Josh Siegel ’07 and Katie Palusci ’07

In 2016, Siegel earned recognition for his innovative work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the post doctoral associate’s use of automotive data to optimize vehicle efficiency, performance and reliability earned him a prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which honors promising young inventors around the country. In addition to his teaching duties at MIT, Siegel is continuing his research work on the Internet of Things and how to make products, from appliances to cars, connect with each other securely online.

Outside of his MIT duties, Siegel is the founder of CarKnow, a start-up he launched several years ago that builds hardware and software to take the data produced by individual vehicles and find ways to improve everything from reliability to safety for drivers through easy-to-acquire and easy-to-use apps. One such application would use the client’s smart phone to detect and analyze audio and vibration data to determine what might be wrong with a car, predicting “what’s going on before it leaves you stranded on the side of the road,” says Siegel.

In 2014, CarKnow became the winner of the first MassChallenge/MassIT Government Innovation Prize, given to entrepreneurs whose products can improve the state’s government services and potentially save taxpayer dollars. Siegel also has dedicated himself to helping students get excited about science and technology and has mentored for the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies’ Soldier Design competition and worked with kids and adults at the Edgerton Center’s FixIt clinic.

Palusci has dedicated herself to helping some of the world’s largest companies solve problems, take on new initiatives and enrich their approaches to leadership and innovations as senior engagement manager for McKinsey & Company, an international management consulting firm with 120 offices worldwide serving Fortune 500 companies.

A graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Palusci specializes in advanced materials and industrials firms. “Every three months, there is a new project and new problem to solve,” she says. “I’m on the road quite a bit and it reminds me of being a boarder at Cranbrook.”

Palusci came to Cranbrook as a sophomore, a Crane Scholar from Grand Rapids who quickly immersed herself in the school academically and as a musician. She equates that experience that incorporated so many different aspects of learning with her ability today to jump into an ever-changing set of challenges. “I did everything at Cranbrook,” she says. “And now I’m learning new industries and meeting new groups of people all the time. I learned how to do that at Cranbrook.”

Siegel calls himself an “almost lifer,” having come to Cranbrook as a kindergartner. “The whole atmosphere was wonderful – the people, the environment and teaching are wonderful. Cranbrook has an appreciation of curiosity, encouraging learning. Your whole life at Cranbrook is about building a library of skills you can use throughout your life.”

Says Palusci, “You can be a brilliant robotics kid like Josh was and still be encouraged to appreciate art.”

In the years ahead, this power couple will continue to focus on developing their individual careers while supporting each other’s efforts. Given their talent, drive and ability to turn intellect into action, the result of their work will have positive repercussions felt worldwide.