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MIT Associates Recognized with 2025 IEEE Awards

IEEE Highlights Recipients of 2025 Medals and Technical Awards: Three Current MIT Faculty Members and Five Alumni Honored for Their Significant Contributions to Electrical and Electronics Engineering.

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IEEE unveils the honorees for their 2025 medals and technical awards: Three faculty members from...
IEEE unveils the honorees for their 2025 medals and technical awards: Three faculty members from MIT and five alumni were celebrated for their significant work in electrical and electronics engineering.

MIT Associates Recognized with 2025 IEEE Awards

The IEEE recently dishced out some major medals, technical awards, and fellowships in 2025, and MIT was well-represented. Four faculty members, a staff member, and five alumni from the esteemed institution were honored.

Let's take a look at a few standout individuals:

Regina Barzilay hailed from the School of Engineering as a Distinguished Professor for AI and Health, and snagged the IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal. Her innovative machine learning algorithms have paved the way for advances in human language technology and have had a significant impact on medical field. Her work focuses on developing machine learning algorithms for modeling molecular properties in the context of drug design, elucidating disease biochemistry, and accelerating the creation of new therapeutics. In the field of clinical AI, she focuses on algorithms for early cancer diagnostics. Additionally, she serves as the AI faculty lead within the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, an affiliate of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She's a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has bagged the MacArthur Fellowship, MIT's Jamieson Award for excellence in teaching, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence's $1 million Squirrel AI Award, and is a fellow of AAAI, ACL, and AIMBE.

James J. Collins sported the title of the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science, professor of biological engineering at MIT, and member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology faculty. Awarded the 2025 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology, Collins is a pioneer in synthetic biology and has left an indelible mark on the field. He's a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Collins employs engineering principles to model, design, and build synthetic gene circuits and programmable cells to create novel classes of diagnostics and therapeutics. His patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma, and medical device companies, and he has co-founded several companies, including Synlogic, Senti Biosciences, Sherlock Biosciences, Cellarity, and the nonprofit Phare Bio. Collins has garnered numerous accolades such as the MacArthur "Genius" Award, the Dickson Prize in Medicine, and election to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Roozbeh Jafari carved a niche for himself as the principal staff member in MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Biotechnology and Human Systems Division, and was bestowed an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to sensors and systems for digital health paradigms. He dedicated himself to establishing impactful and highly collaborative programs between Lincoln Laboratory, MIT campus, and other U.S. academic entities to promote health and wellness for national security and public health. His research interests span wearable-computer design, sensors, systems, and AI for digital health, most recently focusing on digital twins for precision health. He's published over 200 refereed papers and served as general chair and technical program committee chair for several flagship conferences focused on wearable computers. Jafari has received numerous honors such as the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium Best Paper Award, the IEEE Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award, and the Association for Computing Machinery Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems Best Paper Award.

William Oliver SM '97 served as the Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and professor of physics at MIT, and was elected as an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to superconductive quantum computing technology and its teaching. He leads the Engineering Quantum Systems (EQuS) group at MIT and is a member of the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee. Through MIT xPRO, he created four online professional development courses addressing the fundamentals and practical realities of quantum computing. Inventor or co-inventor on more than 10 patents, he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society; serves on the U.S. Committee for Superconducting Electronics; and is a lead editor for the IEEE Applied Superconductivity Conference.

Daniela Rus helmed the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing deputy dean of research, and the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Honored with the IEEE Edison Medal for "sustained leadership and pioneering contributions in modern robotics," Rus' research in robotics, artificial intelligence, and data science focuses primarily on developing the science and engineering of autonomy, where she envisions groups of robots interacting with each other and with people to support humans with cognitive and physical tasks. She's a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and of IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineers and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Nineteen additional MIT alumni were also recognized. Some of the awards these alumni earned include the Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award, the Eric E. Sumner Award, the Simon Ramo Medal, the Haraden Pratt Award, and the Robotics and Automation Award. These MIT alumni have also been named IEEE Fellows.

  1. The IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal was given to Regina Barzilay, a Distinguished Professor for AI and Health from MIT's School of Engineering.
  2. Barzilay's machine learning algorithms have revolutionized human language technology and made a substantial impact on the medical field.
  3. Her focus revolves around developing machine learning algorithms for modeling molecular properties in drug design, disease biochemistry, and the creation of new therapeutics.
  4. In the clinical AI field, Barzilay concentrates on algorithms for early cancer diagnostics.
  5. Barzilay also serves as the AI faculty lead within the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health.
  6. James J. Collins, a professor from MIT and member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology faculty, received the 2025 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology.
  7. Collins is a pioneer in synthetic biology and has significantly impacted the field with his innovative work.
  8. Collins employs engineering principles to model, design, and build synthetic gene circuits and programmable cells to create novel diagnostics and therapeutics.
  9. Roozbeh Jafari, a principal staff member in MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Biotechnology and Human Systems Division, was bestowed an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to sensors and systems for digital health paradigms.
  10. Jafari's research interests span wearable-computer design, sensors, systems, and AI for digital health.
  11. Jafari has received numerous honors such as the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and the IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium Best Paper Award.
  12. William Oliver SM '97 was elected as an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to superconductive quantum computing technology and its teaching.
  13. He leads the Engineering Quantum Systems (EQuS) group at MIT and is a member of the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee.
  14. Oliver created four online professional development courses addressing the fundamentals and practical realities of quantum computing through MIT xPRO.
  15. Daniela Rus, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory director, received the IEEE Edison Medal for "sustained leadership and pioneering contributions in modern robotics."
  16. Rus' research in robotics, artificial intelligence, and data science focuses on developing the science and engineering of autonomy, with a vision of groups of robots interacting with each other and with people to support humans with cognitive and physical tasks.
  17. These MIT alumni, in addition to the ones mentioned, were also recognized by the IEEE/TIE, with awards such as the Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award, the Eric E. Sumner Award, the Simon Ramo Medal, the Haraden Pratt Award, and the Robotics and Automation Award, among others. Some of these alumni were also named IEEE Fellows.

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