The Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) selected AI-GUIDE, a medical device developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), for its 2026 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award. This award recognizes federal laboratories and collaborators who have accomplished outstanding work in the process of transferring technology. With funding from the U.S. Army's Combat Casualty Care Research Program (CCC), Lincoln Laboratory and MGH developed AI-GUIDE and are in the process of transferring the prototype to the startup company AutonomUS Medical Technologies, Inc. "This recognition reflects what effective technology transfer looks like ' aligning the Army's operational need with Mass General's clinical expertise and Lincoln Laboratory's engineering capabilities to deliver a solution with a clear path to impact. The transition to AutonomUS underscores how strong partnerships can carry a technology from development into real-world adoption," says Asha Rajagopal, Lincoln Laboratory's chief technology transfer officer....

After extensive modifications over the past seven years, the Gulfstream IV (G-IV) aircraft operated and maintained by MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Tactical Defense Systems Group and Flight Test Facility (FTF) recently flew home from Canada. Transforming the standard business jet into a highly specialized research platform ' which will support the U.S. Air Force's Air Vehicle Survivability Evaluation (AVSE) program for decades to come ' represented the largest and most complex airborne test bed modernization in Lincoln Laboratory history. The Tactical Defense Systems Group, assisted by the FTF, coordinated the effort with the Toronto-based aerospace company Field Aviation. "Our team made hundreds of trips to Canada and dedicated countless weekends to keep the project moving along," says David Culbertson, FTF manager. "Seeing the aircraft finally return to the laboratory invoked a sense of pride and satisfaction." For more than 40 years, the Tactical Defense Systems Group has supported the AVSE program, leveraging airborne test beds to assess how U.S. aircraft and space assets fare against current and emerging threats. The group had been conducting airborne testing for the AVSE program with a modified Gulfstream II (G-II) since the early 1990s. In 2013, they began a series of studies to replace the G-II because parts availability issues were looming. These studies concluded that the G-IV was the best option, given its performance and capabilities, including its respectively higher altitude and longer range; long-term sustainability; and cost. The laboratory purchased the G-IV in 2015....

On July 26, 1951, the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy signed a charter establishing Project Lincoln, an R&D program managed by MIT to develop the nation's first continent-wide air defense system, SAGE. The charter called for a research center to be opened within the towns of Bedford, Lincoln, and Lexington, Massachusetts, to support Project Lincoln, which was subsequently renamed MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Seventy-five years later, Lincoln Laboratory ' operating as a U.S. Department of War (DoW) federally funded research and development center managed by MIT ' continues to innovate technology solutions to pressing national security challenges in partnership with government, industry, and academia. These innovations have at once protected the war fighter and U.S. homeland while impacting society. To commemorate the lab's 75th anniversary, 10 staff members reflect below on key technology impacts. Additional technology impacts, both past and present, are featured on the laboratory's historical timeline and in its 2025 Impact Report....

Professor Jesse Thaler has been named director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), effective Aug. 1. He succeeds Professor Bolek Wyslouch, who directed LNS for the past decade. Thaler is a theoretical particle physicist who combines techniques from quantum field theory and machine learning to address outstanding questions in fundamental physics. 'In his research, Jesse has done pioneering work on particle jets at the Large Hadron Collider and is a leader in combining AI and machine learning with fundamental particle physics,' says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. 'The collaborative nature of his research programs will serve the Laboratory for Nuclear Science as science enters a new era of AI-driven discovery.' Thaler is the William and Emma Rogers Professor of Physics in the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics ' a Leinweber Institute (CTP-LI). Since 2020, he has served as inaugural director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions, or IAIFI, which was recently renewed for another five years. Mike Williams, professor of physics, will succeed Thaler as IAIFI director. LNS is also poised to pursue new research projects through the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, which has a focus on AI-enabled scientific discovery....