Nobel Prize

I remember so vividly, Barbara McClintock winning the Nobel Prize. As scientists, we were all kind of tuned up for Nobel Prize Day, wondering which of our friends might get it, who at the lab might get it. At any case, in 1983, Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize and it was Columbus Day, so that much of the staff wasn't there, but all of the scientists were there. So, we gathered together for the press conference, which was in Grace Auditorium. I mean, the scene I mean it, it's like a movie in my mind. Barbara McClintock was a very diminutive person, small wizened, I have so many great Barbara McClintock stories. Oh, what an angel for me, she was. Anyway, so we gathered in the auditorium and the stage was raised by one step and they had her up on another step, and she was sitting in front of a little microphone and the cameras, the television cameras surrounded her in a semicircle. And then the auditorium behind it was just packed with scientists, packed with scientists. So, the press conference began and the first person asked, "Weren't you really mad that you weren't recognized before?"

"No." Second person said, "Didn't it really annoy you that people were recognized before you?" And she said, "No." And then the third one was, "Well, weren't you really angry because people didn't recognize your work for its importance?" At that point, she just heaved a bit, she said, "You don't understand when you know you're right it doesn't matter what anyone thinks." And the crowd of reporters laughed and the audience rose as one, cheering and clapping. It was among the most inspiring moments of my life. You don't understand when you know you're right, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. And that describes Barbara. It never mattered to her what anyone thought, what mattered to her was being sure she was right.

Friendship with Barbara

Barbara McClintock used to wander around the lab and sometimes when I pass you, we would stop and talk. I would go to her office and I would actually have time on my calendar to do that. I would just wander over knowing she'd be there, her office, her lab, and she would regale me with stories. And if I had put in a half an hour, it was always an hour and a half. So, I just would leave, be sure that I didn't have anything for two hours on the day I was going to go see Barbara. She would pull out her materials, she would pull out figures from her papers and just talk about her life, which was fantastic. She'd talk about doing yogic running, all these ways that she was inspired. She talked about walking through her corn field, between two rows of corn was enough room for a person to walk, and if she put her hands out, she could feel the plants on either side of her. She said, "And I would close my eyes and walk through the field." So, I mean, she was a mystical scientist. It was for me so delightful to hear. What we all know is that this truth comes from the facts that we can induce scientifically, and it comes from some other source of the truth that wells up within us. Oh, absolutely fantastic. So, my last kind of several months at Cold Spring Harbor, I was on the job market. I was looking for jobs. I'm not sure why, what motivated me to do that. But I decided it was time for me to think about leaving. And I had taken a tour where they were like, I don't know how many places I visited, four or five. I saw Barbara when I got back, and I remember this being just on the road on Bungtown Road, and she said, "Well, how did your trip go?" I said, "Not so good." I said, "Particularly, I went to this one university that I won't necessarily name, where people just didn't believe the results. They just kept just giving me question, about the basic results, not just the interpretation of the results, the interpretation of the results was really important. And I just felt so frankly beaten up. I had done this new stuff that was exciting and interesting I thought," and she said, "Mmm, mmm, yes, it will be that way when you do something new." She said, "And it'll get worse, but don't stop." Of course...

I had no idea how to interpret what had happened to me, and I had no idea that I was going to tell anyone because it was kind of humiliating. It was very dispiriting, and she gave me courage.

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.