Carolyn Sheline

Alum

Drip irrigation team

csheline@mit.edu

Research Interests

Carolyn wrapped up her PhD at the start of 2024 working on the drip irrigation controller project. She helped to design the affordable, precise irrigation controller to meet the needs of resource-constrained farmers. Her focus was on developing the energy- and water-efficient irrigation schedule optimization that has low-cost weather prediction capabilities with applied machine learning and minimal sensors as well as physics-based models.

Education

  • PhD Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 2024

  • S.M. Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019

  • B.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, 2015

  • Torrey Pines High School

Patents and Awards

  • Winner of 2024 Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for Outstanding Graduate Research and Education

  • Carolyn Sheline, et. al., Systems, Devices, And Methods For Management Of Schedules Used With Renewable-energy Powered Irrigation Systems. PCT Patent. Filed August 14, 2023

  • Audience choice for MIT Water, Food, and Agriculture Prize in 2023

  • First place winner in MIT J-WAFS World Food Day Video Competition in 2020

Hobbies

Snowboarding, climbing, ceramics, scuba diving, running, reading, exploring the outdoors