Remarks by John Lienhard at J-WAFS 10th Anniversary Celebration
May 22, 2025

In 2005, I began reading about water scarcity around the world. The problem was widespread, extreme, and growing. I saw then that my background in transport phenomena could be applied to water purification technologies. And not long after that, our department started a research collaboration with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia. Water supply and desalination figured prominently in that program. By that point, I was building a research group on desalination, and I was looking around MIT to see who else worked on water supply. In each of several departments, I spoke to faculty who would say something like “I work on water, but I’m about the only person at MIT who does”. With such fragmentation, more coordination was clearly needed.

Those meetings led me into discussions about an Institute-wide program on water, with Phil Khoury, Dara Entekhabi, Jim Wescoat, and others. The conversations continued for several years. That work included the 2011 Rethinking Water symposium and a 2012 proposal for a major environmental program at MIT. But large-scale funding did not materialize.

Later in 2012, Provost Rafael Reif asked Maria Zuber and me to meet with faculty across the Institute. We interviewed more than 100 professors. We asked what large-scale environmental activities might be initiated, outside existing efforts like the MIT energy initiative. Our report covered several topics, among which water and food were prominent. We had expected water, but food was surprise. At that point, Maria became Vice President for Research, and I went back to my day job in Mechanical Engineering.

About a year later, Rafael (now president) asked me to discuss the report with Mohammed Jameel, a CEE alumnus and the benefactor of J-PAL. I spoke to him. Mohammed was inspired, and he wanted to endow a lab focused on water and food. We drafted a vision for that work, and within a couple of months Mohammed gave the endowment that now supports J-WAFS.

My mother used to tell me: “Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.” I was appointed as director of J-WAFS, an entity that now needed to be created from scratch and which had no staff. Several constraints were clear immediately. Existing programs had their own sponsors and goals, and they had no desire to “become part of J-WAFS”. Departments and PIs generally had their own objectives and rewards as well. And the vision of J-WAFS as an Institute-wide entity covering both water and food implied that our research program would be diverse, with a portfolio structure rather than any single, specific target.

Still, individual PIs are always happy to be funded. And MIT has a world-class faculty. That provided the path forward. My own experience in water was an example: faculty can apply their disciplinary expertise to new topics that they haven’t worked on before. Water and food are each very broad, system-level, cross-disciplinary problems. They can be approached from many directions. So, J-WAFS mobilized the diverse expertise of the faculty through our seed grant program and other competitive awards.

Given the breadth of water and food, we still faced the question of what kind work to do. Now, no one at MIT has ever had the goal of being “almost as good” as the program at the University of Elsewhere. Our PIs aim to lead, using their unique strengths, and our peer reviewers, who are mostly MIT faculty, insist on top tier research. Those factors strongly favor work in areas where MIT has an “unfair advantage” over other institutions…to borrow a phrase from my late colleague Professor Ronnie Probstein.

So, what has been the result? We’ve funded groundbreaking work in plant biochemistry and genomics, reflecting MIT’s growing strength in plant biology. One ongoing project targets the RuBisCO enzyme, which catalyzes CO₂ fixation during photosynthesis. That work is driven by machine learning. The newly-found evaporative photomolecular effect is being applied to solar desalination. J-WAFS’ partnership with Xylem, Inc. led MIT machine designers to invent a variable volute pump that holds high efficiency under shifting loads. Economists have developed a new framework for weather-indexed crop insurance. Social scientists are preventing water shut offs in low-income US communities. Chemists and chemical engineers are developing alternatives to the Haber-Bosch process. Atmospheric scientists have quantified climate change risk to food crops in Africa. Soil scientists are using bacteria to free up phosphorus for plant growth. Thermal engineers have developed combustion systems that produce carbon-rich fertilizer from post-harvest waste. New water purification technologies have been invented, and sensors have been created to spot PFOS in water and to find spoiled food.

Further, J-WAFS has leveraged MIT’s entrepreneurial culture, helping to spin-out twelve companies. They do pesticide management, portable solar desalination, advanced filters for safe water, bacteria sensors for meat packing, and more.

Clean water and safe food are humankind’s most essential needs, and yet we struggle to ensure their availability to all. These are MIT-hard problems. Megacities in the developing world often lack functioning water and wastewater systems, and may never have the capital to build piped infrastructure. How can we deliver safe water to the millions of city-dwellers who need it? Crop productivity in the developing world lags far behind industrialized farming in the developed world. Even a modest increase in fertilizer use could double yields. How can we get affordable fertilizers to smallholder farmers? Almost 40% of Earth’s land is used for food production—how can we intensify agriculture to limit further growth of this footprint, or better, to reduce it? How can we mitigate the environmental costs of fertilizers, of large-scale monoculture farming, and of overfishing? How can we address the worldwide depletion of aquifers? And how can we better detect and remove pathogens from water, especially to protect vulnerable young children?

Among large-scale challenges, the acceleration of climate change is the most terrifying. Since I founded J-WAFS, the planet has warmed by more than 0.4°C. In 2018, we held a workshop on climate and agriculture. Experts described how global warming and rising weather variability impair crop growth. These effects are now apparent even to casual observers. While fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change, the food system itself generates a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. We urgently need adaptation strategies, such as drought-tolerant crops, and mitigation strategies, such as policies to drive sustainable agriculture. Much important work lies ahead of us.

For me, directing J-WAFS has been an unparalleled opportunity to sample the diverse research activities of MIT. I have read every proposal, every review, and every progress report ever submitted to J-WAFS, apart from my sabbatical year. The excellence of our PIs was unmistakable. I’ve often said that my job was like working in a candy shop and sampling the goods all day.

In closing, I’d like to thank several people. First, Rafael Reif, who saw the importance of water and food and who had confidence in my leadership. Second, Mohammed Jameel for his generosity and for his belief that MIT is uniquely positioned to make a better world. And finally, Renee Robins, my primary partner in building J-WAFS and herself a strong leader and strategic thinker. Of course, thanks also go to J-WAFS’ staff, our PIs, our donors, and everyone else who has supported the development of this unique program. And I offer all my best wishes and support to my successor, Rohit Karnik.

Thank you all!