Susan Hockfield, a neurobiologist and current provost at Yale University, will succeed Charles M. Vest as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) 16th president, the school announced last week (August 26). Hockfield will be the first woman and the first life scientist to lead the traditionally male-dominated engineering school.
Of her election, Hockfield said in a statement released by MIT, "From my first conversations in the search process, the institute's central themes—the pursuit of truth, integrity, and the great meritocracy—have resonated with my own core values. This remarkable community's curiosity, intellectual commitment, and passionate determination to solve problems have brought immeasurable benefit to humankind. It is an enormous honor and a very great privilege to have been selected to join this effort as MIT's next president."
As president, she said that she hopes to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations between MIT's departments, schools, and affiliated research centers, and to promote the improvement ...
