Associate Professor at MIT Jakub Andreas Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science [EECS] and associate professor at MIT Brett McGuire from the Department of Chemistry have been named winners of the 2026 Harold E. Edgerton Award for Faculty Achievement. Established in 1982 as a tribute to the great and enduring support provided by Institute Professor Emeritus Harold E. Edgerton to junior faculty members, the award is given annually to recognize exceptional distinction in teaching, research and service.
“The Department of Chemistry is extremely delighted to recognize Brett for his science that changed the way we think about carbon in space,” says Class of 1942 Chemistry Professor and Department Chair Matthew D. Shoulders. “Brett’s lab combines laboratory spectroscopy, radio astronomy, and sophisticated signal analysis methods to extract definitive molecular fingerprints from extremely poor data. His discovery of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cold interstellar medium opened a powerful new window into astrochemistry. Moreover, Brett invents creative and unique tools that make these types of discoveries possible.”
“Jacob Andreas represents the best of MIT EECS,” says Asu Ozdaglar, head of EECS. “He is an innovative researcher whose work combines computational and linguistic approaches to build the foundations of language learning. He is an extraordinary educator who has brought these critical ideas to our core classes in natural language processing and machine learning. His ability to combine fundamentals of theory with real-world impact while deepening the social and ethical dimensions of computer science makes him truly deserving of the Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award.”
Andreas joined the MIT faculty in July 2019 and is affiliated with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He deals with natural language processing (NLP) and, more broadly, artificial intelligence. Its goal is to understand the computational foundations of language learning and build wise systems that can learn under human supervision. Andreas has received, among others, the Samsung AI Researcher of the Year Award, MIT Kolokotrones and Junior Bose Teaching Awards, the 2024 Sloan Research Fellow Award, and paper awards from the National Accreditation Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences, the International Conference on Machine Learning, and the Association for Computational Linguistics.
Andreas earned a BA from Columbia University, an MA from the University of Cambridge (where he studied as a Churchill Scholar), and a PhD in Natural Language Processing from the University of California, Berkeley. His work on natural language processing addressed thorny issues related to the capability gap between humans and computers. “A hallmark of the use of human language is our ability to generalize compositions,” explains Antonio Torralba, professor at Delta Electronics and head of the department of Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making at the Faculty of EECS. “Many of the fundamental challenges of natural language processing are being solved by simply training larger and larger neural models, but this kind of compositional generalization remains a persistent difficulty, and without the ability to generalize compositionally, the deep learning toolkit will never be robust enough to handle the most demanding real-world NLP tasks. Jacob’s work on compositional modeling draws new connections between NLP and work in computer vision and physics that aims to model systems governed by symmetries and other structures algebraic, and using them they were able to build NLP models that exhibit a range of new, human-like language acquisition behaviors, including one-shot word learning, learning through mutual exclusivity constraints, and learning grammar rules in extremely low-resource settings.”
Within EECS, Andreas has developed a number of advanced courses in natural language processing, as well as new exercises designed to challenge students to confront important social and ethical issues related to the implementation of machine learning. “Jacob has played a leading role in completely modernizing and expanding our natural language processing course offerings,” says award nominee Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Panasonic Professor in the Department of EECS. “He led the development of the modern two-course sequence, which is the cornerstone of the new AI+D [artificial intelligence and decision-making] a field of study that routinely enrolls several hundred students each semester. His knowledge of the field is broad and deep, and his classes integrate classical structural understanding of language with cutting-edge learning-based approaches. He put MIT EECS on the world map as the place to learn natural language at every level.”
Brett McGuire joined the MIT faculty in 2020 and was promoted to associate professor in 2025. His research operates at the intersection of physical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, and observational astrophysics, where he seeks to discover how the chemical building blocks of life evolve with evolution and help shape the birth of stars and planets. McGuire, a former Jansky Fellow and then Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, McGuire holds a BS in chemistry from the University of Illinois and a PhD in physical chemistry from Caltech. His honors include the 2026 Sloan Fellowship, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Helen B. Warner Award in Astronomy and the MIT Award for Teaching with Digital Technology.
The faculty who nominated McGuire for this award praised his extraordinary public communications, his immediate willingness to teach Class 5.111 (Principles of Chemical Sciences), a General Institute Requirement (GIR) course with 150-500 students, and his service to both the MIT and astrochemical communities.
“Brett is at the very top of his age group of astrochemical scientists with his discovery of fused carbon ring compounds in the cold region of the ISM [interstellar medium]an observation that enables the incorporation of carbon into planets,” says Sylvia Ceyer, the John C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry, in her announcement of the nomination. “His extensive involvement in service-oriented activities in the astrochemical/physics community is highly unusual for a young scientist and is a testament to the value that the astronomical community places on his wisdom and judgment. His phenomenal organizational skills have made his contributions to MIT’s graduate admissions protocols and seminar administration the envy of the faculty. A Most importantly, Brett is a wonderful teacher who cares deeply about students’ understanding and success not only in the classroom, but also in their future endeavors.”
“As an adjunct professor, Brett volunteered to teach 5.111, a large GIR course with 150-500 students, and received some of the best teaching ratings of any faculty member who taught the course,” says Mei Hong, the David A. Leighty Professor of Chemistry. “He has a natural talent for explaining abstract concepts in physical chemistry in an engaging way. His slides, which he prepared from scratch rather than modifying previous years’ material from other professors, are clear, and… the combination of clear explanation and humor generated enormous enthusiasm and interest in chemistry among students.”
Course evaluations of McGuire’s courses praised his humor, clarity of explanation and ability to turn a lecture into a “science demonstration.” “I didn’t feel that kind of desire to have a deeper understanding of the subject beyond just a grade [in some time]”says one student. “Brett definitely made me love learning.”
“Brett is an outstanding faculty member who strives to support student learning and success,” says Jennifer Weisman, associate director of academic programs in chemistry. “He is thoughtful, caring and goes out of his way to help his colleagues, students and employees.”
“I am thrilled to have been selected for the Edgerton Award this year,” says McGuire. “The award is nominally for teaching, research, and service; MIT, and the chemistry department in particular, is an incredible place to learn and grow in all of these areas. I am incredibly grateful for the mentorship, enthusiasm, and support I have received from my colleagues, students both in the lab and in the classroom, and the MIT community during my time here. I look forward to many more years of exciting discovery with this one-of-a-kind community.”