Susan Hockfield | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 16th President of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology | |
| In office August 5, 2004 – December 31, 2012 | |
| Preceded by | Charles M. Vest |
| Succeeded by | L. Rafael Reif |
| Provost ofYale University | |
| In office December 11, 2002 – August 5, 2004 | |
| Preceded by | Alison Richard |
| Succeeded by | Andrew D. Hamilton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1951-03-24)March 24, 1951 (age 74) |
| Spouse | Thomas Byrne |
| Education | University of Rochester (BS) Georgetown University (MS,PhD) |
| Signature |  |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Yale University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Afferent and Efferent Neuronal Connections of the Dorsal Horn of the Caudal Medulla (Trigeminal Nucleus Caudalis) Demonstrated by Retrograde Labeling with Horseradish Peroxidase (1979) |
| Doctoral advisor | Stephen Gobel |
| Other academic advisors | Allan Basbaum |
| Doctoral students | Daniel Geschwind |
Susan Hockfield (born March 24, 1951) is an American neuroscientist who served as the16th president of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2012.
Hockfield currently serves as a Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a Joint Professor of Work and Organization Studies in MIT’sSloan School of Management, and a member of theKoch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is also a director ofBreak Through Cancer,Cajal Neuroscience, Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation,Lasker Foundation,Mass General Brigham,Pfizer, Repertoire Immune Medicines, and theWhitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation; and a board member of theBelfer Center at theHarvard Kennedy School of Government. Before returning to MIT following her presidency, Hockfield held theMarie Curie Visiting Professorship atHarvard University'sJohn F. Kennedy School of Government.
Hockfield graduated fromHorace Greeley High School inChappaqua, New York, in 1969. She received her bachelor's degree in Biology from theUniversity of Rochester in 1973 and her Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neuroscience from theGeorgetown University School of Medicine in 1979. Her doctoral dissertation centered on the pathways in the nervous system through which pain is perceived and processed. Her advisor during her doctoral work was Stephen Gobel.[1]
Following a postdoctoral fellowship at theUniversity of California, San Francisco, Hockfield joined the staff of theCold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1980. She was hired byJames Watson, who together withFrancis Crick had discovered the structure ofDNA.
In 1985, Hockfield joined the faculty ofYale University. She received tenure in 1991 and became a full professor of neurobiology in 1994; soon thereafter she began to take on positions of administrative leadership. From 1998 to 2002, she served as Dean of Yale'sGraduate School of Arts and Sciences, with oversight of 70 graduate programs. Over the course of her deanship, the number of applicants to the graduate school doubled. Support for graduate students also expanded in many dimensions, including healthcare, career counseling, fellowships, and opportunities to interact with faculty.
In December 2002, she was named Yale's Provost – the university's second-highest officer, with oversight of the university's 12 schools. As Provost, she led major initiatives in science, medicine, and engineering, including a $500 million investment in scientific facilities.
During her time as dean and as provost, Hockfield was at the center of an imbroglio surrounding theGraduate Employees and Students Organization and itsunionization efforts. While Yale opposed the student union, Hockfield made healthcare for Ph.D. students free and increased stipends for graduate students.[2]
In August 2004, theMassachusetts Institute of Technology named Hockfield its next president. MIT raised nearly $3 billion during Hockfield's presidency, making it a more successful period of fundraising than any prior administration. However, the2008 financial crisis put great pressure on the Institute's endowment, which was valued at $5.9 billion upon Hockfield's arrival. It peaked at $9.9 billion in June 2008, then fell to $7.9 billion. By June 2011, it was valued at $9.7 billion. Through these financial ups and downs, Hockfield made affordability a priority: Annual undergraduate financial aid increased by about 75 percent during her presidency.[3]
In her inaugural address, Hockfield called for MIT to cultivate the convergence of engineering and the life sciences to develop new approaches to address global challenges.[4] She encouraged work that crossed disciplines, departments, and schools within MIT and that fostered collaborations among the Boston region's academic medical centers and educational institutions. To that end, she led, among other efforts, the establishment of theDavid H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research; theRagon Institute (a collaboration betweenMassachusetts General Hospital, MIT, andHarvard University); and theMassachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center inHolyoke, Massachusetts, an unprecedented collaboration of 5 universities, 2 private companies, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide state-of-the art computation tools for research in a wide variety of fields.[3]
Hockfield also announced her intention to develop a multidisciplinary, Institute-wide center focused on energy. That effort spawned theMIT Energy Initiative, which raised more than $350 million during Hockfield's tenure and accelerated research on technologies and policies for a sustainable energy future. In 2009, U.S. PresidentBarack Obama gave an address on U.S. energy policy at MIT, and Hockfield gave him the first tour of an MIT laboratory by a sitting U.S. president.[5]
Hockfield also encouraged concerted faculty research in an area she considered vital to American national interests: manufacturing. She launched “Production in the Innovation Economy,” a campus-wide project to provide a blueprint for 21st century manufacturing in America. During her presidency, she served as the inaugural co-chair of theWhite House-led Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a task force of government, industry, and academic leaders. In an August 2011New York Times op-ed, Hockfield wrote, “To make our economy grow, sell more goods to the world and replenish the work force, we need to restore manufacturing — not the assembly-line jobs of the past, but the high-tech advanced manufacturing of the future.”[6]
During Hockfield's presidency, representation of underrepresented minorities and women increased across the undergraduate, graduate, and faculty populations. The graduating Class of 2015 was composed of 45 percent women and 24 percent underrepresented minorities. To address the growing interest in attending MIT (applications more than doubled during her tenure), Hockfield initiated an expansion of the undergraduate population. She also guided enhancements to student life and learning, including the construction of a new residence for graduate students and a restoration of MIT's oldest building into an undergraduate residence with expanded space and amenities to foster student collaboration.
In addition, while Hockfield was president, the east side of MIT's campus was enhanced by an extension to theMedia Lab complex and a new building for theMIT Sloan School of Management. Hockfield also led a comprehensive strategic planning process for campus development and worked to foster the innovation cluster aroundKendall Square, which at the end of her presidency was home to more biotech and life sciences companies per square mile than anywhere in the world.[3]
In December 2011, MIT launchedMITx, a not-for-profit online learning platform that offers online versions of MIT courses free of charge. In May 2012, Hockfield and Harvard presidentDrew Gilpin Faust announcededX, an MIT-Harvard partnership in online education. EdX, Hockfield said, “represents a unique opportunity to improve education on our own campuses through online learning, while simultaneously creating a bold new educational path for millions of learners worldwide.”[7]
Hockfield pioneered the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research and discovered a gene that plays a critical role in the spread of cancer in the brain. Hockfield's early work involved the application of monoclonal antibody technology to questions within neurobiology. She and her colleagues identified a family of cell surface proteins whose expression is regulated by neuronal activity early in an animal's life and which reflect the effect of early experience on brain structure and function. A link between her research and human health was made when it was suggested that one of these proteins played a role in the progression of brain tumors. Hockfield's work on a type of brain tumor calledglioma identified molecules that allow glioma cells to move through normal brain tissue, the feature that makes glioma particularly deadly.[8]
Hockfield is married to Thomas N. Byrne, M.D., a Professor of Neurology and Health Sciences Technology (part-time) at theHarvard Medical School and a Senior Lecturer of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. They were married on March 2, 1991, at Yale'sBattell Chapel.[15] They have a daughter, Elizabeth.
MIT President Dr. Susan Hockfield with a fellow member of the Academy, Her Excellency Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia, and her husband Imants Freibergs, during the reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The President of MIT, Dr. Susan Hockfield, shares her views on creativity at the International Achievement Summit.
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | 16th President of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology 2004–2012 | Succeeded by |
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