Six present MIT members and 27 former MIT graduates have been selected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The 2024 cohort of AAAS Fellows consists of 471 researchers, engineers, and innovators across all 24 AAAS disciplinary sections, who are being acknowledged for their significant scientific and societal accomplishments.
Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87, lifelong member of the MIT Corporation, was honored as a AAAS Fellow “for exceptional leadership in biotechnology, particularly in mRNA therapeutics, and for advocating the acknowledgment of immigrants’ contributions towards economic and scientific advancement.” Afeyan is the founder and CEO of the venture creation firm Flagship Pioneering, which has established over 100 science-driven companies focused on transforming human health and sustainability. Additionally, he is the chairman and cofounder of Moderna, which received a 2024 National Medal of Technology and Innovation for its Covid-19 vaccine development. Afeyan completed his PhD in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987 and was a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management for 16 years, beginning in 2000. Among other responsibilities at the Institute, he is a member of the advisory board of the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning and provided the Commencement address for MIT in 2024.
Cynthia Breazeal SM ’93, ScD ’00 is a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, where she established and oversees the Personal Robots group in the MIT Media Lab. At MIT Open Learning, she holds the position of MIT dean for digital learning, and in this role, she utilizes her expertise in burgeoning digital technologies and business, research, and strategic initiatives to direct Open Learning’s business, research, and engagement sectors. She also leads the MIT initiative on Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (raise.mit.edu). Additionally, she co-founded the consumer social robotics firm, Jibo, Inc., where she acted as chief scientist and chief experience officer. She is acknowledged for her notable contributions to the field of artificial intelligence education, especially pertaining to the application of social robots and large-scale learning.
Alan Edelman PhD ’89 serves as a professor of applied mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and heads the Applied Computing Group at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the MIT Julia Lab. He is recognized as a 2024 AAAS fellow for his notable contributions and significant advancements in high-performance computing, linear algebra, random matrix theory, and computational science, particularly for creating the Julia programming language. Edelman has been named a fellow of five distinct societies — AMS, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and AAAS.
Robert B. Millard ’73, lifelong member and chairman emeritus of the MIT Corporation, was recognized as a 2024 AAAS Fellow for his exceptional contributions to the scientific community and U.S. higher education “through remarkable leadership service to esteemed institutions like AAAS and MIT.” Millard became a term member of the MIT Corporation in 2003 and was elevated to a life member in 2013. He participated on the Executive Committee for a decade and on the Investment Company Management Board for seven years, including chairing it for the last four years. He was involved as a member of the Visiting Committees for Physics, Architecture, and Chemistry. Moreover, Millard has contributed as a member of the Linguistics and Philosophy Visiting Committee, the Corporation Development Committee, and the Advisory Council for the Arts. In 2011, Millard received the Bronze Beaver Award, the highest accolade from the MIT Alumni Association for remarkable service.
Jagadeesh S. Moodera is a senior research scientist within the Department of Physics. His research focuses on experimental condensed matter physics, including spin polarized tunneling and nano spintronics; exchange coupled ferromagnet/superconductor interfaces; triplet pairing; nonreciprocal current transport, and memory towards superconducting spintronics for quantum technology; as well as topological insulators/superconductors, with particular attention to Majorana bound state studies in metallic systems. His work in spin polarized tunneling resulted in a pivotal discovery of tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) at room temperature in magnetic tunnel junctions. This led to a substantial increase in research activity in this field, which is currently among the most dynamic areas. The TMR effect is utilized in all ultra-high-density magnetic data storage and for the advancement of nonvolatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM), which is being further developed for use in various electronic devices, including neuromorphic computing architectures. For his leadership in spintronics, the discovery of TMR, the creation of MRAM, and mentoring future scientists, Moodera was honored as a 2024 AAAS Fellow. For his TMR discovery, he received the Oliver Buckley Prize (2009) from the American Physical Society (APS), was designated an American National Science Foundation Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow (2008-10), won IBM and TDK Research Awards (1995-98), and became a Fellow of APS (2000).
Noelle Eckley Selin, director of the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and a professor at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, employs atmospheric chemistry modeling to enhance decision-making strategies regarding air pollution, climate change, and toxic substances such as mercury and persistent organic pollutants. She has authored multiple articles and book chapters discussing the relationships between science and policy in international environmental negotiations, specifically concentrating on global initiatives aimed at regulating hazardous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants. She has been named a 2024 AAAS Fellow for globally recognized leadership in modeling the impacts of air pollution on human health, assessing the costs and benefits of related policies, and integrating technological dynamics into sustainability science.
Other MIT alumni celebrated as 2024 AAAS Fellows include: Danah Boyd SM ’02 (Media Arts and Sciences); Michael S. Branicky ScD ’95 (EECS); Jane P. Chang SM ’95, PhD ’98 (Chemical Engineering); Yong Chen SM ’99 (Mathematics); Roger Nelson Clark PhD ’80 (EAPS); Mark Stephen Daskin ’74, PhD ’78 (Civil and Environmental Engineering); Marla L. Dowell PhD ’94 (Physics); Raissa M. D’Souza PhD ’99 (Physics); Cynthia Joan Ebinger SM ’86, PhD ’88 (EAPS/WHOI); Thomas Henry Epps III ’98, SM ’99 (Chemical Engineering); Daniel Goldman ’94 (Physics); Kenneth Keiler PhD ’96 (Biology); Karen Jean Meech PhD ’87 (EAPS); Christopher B. Murray PhD ’95 (Chemistry); Jason Nieh ’89 (EECS); William Nordhaus PhD ’67 (Economics); Milica Radisic PhD ’04 (Chemical Engineering); James G. Rheinwald PhD ’76 (Biology); Adina L. Roskies PhD ’04 (Philosophy); Linda Rothschild (Preiss) PhD ’70 (Mathematics); Soni Lacefield Shimoda PhD ’03 (Biology); Dawn Y. Sumner PhD ’95 (EAPS); Tina L. Tootle PhD ’04 (Biology); Karen Viskupic PhD ’03 (EAPS); Brant M. Weinstein PhD ’92 (Biology); Chee Wei Wong SM ’01, ScD ’03 (Mechanical Engineering); and Fei Xu PhD ’95 (Brain and Cognitive Sciences).