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 college and employees right now, 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 wonderful management and administration expertise, and he or she 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 offered the federal government an unbiased 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 towards 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 international 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. “It’s also very important that the laboratory apply government-funded, cutting-edge applied sciences to resolve essential issues in fields from house exploration to local weather change. Along with her depth and breadth of expertise, eager imaginative and prescient, and easy model, 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 Info 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 Drive Scientific Advisory Board, with a time period as vice chair, and was appointed to the DoD’s Menace Discount Advisory Committee. She is presently a member of the nationwide Protection Science Board’s Everlasting Subcommittee on Menace Discount.
Having devoted her complete profession to Lincoln Laboratory, Choi says her lengthy tenure displays a dedication to the lab’s work and neighborhood.
“Via my profession, I’ve been lucky to have had extremely modern and motivated folks to collaborate with as we remedy essential nationwide safety challenges,” Choi says. “Persevering with to work with such a powerful, laboratory-wide group as director is among the most fun features of the job for me.”
Success via 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 Techniques and Evaluation Group after which the Lively Optical Techniques Group, Choi realized the worth of pooling experience from researchers throughout the laboratory.
“I used to be in a position to shift between quite a lot of completely different initiatives very early on in my profession, from radar methods to sensor networks. As a result of I wasn’t an professional on the time in any a kind of fields, I realized to achieve out to the various 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 carry collectively numerous know-how and human methods experience to ascertain the Humanitarian Help and Catastrophe Reduction Group. Amongst different achievements, the group offered help to FEMA and different emergency response companies after the 2017 hurricane season brought on unprecedented flooding and destruction throughout swaths of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico.
“We have been in a position to quickly prototype and subject 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.”
Outdoors of her technical and advisory achievements, Choi has made an influence 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 in depth mentoring and participation in worker useful resource teams.
“I’ve felt a way of belonging on the laboratory for the reason that minute I got here right here, and I’ve had the good thing about help from leaders, mentors, and advocates since then. Enhancing help methods is essential to me,” says Choi, who would be the first girl to steer Lincoln Laboratory. “Everybody ought to have the ability to really feel that they belong and may thrive.”
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Choi helped the laboratory navigate the disruptions — with its operations deemed important — which she says taught her lots about main via adversity.
“We remedy 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 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 data of the laboratory’s capabilities and its historical past of growing impactful methods for NASA and NOAA, Choi just lately led the formation of a brand new Civil Area Techniques 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 develop into a giant emphasis for your entire nation typically,” Choi explains. “It appeared like a great time for us to drag these two sides collectively and develop our NASA portfolio. It offers us a terrific 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 kinds. Robust leaders are essential, but it surely’s vital to acknowledge that the majority of the work will get performed by the technical, help, and administrative staff throughout our divisions, departments, and places of work. Remembering being an early employees 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 also be wanting ahead to increasing the laboratory’s collaboration with MIT’s primary campus.
“So many areas, from AI to local weather to house, have alternative for us to return collectively,” Choi says. “We even have some nice fashions of progress, just like the Beaver Works Middle or the Division of the Air Drive – MIT Synthetic Intelligence Accelerator program, that we are able to construct from. Everybody right here may be very enthusiastic about doing that, and it’ll completely be a precedence for me.”
Finally, Choi plans to steer Lincoln Laboratory utilizing the strategy that’s confirmed profitable all through her profession.
“I imagine very a lot that I shouldn’t be the neatest individual within the room, and I depend on the sensible 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 model: Set a imaginative and prescient and targets, and empower and help the folks I work with to make selections and construct on that technique.”
