Dr. Susan Hockfield

Biography

Susan Hockfield's distinguished career spanned advanced scientific research and the presidency of premier institutions in science and engineering. She earned a B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Hockfield was a NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Francisco and later joined the scientific staff of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. In 1985, she joined the faculty of Yale University, where she focused her research on the development of glioma, a deadly form of brain cancer, and pioneered the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research. She gained tenure in 1994 and was named the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology. Dr. Hockfield emerged as a strong and innovative leader at Yale, serving as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and provost. From December 2004 to June 2012, she served as the sixteenth president of MIT. Her research laboratory has studied the molecular substrates of mammalian development, identifying a family of glycovariants of the extracellular matrix proteoglycan aggrecan, whose expression is regulated by neuronal activity during early life. Dr. Hockfield's work has integrated biochemical, molecular, and biological techniques with classical anatomical analysis of mammalian CNS development.

Research Interests

Experience