Susan Hockfield
Trustee, Carnegie Corporation of New York

Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was elected to the board of Carnegie Corporation of New York, on December 7, 2006.

Hockfield, the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institution of Technology and noted neuroscientist, is the twentieth member of the board of trustees and joins two other university presidents, three former governors, as well as current and former leaders from the World Bank, the United Nations and ministries throughout the world who serve as trustees to the Corporation. A distinguished neuroscientist whose research has focused on the development of the brain, Dr. Hockfield holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Before assuming the presidency of MIT, she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology and provost at Yale University. As provost, she encouraged collaborative work throughout Yale and encouraged cross-disciplinary initiatives between the humanities, social sciences and the sciences. Dr. Hockfield directed the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997, concurrent with her teaching post at Yale. More recently, she has served as a trustee of the Laboratory.

Dr. Hockfield’s own research has focused on glioma, a deadly kind of brain cancer. She pioneered the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research, leading to her discovery of a protein that regulates changes in neuronal structure as a result of an animal's early life experiences. More recently she discovered a gene and its family of protein products that play a critical role in the spread of cancer in the brain and may represent new therapeutic targets for glioma.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Hockfield holds honorary degrees from Brown University, Tsinghua University (Beijing), and the Watson School of Biological Sciences at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Her other honors include the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from the Yale University Graduate School, the Meliora Citation for Career Achievement from the University of Rochester, and the Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists for outstanding contributions by a young scientist. She is also a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanography Institutions.

Dr. Hockfield earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, while carrying out her dissertation research in neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).