Melissa Choi has been named the following director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, efficient July 1. Presently assistant director of the laboratory, Choi succeeds Eric Evans, who will step down on June 30 after 18 years as director.
Sharing the information in a letter to MIT school and workers as we speak, Vice President for Analysis Ian Waitz famous Choi’s 25-year profession of “excellent technical and advisory management,” each at MIT and in service to the protection neighborhood.
“Melissa has a wonderful technical breadth in addition to glorious management and administration expertise, and she or he has offered a compelling strategic imaginative and prescient for the Laboratory,” Waitz wrote. “She is a considerate, intuitive chief who prioritizes communication, collaboration, mentoring, {and professional} growth as foundations for an organizational tradition that advances her imaginative and prescient for Lab-wide excellence in service to the nation.”
Choi’s appointment marks a brand new chapter in Lincoln Laboratory’s storied historical past working to maintain the nation secure and safe. As a federally funded analysis and growth heart operated by MIT for the Division of Protection, the laboratory has supplied the federal government an impartial perspective on essential science and know-how problems with nationwide curiosity for greater than 70 years. Distinctive amongst nationwide R&D labs, the laboratory focuses on each long-term system growth and fast demonstration of operational prototypes, to guard and defend the nation in opposition to superior threats. In tandem with its function in growing know-how for nationwide safety, the laboratory’s integral relationship with the MIT campus neighborhood allows impactful partnerships on elementary analysis, educating, and workforce growth in essential science and know-how areas.
“In a time of nice world instability and fast-evolving threats, the mission of Lincoln Laboratory has by no means been extra vital to the nation,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “Additionally it is very important that the laboratory apply government-funded, cutting-edge applied sciences to resolve essential issues in fields from area exploration to local weather change. Together with her depth and breadth of expertise, eager imaginative and prescient, and simple fashion, Melissa Choi has earned huge belief and respect throughout the Lincoln and MIT communities. As Eric Evans steps down, we couldn’t ask for a finer successor.”
Choi has served as assistant director of Lincoln Laboratory since 2019, with oversight of 5 of the Lab’s 9 technical divisions: Biotechnology and Human Techniques, Homeland Safety and Air Site visitors Management, Cyber Safety and Data Sciences, Communication Techniques, and ISR and Tactical Techniques. Partaking deeply with the wants of the broader protection neighborhood, Choi served for six years on the Air Power Scientific Advisory Board, with a time period as vice chair, and was appointed to the DoD’s Risk Discount Advisory Committee. She is at the moment a member of the nationwide Protection Science Board’s Everlasting Subcommittee on Risk Discount.
Having devoted her whole profession to Lincoln Laboratory, Choi says her lengthy tenure displays a dedication to the lab’s work and neighborhood.
“By way of my profession, I’ve been lucky to have had extremely modern and motivated folks to collaborate with as we resolve essential nationwide safety challenges,” Choi says. “Persevering with to work with such a robust, laboratory-wide workforce as director is without doubt one of the most enjoyable elements of the job for me.”
Success via collaboration
Choi got here to Lincoln Laboratory as a technical workers member in 1999, with a doctoral diploma in utilized arithmetic. As she progressed to steer analysis groups, together with the Techniques and Evaluation Group after which the Energetic Optical Techniques Group, Choi realized the worth of pooling experience from researchers throughout the laboratory.
“I used to be capable of shift between plenty of completely different initiatives very early on in my profession, from radar programs to sensor networks. As a result of I wasn’t an knowledgeable on the time in any a kind of fields, I realized to achieve out to the numerous completely different consultants on the laboratory,” Choi says.
Choi maintained that mindset via all of her roles on the laboratory, together with as head of the Homeland Safety and Air Site visitors Management Division, which she led from 2014 and 2019. In that function, she helped deliver collectively numerous know-how and human programs experience to determine the Humanitarian Help and Catastrophe Aid Group. Amongst different achievements, the group supplied help to FEMA and different emergency response companies after the 2017 hurricane season triggered unprecedented flooding and destruction throughout swaths of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico.
“We had been capable of quickly prototype and discipline a number of applied sciences to assist with the restoration efforts,” Choi says. “It was a tremendous instance of how we will apply our nationwide safety focus to different essential nationwide issues.”
Outdoors of her technical and advisory achievements, Choi has made an impression at Lincoln Laboratory via her commitments to an inclusive office. In 2020, she co-led the research “Stopping Discrimination and Harassment and Selling an Inclusive Tradition at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.” The work was a part of a longstanding dedication to supporting colleagues within the office via intensive mentoring and participation in worker useful resource teams.
“I’ve felt a way of belonging on the laboratory because the minute I got here right here, and I’ve had the advantage of help from leaders, mentors, and advocates since then. Bettering help programs is essential to me,” says Choi, who would be the first lady to steer Lincoln Laboratory. “Everybody ought to have the ability to really feel that they belong and might thrive.”
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Choi helped the laboratory navigate the disruptions — with its operations deemed important — which she says taught her so much about main via adversity.
“We resolve laborious issues on the laboratory on a regular basis, however to get thrown into an issue that we had by no means seen earlier than was a studying expertise,” Choi says. “We noticed all the lab come collectively, from management to every of the divisions and departments.”
That synergy has additionally helped Choi type strategic partnerships inside and out of doors of the laboratory to boost its mission. Drawing on her data of the laboratory’s capabilities and its historical past of growing impactful programs for NASA and NOAA, Choi not too long ago led the formation of a brand new Civil Area Techniques and Expertise Workplace.
“We had been seeing this convergence between Division of Protection and civilian area initiatives, as going to the Moon, Mars, and the cislunar space [between the earth and moon] has grow to be a giant emphasis for all the nation usually,” Choi explains. “It appeared like a great time for us to tug these two sides collectively and develop our NASA portfolio. It offers us an awesome alternative to collaborate with MIT centrally, and it ties in with our different strategic instructions.”
Constructing on success
Choi believes her trajectory via the technical ranks of Lincoln Laboratory will assist her lead it now.
“That have offers me a view into what it is like at a number of ranges of the laboratory,” Choi says. “I’ve seen what’s labored and what hasn’t labored, and I’ve realized from completely different views and management types. Robust leaders are essential, nevertheless it’s vital to acknowledge that the majority of the work will get executed by the technical, help, and administrative workers throughout our divisions, departments, and workplaces. Remembering being an early workers member helps you perceive how laborious and thrilling the work is, and likewise how essential these contributions are for our mission.”
Choi says she can be trying ahead to increasing the laboratory’s collaboration with MIT’s important campus.
“So many areas, from AI to local weather to area, have alternative for us to return collectively,” Choi says. “We even have some nice fashions of progress, just like the Beaver Works Heart or the Division of the Air Power – MIT Synthetic Intelligence Accelerator program, that we will construct from. Everybody right here could be very enthusiastic about doing that, and it’ll completely be a precedence for me.”
Finally, Choi plans to steer Lincoln Laboratory utilizing the method that’s confirmed profitable all through her profession.
“I consider very a lot that I shouldn’t be the neatest particular person within the room, and I depend on the sensible folks working with me,” Choi says. “I’m a part of a workforce and I work with a workforce to steer. That has all the time been my fashion: Set a imaginative and prescient and objectives, and empower and help the folks I work with to make selections and construct on that technique.”