Eric Evans
Dr. Eric D. Evans is the Director Emeritus and Fellow, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and MIT Professor of Practice. He served as the 11th director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 2006 to 2024. Lincoln Laboratory focuses on advanced technology development and system prototyping for national security. The Laboratory has 4500 employees whose backgrounds include electrical engineering, quantum physics, mathematics, artificial intelligence, biology, and computer science. During his 18 years of leadership, Evans led the Laboratory to adapt and strengthen during a time of significant change for national security needs. He established new research and development mission areas, strengthened ties to the MIT community, improved the Laboratory’s technology transfer approach, and served as an advisor on technology strategy to senior government leaders.
Evans has been a Defense Science Board (DSB) member since 2009, and he held the roles of DSB vice chair from 2014 to 2020 and chair from 2020 to present. He has served on over 30 DSB studies, including as co-leader for task forces on Improvised Explosive Devices, Cyber Security and Reliability in a Digital Cloud, DoD Technology Priorities, and Strategic Options. Evans has been an advisor to the U.S. Strategic Command Senior Advisory Group and a member of the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Nuclear Mission Committee. In 2024, he served on NASA’s review panel for the Mars Sample Return program.
From 1999 through 2006, Evans was the head of Lincoln Laboratory’s Air and Missile Defense Technology Division, where he was responsible for programs associated with air and missile defense architectures, automatic target recognition, and measurements at the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands. Prior to 1999, Evans was the leader of the Laboratory’s Air Defense Techniques Group, where he was responsible for Navy programs related to area air defense, ship self-defense, and overland cruise missile defense.
In 2024, Evans received the DoD Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his leadership as director of Lincoln Laboratory and as vice chair and chair of the DSB. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the AIAA, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is the author of more than 60 journal and conference publications. In 1996, he and his coauthors received the M. Barry Carlton Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society for a paper on advanced radar signal processing. Evans holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University.