Wang’s experience at ARPA-E is expected to be especially useful. “The current geopolitical situation and the limited amount of research funding available relative to the scale of the climate problem pose formidable challenges to bringing MIT’s strengths to bear on the problem,” says Rohit Karnik, director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) and a collaborator with Wang on numerous projects and initiatives since both joined the mechanical engineering faculty in 2007. “Evelyn’s leadership experience at MIT and in government, her ability to take a complex situation and define a clear vision, and her passion to make a difference will serve her well in her new role.”
Wang’s new MIT appointment is seen as a good thing beyond the Institute as well. “A role like this requires a skill set that is difficult to find in one individual,” says Krista Walton, vice chancellor for research and innovation at North Carolina State University. Walton and Wang collaborated on multiple projects, including the DARPA work that produced the device for extracting water from very dry air based on the original prototype Wang co-developed. “You need scientific depth, an understanding of the federal and global landscape, a collaborative instinct and the ability to be a convener, and a strategic vision,” Walton says—and she can’t imagine a better pick for the job.
“Evelyn has an extraordinary ability to bridge fundamental science with real-world application,” she says. “She approaches collaboration as a true partnership and not as a transaction.”
A challenging funding climate
Climate scientists explore broad swaths of time, tracking trends in temperature, greenhouse gases, volcanic activity, vegetation, and more across hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years. Even average temperatures and precipitation levels are calculated over periods of three decades.
KEN RICHARDSON
But in the realm of politics, change happens much faster, prompting sudden and sometimes startling shifts in culture and policy. The current US administration has proposed widespread budget cuts in climate and energy research. These have included slicing more than $1.5 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), canceling multiple climate-related missions at NASA, and shuttering the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the agency responsible for publishing the National Climate Assessment. The Trump administration submitted a budget request that would cut the National Science Foundation budget from more than $9 billion to just over $4 billion for 2026. The New York Times reported that NSF grant funding for STEM education from January through mid-May 2025 was down 80% from its 10-year average, while NSF grant awards for math, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and materials science research were down 67%. In September, the US Department of Energy announced it had terminated 223 projects that “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” Among the agencies affected is ARPA-E, the agency Wang directed before returning to MIT. Meanwhile, MIT research programs that rely on government sources of funding will also feel the impact of the cuts.
Acknowledging the difficulties she and MIT may face in the present moment, Wang still prefers to look forward. “Of course this is a challenging time,” she says. “There are near-term challenges and long-term challenges. We need to focus on those long-term challenges. As President Kornbluth has said, we need to continue to advocate for research and education. We need to pursue long-term solutions, to follow our convictions in addressing problems in energy and climate. And we need to be ready to seize the opportunities that reside in these long-term challenges.”
Wang also sees openings for short-term collaboration—areas where MIT and the current administration can find common ground and goals. “There is still a huge area of opportunity for us to align our interests with those of this administration,” she says. “We can move the needle forward together on energy, on national security, on minerals, on economic competitiveness. All these are interests we share, and there are pathways we can follow to meet these challenges to our nation together. MIT is a major force in the nuclear space, in both fission and fusion. These, along with geothermal, could provide the power base we need to meet our energy demands. There are significant opportunities for partnerships with this or any administration to unlock some of these innovations and implement them.”
A moonshot factory
While she views herself as a researcher and an academic, Wang’s relevant government experience should prove especially useful in her VP role at MIT. In her two years as director of ARPA-E, she coordinated a broad array of the US Department of Energy’s early-stage research and development in energy generation, storage, and use. “I think I had the best job in government,” she says. Designed to operate at arm’s length from the Department of Energy, ARPA-E searches for high-risk, high-reward energy innovation projects. “More than one observer has called ARPA-E a moonshot factory,” she says.
