Eric Evans shall be stepping down as director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory on July 1, 2024, after 18 years main a laboratory that has served the nation by its know-how analysis and improvement since 1951.
Evans will transition into the position of fellow within the director’s workplace at Lincoln Laboratory. He will even maintain an appointment on the MIT campus as a senior fellow within the Security Studies Program. He will help the continuing progress of collaborative analysis and improvement between Lincoln Laboratory and the MIT campus, together with in areas associated to local weather change as nicely as the exploration of superior know-how functions inside the Security Studies Program.
The transition will mark the tip of a profitable tenure by which Evans led the laboratory to adapt and strengthen throughout a time of important change for nationwide safety wants. He has additionally served as a key advisor on know-how technique to senior authorities leaders.
“It has been an honor and privilege to lead MIT Lincoln Laboratory,” Evans says. “I really appreciate what our laboratory community has done over many years to develop some of the nation’s most important and difficult technical advancements.”
Lincoln Laboratory is a federally funded analysis and improvement middle that focuses on know-how improvement, system prototyping, and functionality transition to the federal government, industrial corporations, and trade.
Under Evans’ management, the laboratory established new analysis and improvement mission areas in cybersecurity, homeland safety, and biotechnology, and began new applications in humanitarian help and catastrophe reduction, local weather change know-how, quantum data science, and power system resilience. Evans has additionally strengthened ties with the MIT analysis neighborhood, elevated range and inclusion efforts, superior STEM schooling initiatives, and developed new fashions for know-how switch to small and medium-size industrial corporations.
Evans has additionally been a member and vice chair and is now chair of the Defense Science Board (DSB). The DSB investigates science and know-how wants for the U.S. Department of Defense and strives to remedy extremely unstructured issues and develop new alternatives for the protection of the nation.
“During his two decades of service to Lincoln Laboratory, Eric’s leadership has proven what an ambitious R&D laboratory and a major institute can achieve together: transformative improvements to the systems that keep the world safe, and a lasting impact on the practice of innovation itself,” says Maria Zuber, MIT’s vp for analysis. “Eric has been ahead of the curve in recognizing the global implications of emerging technology areas, and he’s been a trusted advisor on science and technology strategy. The culture of excellence, collaboration, and creativity that Eric has sustained at Lincoln Laboratory ensures its success well into the future. I’m thankful for his service and grateful that he will remain at MIT in his new roles.”
Zuber introduced Evans’ resolution in a letter to college and workers at the moment. She will appoint a search committee to advise on the choice of the laboratory’s subsequent director.
A profession in service
Evans began at Lincoln Laboratory in 1988 as a technical workers member. After being named director of Lincoln Laboratory in 2006, he instantly started working with laboratory leaders and workers to develop new mission areas and applications primarily based on nationwide wants. He labored with many on the laboratory to set up a big homeland-protection mission space to create sensors and information integration methods to help the wants of the Department of Homeland Security. Under Evans’ management the laboratory developed new homeland air protection capabilities and chemical and organic sensor methods to defend towards superior threats.
Later, the laboratory established a cybersecurity mission space to deal with the dynamic threats posed by cyberattacks. Through many new applications, Lincoln Laboratory researchers developed know-how to help within the safety of protection and civilian cyber networks and to enhance the cyber resilience of {hardware} and software program for brand spanking new computing methods.
The laboratory additionally began important new work in biotechnology and human methods to develop superior methods for monitoring well being standing and helping in harm restoration for the Army and different sponsors. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Evans directed the laboratory to quickly apply its biotechnology sources to the issues of medical useful resource allocation, well being monitoring, computerized contact tracing, and virus dispersion evaluation. Many of these applied sciences proceed to be improved and transitioned to new functions.
Leveraging giant protection investments for airborne floor mapping sensors and communication networks, the laboratory established new applications for humanitarian help and catastrophe reduction, together with fast responses to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas.
Evans has additionally targeted on increasing different applications to deal with civilian wants. For instance, new plane collision-avoidance and climate avoidance know-how developed with funding from the FAA has improved flight security worldwide.
NASA-funded applications have additionally benefited from Lincoln Laboratory initiatives. A significant milestone occurred in 2013 with the primary two-way demonstration of wide-bandwidth laser communication between the moon and Earth. This innovation opened up new potentialities for NASA, which plans to use the know-how to relay information throughout interplanetary distances.
“Eric is a gifted and impactful leader who has transferred advances in innovation and research beyond the borders of the lab, in service to the world,” says MIT Provost Cynthia Barnhart.
Stronger ties to MIT
Over the previous 15 years, the quantity of Lincoln Laboratory analysis collaborations with MIT’s campus has elevated by almost an element of 4. The laboratory has expanded collaboration by offering funding for campus analysis, making many of its services out there for campus researchers, supporting undergraduate and graduate instructing, and posing new analysis questions.
As a component of that collaboration, Lincoln Laboratory partnered with MIT’s School of Engineering in 2013 to set up the Beaver Works Center at MIT. The facility permits collaborative prototyping and know-how improvement by MIT researchers and Lincoln Laboratory technical workers.
More not too long ago, Lincoln Laboratory labored with the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics to set up the Center for Quantum Engineering to develop new applied sciences for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. Lincoln Laboratory can be a contributor to the Department of the Air Force – MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator program.
A distinguished instance of analysis collaboration was the 2018 launch of the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Lincoln Laboratory labored intently with the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research to develop the extremely delicate cameras onboard TESS, which since its launch has found many new planets orbiting distant stars.
Striving for an inclusive tradition and neighborhood service
Throughout his tenure, Evans has additionally taken steps to improve the laboratory’s tradition to be extra inclusive and supportive, considerably rising the proportion of ladies and other people of colour in technical and management roles. He established an Office of Diversity and Inclusion, appointed a chief range and inclusion officer, and strengthened the Human Resources Department to enhance workers recruiting, improvement, and retention.
To help the nationwide want for extra numerous expertise, Evans served for six years as the chair of the board for the National GEM Consortium, a company that gives fellowships to underrepresented minorities pursuing graduate levels in STEM fields. Through the efforts of many GEM volunteers and workers, the quantity of GEM fellowships elevated considerably throughout Evans’ tenure main the board. “I deeply appreciated being involved in this program supporting a critically important need,” Evans says. “The GEM mission is outstanding, and Lincoln Laboratory has very much benefited from their support and from the exceptional GEM Fellows we’ve hired.”
Evans has additionally strongly supported the creation of many applications to promote Okay-12 pupil curiosity in STEM fields. The laboratory’s STEM outreach applications have reached greater than 100,000 college students throughout the nation, with almost 8,000 college students per 12 months concerned in applications that embody constructing radars, designing small satellites, creating autonomous mannequin vehicles, and growing new cryptography algorithms.
Positioned for future success
Moving ahead, Evans has positioned Lincoln Laboratory to proceed evolving its mission. The laboratory is at the moment pursuing analysis in rising know-how areas such as synthetic intelligence, artificial biology, and quantum methods and making main investments in new services and specialised laboratories.
As half of its services modernization, the laboratory not too long ago broke floor for the development of a big, $300M microelectronics laboratory to develop new know-how for sensing and computing. A second $300 million Department of Defense funding is for an engineering prototyping facility that can start development in 2026. Several different new analysis and improvement services are deliberate by a long-term services modernization plan supported by the DoD. “These facilities investments will enable the laboratory to remain a strong center for developing revolutionary technology for decades to come,” Evans says.
After he steps down as director, Evans will proceed to work with the protection neighborhood to help research for present and future protection system and know-how wants. He will even be growing and instructing programs associated to know-how for nationwide safety.
“MIT Lincoln Laboratory is a special place, and I have really enjoyed the experiences of leading and learning. I am most proud of the significant impact our creative leaders and staff have had on national security and society over many years,” Evans says.