In September, chemistry professors Danna Freedman and Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Scholar Moriba Jah received a MacArthur Scholarship, commonly known as a “genius scholarship”.
JON FRIEDMAN/FEDERAL DEPARTMENT (BERNANKE), JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION (FEEDMAN, JAH)
Freedman, a former MIT postdoctoral fellow who joined the department in 2021, designs molecules that can function as quantum units or qubits. One direction she hopes to pursue with her $800,000 grant is to work with scientists from fields like neurobiology or Earth science on quantum sensors, where some particles are in such delicate equilibrium that they are affected by microscopic variations in their environment.
Jah, associate professor of aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, is working on a joint research program to increase resources and visibility for space sustainability. He is also helping organize the AeroAstro Rising Stars symposium, which highlights scholars from underrepresented aerospace engineering backgrounds.
