Caitlin Mueller Appointed Associate Director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium

Caitlin Mueller, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Architecture, at MIT, has been named Associate Director of the MCSC. Mueller will serve on the MCSC’s leadership team alongside Anantha P. Chandrakasan, Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer, Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and MCSC Chair; Desiree Plata, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and MCSC Director; and Jeremy Gregory, MCSC Executive Director. 

“Professor Mueller is an accomplished member of the MIT community with a keen understanding of how collaboration, particularly between industry and academia, can help propel climate solutions forward. Her expertise, innovation, and creativity will be invaluable to the MCSC,” says Chandrakasan. “As we welcome Professor Mueller, we also thank Elsa Olivetti, who will continue her work with the MCSC as Strategic Advisor, for her visionary service, and look forward to continuing to have Desiree Plata on our leadership team as Director.”  

Mueller has worked closely with the MCSC—embracing feedback from MCSC member companies to ensure her research is implementable and can have a positive, real-world impact on industrial decarbonization and material innovation. Mueller and her research team are exploring a promising strategy for concrete reuse that closely aligns with the MCSC’s focus area on circularity as well as several member companies’ interests and priorities. The work, a system called Pixelframe, aims to reduce the material footprint of products through material recovery and efficient material use.  

“Mueller is one of those knock-your-socks-off human beings. She is whip smart, visionary, and knows what is needed to turn an idea into reality. We designed the MCSC for Impact, and Mueller’s presence and leadership will help drive us forward in execution of those goals,” says Plata. 

“We are eager to have Professor Mueller join the MCSC’s leadership team and support the ongoing work of our postdoctoral Impact Fellows and Seed Awards teams. Her experience working directly with industry will help guide our researchers’ interactions with member companies in meaningful ways,” adds Gregory.  

A member of MIT’s faculty since 2014, Mueller is currently an Associate Professor in the Building Technology Program, where she leads the Digital Structures research group. The group works at the intersection of architecture, structural engineering, and computation. They are focused on the synthetic integration of creative and technical goals in the design and fabrication of buildings, bridges, and other large-scale structures—and how digital techniques and tools can play a role in these processes.  

“The MCSC is a natural fit for Professor Mueller, who has woven climate and sustainability into her work within the architecture and design spaces,” says Hashim Sarkis, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. “I look forward to seeing the positive and lasting impact of her talents on the important work happening within the Consortium.” 

Mueller earned a bachelor’s degree in Architecture at MIT, followed by a master’s degree in Structural Engineering from Stanford University. She returned to MIT to receive a master’s degree in Computation for Design and Optimization and a Ph.D. in Building Technology.