Chris Zegras, professor of mobility and city planning and the present head of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), has been appointed chief govt officer and director of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), efficient Sept. 1. Zegras succeeds Bruce Tidor, professor of organic engineering and pc science, who has served as interim CEO and director since January 2025.
Established in collaboration with the National Research Foundation of Singapore in 2007, SMART is MIT’s solely analysis heart exterior the United States. Housed inside the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise, SMART serves as a key platform for collaboration between MIT and Singapore’s analysis ecosystem, bringing collectively main consultants and establishments from the United States, Singapore, and the area for world-class analysis and innovation.
“Professor Zegras brings a distinguished track record of interdisciplinary leadership and a deep understanding of SMART’s mission and impact,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s provost, who introduced Zegras’ appointment in a letter to the MIT community right now. “His appointment reinforces MIT’s commitment to the alliance, which has advanced innovation and driven global impact, and which remains as important as ever in a time of accelerating technological and global change.”
Zegras joined the MIT school in 2005 and has served as the head of DUSP since 2020. His personal analysis spans interrelated areas vital to tackling metropolitan mobility challenges: leveraging computational applied sciences for understanding and modeling human behaviors and enhancing strategic planning capabilities.
Zegras brings in depth expertise in interdisciplinary analysis and management and a long-standing connection to SMART, the place he led collaborative analysis on next-generation mobility sensing and simulation methods. From 2010 to 2020, he was a principal investigator on the Future Urban Mobility interdisciplinary analysis group; from 2016 to 2020, he was the group’s lead principal investigator. During this time, the group spearheaded Singapore’s first-ever public autonomous car trials, developed and deployed large-scale city simulation and visualization methods, and performed analysis that advanced into spinoff firms, amongst different actions.
“Bringing together leading experts from the U.S., Singapore, and around the world, SMART has established itself as a unique hub for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation that addresses pressing societal issues,” says Zegras. “Having experienced firsthand what this distinctive model can achieve, I look forward to building on this strong foundation to deepen collaboration, strengthen our innovation ecosystem, and accelerate the translation of research into meaningful real-world impact.”
SMART is constructed round interdisciplinary research groups, all headed by senior MIT school members. At current, there are six teams, centered on antimicrobial resistance; the use of residing cells as customized medicines to deal with and stop ailments; social and institutional challenges arising from the proliferation of AI and rising applied sciences; new agricultural applied sciences; wafer-scale 3D sensing applied sciences; and wearable ultrasound imaging. SMART can be residence to the SMART Innovation Center, which goals to get analysis concepts from lab to market.