Melissa Choi has been named the subsequent director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, efficient July 1. At the moment 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 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 wonderful technical breadth in addition to wonderful management and administration expertise, and he or she has introduced 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 middle operated by MIT for the Division of Protection, the laboratory has offered the federal government an impartial perspective on vital 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 in opposition to superior threats. In tandem with its position in creating expertise for nationwide safety, the laboratory’s integral relationship with the MIT campus group permits impactful partnerships on basic analysis, instructing, and workforce growth in vital 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 necessary 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 vital issues in fields from house exploration to local weather change. Along with her depth and breadth of expertise, eager imaginative and prescient, and simple model, Melissa Choi has earned monumental 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 Methods, Homeland Safety and Air Visitors Management, Cyber Safety and Info Sciences, Communication Methods, and ISR and Tactical Methods. Partaking 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 present a member of the nationwide Protection Science Board’s Everlasting Subcommittee on Menace Discount.
Having devoted her whole profession to Lincoln Laboratory, Choi says her lengthy tenure displays a dedication to the lab’s work and group.
“By means of my profession, I’ve been lucky to have had extremely progressive and motivated individuals to collaborate with as we resolve vital nationwide safety challenges,” Choi says. “Persevering with to work with such a robust, laboratory-wide crew as director is without doubt one of the most enjoyable features of the job for me.”
Success by way of 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 Methods and Evaluation Group after which the Energetic Optical Methods Group, Choi realized the worth of pooling experience from researchers throughout the laboratory.
“I used to be in a position to shift between numerous completely 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 realized to achieve out to the various completely different specialists on the laboratory,” Choi says.
Choi maintained that mindset by way 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 carry collectively numerous expertise and human programs experience to determine the Humanitarian Help and Catastrophe Aid Group. Amongst different achievements, the group offered assist to FEMA and different emergency response businesses after the 2017 hurricane season induced unprecedented flooding and destruction throughout swaths of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico.
“We have been in a position to 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 vital nationwide issues.”
Exterior of her technical and advisory achievements, Choi has made an affect at Lincoln Laboratory by way of 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 way of 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 assist from leaders, mentors, and advocates since then. Enhancing assist programs is essential to me,” says Choi, who would be the first girl to steer Lincoln Laboratory. “Everybody ought to be capable of 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 quite a bit about main by way 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 your complete lab come collectively, from management to every of the divisions and departments.”
That synergy has additionally helped Choi kind strategic partnerships inside and out of doors of the laboratory to boost its mission. Drawing on her information of the laboratory’s capabilities and its historical past of creating impactful programs for NASA and NOAA, Choi lately led the formation of a brand new Civil House Methods 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 turn into a giant emphasis for your complete nation typically,” Choi explains. “It appeared like a superb time for us to tug these two sides collectively and develop our NASA portfolio. It offers us an excellent alternative to collaborate with MIT centrally, and it ties in with our different strategic instructions.”
Constructing on success
Choi believes her trajectory by way of 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. Sturdy leaders are essential, however it’s necessary to acknowledge that the majority of the work will get performed 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 laborious and thrilling the work is, and likewise how vital these contributions are for our mission.”
Choi says she can also be wanting ahead to increasing the laboratory’s collaboration with MIT’s essential 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 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 imagine very a lot that I shouldn’t be the neatest individual within the room, and I depend on the sensible individuals working with me,” Choi says. “I’m a part of a crew and I work with a crew to steer. That has at all times been my model: Set a imaginative and prescient and objectives, and empower and assist the individuals I work with to make choices and construct on that technique.”
