Assistant Professors Monica Martinez Wilhelmus and Theresa Raimondo are among a group of early-career engineers recognized for exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines, who will come together to share new techniques and approaches across fields, facilitate collaboration in engineering, and build professional networks among the next generation of engineering leaders. The 2025 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium will be held September 14-17 at the University of Pennsylvania, to explore four themes: Advances in Neural Engineering, Next-Generation Computing/Quantum Computing, Fusion Energy, and Sustainable Aerial Mobility.
“Engineering impacts every aspect of our lives. From transportation to global communications, medical advancements, water, and food security … to the everyday items that make our lives easier, engineering plays a vital role,” said NAE President John L. Anderson. “As our world evolves, engineering must too. That means that engineers must be ready with the advanced knowledge and professional networks needed to create new solutions that meet the needs of our ever-changing world.
“The NAE’s Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium provides an information-rich environment in which engineers across disciplines can learn, network and share among their peers with an eye toward working collaboratively in the future,” Anderson added.
Wilhelmus, the Thomas J. and Alice M. Tisch Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University, leads an interdisciplinary research group investigating fundamental scientific questions at the intersection of environmental science, biology, and engineering. Her research focuses on fluid mechanics, integrating experimental techniques, remote sensing, and numerical modeling to investigate transport processes and mixing phenomena—advancing engineering solutions to critical societal challenges.
A recognized scholar in her field, Wilhelmus is a member of the American Physical Society, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, and the American Geophysical Union.
In 2024, she was selected as a recipient of the prestigious Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program award, which supports early-career academic researchers whose scientific pursuits show exceptional promise for advancing the Navy and Marine Corps’ mission.
Raimondo is the Manning Assistant Professor of Engineering with a secondary appointment in the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown. She is a member of the Legorreta Cancer Center and the Brown RNA Center. Her research centers around the design of targeted drug-delivery vectors and novel RNA-therapeutics for immunoengineering, cancer, and tissue regeneration. By using interdisciplinary engineering approaches, and machine learning, to simultaneously optimize bioactive lipid nanoparticle formulations and RNA-constructs, her research seeks to illuminate how RNA–LNPs modulate immunity and use this insight for the development of new therapies. She has four filed patents surrounding targeted RNA-LNPs, adjuvanted vaccines, and siRNA-immunotherapy.
Raimondo has been the recipient of several awards including the Northeast Bioengineering Conference Faculty Innovator Award, MIT Faculty Founder competition finalist, and the American Cancer Society-Institutional Research Grant. She has also been selected to serve on the Early Career Board of ACS Applied Bio Materials.
Participants selected to participate in The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium are nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and represent a broad mix of engineering disciplines from industry, academia, and government. Since the program’s inception in 1995, more than 5,000 early-career engineers have participated in previous symposia, many of whom have gone on to become national leaders in the engineering community. Martinez Wilhelmus and Raimondo will join Sorensen Family Dean of Engineering Tejal Desai, Professor Anita Shukla and Associate Professor Ian Y. Wong as participants of past Frontiers of Engineering events.