The Carroll L. Wilson Award

The Carroll L. Wilson Award is a grant for up to $7,000* awarded to graduate students who wish to pursue exciting and challenging opportunities abroad. The aim of the Wilson awards is to enable MIT graduate students to explore important societal problems or opportunities with international dimensions. Ideally, the explorations will focus on ways to contribute to the alleviation of such problems or on ways to seize opportunities to contribute to the host countries or the world as a whole. The award helps students spend a minimum of 4 weeks in a foreign country, pursuing a project that would have excited the interest and enthusiasm of Wilson himself. Projects that enable applicants to explore new and original ideas and that have the potential to lead them into new areas of professional and career interests are particularly encouraged. These awards have been established as a memorial to the late Carroll L. Wilson ('32) i n honor of his career achievements and long-standing legacy.

Deadline for 2013 Fellowships: Monday, January 7, 2013

Click here to download the application
Questions? Contact Kimberly L Benard, Assistant Director for Distinguished Fellowships kbenard@mit.edu

Three to five awards are awarded each year, after a competitive evaluation of proposals by the Carroll Wilson Award Selection Committee (below). All Carroll L. Wilson awardees get inducted into the Carroll L. Wilson Circle as Fellows.

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the 2012 Carroll L. Wilson Awards

Bilikiss Adeyibi, "Crowdsourcing Slum Waste for Global Supply Chains: Sector Analysis & Business Model Feasibility Study."

Angela Hojnacki, "Green Grease Learning Hub and Expansion."

Samantha O'Keefe, "Water Quality and Development: An Assessment of the Potential Impact of a Low-cost, Portable, Microbial Water Testing Method on Peruvian Water Quality and Management."

Ella Peinovich, "Localized Design-Manufacturing for Developing Countries: A Methodology for Creating Culturally Sustainable Architecture."

Maja Tampe, "Private Governance as Human Development? The Case of Agricultural Certification."

About Carroll L. Wilson

Carroll L. Wilson '32, Humanitarian Entrepreneur

Carroll L. Wilson ('32) was a Professor of Management at the Sloan School and first Mitsui Professor in Problems of Contemporary Technology at MIT. Wilson devoted much of his career toward seeking solutions to important global problems through the application of scientific, engineering, economic, and political analysis to programs of action. The underlying goal of his work was the improvement of relations among countries and the strengthening of their institutions and people.

Wilson's early career encompassed a number of academic, government, and industrial positions including: Assistant to the President of MIT, Karl Taylor Compton; Vice President and Director of National Research Corporation; first General Manager of the Atomic Energy Commission; President of Climax Uranium Company; and Vice President and General Manager of Metals and Controls Corporation. Since 1959, as a member of the MIT faculty, he designed and directed many international programs including:

The MIT Fellows in Africa Program 1960-1967
The MIT Fellows in Latin America Program 1965-1967
Study of Critical Environmentqal Problems (SCEP) 1970
Study of Man's Impact on Climate (SMIC) 1971
Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies (WAES) 1974-1977
World Coal Study (WOCOL) 1978-1980
European Security Study (ESECS) 1981-1983

Wilson's broad-ranging interests are described in the following MIT Technology Review article.

Carroll L. Wilson Award Selection Committee

An international committee of colleagues and friends of Wilson has been formed to fund and administer these awards. Mr. William K. Aulet, MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer and Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, currently sits as Chairman of the Committee.

The active Committee members currently are:

Matthew Amengual
Yiannis Anagnostakis
Christopher J. Armstrong
Bob Ayan
Bob Backus
Miguel Barrientos
Sara Bennett
Bruce Blomstrom
Carroll W. Brewster
Bruce Carhart
Steve Carhart
Greg Distelhorst
Rachel Gisselquist
John Glass
Steve Hall
Heeten Kalan
Thomas Kehler
Jonathan Mallamud
Hania Maraqa
William F. Martin
Kenichi Matsui
Francis H. McGrory
Bruno Miller
Joseph Perkowski
Elise Rockart
Amy Smith
Megan Smith
James A. F. Stoner
Sue Lena Thompson
Rosemary Wilson

Expectations of the Carroll L. Wilson Fellows

As awardees of a Fellowship of the Carroll L. Wilson Circle, Fellows enter an inter-generational community of exceptional scholars, intellectuals and business entrepreneurs united around the concerns for global sustainability, as espoused by the late Carroll L. Wilson. As members of this community, Fellows engage themselves in the regular activities of the Circle, including sitting on the Fellowship awards committee, being present at the annual recognition dinner, attending periodic interdisciplinary conferences organized by the Circle and collaborating with peer Fellows to advance concern for issues of global sustainability. As Fellows of the Circle, awardees are encouraged to establish enduring relationships with peer Fellows in order to advance their work and to bring knowledge, experience and resources to bear on issues of pressing global concern.