Dear CEE Community and Friends,

As the year comes to a close and commencement quickly approaches, I’m thrilled to celebrate some exciting news and achievements from across the department.

This month, we share that Tami Lieberman and Dave Des Marais have been granted tenure by MIT, effective July 1. We also announce new leadership appointments, including Benedetto Marelli as Associate Department Head and Undergraduate Education Chair and Matthias Winkenbach as Chair of the MIT Transportation Education Committee. In other news, Prof. Markus Buehler’s perspective on the next generation of AI was recently featured in a Forbes article.

Also in this newsletter, we highlight graduate student Quinn Early, who was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. We share new research from the Department of Biological Engineering and the Plata Lab that suggests that NDMA is more likely to cause cancerous mutations after exposure early in life, and a new AI system from the Buehler Lab that turns natural-language descriptions of biological structures into printable 3D designs. Finally, we celebrate the students, postdocs, faculty and staff who were recognized at this year’s CEE Awards Ceremony.

Sincerely,

Ali Jadbabaie

JR East Professor

Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering

Core Faculty, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

The MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is pleased to announce that Tami Lieberman and Dave Des Marais have been granted tenure by MIT, effective July 1, 2026.

Prof. Benedetto Marelli appointed to Associate Department Head and Undergraduate Education Chair

As Associate Department Head, Marelli will join the department's leadership council and support administrative responsibilities including faculty promotion and departmental priorities. As Chair of the Undergraduate Education Committee, he will lead curriculum innovation, work to grow enrollment, and integrate entrepreneurship into CEE's educational offerings.

Matthias Winkenbach appointed Chair of the MIT Transportation Education Committee

In this role, Matthias will oversee our interdepartmental Master of Science in Transportation (MST) and PhD programs, bringing a strong record of research leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration, and educational innovation.

Can Machines Be Creative? One Compelling Answer

Prof. Markus Buehler shared his perspective on the next generation of AI during a panel discussion at MIT on machine creativity. His work explores how cooperative “nano-agent” systems could enable AI to imagine, adapt, and interact more dynamically with the physical world, drawing inspiration from the ways humans collaborate and coordinate.

CEE student awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Graduate student Quinn Early was awarded the NSF fellowship to support his research in the Howland Lab, where he uses high performance computing to study atmospheric turbulence.

New research from MIT Department of Biological Engineering and the Plata Lab suggests that the chemical NDMA is much more likely to cause cancerous mutations after exposure early in life.

MIT researchers unveil compact AI system that turns natural-language descriptions of biological structures into printable 3D designs

Prof. Markus Buehler and collaborators developed Bioinspired123D, an AI system that transforms natural-language descriptions of biological structures into printable 3D designs.

Congrats to the students, postdocs, faculty, and staff honored for their exceptional achievements at this year's award ceremony. This year, the department introduced two new awards, the Professor Jerome J. Connor Memorial Award and the CEE Safety Champion Award.

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