Susan Hockfield

Susan Hockfield is President Emerita, Professor of Neuroscience, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2004 to 2012 she served as MIT’s sixteenth president, the first life scientist and the first woman in that role. As president, Dr. Hockfield strengthened the foundations of MIT’s finances and campus planning while advancing institute-wide programs in sustainable energy and the convergence of the life, physical, and engineering sciences, with impacts across the region, the nation, and around the world. As co-chair (appointed by President Obama) of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee and a member of a congressional commission evaluating Department of Energy laboratories, she helped shape national policy for energy and next-generation manufacturing. In her biological research, Dr. Hockfield pioneered the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research, identifying proteins through which neural activity early in life affects brain development. Before joining MIT as its president, she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1998–2002), and provost (2003–2004) at Yale University. In all her roles, Dr. Hockfield has advanced opportunities for women and minorities. She studied at the University of Rochester and Georgetown University, and carried out research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of California San Francisco before joining the faculty of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and then Yale. She is the past president and chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is currently a member of the board of directors of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Partners HealthCare, and the Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation. She is a life member of the MIT Corporation and a board member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.