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Indian American Hamsa Balakrishnan Appointed Associate Dean of MIT School of Engineering

Indian American Hamsa Balakrishnan Appointed Associate Dean of MIT School of Engineering

  • A faculty member of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, she served as associate department head in AeroAstro, and co-founded Lumo, which uses data and analytics to predict flight delays.

Hamsa Balakrishnan, the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) at MIT, has been appointed associate dean of the MIT School of Engineering effective Aug. 1. As associate dean, she will “focus on efforts to attract, retain, and support top talent across all academic levels in the School of Engineering,” the university announced in a Aug. 5 press release. Additionally, she will “help lead and shape various faculty-focused programs and will help manage many of the school’s student-facing programs and initiatives,” the university said. She will “also support both faculty and students across the school with regards to fellowships, awards, and honors, and support and contribute to a number of key groups within the school.”

Balakrishnan is principal investigator of the Dynamics, Infrastructure Networks, and Mobility (DINaMo) group, where she and her team research the modeling, analysis, control, and optimization of modern infrastructure systems. They have collaborated with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, and major airports to address challenges such as advanced air mobility, air traffic congestion, and airport operations.

Balakrishnan served as associate department head in AeroAstro from 2018 to 2021. In that role, she was responsible for the undergraduate and graduate education programs in the department. She also served as director of Transportation@MIT in 2018-19. During this time, she managed the interdepartmental graduate programs in transportation that span the schools of Engineering and Architecture and Planning, focusing on improving faculty engagement and student recruiting to the program.

In addition to her roles at MIT, Balakrishnan co-founded Lumo, which uses data and analytics to predict flight delays. She currently serves as the company’s chief scientist.

Over the course of her career, Balakrishnan has received numerous honors and accolades for both her research contributions and her dedication as an educator. In addition to being named an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), she has been honored with an NSF CAREER Award, the inaugural CNA Award for Operational Analysis, AIAA’s Lawrence Sperry Award, and the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald P. Eckman Award. She has also been recognized for her mentorship and support of students with a Committed to Caring Award, the MIT AIAA Undergraduate Teaching Award, and the MIT AIAA Undergraduate Advising Award.

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Balakrishnan received her bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University. Before joining MIT, she served as a principal development engineer at the University Affiliated Research Center at the University of California Santa Cruz and NASA Ames Research Center’s Terminal Air Traffic Management Concepts Branch.

(Top photo: Bryce Vickmark)

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