Faculty Awards
  • Marvin Minsky received a 2014 Dan David Prize.
  • Sandy Pentland was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to computer vision and technologies for measuring human social behavior.
  • Neri Oxman received the 2014 Vilceck Prize in Design in recognition of her "extraordinary achievements in biomedical research and the arts and humanities."
  • Rosalind Picard was named a fellow of the IEEE for achievements in image and video analysis and affective computing.
  • Ed Boyden was a recipient of the 2013 Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize for the development of optogenetics, a technology that makes it possible to control brain activity using light.
  • Rosalind Picard was awarded an NSF Expeditions Grant and an NIH grant with Harvard University.
  • Marvin Minsky received the 1969 Turing Award for his central role in creating, shaping, promoting, and advancing the field of Artificial Intelligence.
  • Tod Machover was awarded the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' first Arts Advocacy award from the National Committee for the Performing Arts (NCPA).
  • Ed Boyden was invited to serve on the NIH Center for Scientific Review's Molecular Neurogenetics Study Section. Members are chosen based on their demonstrated competence and achievement, quality of research, publications, and other significant scientific activities and honors.
  • Mitch Resnick was chosen by Technology & Learning magazine as one of its 100@30, a list of the most influential people affecting the advancement of technology in education.
  • Ed Boyden received two National Science Foundation grants, an Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Grant and a Small Grant for Exploratory Research. He also received the McGovern Institute for Brain Research Neurotechnology Award, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Concept Award, and the MIT Alumni Class Funds Award for Excellence in Educational Innovation. Ed was also named one of the 20 best scientists under age 40 by Discover magazine.
  • Springer Handbook of Robotics (to which Cynthia Breazeal was a contributor) received a PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics. Breazeal also received the Gilbreth Lectures Award from the National Academy of Engineering, and was named by Time magazine as having one of the best inventions of 2008.
  • Hiroshi Ishii was chosen as the Thomas A. Wasow visiting scholar in symbolic systems at Stanford University.
  • Tod Machover’s opera Skellig premiered in November 2008 at the new Norman Foster–designed Sage Gateshead Music Centre in England to sold-out houses and critical acclaim. Machover was also named a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London.
  • William Mitchell, along with the Smart Cities group, won the $100,000 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Prize for work on urban mobility and continued work on smart lightweight electric vehicles and their use in urban mobility systems.
  • Alex (Sandy) Pentland received the Carlos Ghosn Award for Automotive Design, the Future of Health Technology Award, and the 2009 Breakthrough Idea of the Year from the Harvard Business Review for Honest Signals.
  • Hugh Herr, NEC Career Development Professor and head of the Lab’s Biomechatronics group, has won Popular Mechanics magazine’s first annual Breakthrough Leadership Award for his work in developing next-generation prosthetic devices.
  • Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, received the Harvard Business Review Breakthrough Idea (2009), the Carlos Ghosn Award for Automotive Interface Design (2008), and the Future of Health Technology Award (2008).
  • Professors Ed Boyden and Ramesh Raskar were awarded Sloan Research Fellowships in 2008 and 2009, respectively. These awards are given to "early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise."
  • Professors Cynthia Breazeal and Joe Jacobson have been chosen for Technology Review's TR100: 100 innovators aged 35 or younger whose technologies are poised to make a dramatic impact on our world.
  • Holography pioneer Steve Benton, a founding member of the Media Lab and head of the Lab’s Spatial Imaging group until his death at age 61 in November 2003, was posthumously awarded the 2005 Edwin H. Land Medal. The award recognizes an individual who has, from a base of scientific knowledge, demonstrated pioneering entrepreneurial creativity that has had major public impact.
  • Joseph Jacobson was one of eight scientists to receive a Discover magazine 2001 Award for Technological Innovation. The awards, granted annually, recognize groundbreaking work of far-reaching impact with relevance to our daily lives.
  • Joseph Paradiso, head of the Lab’s Responsive Environments group, is one of the “technological visionaries” named winners in the eleventh annual Discover Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation.
  • Professor Barry Vercoe received the 2006 Outstanding Achievement Award at the World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing’s WORLDCOMP’06, the world’s largest annual gathering of researchers in these fields. The award recognized Vercoe’s “dedicated and outstanding contributions to the field of intelligent and interactive music systems."
  • Professor Emeritus Seymour Papert received the highest honor from Yerevan State University in Armenia when he was awarded an honorary doctorate.
  • Tod Machover and Neil Gershenfeld were among the 40 "Modern-Day Leonardos" selected by Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry as part of its 2006 exhibit Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius.
  • Tod Machover was appointed visiting professor of composition at London’s Royal Academy of Music. In making the announcement, the prestigious academy referred to Machover as “one of the most significant and innovative composers of his generation."
  • Hiroshi Ishii was one of six individuals named in 2006 to the CHI Academy, an honorary group of individuals who have made extensive contributions to the study of human-computer interaction.
  • Mitchel Resnick was named one of the 2006 Daring Dozen by Edutopia, a publication of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. The twelve educators honored were credited with “reshaping the future of education.”
  • Hiroshi Ishii was one of two MIT faculty members to receive the 2005 Class of 1960 Innovation Award. The award was established to encourage and promote innovative instruction.
  • Cynthia Breazeal was awarded a grant from the Office of Naval Research's Young Investigator Program.
  • Hugh Herr's work in biomechatronics was cited as one of "10 Emerging Technologies" in the May 2005 issue of Technology Review.
  • Tod Machover received the first Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music. The award recognized Machover's pioneering research in music technology as well as his achievements as a composer and performer.
  • V. Michael Bove, Jr. was named a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) for his achievements in the areas of multimedia hardware and software architectures, machine vision, video representations, hard copy technology, and interactive multimedia applications.
  • Marvin Minsky was one of seven distinguished scientists and engineers honored in 2001 by the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia in April. Minsky was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in computer and cognitive science for his development of a conceptual model of the mind that has advanced scientists’ understanding of artificial and human intelligence.
  • Pattie Maes was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council.