Fostering Bold Ideas to Breakthrough Innovation
Education Partner
To benefit from this discounted rate, guests are encouraged to make their reservations using the provided reservation link by no later than October 18, 2024.
MIT is empowered by its diverse research and development ecosystem to invent fundamental technologies and cultivate interdisciplinary collaborations. In this year’s annual flagship conference, we will showcase MIT's latest research and development in critical technology areas, including AI, mobility, life science, space tech, microelectronics, and quantum computing. Along with the latest technology breakthrough, we will offer invaluable insights and perspectives on creating coherent innovation strategies in implementing the technologies and achieving meaningful impact. We will especially feature the latest research at MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) this year in celebration of innovation and discovery at the 40th-anniversary of the MIT MTL.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from MIT's renowned researchers and faculty, MIT-connected startups from the MIT Startup Exchange, as well as global corporate representatives and speakers.
Join MIT’s global community at the Research and Development Conference on November 19-20, 2024, where MIT’s innovation meets industry revolution.
Day One Concurrent Tracks: Track 1 | Space Track 2 | Mobility Track 3 | Innovations
Day Two Concurrent Tracks: Track 4 | Healthcare Track 5 | Artificial Intelligence Track 6 | Quantum 2.0
Registration Fee ILP Member: Complimentary General Public: $2,250 Current MIT Faculty/Staff/Student: Complimentary * MIT Alum, Sloan Exec Ed, and Professional Education Member: 70% discount Send an email for a discount code. * MIT Startup Exchange Member: Send an email for a comp code.
Visiting MIT: https://www.mit.edu/visitmit/ Where to Stay: https://institute-events.mit.edu/visit/where-to-stay Registration Questions: ocrevents@mit.edu
Dr. Srinivasan is a distinguished scientist who received her PhD in Microbiology from The Ohio State University in 2004, where she contributed to the discovery of the 22nd amino acid, Pyrrolysine (2002). She first came to MIT as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Tom Rajbhandary’s lab, where her research focused on understanding protein synthesis mechanisms in Archaea.
Dr. Srinivasan subsequently moved into the business development and technology licensing space, serving in MIT’s Technology Licensing Office, where she helped commercialize technologies in medical devices and alternative energies. She then moved to UMass Medical School’s Office of Technology Management in 2009 and to Emory University in Atlanta in 2014 as the Director of Public and Private Partnerships for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. In 2019, Dr. Srinivasan joined Emory’s Office of Corporate Relations as Executive Director, and in 2021, she led the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations.
Dr. Najung “Natalie” Kim is a Program Director at the MIT Industrial Liaison Program. She brings to the Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) expertise in strategic collaboration in life sciences and biotech industries, including cell and gene therapy and AI/ML analytics. Kim comes to OCR from Adjuvant Partners where she has been serving as Senior Consultant, Strategic Partnering, working to connect industry, startups, and academic leaders in the cell and gene therapy sector. Before Adjuvant, Natalie worked at Ajinomoto, where she was Manager of the Research & Innovation Center, facilitating collaborations on preclinical and clinical development of biologics, diagnostics, and cell therapy ancillary products in Asia, Europe, and North America. Prior to Ajinomoto, Kim was a business development manager at Medipost, where she led strategic partnerships in mesenchymal stem cell therapeutics in orthopedic and neurodegenerative applications. Kim also went through her postdoctoral training at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine as a Department of Defense Research Fellow working on translational gene therapy in tissue engineering programs.
Kim earned her B.S. Bioscience and Food Engineering at Handong Global University, her M.S. Medicine at Seoul National University in South Korea, and her Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa.
MIT Vice President for Research, MIT Office of the President Jerome C Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow
Ian A. Waitz is the vice president for research at MIT and the Jerome C. Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Vice President Waitz is the Institute’s senior research officer and has overall responsibility for research administration and policy at the Institute. He sets MIT’s strategic research direction, fosters an outstanding research environment for faculty, students, and staff, and enables major multidisciplinary research initiatives. The Vice President for Research is responsible for research integrity and compliance and plays a central role in the Institute’s research relationships with the federal government, industry, and other sponsors. Vice President Waitz oversees MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers.
Waitz has been on the faculty at MIT since 1991. He has served as head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, as dean of the School of Engineering, and most recently, from 2017 to 2024, as MIT’s vice chancellor for undergraduate and graduate education. While leading the Office of the Vice Chancellor, Waitz re-envisioned the first-year undergraduate academic experience, expanded undergraduate advising and financial aid, and increased support and professional development opportunities for graduate students. He also led MIT’s response to graduate student unionization. As dean of the School of Engineering from 2011 to 2017, Waitz enhanced the school’s ability to attract and support exceptional students and faculty, launched the MIT-wide Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, fostered innovation and entrepreneurship among students and faculty, and advanced programs for residential and online learning.
Waitz’s early research led to advances in gas turbine engines, fluid mechanics, combustion, and acoustics. However, his most significant contributions have related to the modeling and evaluation of climate, air quality, and noise impacts of aviation, along with the assessment of technological, operational, and policy options for mitigating these impacts. These efforts have led to more rigorous evaluations of environmental policy and technology. His current research aims to reduce the climate impacts of aviation.
Waitz received his BS in 1986 from the Pennsylvania State University, his MS in 1988 from the George Washington University, and his PhD in 1991 from the California Institute of Technology. He has engaged widely with U.S. and international government and industry throughout his career. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and has been recognized by multiple awards for teaching and research, including MIT’s MacVicar Fellowship.
Dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, MIT’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer Vannevar Bush Professor, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Anantha P. Chandrakasan is dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, MIT’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He serves as chair of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and the MIT AI Hardware Program, and co-chair of the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, and the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology.
He earned his bachelor’s (1989), master’s (1990), and doctoral (1994) degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the MIT faculty in 1994 and was the director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 2006 to 2011. From July 2011 through June 2017, he served as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), a position that concluded with his appointment as dean in July 2017.
As dean of engineering since 2017, Chandrakasan has implemented various interdisciplinary programs, creating new models for how academia and industry can work together to accelerate the pace of research. This has resulted in the launch of initiatives including the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative, the MIT Mobility Initiative, the MIT Quest for Intelligence, the MIT AI Hardware Program, the MIT-Northpond Program, the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative, and the MIT-Novo Nordisk Artificial Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellows Program.
Chandrakasan has also played a role in establishing initiatives beyond the School of Engineering. He was instrumental in founding the Schwarzman College of Computing in 2018, marking the most significant structural change to MIT in nearly 70 years. He has served in leadership roles on MIT Fast Forward, an Institute-wide plan for addressing climate change; as the inaugural chair of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health; as the co-chair of the academic workstream for MIT’s Task Force 2021; and played an important role in the early committee for the creation of MIT.nano.
One of his top priorities as dean has been fostering a sense of community within MIT’s largest school. He has launched several programs to give students and staff a more active role in shaping the initiatives and operations of the school, including the Staff Advice & Implementation Committee, the undergraduate Student Advisory Group, the Graduate Student Advisory Group (GradSAGE), the Faculty Gender Equity Committee, and the MIT School of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence. Working closely with GradSAGE, Chandrakasan has also played a role in establishing the Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Engineering Leadership Program.
As MIT’s inaugural Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Chandrakasan collaborates with key stakeholders across MIT, as well as external partners, to launch initiatives and new collaborations in support of the Institute’s strategic priorities. In this new role, he will help develop and implement plans to advance research, education, and innovation in areas that President Kornbluth has identified as her top priorities — such as climate change and sustainability, artificial intelligence, and the life sciences.
Before becoming dean in 2017, Chandrakasan served for six years as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), MIT’s largest academic department. As department head, Chandrakasan spearheaded initiatives that enabled students, postdocs, and faculty to conduct research, explore entrepreneurial projects, and engage with EECS. For students, one of these initiatives included the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, known as “SuperUROP,” a year-long independent research program launched in 2012 and expanded to the whole School of Engineering in 2015. He also created Start6, which expanded to StartMIT, an independent activities period (IAP) class that provides students and postdocs the opportunity to learn from and interact with industrial innovation leaders. Finally, he created Rising Stars in EECS, an academic career workshop that rotates amongst various universities and has become a model for similar efforts in other disciplines.
Chandrakasan leads the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group, whose research projects have addressed security hardware, energy harvesting, and wireless charging for the internet of things; energy-efficient circuits and systems for multimedia processing; and platforms for ultra-low-power biomedical electronics.
He is a co-author of Low Power Digital CMOS Design (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), Digital Integrated Circuits (Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2003, 2nd edition), and Sub-threshold Design for Ultra-Low Power Systems (Springer 2006). He was also recognized as the author with the highest number of publications in the 60-year history of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).
Chandrakasan is the recipient of the 2019 Solid-State Circuit Society’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits, the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award, an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2016, and the 2017 UC Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumni Award. He is also the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal.
A fellow of the IEEE, in 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, in 2019 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 2020 he was elected as fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Chandrakasan currently serves on the SMART Governing Board. He previously served on the Board of The Engine from 2016-2021, the Board of Trustees of the Perkins School for the Blind from 2018-2022, and the Board of Analog Devices Inc. from 2019-2024.
Director, Microsystems Technologies Laboratories (MTL) Professor, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
Tomás Palacios is the Director of Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California - Santa Barbara in 2006 and his undergraduate degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain). Being a fellow of IEEE his current research focuses on demonstrating new electronic devices and applications for novel semiconductor materials such as graphene and gallium nitride. Tomás is passionate about making an impact on modern society in Energy, Engineering, Nanoscale, Physics, Semiconductors, Nanotechnology, and Climate Change. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the 2012 and 2019 IEEE George Smith Awards, and the NSF, ONR, and DARPA Young Faculty Awards, among many others. Prof. Palacios is the founder and director of the MIT MTL Center for Graphene Devices and 2D Systems, as well as the Chief Advisor and co-founder of Finwave Semiconductor, Inc. From 2023, Tomas serves as Associate Director of the SUPeRior Energy-efficient Materials and Devices (SUPREME) center, one of the seven 2023 JUMP 2.0 programs sponsored by Semiconductor Research Corporation.
Renee J. Robins is the Executive Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab at MIT. Renee works closely with faculty director John Lienhard to develop and manage the lab’s activities, priorities, and strategy, including new funding opportunities and international collaborations.
Since 1998, Renee has worked on the conception, launch, and development of a number of large interdisciplinary, international, and partnership-based research and education collaborations at MIT and elsewhere. MIT programs she has worked on since she joined the staff in 1998 include the Cambridge MIT Institute (Associate Director for Graduate Programs), the MIT Portugal Program (Director for Program Integration), the Mexico City Program (Program Coordinator), and the Program on Emerging Technologies (Program Manager). From 2000-2011, she also served as Director of Special Projects for the Technology and Policy Program, where she was responsible for the development of a number of academic initiatives and major events. Before joining J-WAFS as executive director, she managed a $15M research program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as it scaled from implementation in one public school district to 59 schools in seven districts across North Carolina.
Outside of MIT, Renee’s experience includes serving on the Board of Trustees for the International Honors Program (IHP) – a comparative multi-site study abroad program – and independent consulting work for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and program design and strategy consulting for Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique (UM6P), a new university in Morocco. For IHP, she conceived, initiated, and developed the “Cities in the 21st Century” program, which began in 1998 and is one of IHP’s most popular offerings with over 1000 alumni. She is herself an alumna of IHP, having studied comparative culture and anthropology in seven countries around the world, and also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Renee’s holds two undergraduate degrees from MIT (biology and humanities/anthropology), and a masters degree in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.
Chu Huang is the Program Director at the MIT site for Breakthrough Tech AI. Chu is a program innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit. She has spearheaded programs across non-profit organizations, higher education, and local government administration efforts. One of her programs have received honorable recognition from President Obama’s White House Initiative of Asian American Pacific Islanders as Champions of Change. Chu is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion and works towards creating programs that have a positive impact for uplifting young people.
Ryo N. Ishibashi has nearly two decades of leadership experience in startups and multinationals, spanning multiple sectors such as automotive, software, and robotics. His most recent assignment was in Japan, leading a team of engineers to develop and deploy warehouse automation solutions that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning.
In addition to Japan, he's also worked in Singapore -- and speaks English and Japanese fluently.
Ishibashi has a Master's degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan.
Outside of work, he enjoys studying economics, finance, management, philosophy, and history -- while spending time with his two dogs.
Interim Vice Chancellor, MIT Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor, of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT AeroAstro
Hastings first joined the faculty at MIT in 1985. In 2021, Hastings was appointed co-chair of MIT’s Values Statement Committee, a charge by MIT leadership to engage the community in the foundational work of developing a statement of shared institutional values, the results of which were accepted by MIT’s academic council in 2022. Hastings was the faculty lead of the MIT School of Engineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and in 2021 he was appointed associate dean focusing on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the School.
His research specializations include synergetic interactions between space systems and the space environment, space propulsion, space policy, space systems, spacecraft manufacturing processes, space system architecting.
An Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), in 2002, Hastings was awarded the Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award from the AIAA. He is a fellow (academician) of the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council in System Engineering.. He was also the recipient of MIT’s Gordon Billard Award for “special service of outstanding merit performed for the Institute” in 2013.
The space enterprise is changing dramatically. Entrepreneurial space has increased dramatically, as has international space activity. The talk will review the critical space policy issues based on a recent class in this area. Next, it will outline the issues in space technology and architecture from the perspective of the AIAA and then turn to what research work in space is going on in the MIT AeroAstro Department. The talk will finish with some of the demographic challenges for the space enterprise.
Apollo Program Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT AersoAstro
Olivier de Weck is the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is the director of the Engineering Systems Laboratory as well as the Associate Department Head of Aero Astro. His research is in Systems Engineering with a focus on how complex technological systems are designed and how they evolve over time. He is a Fellow of INCOSE and a Fellow of AIAA and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. His textbook “Technology Roadmapping and Development” received the Most Promising Textbook of 2024 award by TAA.
Reaching Earth's orbit is an extremely energetic event. To remain in orbit requires a velocity of about 8 km/s, which corresponds to a specific energy of 30 MJ per kilogram. Since 1957 humans have been able to launch themselves as well as artificial satellites into orbit at increasing frequencies. This talk will give an update on the current state of launch vehicle technologies and this important and enabling part of the space sector. In 2023, for example, there were 222 launch attempts worldwide, of which 95% were successful. Assuming a CAGR of 12%, we predict that by 2027, there will be daily launches to space from somewhere on Earth's surface. This talk will summarize some of the physics, technologies, and economics of the launch vehicle industry.
Rockwell International Career Development Professor Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT AeroAstro
Richard Linares joined the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics as an assistant professor last July. Before joining MIT, he was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s aerospace engineering and mechanics department. Linares received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory and also held a postdoc appointment at the United States Naval Observatory. His research areas are astrodynamics, estimation and controls, satellite guidance and navigation, space situational awareness, and space-traffic management.
MIT ARCLab focuses on space traffic management, space situational awareness, and space sustainability. This talk will analyze space security issues related to space management and orbital debris. It will also cover topics in space awareness, including behavior estimation, behavior characterization, and learning. Furthermore, the talk will discuss the Department of the Air Force's AI Accelerator, which has a focused project dedicated to space awareness and the development of AI techniques to address space security issues.
Brett McGuire is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He joined the MIT faculty in 2020 and currently holds the position of Class of 1943 Career Development Assistant Professor.
McGuire's research focuses on astrochemistry, combining physical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, and observational astrophysics to study the chemical evolution of molecules in space. His work aims to understand how the chemical ingredients for life develop during star and planet formation.
Academically, McGuire earned his B.S. in Chemistry with Highest Distinction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed by an M.S. in Physical Chemistry from Emory University, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Before joining MIT, McGuire held several prestigious positions, including NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow and NRAO Jansky Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He also maintains an appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
McGuire's research has garnered significant recognition. He was named one of Chemical & Engineering News' Talented 12 in 2020 and received the AAS Laboratory Astrophysics Division Early Career Award in 2019. In 2022, he was awarded the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society.
At MIT, McGuire leads a research group that uses cutting-edge techniques in laboratory spectroscopy, radio astronomy observations, and machine learning to detect new molecules in interstellar space. His work particularly focuses on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their role in interstellar chemistry and star formation.
Beyond his research, McGuire is dedicated to teaching and mentoring. He has taught several courses at MIT, including Principles of Chemical Science and Thermodynamics II and Kinetics. He also hosts a monthly podcast called "Astrochem Coffee," where he discusses various aspects of astrochemistry research.
Identifying the precise chemical makeup of complex mixtures is of interest in fields ranging from atmospheric chemistry to pharmaceutical development and quality control to my own field of astrochemistry. A variety of analytical tools such as spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, and chromatography provide chemical "fingerprinting," which can, in theory, be used to identify these chemical components, but the sheer density of spectral features of different molecules that are often present in such readings can make unambiguous assignment to individual species challenging. Yet, the components are commonly chemically related due to the shared chemical evolution of the mixture. Therefore, along with investigating the analytical signals, analysis of the structural and chemical relevance of a molecule is an important consideration when determining which species are present in a given mixture. My group works primarily in applications of rotational spectroscopy, and thus, in this talk, I will present a method that combines machine-learning molecular embedding models with a graph-based ranking system to determine the likelihood of a molecule being present in a pure rotational spectrum based on the other known species, chemical priors, and spectroscopic information. I'll present details on the process as well as demonstrate its utility on both laboratory mixtures and astrochemical observations from space. Our work demonstrates that the chemical inventory can be identified with extremely high accuracy in a much more efficient manner than manual analysis.
Mr. David Martin joined Corporate Relations on August 15, 2018 as Program Director for the ILP. Martin comes to OCR with deep and broad knowledge and expertise in program management, innovation, commercial and government contracting, and strategic planning. In his most recent position at Altran (Burlington, MA) as the VP Programs, Dave had many major accomplishments including leading an innovation team to develop new technology in the beverage-filling industry, and managing client-facing relations supporting sales and execution of projects. Before that, he was at Windmill International as VP, Product Development, R&D. There he spearheaded the move into new markets for an innovative satellite communications product including through the SBIR program where he secured funding and sponsorship. Martin also leveraged other government programs collaborating with the DoD and congressional contacts. He began his career in the US Air Force as an Active Duty Captain and served for 10 years as an Acquisition Manager, Scientist, Test Director, and finally as Executive Officer in the Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications Systems in the Pentagon. Martin also served in the US Air Force Reserves before joining Windmill. Mr. Martin earned his B.S., Physics from MIT, and his M.S., Systems Management from the University of Denver. He also earned a Certificate in Information Systems at the University of Denver.
Dr. Corey Cheng joined the Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) as an Senior Industrial Liaison Officer in December 2011. He has broad interests in science and technology, and uses his technical research experience to better serve ILP members in Asia and the United States.
Cheng spent six years in industrial research at Dolby Laboratories, San Francisco, where he contributed to sound compression (Dolby Digital, AAC, MP3), wireless networking, fingerprinting, and spatial/“3-D audio” technologies. Later, he was Associate Professor and Director of the undergraduate and graduate programs in music engineering technology at the University of Miami, Florida, where he also held a dual appointment in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Cheng holds various U.S. and international patents, has published technical papers, and has presented at various conferences. His technical work includes collaborations and consulting work with the U.S. Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory, Fujitsu-Ten USA, Starkey Laboratories, America Online, and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Cheng was an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the Circuits and Systems Society from 2009-2010, and was a Westinghouse (Intel) Science Talent Search national finalist many years ago.
Cheng holds degrees in Electrical Engineering (Ph.D., M.S.E. University of Michigan), Electro-Acoustic Music (M.A. Dartmouth College), and physics (B.A. Harvard University).
Personally, Dr. Cheng is an American Born Chinese (ABC), serves as his family’s genealogist, and traces his roots back to Toi San, Guang Dong Province and Xing Hua, Jiang Su Province, China. He also has a background in music, and his electro-acoustic compositions have been presented at various U.S. and international venues.
Renaud Fournier is a senior business and digital transformation executive with over 25 years of experience, currently serving as the Chief Officer for Business and Digital Transformation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He joined MIT in September 2023 in this newly established role, where he leads a team focused on simplifying business operations and systems for the MIT community.
Fournier is an alumnus of MIT, holding a Master's degree in Operations Research from the institution. His extensive experience spans both higher education and the private sector, with his most recent position being at New York University, where he led their digital transformation efforts.
At MIT, Fournier is spearheading a comprehensive digital transformation initiative aimed at modernizing the institute's enterprise systems and data architecture. His vision includes creating easy-to-use and well-integrated systems, along with making data more comprehensible and accessible for reporting and analysis.
Fournier's approach involves addressing systems, processes, data, and support holistically while engaging the MIT community throughout the transformation journey. He is currently developing a multi-year roadmap of digital transformation projects in collaboration with various departments and stakeholders across the institute.
With his expertise in implementing systems and solving data challenges, Fournier is well-positioned to guide MIT through its digital evolution, aiming to free up the community's time and enable them to achieve their greatest impact.
Professor, Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
Donald Sull is a Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he directs the Strategic Agility Project and the Culture 500, a data-based view of company culture for some of the largest and most powerful organizations in the world. Don has worked at McKinsey & Company, and as a management-investor with the leveraged buyout firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Sull is the cofounder of CultureX, which leverages proprietary AI to measure and improve corporate culture. He is the chairman of FilmFish and an advisor to several startups including Betterworks, Tomorrow.io, and eToro. He has advised top teams of more than fifty Fortune Global 500 companies, as well as non-business organizations ranging from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Sull was formerly a Professor at Harvard Business School and London Business School, and earned his Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate at Harvard University.
Professor, MIT Morningside Academy for Design Founding Member and Faculty Director, MIT DesignX Innovation Accelerator
Svafa Grönfeldt is a Professor of Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a founding member and faculty Director of MIT DesignX, a program dedicated to design innovation and entrepreneurship. Dr. Grönfeldt is the co-founder of The MET Fund, a Cambridge-based seed investment fund. She is a member of the Board of Directors of three publicly listed companies on NASDAQ OMX and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. As a member of a team of entrepreneurs that created and scaled two global life science companies, her professional career has been focused on organizational design for high-growth companies. As a venture designer, she works in parallel in industry and academia with teams of people from around the world to build companies, brands, experiences, academic programs, processes, and organizational structures designed to improve business results and workplace well-being. Applying the lens of design with a concern for human needs to solve complex problems has been a focal point of her work. Dr. Grönfeldt holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics
Director, MIT FutureTech Research Project at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) Principal Investigator, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Neil Thompson is the Director of the FutureTech research project at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and a Principal Investigator at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.
Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Innovation and Strategy at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he co-directed the Experimental Innovation Lab (X-Lab), and a Visiting Professor at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. He has advised businesses and government on the future of Moore’s Law, has been on National Academies panels on transformational technologies and scientific reliability, and is part of the Council on Competitiveness’ National Commission on Innovation & Competitiveness Frontiers.
He has a PhD in Business and Public Policy from Berkeley, where he also did Masters degrees in Computer Science and Statistics. He also has a masters in Economics from the London School of Economics, and undergraduate degrees in Physics and International Development. Prior to academia, He worked at organizations such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Bain and Company, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Canadian Parliament.
Firms always face a choice for where to source their innovation: do they hire internal researchers? Work with startups or external companies? There are many options. In this talk, I will present results from research on how firms are sourcing digital innovations, and then I will speak specifically about AI and how to view it in this framework.
Hong Fan is a Program Director at the Office of Corporate Relations at MIT. She joined OCR in August 2016, brought with her 20+ years of international work experience across semiconductor, consumer electronics, telecom, and higher education.
Prior to joining OCR, Hong spent 12 years in the semiconductor industry with executive functions in strategic marketing, business development, corporate strategy, product management, and product marketing at Analog Devices and MediaTek. During those years, Hong played instrumental roles in identifying emerging business opportunities related to wireless communication networks, smartphones, wearable devices, Internet of Things (IoT), and medical devices and applications. She led cross-functional teams in defining and driving product and market strategy for businesses with annual revenue ranging from $30 million to $100 million.
Prior to joining the semiconductor industry, Hong spent 6 years in the telecommunications and electronics industry, leading engineering teams at companies such as Lucent Technologies and Watkins-Johnson Company for the development of digital signal processing, wireless communications, and micro-controller software.
Before coming to US, Hong was a strategic research staff at the President Office of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, one of the oldest universities in China. She was the first woman to hold this highly selective position.
Hong has a B.S in Electronic Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland at College Park, and an MBA from Sloan School of Management at MIT. She received numerous academic honors and awards including the McKinsey & Co. Scholarship, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and the Shanghai Outstanding College Graduate Award.
MIT President Emeritus Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Rafael Reif served as the 17th President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between July 2012 and January 2023, where he led MIT’s pioneering efforts to help shape the future of higher education. A champion for both fundamental science and MIT’s signature style of interdisciplinary, problem-centered research, he is also pursuing an aggressive agenda to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
In education, his central focus has been the development of the Institute’s latest experiments in online learning, MITx and edX, which he spearheaded in his previous role as MIT provost. As of March 2017, the open online learning platform edX had engaged more than 11million unique learners. The final report of his Institute-wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education spurred rapid adoption of blended learning models in MIT classrooms and the October 2015 announcement of a MicroMaster’s credential from MITx, the Institute’s portfolio of massive open online courses.
In keeping with MIT’s mission to “bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges,” in May 2014, Dr. Reif launched the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, and in October 2015, Dr. Reif and his leadership team issued MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change, centered on research, education, campus sustainability and a strategy of industry engagement.
To enhance MIT’s innovation ecosystem and equip the next generation of innovators to drive their ideas to impact, in October 2016 Dr. Reif launched The Engine, an accelerator specially geared to help“tough tech”ventures deliver innovations that address humanity’s great challenges. Additional steps include the October 2013 launch of the MIT Innovation Initiative, the creation of the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node, a new Minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program.
To accelerate research and innovation at the nanoscale, MIT is also constructing MIT.nano, a major new facility at the heart of campus set to open in 2018. And because MIT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem extends well beyond the campus, Dr. Reif is leading an ambitious, decade-long redevelopment initiative in Kendall Square.
On May 6, 2016, Dr. Reif announced the $5 billion “MIT Campaign for a Better World.”A member of the MIT faculty since 1980, Dr. Reif has served as director of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories, as associate department head for Electrical Engineering, as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and as provost.
An elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Reif is the inventor or co-inventor on 13 patents, has edited or co-edited five books and has supervised 38 doctoral theses. He received the degree of Ingeniero Eléctrico from Universidadde Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela, and his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Entrepreneur, Engineer, and Investor, Stata Space
Ray Stata is a prominent American entrepreneur, engineer, and investor born on November 12, 1934, in Oxford, Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 1965, Stata co-founded Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) with his MIT classmate Matthew Lorber in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as ADI's President from 1971 to 1991, CEO from 1973 to 1996, and Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1973 to March 2022. Under his leadership, ADI became a worldwide leader in data conversion and signal-processing technology.
Before founding ADI, Stata co-founded Solid State Instruments, which was later acquired by Kollmorgen Corporation. He is also the founder of Stata Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that has funded numerous Boston area startups.
Stata has been actively involved in industry organizations and public service. He co-founded and served as the first President of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, advocating for engineering education and university research funding. He was also a board member of the Semiconductor Industry Association from 1996 to 2013.
Throughout his career, Stata has received numerous prestigious awards, including:
- Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1990) - Election to the National Academy of Engineering (1992) - IEEE Founder's Medal (2003) - Semiconductor Industry Association's Robert M. Noyce Award for Leadership (2001) - EE Times "Lifetime Achievement" award (2008) - Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award from the Global Semiconductor Alliance (2010)
Stata has maintained strong ties with MIT, serving on various committees and contributing significantly to the institution. In 1997, he and his wife Maria made a $25 million donation for the construction of the Ray and Maria Stata Center on the MIT campus.
Ray Stata married Maria in June 1962, and they reside in the Boston area. They have two children: Raymie, who became Yahoo!'s CTO, and Nicole, an entrepreneur and founder of Boston Seed Capital.
Known for his independent thinking and willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, Stata has played a crucial role in shaping the semiconductor industry and fostering innovation in technology.
Director, MIT.nano Fariborz Maseeh (1990) Professor of Emerging Technology, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
Vladimir Bulović is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holding the Fariborz Maseeh Chair in Emerging Technology. He directs the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory, co-leads the MIT-Eni Solar Frontiers Center, leads the Tata GridEdge program, and is the Founding Director of MIT.nano, MIT's new 200,000 sqft nano-fabrication, nano-characterization, and prototyping facility. He is an author of over 250 research articles (cited over 50,000 times and recognized as the top 1% of the most highly cited in the Web of Science). He is an inventor of over 100 U.S. patents in areas of light emitting diodes, lasers, photovoltaics, photodetectors, chemical sensors, programmable memories, and micro-electro machines, majority of which have been licensed and utilized by both start-up and multinational companies. The three start-up companies Bulović co-founded jointly employ over 350 people, and include Ubiquitous Energy, Inc., developing nanostructured solar technologies, Kateeva, Inc., focused on development of printed electronics, and QD Vision, Inc. (acquired in 2016) that produced quantum dot optoelectronic components. Products of these companies have been used by millions. Bulović was the first Associate Dean for Innovation of the School of Engineering and the Inaugural co-Director of MIT’s Innovation Initiative, which he co-led from 2013 to 2018. For his passion for teaching Bulović has been recognized with the MacVicar Fellowship, MIT’s highest teaching honor. He completed his Electrical Engineering B.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees at Princeton University.
Dimitri Antoniadis is a distinguished figure in the field of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He currently holds the position of Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Professor Emeritus) at MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).
Born in Athens, Greece, Antoniadis received his B.S. in Physics from the National University of Athens in 1970 and later earned his Ph.D., though the specific institution for his doctoral studies is not mentioned in the provided information.
Antoniadis has been a Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT since 1978, showcasing a long and dedicated career in academia. His research interests primarily focus on electronic, magnetic, optical and quantum materials and devices, as well as nanoscale materials, devices, and systems.
Throughout his career, Antoniadis has made significant contributions to the field of microelectronics. He co-founded and served as the first director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) at MIT, demonstrating his leadership in advancing microsystems research and development.
In recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions to his field, Antoniadis was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019, alongside his colleagues Anantha Chandrakasan and David Karger.
Antoniadis has also been involved in industry collaborations, having previously served as a Director at IBIS Technology Corp. His work has been instrumental in reasserting U.S. leadership in microelectronics, with his involvement in strategies for universities to help the United States regain its position as a semiconductor superpower.
As a respected member of the MIT community, Antoniadis continues to contribute to the field of electrical engineering and computer science, leaving a lasting impact on both academia and industry through his research, leadership, and mentorship.
- Track 4: Healthcare - Track 5: Artificial Intelligence - Track 6: Quantum 2.0
Professor of the Practice, MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department (EECS) Chief technology officer, Analog Business for Texas Instruments Director, TI Silicon Valley Labs
Ahmad Bahai is a senior vice president and chief technology officer (CTO) of Texas Instruments, responsible for guiding breakthrough innovation, corporate research, and Kilby Labs.
Dr. Bahai is a Professor of the Practice at MIT, an IEEE Fellow, and a member of the US Department of Commerce’s Industrial Advisory Committee related to the CHIPS for America Act. He was an adjunct professor at Stanford University from 2017-2022 and a professor in residence at the University of California, Berkeley from 2001-2010. Throughout his career, Dr. Bahai has held a number of leadership roles including director of research labs and chief technology officer of National Semiconductor, technical manager of a research group at Bell Laboratories, and founder of Algorex, a communication and acoustic IC and system company that was acquired by National Semiconductor.
He holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London and a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from the UC Berkeley.
Recent innovations in semiconductor technology and biochemistry have brought about opportunities for realizing the long sought-after dream of personalized care. Periodic clinical-quality readings of biomarkers and vital signs provide the data needed to build a digital twin of one’s biological profile based on an AI-generated model. The digital twin will be a powerful tool for prevention, diagnosis, prognosis as well as therapeutic plans. The “Waves, Bits, and Molecules”” lab at MIT envisions transformational improvements in healthcare and life quality through innovations in advanced technologies at the intersection of semiconductor technology, biochemistry, and machine learning. In this talk, we review innovative semiconductor technologies such as electrochemical, Ultrasonic, photoacoustic, RF, and magnetic sensors and nanoactuators, which can transform the future of personalized diagnostics and treatments.
Professor of Electrical Engineering, MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department Professor, MIT Biological Engineering
Dr. Jongyoon Han is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a B.S.(1992) and an M.S.(1994) degree in physics from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Cornell University in 2001. He received the NSF CAREER (2003) and the Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award (ACS, 2009). His current research is focused on engineering innovative microfluidic solutions to various biomanufacturing challenges, including upstream and downstream bioprocessing of CHO and HEK 293 cells, assays for critical quality attributes (CQAs) for cell therapies, and methodologies for safety assurance. He is currently the lead Principal Investigator for MIT’s participation in NIIMBL (The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals). He is also a co-lead PI for CAMP IRG in SMART Centre, Singapore, where novel CQAs for cell therapies are being developed.
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has revolutionized cancer care, yet its manufacturing remains challenging due to variability in quality and efficacy. In this talk we introduce a novel microfluidic, label-free cellular biophysical profiling assay that rapidly assesses the functional phenotypes of CAR T cells. Our assay leverages biophysical features such as cell size and deformability to directly correlate with critical functional attributes, including the CD4:CD8 ratio, effector and central memory subtypes, and killing potency. Validated through extensive longitudinal studies across multiple CAR T batches from different donors and culture platforms, this method requires fewer than 10,000 cells and completes profiling within 10 minutes. The assay provides an efficient means to predict CAR T cell quality at critical manufacturing stages, thereby potentially reducing batch failure rates and enhancing therapeutic consistency.
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research
Mark Harnett studies how the biophysical features of individual neurons, including ion channels, receptors, and membrane electrical properties, endow neural circuits with the ability to process information and perform the complex computations that underlie behavior. As part of this work, the Harnett lab was the first to describe the physiological properties of human dendrites, the elaborate tree-like structures through which neurons receive the vast majority of their synaptic inputs. Harnett also examines how computations are instantiated in neural circuits to produce complex behaviors such as spatial navigation.
Mark Harnett joined the McGovern Institute in 2015 and is currently an associate professor and graduate officer in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He received his BA in Biology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon and his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining MIT, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus where he worked with Jeff Magee.
The thousands of inputs a single neuronal cell receives can interact in complex ways that depend on their spatial arrangement and on the biophysical properties of their respective dendrites. For example, operations such as coincidence detection, pattern recognition, input comparison, and simple logical functions can be carried out locally within and across individual branches of a dendritic tree. In this talk, we will present the hypothesis that the brain leverages these fundamental integrative operations within dendrites to increase the processing power and efficiency of neural computation. We will focus on sensory processing and spatial navigation, with the goal of understanding the mechanistic basis of these brain functions.
Alfred Henry (1929) and Jean Morrison Hayes Career Development Professor; Assistant Professor, MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department
Sixian You is an Assistant Professor in the MIT EECS department, and a Principal Investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics. Her research interest is biophotonics and optical microscopy for biomedical translation. Sixian did her B.S. at Huazhong U of Sci and Tech on optics, Ph.D. at UIUC working on microscopy, and completed her postdoc at UC Berkeley on computational microscopy. She has been the recipient of NSF CAREER Award, SCIALOG (Advancing Bioimaging) Award, Amazon Research Award, Microscopy Innovation Award, McGinnis Medical Innovation Graduate Inaugural Fellowship, Computational Science and Engineering Fellowship (UIUC), and Nikon Photomicrography Competition Image of Distinction award. Her work has been featured on the Cancer Research Cover, PNAS Cover, and Nature Communications Editors’ Highlight.
Many diseases manifest with subtle metabolic and structural changes before becoming visually apparent on traditional biopsies. Label-free nonlinear microscopy offers the potential for non-invasive, metabolic, in vivo imaging but faces limitations in contrast generation and clinical adaptability. In this talk, I will present optical and computational methods overcoming these challenges. By controlling nonlinear effects in multimode fibers, flexible, efficient, and deep excitation of metabolic and structural contrast can be achieved without the aid of stains, enabling perturbation-free exploration of living systems. These capabilities further motivate the development of AI algorithms that boost photon efficiency and 3D imaging resolution, allowing us to illuminate diseases in unprecedented detail. The integrated approach promises to bridge the gap between theoretical potential and practical utility in clinical and biological settings.
Breene M. Kerr (1951) Professor, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Bilge Yildiz is the Breene M. Kerr (1951) Professor in the Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads the Laboratory for Electrochemical Interfaces. Yildiz’s research focuses on laying the scientific groundwork to enable next generation electrochemical devices for energy conversion and information processing. The scientific insights derived from her research guide the design of novel materials and interfaces for efficient and durable solid oxide fuel cells, electrolytic water splitting, brain-inspired computing, and solid state batteries. Yildiz laboratory has made significant contributions in advancing the molecular-level understanding of ion diffusion, oxygen reduction, water splitting and charge transfer mechanisms in mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides. Yildiz’s research has uncovered the effects of surface chemistry, elastic strain, dislocations, and strong electric fields on the reactivity, efficiency, and degradation in these applications. Her approach combines computational and experimental analyses at the atomic and electronic level, using in situ scanning tunneling and X-ray spectroscopy together with first-principles calculations and novel atomistic simulations. Yildiz’s teaching and research efforts have been recognized by the Argonne Pace Setter (2006), ANS Outstanding Teaching (2008), NSF CAREER (2011), IU-MRS Somiya (2012), the ECS Charles Tobias Young Investigator (2012), the ACerS Ross Coffin Purdy (2018) and the LG Chem Global Innovation Contest (2020) awards. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2021), the Royal Society of Chemistry (2022), and the Electrochemical Society (2023) and an elected member of the Austrian Academy of Science (2023).
Physical neural networks made of analog resistive switching processors are promising platforms for analog computing and for emulating biological synapses. State-of-the-art resistive switches rely on either conductive filament formation or phase change. These processes suffer from poor reproducibility or high energy consumption, respectively. Our work, on one hand, focuses on understanding and controlling the variability of the conductive filament formation in insulating oxide materials. On the other hand, we are innovating alternative synapse designs that rely on a deterministic charge-controlled mechanism, modulated electrochemically in a solid state, and that consists of shuffling the smallest cation, the proton. As typical throughout our research, here, too, we combine experimental synthesis, fabrication, and characterization with first principles-based computational modeling to gain a deep understanding and control of these promising devices.
Joel Emer is a Professor of the Practice at MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department (EECS) and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is also a Senior Distinguished Research Scientist at Nvidia in Westford, MA, where he is responsible for exploration of future architectures as well as modeling and analysis methodologies. Prior to joining NVIDIA, he worked at Intel where he was an Intel Fellow and Director of Microarchitecture Research. Previously he worked at Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
Dr. Emer has held various research and advanced development positions investigating processor micro-architecture and developing performance modeling and evaluation techniques. He has made architectural contributions to a number of VAX, Alpha and X86 processors and is recognized as one of the developers of the widely employed quantitative approach to processor performance evaluation. He has also been recognized for his contributions in the advancement of simultaneous multi-threading technology, analysis of the architectural impact of soft errors, memory dependence prediction, pipeline and cache organization, performance modeling methodologies and spatial architectures.
Dr Emer received a bachelor's degree with highest honors in electrical engineering in 1974, and his master's degree in 1975 -- both from Purdue University. He earned a doctorate under the direction of Profressor Edward Davidson in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1979. Dr. Emer holds over 25 patents and has published more than 60 papers.
Jeffrey Cheah Career Development Chair, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE)
Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli (Rafa) is the Jeffrey Cheah Career Development Professor at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering since 2018. Rafa received BS, MS, and PhD (2011) degrees in chemistry from Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), followed by postdoctoral work at Heriot-Watt (UK) and Harvard Universities, and a stint in industry at Kyulux North America. He has been awarded the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation "Machine Learning in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Awards" in 2021 and the Google Faculty Research Award in 2019. He was co-founder of Calculario a Harvard spinout company, was Chief Learning Officer of ZebiAI, a drug discovery startup acquired by Relay Therapeutics in 2022 and serves as consultant and scientific advisor to multiple startups
AI’s influence is undeniable in the digital realm, affecting consumers’ lives and corporate operations. Transferring these advancements to sectors producing physical goods, such as drug discovery and biotech, commodity chemicals, materials for energy and sustainability, and manufacturing, presents a thrilling prospect and a translational challenge. This talk will explore the present use cases and the potential of applying generative AI within the chemistry and materials domain. Unlike a large part of the tech sector, these industries are capital-intensive and cautious, meaning that AI must bridge an “execution gap” between the digital and physical realms for value generation. We will outline strategies to overcome current technical and cultural hurdles.
Song Han is an associate professor at MIT EECS. He received his PhD degree from Stanford University. He proposed the “Deep Compression” technique including pruning and quantization that is widely used for efficient AI computing, and “Efficient Inference Engine” that first brought weight sparsity to modern AI chips, which is a top-5 cited paper in 50 years of ISCA. He pioneered the TinyML research that brings deep learning to IoT devices. His team’s recent work on large language model quantization and acceleration (SmoothQuant, AWQ, StreamingLLM) improved the efficiency of LLM inference, adopted by NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM. Song received best paper awards at ICLR and FPGA, faculty awards from Amazon, Facebook, NVIDIA, Samsung and SONY. Song was named “35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT Technology Review, NSF CAREER Award, and Sloan Research Fellowship. Song was the cofounder of DeePhi (now part of AMD), and cofounder of OmniML (now part of NVIDIA). Song developed the EfficientML.ai course to disseminate efficient ML research.
This talk presents efficient multi-modal LLM innovations with algorithm and system co-design. I’ll first present VILA, a visual language model deployable on the edge. It is capable of visual in-context learning, multi-image reasoning, video captioning and video QA. Followed by SmoothQuant and AWQ for LLM quantization, which enables VILA deployable on edge devices, bringing new capabilities for mobile vision applications. Second, I’ll present StreamingLLM, a KV cache optimization technique for long conversation and QUEST, leveraging sparsity for KV cache compression.
Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor, MIT Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Professor of Physics Director, Center for Quantum Engineering Associate Director, Research Laboratory of Electronics
Dr. William D. Oliver is appointed Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He serves as the inaugural Director of the MIT Center for Quantum Engineering and as Associate Director of the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics. He spent 20 years at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, most recently as Laboratory Fellow. Will’s research interests include the materials, fabrication, design, and implementation of superconducting qubit processors, as well as the development of cryogenic packaging and control electronics for extensible quantum computing applications. Will is an avid public speaker, technical lecturer, educator, entrepreneur, and coauthor of more than 130 peer-reviewed manuscripts on quantum science and technology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Physical Society (APS), Senior Member of the IEEE; serves on the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee and the US Committee for Superconducting Electronics; and was a coauthor of the 2019 National Academies consensus study report entitled, “Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects”. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Stanford University in 2003.
Quantum computers are fundamentally different than conventional computers. They promise to address certain problems that are practically prohibitive and even impossible to solve using today’s supercomputers. The challenge is building one that is large enough to be useful. In this talk, we will provide an overview of contemporary quantum computing at an intuitive level, including the technology, the promise, the hype, and the challenges ahead associated with realizing useful quantum computers at scale.
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Dirk Englund received his BS in Physics from Caltech in 2002. Following a Fulbright year at TU Eindhoven, he earned an MS in electrical engineering and a PhD in Applied Physics in 2008, both from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 2010 when he started his group as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at Columbia University. In 2013, he joined the faculty of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Dirk's research focuses on quantum technologies based on semiconductor and optical systems. Outside the office, Dirk enjoys doing sports, music, and spending time with family and friends.
The world of quantum mechanics holds enormous potential to address unsolved problems in communications, computation, precision measurements, and machine learning/AI. Dr. Englund's QP-Group at MIT pursues experimental and theoretical research towards machine learning hardware and critical quantum technologies (computing, networking, sensing) by precision control of photons and atomic systems, combining techniques from atomic physics, optoelectronics, and modern semiconductor devices. In this talk, Dr. Englund will share some of the latest research conducted by his group at MIT and their potential applications.
Farnaz Niroui is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research pushes the limits of nanoscale engineering to develop new paradigms of active nanoscale devices and systems. Prior to MIT, Farnaz was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California Berkeley. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT and completed her undergraduate studies in Nanotechnology Engineering at University of Waterloo. Farnaz has been the recipient of awards including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Director’s Award, MIT EECS Outstanding Educator Award, and Junior Bose Award for Teaching Excellence.
Engineering matter, with near-atomic control, is core to designing the emergent properties that help drive today’s technology frontiers in computing, sensing and information processing. However, realizing such precision engineering is challenged by the conventional fabrication strategies lacking the desired resolution and compatibility for the integration of unconventional nanomaterials and device designs. We address these limits by developing new engineering frameworks enabling down to atomic-scale control of materials and their heterogeneous integration into functional structures with designer properties for next-generation electronics, optoelectronics, and photonic quantum technologies, which will be discussed in this talk.
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is currently Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT. He received his “Licenciatura” in physics from the University of Valencia, Spain, in 1999. Then, he spent two years at the University of California in San Diego, where he received an M.Sc. degree before going to the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2005. After a one-year postdoc in Delft, he moved to Columbia University, where he worked as a NanoResearch Initiative Fellow. He joined MIT as an assistant professor of physics in January 2008 and received tenure in 2015. He was promoted to Full Professor of Physics in 2018. His awards include the Spanish Royal Society Young Investigator Award (2006), an NSF Career Award (2008), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2009), a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (2009), the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Semiconductor Physics (2010), a DOE Early Career Award (2011), a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2012), an ONR Young Investigator Award (2013), and a Moore Foundation Experimental Physics in Quantum Systems Investigator Award (2014). Prof. Jarillo-Herrero has been selected as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics-Web of Science (2017-present), and was elected APS Fellow (2018), Fellow of the Quantum Materials Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR, 2019), and Member at Large of the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics (2019). Prof. Jarillo-Herrero is the recipient of the APS 2020 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize, the 2020 Wolf Prize in Physics, the 2020 Medal of the Spanish Royal Physics Society, the 2021 Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal, the 2021 Max Planck Humboldt Research Award, and the 2021 US National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery. He became elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
The understanding of strongly interacting quantum matter has challenged physicists for decades. The discovery four years ago of correlated phases and superconductivity in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene has led to the emergence of a new materials platform to investigate strongly interacting physics, namely moiré quantum matter. These systems exhibit a plethora of quantum phases, such as correlated insulators, superconductivity, magnetism, ferroelectricity, and more. In this talk, Jarillo-Herrero will review some of the recent advances in the field, focusing on the newest generation of moiré quantum systems, where correlated physics, superconductivity, and other fascinating phases can be studied with unprecedented tunability. He will conclude with an outlook of some exciting directions in this emerging field.