Innovative Early-Career Engineers Selected to Participate in The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2025 Symposium of the National Academy of Engineering

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mon, June 30, 2025

Washington, D.C., June 30, 2025 —

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2025 — Seventy-four highly accomplished, early-career engineers have been selected to participate in the 2025 Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, a signature activity of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Engineers who are performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together to share new techniques and approaches across fields, facilitate collaboration in engineering, and build professional networks among the next generation of engineering leaders.

“Engineering impacts every aspect of our lives. From transportation to global communications, medical advancements, water, and food security … to the everyday items that make our lives easier, engineering plays a vital role,” said NAE President John L. Anderson. “As our world evolves, engineering must too. That means that engineers must be ready with the advanced knowledge and professional networks needed to create new solutions that meet the needs of our ever-changing world.”

The 2025 USFOE, to be held September 14-17 at the University of Pennsylvania, will explore four themes:

  • Advances in Neural Engineering
  • Next-Generation Computing/Quantum Computing
  • Fusion Energy
  • Sustainable Aerial Mobility

“The NAE’s Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium provides an information-rich environment in which engineers across disciplines can learn, network and share among their peers with an eye toward working collaboratively in the future,” Anderson added.

Participants selected to participate in The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium are nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and represent a broad mix of engineering disciplines from industry, academia, and government. Since the program’s inception in 1995, more than 5,000 early-career engineers have participated in previous symposia, many of whom have gone on to become national leaders in the engineering community.

The following seventy-four engineers were selected as general participants for 2025:

Elaheh Ahmadi

University of California, Los Angeles

Christopher Anderson

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Elizabeth Brisbois

University of Georgia

Tobias Brown-Heft

HRL Laboratories

Rachel Carter

US Naval Research Laboratory

Kai-Han Chang

General Motors

Haonan Chen

Colorado State University

Pin-Yu Chen

IBM Research

Connor Coley

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Zachary Cordero

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nick Davy

Andluca

Luc Deike

Princeton University

Salih Emre Demirel

Dow Chemical Company

Aditya Deshpande

The Procter and Gamble Company

Yasaman Esfandiari

HRL Laboratories

Alireza Fatemi

General Motors

Donal Finegan

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Julien Frougier

IBM Research

Brian Giera

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Carol Glover

The Boeing Company

Eric Gonzalez

Google

Erjia Guan

Chevron Corporation

Urcan Guler

Raytheon

Colin Haynes

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Ashley Hilmas

Air Force Research Laboratory

Zachary Hood

Argonne National Laboratory

Kevin Hsieh

Microsoft Corp.

Phuc Huynh

GE Aerospace Research Center

Michael Joly

RTX Technology Research Center

Rebecca Kamire

Honeywell Aerospace Technologies

Abhinav Kandala

IBM

Radha Sree Krishna Moorthy

Oak Ridge National Lab

Esak (Isaac) Lee

Cornell University

Steve Majerus

Case Western Reserve University

Monica Martinez

Brown University

Ian McCue

Northwestern University

Madeline Miller

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nitish Mittal

ExxonMobil

Laurie Mlinar

AbbVie

Erika Moore

University of Maryland

Atieh Moridi

Cornell University

Jason Morphew

Purdue University

Alexander Opitz

University of Minnesota

Juliana Pacheco Duarte

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Evangelos (Vagelis) Papalexakis

University of California, Riverside

Stephan Priebe

GE Aerospace

Theresa Raimond

Brown University

Ritu Raman

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christopher Reynolds

Lockheed Martin

Francesco Ricci

Boehringer Ingelheim

Hossein Robatjazi

Syzygy Plasmonics

Mahshid Roumi

Parthian Energy

Aura Roy

Lockheed Martin

Nagore Sabio Arteaga

BlackRock, Inc

Maria Sakovsky

Stanford University

Jennifer Schaefer

University of Notre Dame

Elliot Schmidt

Medtronic

Sivaranjani Seetharaman

Purdue University

Indira Seshadri

IBM

Ashwin Shahani

University of Michigan

Chenhui Shao

University of Michigan

Amir Sheikhi

Pennsylvania State University

Jian Shi

University of Houston

Katherine (Katie) Skinner

University of Michigan

Kyle Srivastava

Boston Scientific

Otilia Stretcu

Google Research

Sushil Subramanian

Intel Corporation

Tiezheng Tong

Arizona State University

Thomas Underwood

The University of Texas at Austin

Kirsten Viering

Boston Scientific

Kolby White

3M

Xuan Wu

AES US Utilities (AES Indiana & AES Ohio)

Xing Xie

Georgia Institute of Technology

Qi Yu

University of California San Diego

Speakers (chosen by the Organizing Committee):

Florian Allroggen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Marco Capogrosso

University of Pittsburgh

Daniel Gonzalez

Vanderbilt University

Deep Jariwala

University of Pennsylvania

Timothy Proctor

Sandia National Laboratory

Jesse Quinlan

NASA

Laura Morejón Ramírez

Whisper Aero

Adam Rutkowski

Marathon Fusion

Catherine Schuman

University of Tennessee Knoxville

Mollie Schwartz

MIT Lincoln Lab

Caroline Sorenson

Commonwealth Fusion Systems

Derek Sutherland

Realta Fusion

Hubert Wong

Boeing

Anqi Zhang

California Institute of Technology

Organizing Committee:

Karen Willcox (Co-Chair)

University of Texas at Austin

George Pappas (Co-Chair)

University of Pennsylvania

Phillip Ansell

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Kevin Antcliff

Joby Aviation

Jean-Anne Incorvia

University of Texas at Austin

Joshua Kline

Delsys Inc.

Shavindra Prematatne

Intel

Andrea Schmidt

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Annabelle Singer

Georgia Institute of Technology

Patrick Snouffer

Zeno Power Systems

In addition to The Grainger Foundation, sponsors for the 2025 USFOE are the National Science Foundation, Cummins and Dow.

The mission of the NAE is to advance the welfare and prosperity of the nation by providing independent advice on matters involving engineering and technology and by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and public appreciation of engineering. To accomplish its mission, the NAE proactively identifies and addresses issues by engaging engineers and individuals from a variety of professional and community networks, as well as those with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, traits, and skills. Informed by these engagements, the NAE promulgates the value of an engineering mindset for business, education, government, and daily life. The NAE is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science, technology, and health.

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Sabrina  Steinberg
Contact Sabrina Steinberg
Communications/Media Specialist
National Academy of Engineering
Phone202.334.2622
SSteinberg@nae.edu
Vernon K. Dunn, Jr.
Contact Vernon K. Dunn, Jr.
Director, The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
Phone202.334.2344
vdunn@nae.edu