Running the neuroscience courses had so many benefits, so many benefits for me individually, but so many benefits for the world. And I think that was kind of the biggest benefit for me, is to have an impact well beyond myself and well beyond my work. For me, it gave me a community of interest in this emerging world of molecular neurobiology. I had commerce with the individuals who I recruited to run the courses. I didn't need to select them on my own because Jim had this cadre of neuroscientists who were his closest advisors. I mean the giants: Eric Kandel, Chuck Stevens, David Van Essen, I mean, Hubel and Wiesel came through for goodness sake. They became not just friends, I got to collaborate with them. I mean, it was a buffet of the most exquisitely prepared things. It was just exciting, interesting, you know drawing on every part of my brain.

But most importantly, creating a community of common interest. This has been, as you've heard now, a theme throughout. And so, when you go to Cold Spring Harbor for the courses, there are the people who are in the course with you. And then you have lecturers who come in three different ones a week. And the people who come in to hang out at Cold Spring Harbor for a week are the giants and so you get to have conversations with these people. You all go have dinner together, you hang out together. Cold Spring Harbor is a 24/7 place. You don't sleep much. And it's just a wonderful, wonderful place that builds scientific communities. And that's what enables the future to be different from the present, is having a group of people who align together around an ambition, each doing their part with sufficient synergy to make them part of a whole rather than individual entrepreneurs.

Susan Hockfield is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on brain development and glioma, pioneering the use of monoclonal antibody technology demonstrating that early experience results in lasting changes in the molecular structure of the brain. She is a Professor of Neuroscience and President Emerita at MIT. She was the first woman and life scientist to serve as MIT’s sixteenth president from 2004-2012.

Hockfield earned her B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester (1973) and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University at the School of Medicine (1979). In 1980, Hockfield completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco. She then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York where she ran her own lab for five years. She also served as director of the Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997. In 1985, Hockfield became the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology at Yale University. She went on to serve as the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1998-2002, and Provost from 2003-2004.

In December 2004, Hockfield assumed office as the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held this role until June 2012 and continues to hold a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience and as a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Hockfield has received numerous awards including the Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists, the Wilbur Lucius Cross Award from the Yale University Graduate School, the Meliora Citation from the University of Rochester, the Amelia Earhart Award from the Women’s Union, and the Yale Science and Engineering Association 2021 Award for Distinguished Service to Industry, Commerce or Education.

She also holds honorary degrees from Brown University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York University, Northeastern University, Tsinghua University (Beijing), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Edinburgh, University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Rochester, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences.