Melissa Smith PhD ’12 is an affiliate chief within the Superior Supplies and Microsystems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Her staff, which is embedded throughout the laboratory’s Advanced Technology Division, drives innovation in fields together with computation, aerospace, optical programs, and bioengineering by making use of micro- and nanofabrication strategies. Smith, an inventor of 11 patents, strongly believes within the energy of collaboration in the case of her personal work, the work of her Lincoln Laboratory colleagues, and the progressive analysis performed by MIT professors and college students.
Lincoln Laboratory researches and develops superior applied sciences in help of nationwide safety. Analysis performed on the laboratory is utilized, that means employees members are given a selected downside to unravel by a deadline. Divisions throughout the laboratory are made up of technical specialists, starting from biologists to cybersecurity researchers, engaged on completely different initiatives concurrently. Smith appreciates the broad utility house of her group’s work, which feeds into packages throughout the laboratory. “We’re like a kitchen drawer stuffed with indispensable devices,” she says, a few of that are used to develop picosatellites, sensible textiles, or microrobots. Their place as a catch-all staff makes their work enjoyable, considerably open-ended, and at all times attention-grabbing.
In 2012, Smith obtained her PhD from the MIT Department of Materials Science & Engineering (DMSE). After commencement, she remained on the Institute for 9 months as a postdoc earlier than starting her profession as an engineer at IBM. Whereas at IBM, Smith maintained a analysis affiliation with MIT to proceed to work on patents and write papers. In 2015, she formally returned to MIT as a technical employees member at Lincoln Laboratory. In 2020, she was promoted to the place of assistant group chief and was awarded the laboratory’s Greatest Invention Award for “Electrospray units and strategies for fabricating electrospray units” (U.S. Patent 11,708,182 B2). In 2024, she was promoted to affiliate group chief.
Administration is a crucial facet of Smith’s function, and she or he credit the laboratory for cultivating individuals with each tutorial and technical backgrounds to learn to successfully run packages and groups. Her demonstrated efficacy within the tutorial and company areas — each of which include deadlines and collaborative work — permits her to encourage her staff to be progressive and environment friendly. She retains her group operating easily by eradicating potential roadblocks to allow them to adequately attend to their initiatives. Smith focuses on particular duties that assist in her group’s success, together with writing grant proposals, a ability she discovered whereas working on the laboratory, which permits her employees to prioritize their technical work. That, she says, is the worth of working as a staff.
A real champion of teamwork, Smith advises new employees members to take care of an open thoughts as a result of they’ll study one thing from everybody they encounter, particularly when first beginning on the Institute. She notes that each colleague has one thing distinctive to supply, and taking time to grasp the wealth of expertise and data round you’ll solely make it easier to succeed as a employees member at MIT. “Be who you’re, do what you do, and run with it,” she says.
Soundbytes
Q: What challenge at MIT are you the proudest of?
Smith: We’re constructing a wafer-scale satellite tv for pc, which is slightly bit out-there as an concept. It was thought up within the Nineteen Sixties, however the expertise wasn’t to the purpose the place it might be realized. Expertise as we speak is greater than able to making this small house microsystem. I used to be tasked with taking the concept additional. Some individuals say that it’s not possible, and for lots of excellent causes! Slowly addressing the technical points to the purpose the place individuals now say, “Oh, you would most likely do that,” is thrilling.
I by no means wish to be somebody who thinks one thing is not possible. I am going to say, “I am unable to do it, however perhaps any person else can,” and I can even add, “Here’s what I attempted, right here is all the information, and right here is how I got here to the purpose the place I bought caught.” I like taking one thing that was initially met with disbelief and rendering it. Lincoln Laboratory is lively with professors and college students. I’m collaborating with college students from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics on the challenge, and we now have a patent on the expertise that got here from it. I’m glad to have college students help, write papers, and sometimes get their names on patents. It’s seeding extra innovation. We do not have the system fairly but, however I’ve transformed just a few skeptics!
Q: What are your favourite campus recollections from whenever you have been a scholar?
Smith: Once I was a graduate scholar, I’d go along with pals to the Muddy Charles Pub in Walker Memorial. One of many issues I actually take pleasure in about Walker Memorial is the prime view over the Charles River, and I keep in mind staring out of the home windows on the high of Walker Memorial after exams. Additionally, throughout Independent Activities Period I discovered find out how to snowboard. I am from Illinois the place there aren’t any mountains. Once I got here to the East Coast and noticed that there have been loads of mountains with individuals strapping steel to their ft within the snow, I believed, “OK, let’s attempt it.” I really like snowboarding to today. MIT has this type of unfettered freedom in a means that, even past the technical stuff, individuals can attempt issues from a private standpoint they perhaps wouldn’t have tried someplace else.
Q: What do you want essentially the most in regards to the tradition at MIT?
Smith: We assist individuals develop professionally. The employees listed here are above common when it comes to functionality in what they do. Once I interviewed for my job, I requested the place individuals work once they depart MIT. Folks transfer on to different labs just like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or corporations like Raytheon, they turn out to be professors, or they begin their very own corporations. I ensure that persons are studying what they wish to do with their careers whereas they work on the laboratory. That’s the cultural overlay that exists on campus. Once I was a scholar, I interned at John Deere, 3M, Xerox, and IBM and noticed how they’re progressive in their very own ways in which outline their company cultures. At MIT, you’re supported to discover and play. At Lincoln Laboratory persons are not pigeonholed into a selected function. When you’ve got an concept, you’re inspired to discover it, so long as it aligns with the mission. There’s a particular freedom you possibly can expertise at MIT that’s above and past a typical tutorial setting.
