as Professor Emeritus in MIT's Department of Economics. He was influential in helping establish the MIT/CRE and launching our MSRED program in 1983; he served as our Academic Director from 1992-2003.

Robert M. White, Jr., CRE, FRICS, President of Real Capital Analytics Inc., founded the company in 2000 to bring greater transparency to the investment markets by providing real-time data of capital flows and prices of commercial properties. He is a noted authority on the real estate capital markets who is frequently cited in the press and has authored numerous articles for industry publications and the firm’s own Capital Trends publications.

John R. Williams is a Professor of Information Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. His area of specialty is large scale computer analysis applied to both physical systems and to information.

Dr. Jacqueline M. Wolfrum is the Codirector of Biomanufacturing@MIT-CBI at the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation. She also directs BioMAN, an industry-academic consortium focused on innovations and best practices in biomanufacturing, and she manages research activities focused on data analytics in biomanufacturing, continuous manufacturing, and cell therapy manufacturing. 

James P. Womack is co-author of the best selling book, The Machine That Changed The World, which examined Toyota's lean design system. His Lean Enterprise Institute now works with a wide range of other corporations seeking to implement these ideas around the world.

Cathy Wu is the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Assistant Professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT and has worked across many fields and organizations, including Microsoft Research, OpenAI, the Google X Self-Driving Car Team, AT&T, Caltrans, Facebook, and Dropbox. Wu is also the founder and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Research Initiative at the ACM Future of Computing Academy.

Maria Yang is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and Faculty Academic Director of MIT D-Lab, where she oversees the Education program and co-instructs D-Lab: Design for Scale. Her research interest is in the product design process, particularly in the early phases of the design cycle. Prior to MIT, she served as Director of Design at Reactivity, Inc.

Dr. Seongkyu Yoon is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Ward Endowed Professor in Biomedical Sciences at UMass Lowell. He is also the UMass Site Director of the Advanced Mammalian Biomanufacturing Innovation Center and a contributor to the National Biomanufacturing Innovation Institute. Dr. Yoon runs a systems biology group that conducts research on systems biotechnology, life science informatics, bioprocess data analytics, and regulatory sciences with the objective of developing innovative biomanufacturing platforms for protein/cell/gene biotherapeutics.

Jinhua Zhao is the Edward and Joyce Linde Associate Professor of City and Transportation Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prof. Zhao brings behavioral science and transportation technology together to shape travel behavior, design mobility system and reform urban policies.

Professor Siqi Zheng is the STL Champion Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability at MIT and Faculty Director of both the MIT Center for Real Estate and MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab. Her research focuses on urban and environmental economics, urban development, and real estate markets, with a special focus on China. She is widely published in both English and Chinese language journals and serves as Associated Editor of Journal of Economic Surveys, an editorial board member of Journal of Housing Economics and International Real Estate Review, and the Vice General Secretary of the Global Chinese Real Estate Congress. Prior to joining MIT, she was a professor and director of Hang Lung Center for Real Estate at Tsinghua University, China.