Institute News: Awards & Honors

Jacqueline Lees and Rebecca Saxe named associate deans of science

by Julia C. Keller | School of Science |

Jaqueline Lees and Rebecca Saxe have been named associate deans serving in the MIT School of Science. Lees is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research and is currently the associate director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, as well as an associate department head and professor in the Department of Biology at MIT. Saxe is the John W. Jarve (1978) Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the associate head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS); she is also an associate investigator in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Lees and Saxe will both contribute to the school’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) activities, as well as develop and implement mentoring and other career-development programs to support the community. From their home departments, Saxe and Lees bring years of DEIJ and mentorship experience to bear on the expansion of school-level initiatives.

Lees currently serves on the dean’s science council in her capacity as associate director of the Koch Institute. In this new role as associate dean for the School of Science, she will bring her broad administrative and programmatic experiences to bear on the next phase for DEIJ and mentoring activities.

Lees joined MIT in 1994 as a faculty member in MIT’s Koch Institute (then the Center for Cancer Research) and Department of Biology. Her research focuses on regulators that control cellular proliferation, terminal differentiation, and stemness — functions that are frequently deregulated in tumor cells. She dissects the role of these proteins in normal cell biology and development, and establish how their deregulation contributes to tumor development and metastasis.

Since 2000, she has served on the Department of Biology’s graduate program committee, and played a major role in expanding the diversity of the graduate student population. Lees also serves on DEIJ committees in her home department, as well as at the Koch Institute.

With co-chair with Boleslaw Wyslouch, director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Lees led the ReseArch Scientist CAreer LadderS (RASCALS) committee tasked to evaluate career trajectories for research staff in the School of Science and make recommendations to recruit and retain talented staff, rewarding them for their contributions to the school’s research enterprise.

“Jackie is a powerhouse in translational research, demonstrating how fundamental work at the lab bench is critical for making progress at the patient bedside,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the School of Science. “With Jackie’s dedicated and thoughtful partnership, we can continue to lead in basic research and develop the recruitment, retention, and mentoring and necessary to support our community.”

Saxe will join Lees in supporting and developing programming across the school that could also provide direction more broadly at the Institute.

“Rebecca is an outstanding researcher in social cognition and a dedicated educator — someone who wants our students not only to learn, but to thrive,” says Mavalvala. “I am grateful that Rebecca will join the dean’s leadership team and bring her mentorship and leadership skills to enhance the school.”

For example, in collaboration with former department head James DiCarlo, the BCS department has focused on faculty mentorship of graduate students; and, in collaboration with Professor Mark Bear, the department developed postdoc salary and benefit standards. Both initiatives have become models at MIT.

With colleague Laura Schulz, Saxe also served as co-chair of the Committee on Medical Leave and Hospitalizations (CMLH), which outlined ways to enhance MIT’s current leave and hospitalization procedures and policies for undergraduate and graduate students. Saxe was also awarded MIT’s Committed to Caring award for excellence in graduate student mentorship, as well as the School of Science’s award for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

In her research, Saxe studies human social cognition, using a combination of behavioral testing and brain imaging technologies. She is best known for her work on brain regions specialized for abstract concepts, such as “theory of mind” tasks that involve understanding the mental states of other people. Her TED Talk, “How we read each other’s minds” has been viewed more than 3 million times. She also studies the development of the human brain during early infancy.

She obtained her PhD from MIT and was a Harvard University junior fellow before joining the MIT faculty in 2006. In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences named her one of two recipients of the Troland Award for investigators age 40 or younger “to recognize unusual achievement and further empirical research in psychology regarding the relationships of consciousness and the physical world.” In 2020, Saxe was named a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow.

Saxe and Lees will also work closely with Kuheli Dutt, newly hired assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other members of the dean’s science council on school-level initiatives and strategy.

“I’m so grateful that Rebecca and Jackie have agreed to take on these new roles,” Mavalvala says. “And I’m super excited to work with these outstanding thought partners as we tackle the many puzzles that I come across as dean.”

International Dyslexia Association recognizes John Gabrieli with highest honor

by Julie Pryor |

Cognitive neuroscientist John Gabrieli has been named the 2021 winner of the Samuel Torrey Orton Award, the International Dyslexia Association’s highest honor. The award recognizes achievements of leading researchers and practitioners in the dyslexia field, as well as those of individuals with dyslexia who exhibit leadership and serve as role models in their communities.

“I am grateful to the International Dyslexia Association for this recognition,” said Gabrieli, who is the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. “The association has been such an advocate for individuals and their families who struggle with dyslexia, and has also been such a champion for the relevant science. I am humbled to join the company of previous recipients of this award who have done so much to help us understand dyslexia and how individuals with dyslexia can be supported to flourish in their growth and development.”

Gabrieli, who is also the director of MIT’s Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center, uses neuroimaging and behavioral tests to understand how the human brain powers learning, thinking, and feeling.  For the last two decades, Gabrieli has sought to unravel the neuroscience behind learning and reading disabilities and, ultimately, convert that understanding into new and better education interventions—a sort of translational medicine for the classroom.

“We want to get every kid to be an adequate reader by the end of the third grade,” Gabrieli says. “That’s the ultimate goal: to help all children become learners.”

In March of 2018, Gabrieli and the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative—MITili, which he also directs—announced a $30 million-dollar grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for a collaboration between MIT, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Florida State University. This partnership, called “Reach Every Reader” aims to make significant progress on the crisis in early literacy – including tools to identify children at risk for dyslexia and other learning disabilities before they even learn to read.

“John is especially deserving of this award,” says Hugh Catts, Gabrieli’s colleague at Reach Every Reader. Catts is a professor and director of the School of Communications Science and Disorders at Florida State University. “His work has been seminal to our understanding of the neural basis of learning and learning difficulties such as dyslexia. He has been a strong advocate for individuals with dyslexia and a mentor to leading experts in the field,” says Catts, who is also received the Orton Award in 2008.

“It’s a richly deserved honor,”says Sanjay Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers (1941) and Daniel Fort Flowers (1941) Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. “John’s research is a cornerstone of MIT’s efforts to make education more equitable and accessible for all. His contributions to learning science inform so much of what we do, and his advocacy continues to raise public awareness of dyslexia and helps us better reach the dyslexic community through literacy initiatives such as Reach Every Reader. We’re so pleased that his work has been recognized with the Samuel Torrey Orton Award,” says Sarma, who is also Vice President for Open Learning at MIT.

Gabrieli will deliver the Samuel Torrey Orton and Joan Lyday Orton Memorial Lecture this fall in North Carolina as part of the 2021 International Dyslexia Association’s Annual Reading, Literacy and Learning Conference.

 

 

MIT Technology Review names McGovern Fellows top innovators under 35

by Julie Pryor |

McGovern Institute Fellows Omar Abudayyeh and Jonathan Gootenberg have both been named to MIT Technology Review’s annual list of exceptional innovators under the age of 35. The annual list recognizes “exceptionally talented technologists whose work has great potential to transform the world.”

Abudayyeh was named to the 2020 list for developing a CRISPR-based test for COVID-19; a diagnostic technology that now has potential to rapidly and economically detect a wide variety of diseases.

This year, Gootenberg is being recognized for his work with CRISPR gene editing technologies to develop a cellular engineering “toolkit” that will help scientists better understand — and treat — diseases that affect millions worldwide.

“I’m honored that our lab’s work on molecular tools for cellular engineering is being recognized for its potential impact on diagnostics and therapeutics for patients.” — Jonathan Gootenberg

During their time in the Zhang lab, Abudayyeh and Gootenberg engineered new genome editing tools based on enzymes that they and others discovered from scanning bacterial CRISPR systems. In 2018, Gootenberg and Abudayyeh became the first members of the McGovern Institute Fellows program, which supports the transition to independent research for exceptional recent PhD graduates.

“It’s exciting that alternative uses of CRISPR beyond gene editing are being recognized, including for sensing and diagnosing diverse disease states and that certain CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostic assays already authorized for patient use,” says Abudayyeh.

CRISPR-based COVID-19 test using paper strips. Photo: Broad Institute

“Omar and Jonathan’s combination of basic discovery and synthetic biology continues to deliver ever more powerful tools for probing and controlling cell activity,” says McGovern Institute Director Robert Desimone. “Such tools are key to the immense challenge of understanding brain function, and treating dysfunction, the goal of the McGovern Institute.”

Now Abudayyeh and Gootenberg is expanding the boundaries of cellular engineering tools, to encompass not only genome editing but also transcriptome control and cell-state sensing — powerful technologies that can change or correct how cells behave without permanently changing their genome. Just as CRISPR has helped decode the role of genes in disease and provided a method for changing gene sequences, the pair’s cellular engineering tools reveal how cells in the body transform in response to disease and provide new means of curing disease. It is the potential of these tools to usher in a new era of cellular discoveries and treatments that caught the attention of the editors at MIT Technology Review.

“We get more than 500 nominations for the list every year, and getting that list down to 35—a task not only for the editors at MIT Technology Review but also for our 30+ judges—is one of the hardest things we do each year,” says Tim Maher, Managing Editor of MIT Technology Review. “We love the way the final list always shows what a wide variety of people there are, all around the world, working on creative solutions to some of humanity’s hardest problems.”

Gootenberg and Abudayyeh continue to work together to build a comprehensive toolkit to both understand and engineer human cells. Gootenberg and his fellow honorees will be featured at the upcoming EmTech MIT conference, MIT Technology Review’s annual flagship event that offers a perspective on the most significant developments of the year, with a focus on understanding their potential business and societal impact. EmTech MIT will be held online September 28-30, 2021.

Nine MIT students awarded 2021 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

by Julia Mongo | Office of Distinguished Fellowships |

An MIT senior and eight MIT graduate students are among the 30 recipients of this year’s P.D. Soros Fellowships for New Americans. In addition to senior Fiona Chen, MIT’s newest Soros winners include graduate students Aziza Almanakly, Alaleh Azhir, Brian Y. Chang PhD ’18, James Diao, Charlie ChangWon Lee, Archana Podury, Ashwin Sah ’20, and Enrique Toloza. Six of the recipients are enrolled at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.

P.D. Soros Fellows receive up to $90,000 to fund their graduate studies and join a lifelong community of new Americans from different backgrounds and fields. The 2021 class was selected from a pool of 2,445 applicants, marking the most competitive year in the fellowship’s history.

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans program honors the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. As Fiona Chen says, “Being a new American has required consistent confrontation with the struggles that immigrants and racial minorities face in the U.S. today. It has meant frequent difficulties with finding security and comfort in new contexts. But it has also meant continual growth in learning to love the parts of myself — the way I look; the things that my family and I value — that have marked me as different, or as an outsider.”

Students interested in applying to the P.D. Soros fellowship should contact Kim Benard, assistant dean of distinguished fellowships in Career Advising and Professional Development.

Aziza Almanakly

Aziza Almanakly, a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science, researches microwave quantum optics with superconducting qubits for quantum communication under Professor William Oliver in the Department of Physics. Almanakly’s career goal is to engineer multi-qubit systems that push boundaries in quantum technology.

Born and raised in northern New Jersey, Almanakly is the daughter of Syrian immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1990s in pursuit of academic opportunities. As the civil war in Syria grew dire, more of her relatives sought asylum in the U.S. Almanakly grew up around extended family who built a new version of their Syrian home in New Jersey.

Following in the footsteps of her mathematically minded father, Almanakly studied electrical engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She also pursued research opportunities in experimental quantum computing at Princeton University, the City University of New York, New York University, and Caltech.

Almanakly recognizes the importance of strong mentorship in diversifying engineering. She uses her unique experience as a New American and female engineer to encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to enter STEM fields.

Alaleh Azhir

Alaleh Azhir grew up in Iran, where she pursued her passion for mathematics. She immigrated with her mother to the United States at age 14. Determined to overcome strict gender roles she had witnessed for women, Azhir is dedicated to improving health care for them.

Azhir graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2019 with a perfect GPA as a triple major in biomedical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics and statistics. A Rhodes and Barry Goldwater Scholar, she has developed many novel tools for visualization and analysis of genomics data at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, MIT, the National Institutes of Health, and laboratories in Switzerland.

After completing a master’s in statistical science at Oxford University, Azhir began her MD studies in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Her thesis focuses on the role of X and Y sex chromosomes on disease manifestations. Through medical training, she aims to build further computational tools specifically for preventive care for women. She has also founded and directs the nonprofit organization, Frappa, aimed at mentoring women living in Iran and helping them to immigrate abroad through the graduate school application process.

Brian Y. Chang PhD ’18

Born in Johnson City, New York, Brian Y. Chang PhD ’18 is the son of immigrants from the Shanghai municipality and Shandong Province in China. He pursued undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, graduating in a combined four years with honors.

In 2018, Chang completed a PhD in medical engineering at MIT. Under the mentorship of Professor Elazer Edelman, Chang developed methods that make advanced cardiac technologies more accessible. The resulting approaches are used in hospitals around the world. Chang has published extensively and holds five patents.

With the goal of harnessing the power of engineering to improve patient care, Chang co-founded X-COR Therapeutics, a seed-funded medical device startup developing a more accessible treatment for lung failure with the potential to support patients with severe Covid-19 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

After spending time in the hospital connecting with patients and teaching cardiovascular pathophysiology to medical students, Chang decided to attend medical school. He is currently a medical student in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Chang hopes to advance health care through medical device innovation and education as a future physician-scientist, entrepreneur, and educator.

Fiona Chen

MIT senior Fiona Chen was born in Cedar Park, Texas, the daughter of immigrants from China. Witnessing how her own and many other immigrant families faced significant difficulties finding work and financial stability sparked her interest in learning about poverty and economic inequality.

At MIT, Chen has pursued degrees in economics and mathematics. Her economics research projects have examined important policy issues — social isolation among students, global development and poverty, universal health-care systems, and the role of technology in shaping the labor market.

An active member of the MIT community, Chen has served as the officer on governance and officer on policy of the Undergraduate Association, MIT’s student government; the opinion editor of The Tech student newspaper; the undergraduate representative of several Institute-wide committees, including MIT’s Corporation Joint Advisory Committee; and one of the founding members of MIT Students Against War. In each of these roles, she has worked to advocate for policies to support underrepresented groups at MIT.

As a Soros fellow, Chen will pursue a PhD in economics to deepen her understanding of economic policy. Her ultimate goal is to become a professor who researches poverty and economic inequality, and applies her findings to craft policy solutions.

James Diao

James Diao graduated from Yale University with degrees in statistics and biochemistry and is currently a medical student at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. He aspires to give voice to patient perspectives in the development and evaluation of health-care technology.

Diao grew up in Houston’s Chinatown, and spent summers with his extended family in Jiangxian. Diao’s family later moved to Fort Bend, Texas, where he found a pediatric oncologist mentor who introduced him to the wonders of modern molecular biology.

Diao’s interests include the responsible development of technology. At Apple, he led projects to validate wearable health features in diverse populations; at PathAI, he built deep learning models to broaden access to pathologist services; at Yale, where he worked on standardizing analyses of exRNA biomarkers; and at Harvard, he studied the impacts of clinical guidelines on marginalized groups.

Diao’s lead author research in the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA systematically compared race-based and race-free equations for kidney function, and demonstrated that up to 1 million Black Americans may receive unequal kidney care due to their race. He has also published articles on machine learning and precision medicine.

Charlie ChangWon Lee

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Charlie ChangWon Lee was 10 when his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Palisades Park, New Jersey. The stress of his parents’ lack of health coverage ignited Lee’s determination to study the reasons for the high cost of health care in the U.S. and learn how to care for uninsured families like his own.

Lee graduated summa cum laude in integrative biology from Harvard College, winning the Hoopes Prize for his thesis on the therapeutic potential of human gut microbes. Lee’s research on novel therapies led him to question how newly approved, and expensive, medications could reach more patients.

At the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Lee studied policy issues involving pharmaceutical drug pricing, drug development, and medication use and safety. His articles have appeared in JAMA, Health Affairs, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

As a first-year medical student at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, Lee is investigating policies to incentivize vaccine and biosimilar drug development. He hopes to find avenues to bridge science and policy and translate medical innovations into accessible, affordable therapies.

Archana Podury

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Archana Podury was born in Mountain View, California. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, she studied the neural circuits underlying motor learning. Her growing interest in whole-brain dynamics led her to the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Neuralink, where she discovered how brain-machine interfaces could be used to understand diffuse networks in the brain.

While studying neural circuits, Podury worked at a syringe exchange in Ithaca, New York, where she witnessed firsthand the mechanics of court-based drug rehabilitation. Now, as an MD student in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, Podury is interested in combining computational and social approaches to neuropsychiatric disease.

In the Boyden Lab at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Podury is developing human brain organoid models to better characterize circuit dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders. Concurrently, her work in the Dhand Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital applies network science tools to understand how patients’ social environments influence their health outcomes following acute neurological injury.

Podury hopes that focusing on both neural and social networks can lead toward a more comprehensive, and compassionate, approach to health and disease.

Ashwin Sah ’20

Ashwin Sah ’20 was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, the son of Indian immigrants. He developed a passion for mathematics research as an undergraduate at MIT, where he conducted research under Professor Yufei Zhao, as well as at the Duluth and Emory REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) programs.

Sah has given talks on his work at multiple professional venues. His undergraduate research in varied areas of combinatorics and discrete mathematics culminated in the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. Additionally, his work on diagonal Ramsey numbers was recently featured in Quanta Magazine.

Beyond research, Sah has pursued opportunities to give back to the math community, helping to organize or grade competitions such as the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament and the USA Mathematical Olympiad. He has also been a grader at the Mathematical Olympiad Program, a camp for talented high-school students in the United States, and an instructor for the Monsoon Math Camp, a virtual program aimed at teaching higher mathematics to high school students in India.

Sah is currently a PhD student in mathematics at MIT, where he continues to work with Zhao.

Enrique Toloza

Enrique Toloza was born in Los Angeles, California, the child of two immigrants: one from Colombia who came to the United States for a PhD and the other from the Philippines who grew up in California and went on to medical school. Their literal marriage of science and medicine inspired Toloza to become a physician-scientist.

Toloza majored in physics and Spanish literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He eventually settled on an interest in theoretical neuroscience after a summer research internship at MIT and completing an honors thesis on noninvasive brain stimulation.

After college, Toloza joined Professor Mark Harnett’s laboratory at MIT for a year. He went on to enroll in the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program, studying within the Health Sciences and Technology MD curriculum at Harvard and the PhD program at MIT. For his PhD, Toloza rejoined Harnett to conduct research on the biophysics of dendritic integration and the contribution of dendrites to cortical computations in the brain.

Toloza is passionate about expanding health care access to immigrant populations. In college, he led the interpreting team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student-run health clinic; at Harvard Medical School, he has worked with Spanish-speaking patients as a student clinician.

Four MIT scientists honored with 2021 National Academy of Sciences awards

Anne Trafton |

Four MIT scientists are among the 20 recipients of the 2021 Academy Honors for major contributions to science, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced at its annual meeting. The individuals are recognized for their “extraordinary scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological, social, and medical sciences.”

The awards recognize: Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, for contributions to the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology through his discovery of correlated insulator behavior and unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices; Aviv Regev, for using interdisciplinary information or techniques to solve a contemporary challenge; Susan Solomon, for contributions to understanding and communicating the causes of ozone depletion and climate change; and Feng Zhang, for pioneering achievements developing CRISPR tools with the potential to diagnose and treat disease.

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero: Award for Scientific Discovery

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, a Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, is the recipient of the NAS Award for Scientific Discovery for his pioneering developments in nanoscience and nanotechnology, which is presented to scientists in the fields of astronomy, materials science, or physics. His findings expand nanoscience by demonstrating for the first time that orientation can be used to dramatically control nanomaterial properties and to design new nanomaterials. This work lays the groundwork for developing a whole new family of 2D materials and has had a transformative impact on the field and on condensed-matter physics.

The biannual award recognizes “an accomplishment or discovery in basic research, achieved within the previous five years, that is expected to have a significant impact on one or more of the following fields: astronomy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, materials science, or physics.”

In 2018, his research group discovered that by rotating two layers of graphene relative to each other by a magic angle, the bilayer material can be turned from a metal into an electrical insulator or even a superconductor. This discovery has fostered new theoretical and experimental research, inspiring the interest of technologists in nanoelectronics. The result is a new field in condensed-matter physics that has the potential to result in materials that conduct electricity without resistance at room temperature.

Aviv Regev: James Prize in Science and Technology Integration

Aviv Regev, who is a professor of biology, a core member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a member of the Koch Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator has been selected for the inaugural James Prize in Science and Technology Integration, along with Harvard Medical School Professor Allon Kelin, for “their concurrent development of now widely adopted massively parallel single-cell genomics to interrogate the gene expression profiles that define, at the level of individual cells, the distinct cell types in metazoan tissues, their developmental trajectories, and disease states, which integrated tools from molecular biology, engineering, statistics, and computer science.”

The prize recognizes individuals “who are able to adopt or adapt information or techniques from outside their fields” to “solve a major contemporary challenge not addressable from a single disciplinary perspective.”

Regev is credited with forging new ways to unite the disciplines of biology, computational science, and engineering as a pioneer in the field of single-cell biology, including developing some of its core experimental and analysis tools, and their application to discover cell types, states, programs, environmental responses, development, tissue locations, and regulatory circuits, and deploying these to assemble cellular atlases of the human body that illuminate mechanisms of disease with remarkable fidelity.

Susan Solomon: Award for Chemistry in Service to Society

Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences who holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Chemistry, is the recipient of the Award for Chemistry in Service to Society for “influential and incisive application of atmospheric chemistry to understand our most critical environmental issues — ozone layer depletion and climate change — and for her effective communication of environmental science to leaders to facilitate policy changes.”

The award is given biannually for “contributions to chemistry, either in fundamental science or its application, that clearly satisfy a societal need.”

Solomon is globally recognized as a leader in atmospheric science, notably for her insights in explaining the cause of the Antarctic ozone “hole.” She and her colleagues have made important contributions to understanding chemistry-climate coupling, including pioneering research on the irreversibility of global warming linked to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, and on the influence of the ozone hole on the climate of the southern hemisphere.

Her work has had an enormous effect on policy and society, including the transition away from ozone-depleting substances and to environmentally benign chemicals. The work set the stage for the Paris Agreement on climate, and she continues to educate policymakers, the public, and the next generation of scientists.

Feng Zhang: Richard Lounsbery Award

Feng Zhang, who is the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering at MIT, and a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is the recipient of the Richard Lounsbery Award for pioneering CRISPR-mediated genome editing.

The award recognizes “extraordinary scientific achievement in biology and medicine” as well as stimulating research and encouraging reciprocal scientific exchanges between the United States and France.

Zhang continues to lead the field through the discovery of novel CRISPR systems and their development as molecular tools with the potential to diagnose and treat disease, such as disorders affecting the nervous system. His contributions in genome engineering, as well as his earlier work developing optogenetics, are enabling a deeper understanding of behavioral neural circuits and advances in gene therapy for treating disease.

In addition, Zhang has championed the open sharing of the technologies he has developed through extensive resource sharing. The tools from his lab are being used by thousands of scientists around the world to accelerate research in nearly every field of the life sciences. Even as biomedical researchers around the world adopt Zhang’s discoveries and his tools enter the clinic to treat genetic diseases, he continues to innovate and develop new technologies to advance science.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars, established in 1863 by the U.S. Congress. The NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology as well as encouraging education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increasing public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and medicine. Winners received their awards, which include a monetary prize, during a virtual ceremony at the 158th NAS Annual Meeting.

This story is a modified compilation from several National Academy of Sciences press releases.

Two MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences faculty members earn funding from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation

by David Orenstein |

Two MIT neuroscientists have received grants from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation to screen for genes that could help brain cells withstand Parkinson’s disease and to map how gene expression changes in the brain in response to drugs of abuse.

Myriam Heiman, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a core member of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Alan Jasanoff, who is also a professor in biological engineering, brain and cognitive sciences, nuclear science and engineering and an associate investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, each received three-year awards that formally begin January 1, 2021.

Jasanoff, who also directs MIT’s Center for Neurobiological Engineering, is known for developing sensors that monitor molecular hallmarks of neural activity in the living brain, in real time, via noninvasive MRI brain scanning. One of the MRI-detectable sensors that he has developed is for dopamine, a neuromodulator that is key to learning what behaviors and contexts lead to reward. Addictive drugs artificially drive dopamine release, thereby hijacking the brain’s reward prediction system. Studies have shown that dopamine and drugs of abuse activate gene transcription in specific brain regions, and that this gene expression changes as animals are repeatedly exposed to drugs. Despite the important implications of these neuroplastic changes for the process of addiction, in which drug-seeking behaviors become compulsive, there are no effective tools available to measure gene expression across the brain in real time.

Cerebral vasculature in mouse brain. The Jasanoff lab hopes to develop a method for mapping gene expression the brain with related labeling characteristics .
Image: Alan Jasanoff

With the new Mathers funding, Jasanoff is developing new MRI-detectable sensors for gene expression. With these cutting-edge tools, Jasanoff proposes to make an activity atlas of how the brain responds to drugs of abuse, both upon initial exposure and over repeated doses that simulate the experiences of drug addicted individuals.

“Our studies will relate drug-induced brain activity to longer term changes that reshape the brain in addiction,” says Jasanoff. “We hope these studies will suggest new biomarkers or treatments.”

Dopamine-producing neurons in a brain region called the substantia nigra are known to be especially vulnerable to dying in Parkinson’s disease, leading to the severe motor difficulties experienced during the progression of the incurable, chronic neurodegenerative disorder. The field knows little about what puts specific cells at such dire risk, or what molecular mechanisms might help them resist the disease. In her research on Huntington’s disease, another incurable neurodegenerative disorder in which a specific neuron population in the striatum is especially vulnerable, Heiman has been able to use an innovative method her lab pioneered to discover genes whose expression promotes neuron survival, yielding potential new drug targets. The technique involves conducting an unbiased screen in which her lab knocks out each of the 22,000 genes expressed in the mouse brain one by one in neurons in disease model mice and healthy controls. The technique allows her to determine which genes, when missing, contribute to neuron death amid disease and therefore which genes are particularly needed for survival. The products of those genes can then be evaluated as drug targets. With the new Mathers award, Heiman plans to apply the method to study Parkinson’s disease.

An immunofluorescence image taken in a brain region called the substantia nigra (SN) highlights tyrosine hydroxylase, a protein expressed by dopamine neurons. This type of neuron in the SN is especially vulnerable to neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease. Image: Preston Ge/Heiman Lab

“There is currently no molecular explanation for the brain cell loss seen in Parkinson’s disease or a cure for this devastating disease,” Heiman said. “This award will allow us to perform unbiased, genome-wide genetic screens in the brains of mouse models of Parkinson’s disease, probing for genes that allow brain cells to survive the effects of cellular perturbations associated with Parkinson’s disease. I’m extremely grateful for this generous support and recognition of our work from the Mathers Foundation, and hope that our study will elucidate new therapeutic targets for the treatment and even prevention of Parkinson’s disease.”

Robert Desimone to receive the Fred Kavli Distinguished Career Contributions Award

by Julie Pryor |

Robert Desimone, the Doris and Don Berkey Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, has been recognized by the Cognitive Neuroscience Society as this year’s winner of the Fred Kavli Distinguished Career Contributions (DCC) award. Supported annually by the Kavli Foundation, the award honors senior cognitive neuroscientists for their distinguished career, leadership and mentoring in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

Desimone, who is also the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, studies the brain mechanisms underlying attention, and most recently, has been studying animal models for brain disorders.

Desimone will deliver his prize lecture at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society in March 2021.

Robert Desimone to receive Goldman-Rakic Prize

by Julie Pryor |

Robert Desimone, the Doris and Don Berkey Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, has been named a winner of this year’s Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience Research. The award, given annually by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, is named in recognition of former Yale University neuroscientist Patricia Goldman-Rakic.

Desimone, who is also the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, studies the brain mechanisms underlying attention, and most recently he has been studying animal models for brain disorders.

Desimone will deliver his prize lecture at the 2020 Annual International Mental Health Research Virtual Symposium on October 30, 2020.

School of Science appoints 12 faculty members to named professorships

Anne Trafton |

The School of Science has awarded chaired appointments to 12 faculty members. These faculty, who are members of the departments of Biology; Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Chemistry; Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; and Physics, receive additional support to pursue their research and develop their careers.

Kristin Bergmann, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, has been named a D. Reid Weedon, Jr. ’41 Career Development Professor. This is a three-year professorship. Bergmann’s research integrates across sedimentology and stratigraphy, geochemistry, and geobiology to reveal aspects of Earth’s ancient environments. She aims to better constrain Earth’s climate record and carbon cycle during the evolution of early eukaryotes, including animals. Most of her efforts involve reconstructing the details of carbonate rocks, which store much of Earth’s carbon, and thus, are an important component of Earth’s climate system over long timescales.

Joseph Checkelscky is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and has been named a Mitsui Career Development Professor in Contemporary Technology, an appointment he will hold until 2023. His research in quantum materials relies on experimental methods at the intersection of physics, chemistry, and nanoscience. This work is aimed toward synthesizing new crystalline systems that manifest their quantum nature on a macroscopic scale. He aims to realize and study these crystalline systems, which can then serve as platforms for next-generation quantum sensors, quantum communication, and quantum computers.

Mircea Dincă, appointed a W. M. Keck Professor of Energy, is a professor in the Department of Chemistry. This appointment has a five-year term. The topic of Dincă’s research falls largely under the umbrella of energy storage and conversion. His interest in applied energy usage involves creating new organic and inorganic materials that can improve the efficiency of energy collection, storage, and generation while decreasing environmental impacts. Recently, he has developed materials for efficient air-conditioning units and been collaborating with Automobili Lamborghini on electric vehicle design.

Matthew Evans has been appointed to a five-year Mathworks Physics Professorship. Evans, a professor in the Department of Physics, focuses on the instruments used to detect gravitational waves. A member of MIT’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) research group, he engineers ways to fine-tune the detection capabilities of the massive ground-based facilities that are being used to identify collisions between black holes and stars in deep space. By removing thermal and quantum limitations, he can increase the sensitivity of the device’s measurements and, thus, its scope of exploration. Evans is also a member of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Evelina Fedorenko is an associate professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and has been named a Frederick A. (1971) and Carole J. Middleton Career Development Professor of Neuroscience. Studying how the brain processes language, Fedorenko uses behavioral studies, brain imaging, neurosurgical recording and stimulation, and computational modelling to better grasp language comprehension and production. In her efforts to elucidate how and what parts of the brain support language processing, she evaluates both typical and atypical brains. Fedorenko is also a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Ankur Jain is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and now a Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Professor. He will hold this career development appointment for a term of three years. Jain studies how cells organize their contents. Within a cell, there are numerous compartments that form due to weak interactions between biomolecules and exist without an enclosing membrane. By analyzing the biochemistry and biophysics of these compartments, Jain deduces the principles of cellular organization and its dysfunction in human disease. Jain is also a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Pulin Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and the Eugene Bell Career Development Professor of Tissue Engineering for the next three years, explores genetic circuitry in building and maintain a tissue. In particular, she investigates how communication circuitry between individual cells can extrapolate into multicellular behavior using both natural and synthetically generated tissues, for which she combines the fields of synthetic and systems biology, biophysics, and bioengineering. A stronger understanding of genetic circuitry could allow for progress in medicine involving embryonic development and tissue engineering. Li is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Elizabeth Nolan, appointed an Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of Immunology, investigates innate immunity and infectious disease. The Department of Chemistry professor, who will hold this chaired professorship for five years, combines experimental chemistry and microbiology to learn about human immune responses to, and interactions with, microbial pathogens. This research includes elucidating the fight between host and pathogen for essential metal nutrients and the functions of host-defense peptides and proteins during infection. With this knowledge, Nolan contributes to fundamental understanding of the host’s ability to combat microbial infection, which may provide new strategies to treat infectious disease.

Leigh “Wiki” Royden is now a Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Geology and Geophysics. The five-year appointment supports her research on the large-scale dynamics and tectonics of the Earth as a professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Fundamental to geoscience, the tectonics of regional and global systems are closely linked, particularly through the subduction of the plates into the mantle. Royden’s research adds to our understanding a of the structure and dynamics of the crust and the upper portion of the mantle through observation, theory and modeling. This progress has profound implications for global natural events, like mountain building and continental break-up.

Phiala Shanahan has been appointed a Class of 1957 Career Development Professor for three years. Shanahan is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics, where she specializes in theoretical and nuclear physics. Shanahan’s research uses supercomputers to provide insight into the structure of protons and nuclei in terms of their quark and gluon constituents. Her work also informs searches for new physics beyond the current Standard Model, such dark matter. She is a member of the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics.

Xiao Wang, an assistant professor, has also been named a new Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor. In the Department of Chemistry, Wang designs and produces novel methods and tools for analyzing the brain. Integrating chemistry, biophysics, and genomics, her work provides higher-resolution imaging and sampling to explain how the brain functions across molecular to system-wide scales. Wang is also a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Bin Zhang has been appointed a Pfizer Inc-Gerald Laubach Career Development Professor for a three-year term. Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, hopes to connect the framework of the human genome sequence with its various functions on various time and spatial scales. By developing theoretical and computational approaches to categorize information about dynamics, organization, and complexity of the genome, he aims to build a quantitative, predictive modelling tool. This tool could even produce 3D representations of details happening at a microscopic level within the body.

Nine MIT School of Science professors receive tenure for 2020

by School of Science |

Beginning July 1, nine faculty members in the MIT School of Science have been granted tenure by MIT. They are appointed in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics.

Physicist Ibrahim Cisse investigates living cells to reveal and study collective behaviors and biomolecular phase transitions at the resolution of single molecules. The results of his work help determine how disruptions in genes can cause diseases like cancer. Cisse joined the Department of Physics in 2014 and now holds a joint appointment with the Department of Biology. His education includes a bachelor’s degree in physics from North Carolina Central University, concluded in 2004, and a doctoral degree in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, achieved in 2009. He followed his PhD with a postdoc at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris and a research specialist appointment at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus.

Jörn Dunkel is a physical applied mathematician. His research focuses on the mathematical description of complex nonlinear phenomena in a variety of fields, especially biophysics. The models he develops help predict dynamical behaviors and structure formation processes in developmental biology, fluid dynamics, and even knot strengths for sailing, rock climbing and construction. He joined the Department of Mathematics in 2013 after completing postdoctoral appointments at Oxford University and Cambridge University. He received diplomas in physics and mathematics from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The University of Augsburg awarded Dunkel a PhD in statistical physics in 2008.

A cognitive neuroscientist, Mehrdad Jazayeri studies the neurobiological underpinnings of mental functions such as planning, inference, and learning by analyzing brain signals in the lab and using theoretical and computational models, including artificial neural networks. He joined the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2013. He achieved a BS in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in 1994, an MS in physiology at the University of Toronto in 2001, and a PhD in neuroscience from New York University in 2007. Prior to joining MIT, he was a postdoc at the University of Washington. Jazayeri is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Yen-Jie Lee is an experimental particle physicist in the field of proton-proton and heavy-ion physics. Utilizing the Large Hadron Colliders, Lee explores matter in extreme conditions, providing new insight into strong interactions and what might have existed and occurred at the beginning of the universe and in distant star cores. His work on jets and heavy flavor particle production in nuclei collisions improves understanding of the quark-gluon plasma, predicted by quantum chromodynamics (QCD) calculations, and the structure of heavy nuclei. He also pioneered studies of high-density QCD with electron-position annihilation data. Lee joined the Department of Physics in 2013 after a fellowship at CERN and postdoc research at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science at MIT. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees were awarded by the National Taiwan University in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and his doctoral degree by MIT in 2011. Lee is a member of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Josh McDermott investigates the sense of hearing. His research addresses both human and machine audition using tools from experimental psychology, engineering, and neuroscience. McDermott hopes to better understand the neural computation underlying human hearing, to improve devices to assist hearing impaired, and to enhance machine interpretation of sounds. Prior to joining MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, he was awarded a BA in 1998 in brain and cognitive sciences by Harvard University, a master’s degree in computational neuroscience in 2000 by University College London, and a PhD in brain and cognitive sciences in 2006 by MIT. Between his doctoral time at MIT and returning as a faculty member, he was a postdoc at the University of Minnesota and New York University, and a visiting scientist at Oxford University. McDermott is also an associate investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and an investigator in the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines.

Solving environmental challenges by studying and manipulating chemical reactions is the focus of Yogesh Surendranath’s research. Using chemistry, he works at the molecular level to understand how to efficiently interconvert chemical and electrical energy. His fundamental studies aim to improve energy storage technologies, such as batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers, that can be used to meet future energy demand with reduced carbon emissions. Surendranath joined the Department of Chemistry in 2013 after a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley. His PhD was completed in 2011 at MIT, and BS in 2006 at the University of Virginia. Suendranath is also a collaborator in the MIT Energy Initiative.

A theoretical astrophysicist, Mark Vogelsberger is interested in large-scale structures of the universe, such as galaxy formation. He combines observational data, theoretical models, and simulations that require high-performance supercomputers to improve and develop detailed models that simulate galaxy diversity, clustering, and their properties, including a plethora of physical effects like magnetic fields, cosmic dust, and thermal conduction. Vogelsberger also uses simulations to generate scenarios involving alternative forms of dark matter. He joined the Department of Physics in 2014 after a postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Vogelsberger is a 2006 graduate of the University of Mainz undergraduate program in physics, and a 2010 doctoral graduate of the University of Munich and the Max Plank Institute for Astrophysics. He is also a principal investigator in the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Adam Willard is a theoretical chemist with research interests that fall across molecular biology, renewable energy, and material science. He uses theory, modeling, and molecular simulation to study the disorder that is inherent to systems over nanometer-length scales. His recent work has highlighted the fundamental and unexpected role that such disorder plays in phenomena such as microscopic energy transport in semiconducting plastics, ion transport in batteries, and protein hydration. Joining the Department of Chemistry in 2013, Willard was formerly a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and then the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, achieved in 2009, and a BS in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Puget Sound, granted in 2003.

Lindley Winslow seeks to understand the fundamental particles shaped the evolution of our universe. As an experimental particle and nuclear physicist, she develops novel detection technology to search for axion dark matter and a proposed nuclear decay that makes more matter than antimatter. She started her faculty position in the Department of Physics in 2015 following a postdoc at MIT and a subsequent faculty position at the University of California at Los Angeles. Winslow achieved her BA in physics and astronomy in 2001 and PhD in physics in 2008, both at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also a member of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.