I succeeded with many others. I mean, everything I did as president was not me, it was always we. A number of people advised me and a number of people helped really develop the plan. But it was a plan to do a modified investigation. One of MIT's alums and just stalwart supporters is Norm Augustine. He agreed to be the reviewer of a project to investigate this allegation of scientific misconduct. I mean, I was, okay, you agree to be president, MIT. Do you imagine that you'll be visiting the General Counsels at the Pentagon? I mean, this is just, who could have imagined this. But I had, in addition to my monthly trips to Washington, and we can come back to talk about that role of MIT's president, I spent a lot of time in the quarters of Washington where I never imagined to be, coming up with a solution to this particular challenge. I had to gather faculty who would be part of this process and put together a team that could really seriously investigate the allegation, not just dismiss it, but demonstrate that they had seriously investigated it. And happily, the outcome of that investigation was that there had not been the misconduct that this faculty member had alleged.

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.