CAMBRDIGE, Mass. — Four MIT faculty members are among 23 world-class researchers who have been awarded the nation’s highest honors for scientists and innovators, the White House this week.
Angela Belcher and Emery Brown were each presented with the National Medal of Science at a White House ceremony this afternoon, and Paula Hammond ’84, PhD ’93, and Feng Zhang were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, was honored for her work designing novel materials for applications that include solar cells, batteries, and medical imaging.
Brown, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience, was recognized for work that has revealed how anesthesia affects the brain. Brown is also a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).
Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor, vice provost for faculty, and member of the Koch Institute, was honored for developing methods for assembling thin films that can be used for drug delivery, wound healing, and many other applications.
Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering, was recognized for his work developing molecular tools, including the CRISPR genome-editing system, that have the potential to diagnose and treat disease. Zhang is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
