Faez Ahmed

Faez Ahmed is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he serves as the Doherty Chair in Ocean Utilization. He leads the Design Computation and Digital Engineering (DeCoDE) Lab, focusing on integrating machine learning and optimization with engineering design to enhance human-AI collaboration and accelerate design processes.

• Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland College Park (2019)
• B.Tech.-M.Tech., Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (2012)

His research interests include generative design methodologies, AI-driven optimization techniques, and the development of algorithms that facilitate collaboration between human designers and artificial intelligence systems. This interdisciplinary work spans applications in automotive design, ship hull synthesis, and wind turbine optimization, with a strong emphasis on creating open-source tools and datasets for the engineering community.

Recent publications demonstrate his lab's leadership in fields such as 3D CAD generation, multimodal design datasets, and constraint-aware generative models. These works often address challenges in design space exploration, performance prediction, and data-driven design frameworks.

Scientific Awards

• NSF CAREER Award (2025)
• ASME Young Investigator Award (2024)
• Google Research Scholar Award (2024)
• 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2022)
• University of Maryland Alumni Research Award (2022)

Faez Ahmed's lab has trained numerous Ph.D. candidates and postdoctoral researchers, fostering a collaborative research environment that bridges mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, and computational methods. The DeCoDE Lab actively engages with industry partners and academic institutions, contributing to large-scale datasets and benchmarks that power the next generation of engineering design research.