Eleven faculty members from MIT, comprising nine from the School of Engineering and two from the School of Science, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Moreover, fifteen additional alumni from MIT were also recognized.

Instituted in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, the PECASE honors scientists and engineers “who demonstrate remarkable potential for leadership early in their investigative careers.” The latest awardees were announced by the White House on January 14 under President Joe Biden. A total of fourteen federal agencies put forward candidates for the award.

The honored MIT faculty and alumni are part of a group of 400 scientists and engineers acknowledged for their innovative initiatives and scientific achievements. The individuals recognized from the School of Engineering and School of Science include:

• Tamara Broderick, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), was recommended by the Office of Naval Research for her initiative on enhancing “Lightweight representations for decentralized learning in data-abundant environments.”
   
• Michael James Carbin SM ’09, PhD ’15, an associate professor in EECS, was nominated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his CAREER grant, a project aimed at creating techniques to reliably run programs on approximate and unreliable computation substrates.
   
• Christina Delimitrou, the KDD Career Development Professor in Communications and Technology and an associate professor in EECS, was put forward by the NSF for her team’s work on reengineering the cloud system stack considering new cloud programming frameworks like microservices and serverless computing, along with developing hardware acceleration techniques for increased predictability and resource efficiency in cloud data centers.
   
• Netta Engelhardt, the Biedenharn Career Development Associate Professor of Physics, was nominated by the Department of Energy for her research concerning the black hole information paradox and its implications for the essential quantum structure of space and time.
   
• Robert Gilliard Jr., the Novartis Associate Professor of Chemistry, was selected based on findings from his 2020 National Science Foundation CAREER award titled: “CAREER: Boracycles with Unusual Bonding as Creative Strategies for Main-Group Functional Materials.”
   
• Heather Janine Kulik PD ’09, PhD ’09, the Lammot du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering, was nominated by the NSF for her 2019 proposition titled “CAREER: Revealing spin-state-dependent reactivity in open-shell single-atom catalysts with systematically-improvable computational tools.”
   
• Nuno Loureiro, a professor in the departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Physics, was nominated by the NSF for his work related to the generation and enhancement of magnetic fields in the cosmos.
   
• Robert Macfarlane, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was put forward by the Department of Defense (DoD)’s Air Force Office of Scientific Research. His research centers on creating new materials utilizing molecular and nanoscale building blocks.
   
• Ritu Raman, the Eugene Bell Career Development Professor of Tissue Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was nominated by the DoD for her ARO-funded research exploring the use of biological actuators in next-generation robots capable of sensing and adapting to their surroundings.
   
• Ellen Roche, the Latham Family Career Development Professor and associate department head in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was nominated by the NSF for her CAREER project aimed at developing an advanced benchtop model that integrates soft robotics and organic tissue to accurately mimic the motions of the heart and diaphragm.
   
• Justin Wilkerson, a visiting associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was nominated by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his research focused on the design and optimization of innovative multifunctional composite materials designed to endure extreme conditions.

Other MIT alumni honored include: Ambika Bajpayee MNG ’07, PhD ’15; Katherine Bouman SM ’13, PhD ’17; Walter Cheng-Wan Lee ’95, MNG ’95, PhD ’05; Ismaila Dabo PhD ’08; Ying Diao SM ’10, PhD ’12; Eno Ebong ’99; Soheil Feizi-Khankandi SM ’10, PhD ’16; Mark Finlayson SM ’01, PhD ’12; Chelsea B. Finn ’14; Grace Xiang Gu SM ’14, PhD ’18; David Michael Isaacson PhD ’06, AF ’16; Lewei Lin ’05; Michelle Sander PhD ’12; Kevin Solomon SM ’08, PhD ’12; and Zhiting Tian PhD ’14.