Hamsa Balakrishnan is the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). As associate dean, Balakrishnan focuses on efforts to attract, retain, and support top talent across all academic levels in the School of Engineering. She helps lead and shape various faculty-focused programs and helps manage many of the school’s student-facing programs and initiatives. Balakrishnan also supports both faculty and students across the school with regards to fellowships, awards, and honors. Additionally, she supports and contributes to a number of key groups within the school.
As principal investigator of the Dynamics, Infrastructure Networks, and Mobility (DINaMo) group, Balakrishnan and her team research the modeling, analysis, control, and optimization of modern infrastructure systems. They have collaborated with the 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 2018-2021. In that role, she was responsible for the undergraduate and graduate education programs in the department. During her tenure as associate department head, she restructured graduate student recruiting through the use of multi-year fellowships, coordinated the mid-semester shift to remote instruction in March 2020, and introduced a first-of-its-kind provisional funding program for PhD students who wished to change research groups.
Balakrishnan also served as Director of Transportation@MIT in 2018-2019. During this time, she managed the inter-departmental graduate programs in Transportation that span the School of Engineering and the School of 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.
Balakrishnan received her bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, 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 UC Santa Cruz and NASA Ames Research Center’s Terminal Air Traffic Management Concepts Branch.