We are pleased to announce that Anantha Babu has awarded the Travel Award in Ocean Engineering. All of the submissions for this noteworthy academic honor were strong, and they found his application to be of particular merit. Congratulations Anantha! 

The Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS), the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and mathematics competition for high school seniors, named Jason Youm, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2024 as an RSI scholar, among the top 300 scholars out of nearly 2,500 in the competition. Each scholar will receive $2,000, and their schools will also receive $2,000 to use toward STEM-related activities. Jason’s research with MSEAS was on “MSEAS-ParEq for Ocean Acoustic Modeling in the New England Seamount,” and was advised by Marcoul Robin. His Regeneron STS project title was “Average Rényi Entanglement Entropy in Gaussian Boson Sampling.”

This is an extraordinary accomplishment deserving of much celebration, so congrats Jason!

Recently, an article “Surface-based sonar system could rapidly map the ocean floor at high resolution” appeared in MIT News that highlights MSEAS research as part of the Wide Area Ocean Floor Mapping project, sponsored by MIT Lincoln Lab. This research was also recognized by 2024 R&D 100 Awards, sometimes called the “Oscars of Innovation.” Congrats again to Aaron, Wael, Pat, and Chris!

We are pleased to announce that Melody Yu, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2024 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted (early) to MIT for the Fall 2025 semester. Congrats Melody!

We are pleased to announce that Melody Yu, a student from Sage Hill School, Newport Coast, California, gave a presentation titled “Gaussian Closure Modeling for Fluid Dynamics,” which was named one of the top 5 Oral Presentations from RSI this year.

Also, Amelie Chen, a student from Pacific Horizons School Pago Pago, American Samoa, was chosen by her RSI peers for the top honor—Rickoid of the Year—at the RSI. The award recognizes academic acumen, leadership, and personal demeanor, and is named for the late Admiral H.G. Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy and a founder of CEE.

Congratulations to Melody and Amelie!

R&D 100 Winners for 2024

Wael’s and Aaron’s research on Autonomous Sparse-Aperture Multibeam Echo Sounder, as part of the Wide Area Ocean Floor Mapping project, sponsored by MIT Lincoln Lab, has been listed in R&D World’s 2024 R&D 100 Awards. Congratulations to Wael and Aaron!

Congratulations to Anantha Narayanan Suresh Babu, a Ph.D. candidate in the MSEAS group, for being awarded a 2024-2025 MathWorks Mechanical Engineering Fellowship! The competitive MathWorks Engineering Fellowships are awarded to the top nominees from all of the academic departments in the School of Engineering, who use MATLAB and/or Simulink to advance discovery and innovation across disciplines. All the best to Anantha!

Congratulations to Ellen Mule for winning the Richard Pittenger Fellowship! The Richard Pittenger Fellowship is awarded annually to a U.S. naval officer in the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Joint Program. The fellowship was established to honor the WHOI’s former vice president of marine operations, who retired in 2004 after 14 years at WHOI and 32 years in the Navy, including a tour as Oceanographer of the Navy. He was a strong advocate for science and engineering education for naval officers.

Congratulations to Wael, Aaron, and Pierre for co-authoring a paper entitled “A Wide-Area Deep Ocean Floor Mapping System: Design and Sea Tests,” which appeared in Geomatics in 2023. The full paper is available from our publications website.

Read more about this award and previous MIT Lincoln Laboratories Best Paper & Best Invention Awards.

In the spring semester of 2021, amidst the upheaval of remote education, the members of class 2.29 “Numerical Fluid Mechanics” navigated the challenges of online learning with grace and resilience. Led by their dedicated Professor Pierre Lermusiaux, supported by TA’s Aaron Charous and Corbin Foucart and administrative assistant Lisa Maxwell, the class embraced virtual tools to foster engagement and collaboration. Throughout the semester, they engaged actively in discussions and presentations using digital platforms. Despite the challenges of distance, the class maintained a sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm. During the final project presentations, Lisa’s ukulele performance added a memorable touch. Singing the lyrics she penned, Lisa’s song served as a heartfelt reminder of their shared journey through remote learning.

The 2.29 Song

Oh yeah we're 2.29
We had our whole class online
In the Spring of '21
Pierre taught twice a week
In a Zoom room he would speak
Can't believe the semester's gone!

Pierre buzzed like a bee
to keep us awake...THAT'S SO MIT!
Where were you at 11:35...?
Crank Nicholson's a finite
Dynamics you're dynamite
It's pahDAY (not PAHday)
you need to derive!

There were equations Euler
(that's quasilinear!),
Taylor Tables and fluid flow...
The first derivative? Give me a sedative!
Let me say (implicitly and explicitly)
where you can go!

That's right we're 2.29!
We had class all online
in the Spring of '21.
We learned lots and lots,
now we're dynamics Hot Shots!
Thanks for being so much fun!

Congratulations to Anantha Narayanan Suresh Babu, a Ph.D. candidate in the MSEAS group, for being awarded a 2023-2024 MathWorks Mechanical Engineering Fellowship! The competitive MathWorks Engineering Fellowships are awarded to the top nominees from all of the academic departments in the School of Engineering, who are using MATLAB and/or Simulink to advance discovery and innovation across disciplines. All the best to Anantha!

Graduate student Wael Hajj Ali has been awarded a 2023 Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Outstanding Graduate Research and Education by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations Wael!

Graduate student Anantha Narayanan Suresh Babu has received the M.A. Abkowitz travel award to attend the SIAM Conference on Mathematical & Computational Issues in the Geosciences in Bergen, Norway. The conference will take place from June 19-22, 2023. The Award was created to commemorate Professor Martin A. Abkowitz. The purpose of this fund, set up through donations by family and friends, was to establish an endowed fellowship to support travel by MIT researchers and faculty to attend international symposia and to foster cooperation between nations in ocean engineering. Congratulations Anantha!

Congratulations to Aditya Saravanakumar and Anantha Narayanan Suresh Babu for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering PhD Qualifying Exams. They now begin their journey towards outstanding PhD theses. All the best!

In January 2023, Rishab Jain, Sruthi Sentil, and Patrick Wahlig, high school seniors who joined MSEAS during summer 2022 as RSI scholars, recently entered the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS), the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and mathematics competition for high school seniors, and were named top 300 scholars out of 1,949 students in the 2023 competition. Each scholar will receive $2,000, and their schools will also receive $2,000 to use toward STEM-related activities. Rishab’s research with MSEAS was on “GlioMod: Spatiotemporal-Aware Glioblastoma Multiforme Tumor Growth Modeling with Deep Encoder-Decoder Networks,” and was advised by Abhinav Gupta and Wael Hajj Ali; Sruthi’s research was on “Machine Learning-Informed Ocean Source Localization In An Ocean Waveguide Environment,” and was advised by Wael Hajj Ali; and Patrick’s research was on “Towards a System for Modeling the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Sea Scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) in Massachusetts Bay,” and was advised by Pat Haley.

This is an extraordinary accomplishment deserving of much celebration, so congrats Rishab, Sruthi, and Patrick!

Rishab Jain, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2022 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to Harvard for the Fall 2023 semester. Congrats Rishab!

Patrick Wahlig, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2022 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to Yale for the Fall 2023 semester. Patrick, who was advised by Pat Haley, received Top 5 Paper Recognition from RSI last summer. Congrats Patrick!

Pierre Lermusiaux has been elected Chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE) for the upcoming 2023-2024 term. SIAG/MPE is for mathematicians and computational scientists who care about the future of our planet. It is a multidisciplinary activity group studying Earth’s climate system and the effects of climate change; issues of resilience, sustainability, and biodiversity; and the impact of human activities on the environment.

For more information, see the SIAM/MPE web page.

Graduate student Aaron Charous from the MSEAS group recently won the Young/Early Career Presenter Award in Computational Acoustics at the 183rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Aaron’s presentation was on “Learning coordinate transforms for fast and accurate acoustic modeling.” The results enable accurate computational predictions of 3D underwater sound propagation in the ocean with complex bathymetries and discontinuities.

Three awards are made of up to USD $250 each. The award winners were selected based on the quality of the presented paper, comprising both the content and its delivery.

Aaron also won this award at last year’s ASA meeting. Congratulations once again to Aaron!

Congratulations to Aaron Charous, who has won the MIT Center for Computational Science and Engineering MathWorks Prize for Outstanding CSE Masters Research, 2022! This award was given in recognition of Aaron’s research on “Dynamical Reduced-Order Models for High-Dimensional Systems.” The MathWorks Prize is awarded annually at the discretion of the selection committee, with consideration given to diversity of ideas, research areas, academic fields, research groups, and so on. Congratulations Aaron!

Congratulations to Manan Doshi, a Ph.D. candidate in the MSEAS group, for being awarded a 2022-2023 MathWorks Mechanical Engineering Fellowship! The competitive MathWorks Engineering Fellowships are awarded to the top nominees from all of the academic departments in the School of Engineering, who are using MATLAB and/or Simulink to advance discovery and innovation across disciplines. All the best to Manan!

Congratulations to Mike Humara on his recent promotion to Commander (CDR, O5) in the US Navy. Mike will now be the Commanding Officer of a submarine! Congratulations Mike!

Patrick Wahlig, a rising high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2022 as an RSI scholar, has received recognition for having a paper in the top five of those produced by all RSI students this year. His paper, “Towards a System for Modeling the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Sea Scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) in Massachusetts Bay,” focuses on designing a computer program modeling the impacts of ocean acidification on shellfish growth in Massachusetts Bay, calibrating existing equations to local conditions. Congrats Patrick!

MSEAS PhD candidates Aaron Charous and Wael Hajj Ali have won first place in the 2022 de Florez Award Competition. Their presentation, entitled “High-Resolution Seafloor Images Using a Novel Wide-Area Ocean Floor Mapping System”, placed first in the Graduate Science category. The competition website is here. Congratulations to Aaron and Wael!

Abhinav Gupta has been awarded a 2022 Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Outstanding Graduate Research by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations Abhinav!

Ashwin Sivakumar, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to, and plans to attend, Harvard for the Fall 2022 semester. Congrats Ashwin!

Cecilia Hou, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to, and plans to attend, Stanford for the Fall 2022 semester. Congrats Cecilia!

Camilla Martinez, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to, and plans to attend, Harvard for the Fall 2022 semester. Congrats Camilla!

Florian Feppon, an MSEAS alumnus who graduated in December 2016, has begun his new position as a Hermann-­Weyl postdoctoral instructor at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, under host Professor Habib Ammari. Florian will serve until August 2023. Congratulations Florian!

Aziz Hanafi, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, was recently admitted to, and plans to attend, MIT for the Fall 2022 semester. Congrats Aziz!

Abhinav’s machine learning research on neural closure models has been featured in the January 21, 2022 entry of MIT News [Archived PDF here]. Congratulations Abhinav for all your contributions!

Anya Zhang, a high school senior who joined MSEAS during summer 2021 as an RSI scholar, recently entered the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) and was named as one of the top 300 scholars out of 1,805 students in the 2022 competition. Her research with MSEAS reported on “Interactive Ocean Visualization Using VAPOR” and was included in the Regenron STS. Congrats Anya!

Congratulations to Aaron Charous, who won first prize for the Early Career Presenter in Computational Acoustics at the 181st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Seattle. The Computational Acoustics Technical Specialty Group (CA TSG) held its second Young/Early Career Presenter competition at this meeting, with 10 entrants. Three awards are made of up to USD $250 each. The award winners were selected based on the quality of the presented paper, comprising both the content and its delivery. Congrats Aaron!

Congratulations to Ben for receiving the ASNE Tidewater Section Admiral David Donohue Scholarship for 2021! This award is given by the American Society of Naval Engineers each year since 1979, and is given “in order to promote the profession of naval engineering and to encourage college students to enter the field. Since the inception of the Scholarship Program, ASNE has since awarded hundreds of scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing an education and career in naval engineering.” Congratulations once again to Ben!

Prof. Pierre Lermusiaux has been named Nam Pyo Suh Professor. Prof. Lermusiaux is a nationally and internationally recognized thought leader at the intersection of ocean modeling and observing. Congratulations Pierre!

3DSeaVizKit, a interactive visualization toolkit for ocean data developed by incoming MIT student Yoland Gao and PhD candidates Wael Hajj Ali and Corbin Foucart, has won first place in the de Florez Competition 2021. This year’s competition featured 9 entries in the Graduate Science category, a larger-than-usual number of entries since 2020 graduates missed their opportunity last year due to lockdown. Among these entries, 3DSeaVizKit placed first in the Graduate Science category. The competition website is here. Congratulations to Yoland, Wael, and Corbin!

The winning poster can be viewed here.

Congratulations to Benjamin Koenig, who has been selected to receive a 2021 Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) by the National Science Foundation (NSF). His selection as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow is a highly significant national accomplishment and places him among an elite group of fellows who have gone on to distinguished careers in STEM or STEM education. Congratulations Ben!

Abhinav Gupta’s poster “Neural Closure Models for Dynamical Systems” has won the Best Poster Award at the annual CCSE Student Poster Session. The poster session was part of the 2021 MIT CCSE Symposium, which took place in a virtual format on March 15, 2021 through a combination of Zoom and Gather platforms. The website of the symposium may be found here. Congratulations to Abhinav!

The poster is available here. A preprint of the paper containing his work is available here.

Congratulations to Aaron Charous for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering PhD Qualifying Exams! Aaron now begins his journey towards an outstanding PhD thesis. All the best!

Congratulations to Clara Dahill on her recent promotion to LT in the US Coast Guard! Our very own USN LT Jacob Huess administered the Oath of Office. Congratulations Clara!

Dr. Lisa Burton O’Toole, who earned her MS and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will receive ASME’s Kate Gleason Award, honoring women entrepreneurs who make a significant contribution to the engineering community. She serves as executive director of HearstLab, where she evaluates and invests in women-led startups in media, data, and technology. She will be honored at ASME’s Philanthropic Impact 2020 on November 10.

Congratulations to MSEAS hero Lisa Mayer for winning a MechE COVID-19 Hero Award!

From the department’s announcement: “These awards are to recognize the extraordinary efforts of teaching, administrative, and support staff members in the department whose ongoing efforts during the COVID-19 crisis have enabled new capabilities and made the transition easier for MechE colleagues, work groups, and overall community.”

Congratulations to Abhinav Gupta, a Ph.D candidate in the MSEAS group, for being awarded the 2020-2021 MathWorks Mechanical Engineering Fellowship! The MathWorks Engineering Fellowships are awarded to the top nominees from all of the academic departments in the School of Engineering, who are using MATLAB and/or Simulink to advance discovery and innovation across disciplines. All the best to Abhinav!

Congratulations to Chinmay Kulkarni, a Ph.D candidate in the MSEAS group, for being awarded the 2020 MathWorks prize for outstanding doctoral research! The MathWorks prize is awarded by the MIT Center of Computational Science and Engineering. All the best to Chinmay!

Congratulations to Manan Doshi for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering Ph.D Qualifying Exams. Manan now begins his journey towards an outstanding Ph.D thesis. All the best!

MSEAS Super-UROP Ali Daher won the Rhodes Scholarship in the Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine region. Since September 2018, Ali has been working together with our MSEAS group, especially graduate students Wael Ali and Abhinav Gupta, on developing and learning a predictive mathematical model for the evolution of Glioblastoma Multiforme, a highly aggressive brain tumor. At Oxford, Ali intends to build on his multidisciplinary research career in mechanobiology. You can view the MIT News article about Ali here.

Congratulations to Abhinav Gupta for being selected to receive a SIAM Student Travel Award to attend the 2020 SIAM Conference on Uncertainty Quantification (UQ20), to be held March 24-27, 2020 in Garching, Germany.

Congratulations to MSEAS members Chinmay Kulkarni, for winning second-place, and Ali Daher for getting an honorary mention in the MechE Research Exhibition (MERE) 2019. You can find the MIT News Article here.

Congratulations to Wael Hajj Ali for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering Ph.D Qualifying Exams. Wael now begins his journey towards an outstanding Ph.D thesis. All the best!

Chinmay Kulkarni, a Ph.D candidate in the MSEAS group has won the first place in the de Florez Competition 2019. This year’s competition saw 44 entries, among which Chinmay was placed first (in a four-way tie) under the Graduate Science category, with his presentation titled “Persistent Rigid Sets in Ocean Flows Help Predict the Environmental Impact of Deep Sea Mining Activities”. The competition website is here.

Chinmay Kulkarni, Ph.D candidate in MSEAS group has been awarded a 2019 Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Outstanding Graduate Research. Congratulations Chinmay!

Congratulations to Corbin Foucart and Abhinav Gupta for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering Ph.D Qualifying Exams. They now begin their journey towards outstanding Ph.D theses. All the best!

Deepak Subramani was inducted to the MIT Tata Center Society of Fellows for completing 2 years of Tata Fellowship. He works on the project Coastal Forecasting for Sustainable Fisheries Management in India. He also won an award for the best presentation in the final fellowship review presentations at the Tata Pro-Seminar. Congratulations Deepak!

Congratulations to Arkopal Dutt for successfully clearing the MIT Mechanical Engineering Ph.D Qualifying Exams. Arkopal now begins his journey towards an outstanding Ph.D thesis. All the best!

Arkopal Dutt secured the second place award for his project in the 18.335 Introduction to Numerical Methods course at MIT. His project was titled “Algorithms for Low Rank Approximations: Contest Between Deterministic and Randomized”. Congratulations Arkopal!

Deepak Subramani, a Ph.D candidate in the MSEAS group has won the first place in the de Florez Competition 2017. This year’s competition saw 30 entries, from among which Deepak was placed first under the Graduate Science category.

Deepak Subramani, Ph.D candidate in MSEAS group has been awarded the Wunsch Award for Outstanding Research 2017. He was presented with the award at the Mechanical Engineering Student Awards Lunch on 5/19/2017.

Jing Lin, a fifth year graduate student, has been selected to receive a travel award to attend the Workshop on Uncertainty Quantification and Data-Driven Modeling, to be held from March 23 to 24, 2017, at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA. Congratulations Jing!

Congratulations to Deepak Subramani, PhD Student, for winning the Esteemed Presenter award in the Best Live Demo Category and Florian Feppon, MS Student, for winning an Honorable Mention award at the Mechanical Engineering Research Exhibition (MERE) 2016 (Link). The exhibition had more than 80 presenters and 450 attendees.

Florian Feppon has received the Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Outstanding Graduate Research. The honor was presented at the Mechanical Engineering Student Awards Luncheon on Friday, May 13, 2016. An honor well-deserved. Congratulations Florian!

Congratulations to LT Matthew Swezey for being awarded the First Prize for his poster on “Ocean Acoustic Uncertainty – For Submarine Applications” at the ASNE Day 2016 Student Poster Competition. ASNE Day is an annual meeting of the American Society of Naval Engineers, which features keynote speakers, panel presentations, technical papers presented by subject matter experts and various student specific programs. Keynote speakers this year included Secretary Stackley the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition.

Congratulations to Florian Feppon for being awarded the Médaille Louis-Édouard Rivot of the French Académie des Sciences. This is in recognition for the scientific research on “Design and optimization for Wear of Bi-Material Composite Surfaces” that he performed at Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) as a visiting research scholar, under the direction of Prof. Grégoire Allaire (Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées, École Polytechnique) and Prof. Vermaak (Mechanical Engineering, Lehigh University).

Congratulations to Deepak Subramani, PhD Student, for winning the Esteemed Presenter award in the Best Theoretical or Computational Category at the Mechanical Engineering Research Exhibition (MERE) 2015 (Link). The exhibition had more than 80 presenters and 450 attendees.

MSEAS Team of Deepak Subramani and Tapovan Lolla presented their results on “Optimal Path-Planning in Dynamic Environments” at the 2015 de Florez Design competition and won the “Honorable Mention cash award” in the Graduate Science category. The competition website is here.

Deepak Subramani was awarded the best poster award for the poster titled A Stochastic Optimization Method for Energy-based Path Planning at the Computations for Design and Optimization / Center for Computational Engineering Symposium 2015. Congratulations Deepak!

Deepak Subramani was awarded the runners up position for the poster titled “A Stochastic Optimization Method for Energy-based Path Planning” at the Dynamic Data Driven Environmental System Sciences Conference 2014. Congratulations Deepak!

Jing Lin has received the Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Academic Excellence. The honor was presented at the Mechanical Engineering Student Awards Luncheon on Thursday, May 15, 2013. An honor well-deserved. Congratulations Jing!

Tapovan Lolla has received the Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Excellence in Research. The honor was presented at the Mechanical Engineering Student Awards Luncheon on Thursday, May 15, 2013. An honor well-deserved. Congratulations Tapovan!

Tapovan Lolla has received the Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Academic Excellence. The honor was presented at the Mechanical Engineering Student Awards Luncheon on Thursday, May 16, 2013. An honor well-deserved. Congratulations Tapovan!

March 2010: Mattheus Ueckermann has been awarded a competitive National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada PostGraduate Scholarship. The NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships (PGS) Program provides financial support to high-calibre students who are engaged in master’s or doctoral programs in the natural sciences or engineering. This support allows these students to fully concentrate on their studies and to seek out the best research mentors in their chosen fields. Congratulations Matt!

March 2010: Prof. Pierre Lermusiaux received an MIT School of Engineering teaching award, the “Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching”. This award is given to one faculty member each in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Nuclear Science and Engineering to acknowledge “the tradition of high quality engineering education at MIT”.