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The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has revealed that two MIT associates have been designated as 2025 Packard Fellows for Science and Engineering. Darcy McRose, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Professor in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has received this distinction, alongside Mehtaab Sawhney ’20, PhD ’24, a graduate from the Department of Mathematics currently at Columbia University.
The recipients are among 20 early-career faculty acknowledged as the nation’s most inventive scientists and engineers. Each Packard Fellow is granted an unrestricted research funding of $875,000 over five years to aid their pursuit of innovative research and novel concepts.
“I am deeply appreciative and honored to have been selected for a Packard Fellowship,” comments McRose. “This opportunity will enable us to advance our investigations on how small molecules influence microbial communities in soils and on plant roots, providing us the valuable freedom to explore our creativity wherever it may take us.”
McRose and her laboratory examine secondary metabolites — diminutive organic molecules that microbes and plants discharge into soils. Frequently referred to as antibiotics, these substances do much more than combat infections; they assist in unlocking nutrients in the soil, shaping microbial ecosystems surrounding plant roots, and impacting soil fertility.
Her laboratory employs methods from genetics, chemistry, and geosciences to examine how these molecules influence relationships between microbes and plants in soil — one of Earth’s most intricate and least comprehended environments. By utilizing secondary metabolites as experimental instruments, McRose aspires to uncover the molecular processes that regulate factors such as soil fertility and nutrient cycling, crucial for sustainable agriculture and ecosystem vitality.
Investigating antibiotics in the environments where they originated might also provide innovative methods for tackling soil-borne pathogens and enhancing crop resilience. “Soil represents a genuine scientific frontier,” McRose observes. “Exploring these ecosystems holds the potential to unveil captivating, fundamental insights into microbial existence — many of which we have yet to conceive.”
A California native, McRose obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University, followed by a PhD in geosciences from Princeton University. Her doctoral dissertation concentrated on bacterial acquisition of trace metals from the environment. Her postdoctoral research on secondary metabolites at Caltech was supported by various fellowships, including the Simons Foundation Marine Microbial Ecology Postdoctoral Fellowship, the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship, and a Division Fellowship from Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech.
McRose became a member of the MIT faculty in 2022. In 2025, she was recognized as a Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in Earth System Science and honored with the Maseeh Excellence in Teaching Award.
Previous Packard Fellows have achieved the highest accolades, including Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics, the Fields Medal, Alan T. Waterman Awards, Breakthrough Prizes, Kavli Prizes, and memberships in the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Every year, the foundation reviews 100 nominations submitted from 50 invited institutions. The Packard Fellowships Advisory Panel, comprised of 12 globally acknowledged scientists and engineers, assesses the nominations and recommends 20 fellows for endorsement by the Packard Foundation Board of Trustees.
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