Faculty

Catherine Wolfram (William Barton Rogers Professor in Energy and Professor of Applied Economics) has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for 2026, recognizing her “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is a private, nonprofit institution that recognizes achievement in science by election to membership.  Along with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, it provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

The new NAS members from MIT were announced and profiled in a recent MIT News article.
 

Kerry Siani (Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of Finance) has won the 2026 North America Best Paper in Corporate Finance from the Society for Financial Studies (SFS), for the second year in a row. This year, the award was sponsored by Wharton Research Data Services.

Siani’s winning working paper, co-authored with Julia Selgrad (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), is titled “Monetary Policy and Investment Plans.”

The award was presented  in Charlottesville, Virginia, at SFS Cavalcade North America 2026, an annual conference that covers all areas of finance and is a joint project of the Review of Financial Studies, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, and Review of Asset Pricing Studies.
 

Simon Johnson, Nobel Prize-winning economist, will serve as chair of the United Kingdom's newly formed AI Economics Institute (AIEI).

The UK formed the AIEI, the first government-backed institute of its kind, in order to "embrace and shape the development and deployment of AI." The institute will build the data infrastructure, analytical capability, and external relationships needed to assess AI’s economic impacts rigorously.

In naming Johnson, who is also the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and co-director of MIT’s Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work, the UK government cited his "wealth of experience in understanding how AI can create good jobs and boost shared prosperity, and how institutions are formed and affect economic growth."

Johnson will be supported by a director and a chief economist who will provide operational and analytical leadership.

See the announcement for more details about the institute and Johnson's role.
 

Andrew W. Lo and Christopher Noe (senior lecturer in Accounting) each received an Outstanding Teacher Award at the MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Awards. Each year, students nominate instructors for these teaching awards and the final recipients are chosen based on the quantity and quality of their nominations.

The awards were announced for both of them at the 2026 MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Awards for the 2025-2026 academic year. A Zoom recording of the event can be seen here.
 

Kerry Siani (Class of 1958 Career Development assistant professor and assistant professor of Finance) and Christopher Noe (senior lecturer in Accounting) were each awarded the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, established to honor educational innovation and excellence. The Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching Award is the most prestigious teaching prize offered by the School. The award was established in 2006 and is awarded each year to two MIT Sloan faculty members, as well as two electrical engineering and computer science faculty members, for their contributions to educational excellence at MIT.

The prize was announced for Siani and Noe at the 2026 MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Awards for the 2025-2026 academic year.  Additionally, Noe, along with Andrew W. Lo, won an Outstanding Teacher Award. A Zoom recording of the event can be seen here.
 

Mohammad Fazel-Zarandi, research scientist and senior lecturer, was named the MIT Sloan School Teacher of the Year. This is the third consecutive academic year that Fazel-Zarandi has been voted by students to receive this recognition. Each year, students nominate instructors for several teaching awards, and the final recipients are chosen based on the quantity and quality of their nominations.

The prize was announced for Fazel-Zarandi at the 2026 MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Awards for the 2025-2026 academic year. A Zoom recording of the event can be seen here.
 

Scott Stern won the 2026 Samuel M. Seegal Faculty Prize. The Seegal Prize is shared with the MIT School of Engineering and is awarded every other year to a professor “who inspires students in pursuing and achieving excellence.” The award was established by Paula Seegal-Thompson for her father, a member of the class of 1922. The Seegal faculty prize is selected by a review committee at MIT.

The prize was announced for Stern at the 2026 MIT Sloan Excellence in Teaching Awards for the 2025-2026 academic year. A Zoom recording of the event can be seen here.

Sharmila Chatterjee, senior lecturer in Marketing, has been selected to receive the 2026 Outstanding Veteran First-Year Advisor Award from the MIT Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC). This award is given to a veteran advisor who has been advising first-year students for over five years and who demonstrates “extraordinary dedication and commitment to helping students succeed.” The awards committee stated that this honor “recognizes a skilled advisor who repeatedly rises to the occasion and sets an example of what outstanding first-year advising and support looks like.”

Haihao Lu (Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Assistant Professor and assistant professor of Operations Research and Statistics) has received a 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which is “dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge.” This honor recognizes outstanding creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments; the achievements and potential of awarded Sloan Research Fellows “place them among the next generation of scientific leaders in the U.S. and Canada.”

Lu is one of eight MIT faculty members among the 126 Sloan Research Fellows chosen this year from over 1,000 nominations of early-career scholars by fellow scientists across seven fields — chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics (Lu's awarded area), neuroscience, and physics.  

The award was announced in February, and an MIT News article includes a profile of Lu and his research contributions.

S.P. Kothari (Gordon Y Billard Professor of Accounting and Finance, Emeritus) has received the American Accounting Association (AAA) Financial Accounting and Reporting Section (FARS) 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. FARS president Shana Clor-Proell wrote that this honor recognizes Kothari’s “exceptional and sustained contributions to financial accounting research” and his “leadership in shaping thought within our discipline.” 

The award was presented during the 2026 FARS Midyear Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.