Melissa Choi has been named the subsequent 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 workers immediately, 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 unbiased perspective on important science and expertise 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 speedy demonstration of operational prototypes, to guard and defend the nation towards superior threats. In tandem with its position in growing expertise for nationwide safety, the laboratory’s integral relationship with the MIT campus group permits impactful partnerships on elementary analysis, educating, and workforce growth in important science and expertise areas.
“In a time of nice international instability and fast-evolving threats, the mission of Lincoln Laboratory has by no means been extra essential to the nation,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “It’s also important that the laboratory apply government-funded, cutting-edge applied sciences to resolve important 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 Programs, Homeland Safety and Air Visitors Management, Cyber Safety and Data 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 Pressure Scientific Advisory Board, with a time period as vice chair, and was appointed to the DoD’s Menace Discount Advisory Committee. She is at present 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 group.
“By my profession, I’ve been lucky to have had extremely revolutionary and motivated individuals to collaborate with as we resolve important nationwide safety challenges,” Choi says. “Persevering with to work with such a robust, laboratory-wide staff as director is without doubt one of the most enjoyable elements of the job for me.”
Success by means of 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 Programs and Evaluation Group after which the Energetic Optical Programs Group, Choi discovered the worth of pooling experience from researchers throughout the laboratory.
“I used to be in a position to shift between a number of totally different initiatives very early on in my profession, from radar methods to sensor networks. As a result of I wasn’t an skilled on the time in any a kind of fields, I discovered to achieve out to the numerous totally different consultants on the laboratory,” Choi says.
Choi maintained that mindset by means of all of her roles on the laboratory, together with as head of the Homeland Safety and Air Visitors Management Division, which she led from 2014 and 2019. In that position, she helped deliver collectively various expertise and human methods experience to determine the Humanitarian Help and Catastrophe Reduction Group. Amongst different achievements, the group supplied help to FEMA and different emergency response businesses after the 2017 hurricane season brought about unprecedented flooding and destruction throughout swaths of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico.
“We had been in a position to quickly prototype and discipline a number of applied sciences to assist with the restoration efforts,” Choi says. “It was an incredible instance of how we are able to apply our nationwide safety focus to different important nationwide issues.”
Exterior of her technical and advisory achievements, Choi has made an affect at Lincoln Laboratory by means of 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 by means of 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 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 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 so much about main by means of 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 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 not too long ago led the formation of a brand new Civil House Programs and Know-how 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 develop into a giant emphasis for all the nation typically,” Choi explains. “It appeared like a very good time for us to drag these two sides collectively and develop our NASA portfolio. It provides us an incredible alternative to collaborate with MIT centrally, and it ties in with our different strategic instructions.”
Constructing on success
Choi believes her trajectory by means of 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 kinds. Robust leaders are essential, however it’s essential to acknowledge that the majority of the work will get finished by the technical, help, and administrative workers throughout our divisions, departments, and places of work. Remembering being an early workers member helps you perceive how laborious and thrilling the work is, and in addition how important these contributions are for our mission.”
Choi says she can be trying ahead to increasing the laboratory’s collaboration with MIT’s major 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 Center or the Division of the Air Pressure – 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.”
Finally, 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 individuals working with me,” Choi says. “I’m a part of a staff and I work with a staff to steer. That has all the time been my fashion: Set a imaginative and prescient and objectives, and empower and help the individuals I work with to make selections and construct on that technique.”
