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 employees in the present day, 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 group.
“Melissa has a fabulous 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 protected and safe. As a federally funded analysis and growth middle 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 makes a speciality of 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 position in creating know-how for nationwide safety, the laboratory’s integral relationship with the MIT campus group allows impactful partnerships on elementary analysis, instructing, 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 necessary to the nation,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “Additionally it is very important that the laboratory apply government-funded, cutting-edge applied sciences to unravel essential issues in fields from house exploration to local weather change. Together with her depth and breadth of expertise, eager imaginative and prescient, and simple type, 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 Programs, Homeland Safety and Air Site visitors Management, Cyber Safety and Info Sciences, Communication Programs, and ISR and Tactical Programs. Participating deeply with the wants of the broader protection group, Choi served for six years on the Air Drive Scientific Advisory Board, with a time period as vice chair, and was appointed to the DoD’s Menace Discount Advisory Committee. She is at the moment a member of the nationwide Protection Science Board’s Everlasting Subcommittee on Menace Discount.
Having devoted her total profession to Lincoln Laboratory, Choi says her lengthy tenure displays a dedication to the lab’s work and group.
“By way of my profession, I’ve been lucky to have had extremely progressive and motivated folks to collaborate with as we clear up essential nationwide safety challenges,” Choi says. “Persevering with to work with such a robust, laboratory-wide group as director is likely one of the most fun facets of the job for me.”
Success by collaboration
Choi got here to Lincoln Laboratory as a technical employees member in 1999, with a doctoral diploma in utilized arithmetic. As she progressed to steer analysis groups, together with the Programs and Evaluation Group after which the Lively Optical Programs Group, Choi discovered the worth of pooling experience from researchers throughout the laboratory.
“I used to be capable of shift between loads of totally different tasks 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 type of fields, I discovered to achieve out to the numerous totally different specialists on the laboratory,” Choi says.
Choi maintained that mindset by 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 position, she helped deliver collectively numerous know-how and human programs experience to ascertain the Humanitarian Help and Catastrophe Reduction Group. Amongst different achievements, the group supplied assist to FEMA and different emergency response businesses after the 2017 hurricane season triggered unprecedented flooding and destruction throughout swaths of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico.
“We have been capable of quickly prototype and area a number of applied sciences to assist with the restoration efforts,” Choi says. “It was a tremendous instance of how we are able to apply our nationwide safety focus to different essential nationwide issues.”
Exterior of her technical and advisory achievements, Choi has made an impression at Lincoln Laboratory by her commitments to an inclusive office. In 2020, she co-led the examine “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 by in depth 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 assist from leaders, mentors, and advocates since then. Bettering assist programs is essential to me,” says Choi, who would be the first lady to steer Lincoln Laboratory. “Everybody ought to be capable 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 rather a lot about main by adversity.
“We clear up arduous 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 your entire lab come collectively, from management to every of the divisions and departments.”
That synergy has additionally helped Choi type strategic partnerships inside and outdoors of the laboratory to reinforce its mission. Drawing on her information of the laboratory’s capabilities and its historical past of creating impactful programs for NASA and NOAA, Choi not too long ago led the formation of a brand new Civil Area Programs and Know-how Workplace.
“We have been seeing this convergence between Division of Protection and civilian house initiatives, as going to the Moon, Mars, and the cislunar space [between the earth and moon] has grow to be an enormous emphasis for your entire nation typically,” Choi explains. “It appeared like time for us to drag these two sides collectively and develop our NASA portfolio. It provides us a fantastic alternative to collaborate with MIT centrally, and it ties in with our different strategic instructions.”
Constructing on success
Choi believes her trajectory by the technical ranks of Lincoln Laboratory will assist her lead it now.
“That have provides 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 discovered from totally different views and management types. Sturdy leaders are essential, nevertheless it’s necessary to acknowledge that the majority of the work will get achieved by the technical, assist, and administrative staff throughout our divisions, departments, and places of work. Remembering being an early employees member helps you perceive how arduous and thrilling the work is, and in addition how essential these contributions are for our mission.”
Choi says she can be trying ahead to increasing the laboratory’s collaboration with MIT’s principal campus.
“So many areas, from AI to local weather to house, have alternative for us to come back collectively,” Choi says. “We even have some nice fashions of progress, just like the Beaver Works Heart or the Division of the Air Drive – MIT Synthetic Intelligence Accelerator program, that we are able to construct from. Everybody right here could be very enthusiastic about doing that, and it’ll completely be a precedence for me.”
In the end, Choi plans to steer Lincoln Laboratory utilizing the strategy 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 good folks working with me,” Choi says. “I’m a part of a group and I work with a group to steer. That has at all times been my type: Set a imaginative and prescient and objectives, and empower and assist the folks I work with to make choices and construct on that technique.”
