Selected Awards and Honors
- Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, 2025.
- Committed to Caring Honoree, 2023-2025.
- Kevin Corker Award for Best Paper in USA/Europe Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar, 2023.
- Kevin Corker Award for Best Paper in USA/Europe Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar, 2021.
- Vickie Kerrebrock Award, MIT AeroAstro, 2021.
- AIAA Undergraduate Teaching Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019.
- Donald P. Eckman Award, American Automatic Control Council, 2014.
- AIAA Undergraduate Advising Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014.
- CNA (formerly the Center for Naval Analysis) Award for Operational Analysis, 2012.
- Lawrence Sperry Award, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2012.
- Kevin Corker Award for Best Paper in USA/Europe Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar, 2011.
- National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, 2008.
- Gerald J. Lieberman Fellowship, Stanford University, 2005-2006.
Brief Biography
Hamsa Balakrishnan is the Associate Dean of Engineering and the William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before joining MIT, she was at the NASA Ames Research Center, after receiving her PhD from Stanford University and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Her research is in the design, analysis, and implementation of control and optimization algorithms for large-scale cyber-physical infrastructures, with an emphasis on air transportation systems. Her contributions include airport congestion control algorithms, air traffic routing and airspace resource allocation methods, machine learning for weather forecasts and flight delay prediction, and methods to mitigate environmental impacts.
She was a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2008, the inaugural CNA Award for Operational Analysis in 2012, the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award in 2012, the American Automatic Control Council's Donald P. Eckman Award in 2014, and several best paper awards.