Topic: Susan Hockfield

Susan Hockfield (born March 24, 1951) is the sixteenth and current president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hockfield's appointment was publicly announced on August 26, 2004, and she formally took office December 6, 2004, succeeding Charles M. Vest. Hockfield's official inauguration celebrations took place during the week of May 2, 2005. Her title is "President and Professor of Neuroscience," and she is the first woman and the first life scientist to hold the title of president of MIT.

She attended Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York and graduated in 1969. Hockfield received her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Rochester in 1973 and her Ph.D in Anatomy and Neuroscience from the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1979. Her doctoral dissertation was on the subject of pathways in the nervous system through which pain is perceived and processed. Her advisor during her doctoral work was Steven Gobel.

At Yale University, she served as professor of neurobiology and as dean of the Graduate School. As dean, Hockfield introduced a "Take a Faculty Member to Lunch" program to encourage informal faculty-student interactions. The program paid for lunch when one or two students invited a professor to join them. It was later expanded to also cover the cost of lunch when a faculty member invited a graduate student.