Evelyn Wang '00 is the MIT Vice President for Energy and Climate. Appointed by President Sally Kornbluth in January 2025, Dr. Wang came to the role after several years as serving the nation as the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT, Dr. Wang earned her undergraduate degree at MIT in mechanical engineering, then returned to her home state of California to attend Stanford University for her SM and PhD. Following a postdoc stint at Bell Labs, Evelyn joined the MIT faculty, where she built a record of leading-edge innovations. An internationally recognized leader in phase change heat transfer on nanostructure surfaces, Dr. Wang’s research focuses on high-efficiency energy and water systems. Her work on solar cells that convert heat into focused beams of light was named as one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 breakthrough technologies of 2017. Her work on the development of a device that can extract fresh water from the air in arid environments was selected by Scientific American and the World Economic Forum as one of 2017’s 10 promising emerging technologies.
The technologies she and her colleagues developed draw on original, fundamental research about micro- and nanoscale heat and mass transfer. Foreign Policy Magazine recognized her water extraction work by naming Dr. Wang as its 2017 Global ReThinker, and in 2018, the work won the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, which honors water-related scientific innovation. Dr. Wang's lab has developed a range of other innovations, including an aerogel that dramatically improves window insulation, which in 2019 was spun out into a start-up.
As director of the Device Research Lab, Dr. Wang held several professorships, ultimately being named Ford Professor of Engineering. In 2018, she became department head of MIT Mechanical Engineering, a role she held until she left the Institute to lead ARPA-E.
In 2021, Dr. Wang was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2023 a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2015, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering also honored her as a Fellow, and in 2017 presented her with the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering.